On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Epilogue: Echoes of Darkness

      Drought came in place of snow. It ate the winds and shrivelled the fruit, sparking fires in the east where revolts cropped up instead. According to Akiyama's letters, they'd spread north as well. Even when Hikarishi's armies couldn't.

Phantom waters obliterated every bridge they laid, every horseman who dared to make the jump. Arrows disintegrated halfway over, and a taste of Daiki's pain greeted any who reached across.

Bloodscript letters arrived the next day from the North, a premonition for what came this morning.

Circle General Matsumoto rarely used his steeling. All my rivals see is confidence, he'd confided all those years ago when they'd been on their way to becoming friends.

What were they now? Daiki wondered as the man's hands slid away to reveal empty eyes that didn't leave the table, even to address the living.

"The Kaigan cousin will inherit his title. Ichirō."

"I... I believe that was his name, General."

"Ichirō Kaigan has a wife. And a son."

Miyuu's dark lashes fluttered. Her gaze drifted downward.

"I do not."

Lady Inoue started, colour fleeing her face before returning with steel... and something else. Something he didn't understand anymore.

"It's likely Kaigan will see you as a threat to his claim. Especially if you came here from the confinement that spared you his fate."

Lips parted. Eyes flitted from Matsumoto to Daiki to her husband, dead on the table. Miyuu brought her hand to her middle. She nodded.

"Masaru would not wish me to leave you in harm's way. For his sake, I offer you my hand, if you'll have it."

"Of course I will! Of course. Thank you, My Lord."

"You understand that if it survives, the child must also be thought mine."

"Naturally."

A forced smile paired with a nod. Genji Matsumoto sighed and angled himself away from his bride-to-be. After a shallow bow to each of them, the woman considered herself dismissed.

Not that Matsumoto cared. Leaning forward in his seat, he read the Nameless Queen's message over again. "What a mess," he sighed, not looking up to receive Daiki's nod. Disrespectful. But it had been a long while since he'd had this man's respect. "I want her dead."

"Then you should have left her to the new General Inoue."

There. A spasm. A twitch.

"I'm serious, Kimsura." That would be a first. "I speak of the Nameless Queen. I want her head spiked on my battlements. I want it to block the eastern sun when I take my morning tea outside. I want-" he seethed, his sharp features turning knifelike. "-Your promise you that when the time comes, when we catch her- when we hunt her down like the animal she has proven herself to be- she will be mine. And no one else's."

A pause.

A rasping, creaking breath. "Promise me, Kimsura."

An order? Or a plea? Excessive nerve, either way. The man had spit in his face short days ago, and Osamu alone had kept him from gutting them there. From making a mess of him. A tangle of bones and sinews like Inoue, who had held Matsumoto back that day.

No one could hold him back anymore.

"I reward loyalty, Matsumoto."

It had been a long time since this man had shown him respect. But the fight drained out of him there.