On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Seven: A Voice Like Fresh Water

                Hesitation. He could see it in the boy's eyes, there with fear and dread... and pity. Pity was the hardest to get rid of. The hardest to forget.

The boy was sixteen, and he should have been in Classes for over a decade now. He shouldn't have been as pale as he was. The blade shouldn't be shaking his grip. He should have been better. Stronger. Braver.

He was sixteen.

Dai had been thirteen.

The boy's victim was bound and gagged. Dai's first had been left where he'd fallen, broken, but free to beg, plead for his life. He'd had his father at his ear, his Commandant at his side, and his sister at his back, demanding he do the unforgivable.

Did this boy's family watch today?

Dai motioned for his Second and his cousin marched over, movements stiff and uniform like they'd been taught. Gōruden Warauryu presented Dai with a scroll bearing the ceremony's details. The Little Army Commandant glanced at it, nodded.

Faruko. It seemed about right. A family of nobodies from the infantry... And with the Circle Houses watching above, this boy likely wouldn't even amount to that.

Weak steeling. Hesitation. Reluctance. Disobedience. It wasn't what the high warrior houses of Ogonsekai looked for in their drafts. They didn't welcome the softhearted into their armies... unless as sacrifice.

With a wave of his armoured hand, Dai dismissed his Second, who raised his sword high in the air in salute and returned to his post. He stood with his back to the Little Army, eyes empty, posture straight and proud. If not for his position and the ornate Warauryu dragons dancing across his armour, Dai's Second could have blended in with the army.

All stood at attention- the older ones more disciplined than the younger. Amusement shone through the childrens' eyes. Satisfaction. Scorn. They would do better, they thought. They weren't cowards. Not yet.

Dai gave Faruko three seconds more, then grabbed the neck piece of his armour with a bracer-hardened fist. Dai yanked him off the ground- made him face him. Made him look his superior in the eye, quaking before hundreds of his peers.

Silence.

They knew better than to laugh, to shout or challenge. Dai was Commandant. Here, he was king.

"Rape," he said under his breath, quietly enough that not even his Second would hear. He barely moved his lips. To the Little Army, it would look like a stare down. Like intimidation. "In Ushinawareta Otome Forest."

Faruko took a moment to process- to understand what Dai had just done before letting the fear seep out his body. Before taking in the Isuto prisoner with a hate in his eyes that hadn't been there before. A sense of duty. A desire. "Thank you, sir."

Dai offered a small nod before throwing the boy to the floor and letting him crawl for his blade, eager to redeem himself. To carve up the prisoner Dai had made it so easy to hate.

He shouldn't have done it. Dai knew that mercy had no place within these walls, that the shogun wouldn't approve of the lie he'd just told. Amihan Kimsura would have told Faruko truth: that the man he was so viciously butchering right now hadn't defiled or murdered anyone. That his true crime didn't warrant... this.

But Dai wouldn't tell him. Dai would spare the Faruko boy what dignity he had left.

When you made a choice on another's behalf, it was kinder to let them believe it was the right one.

...

                Jia Kimsura snickered at the sight of Yuina. Rolled her eyes at the gi Nuân had dressed her in, the loose twin buns they'd rolled behind her ears. Jia looked her up and down, then curled her fingers inwards, ordering the princess closer.