On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Fifteen: A Silver Song

                 Tonight the stars blazed golden, and they hovered much too close to the ground. They consumed the brilliant red light of the sun as it crawled into the Hikarishi sky. It was a fire and then it was gone- no smoke to tell its tale.

Yes, thought Dai as the first light of day touched his skin, being back at the fortress would take some getting used to. Readjusting would be horrible.

And the changes would only make things harder.

He scanned the treeline an eighth time- a ninth. Squinted as he tried to peer through shuttered, curtained windows in search of light- more light. But light of a different kind.

Most servants got to sleep another hour, still.

But it was not their lanterns he yearned for.

She hated him. She probably hated him for what he'd done and how he had to act to make it convincing. It was easy to drown in the Red River, but many years in the Dragon Court had taught Dai how to swim. How to pull others under the current instead.

Dai wondered why he even hoped.

Why he let himself care. And why he liked it so much.

If he was in fact a blade, he wasn't a very good one. Imperial shogun or not.

No. Sharpness was not what he felt when he heard the rustling in the trees- no louder than a springtime breeze even though winter had nearly stripped their branches. Dai wasn't steel, or the Ryuu's heir, or Ogonsekai's shogun tonight. Tonight, he was just a man who had missed his promised.

A man who had finally come home.

"Would you like me to come back when you're finished patrolling the grounds?" Yuina asked, folding her arms over her chest. "Or are you done pacing now?"

"I wasn't pacing," Dai said.

Yuina Mongonai arched a brow.

And as a frog on a lilypad croaked, Dai finally felt the pond water soaking through his boot. He had a foot in the Frog Pond. He tried not to wince as his promised giggled into the palm of her hand.

She helped him out of the muck, peering under the shadowed hedgerow. "And you... didn't bring any molniya to practice with?"

"I...I've had enough fighting," he confessed, the water in his boot sloshing as he slipped through the window of the Tiger Pavilion and claimed a seat on its bench. It was so quiet here. So quiet without the music of canons firing and the chorus of screams they silenced.

The splattering of blood on armour.

The thudding of heads on the ground.

Dai looked away. Focused on the patches of grass dyed black by the night. When that didn't work, he breathed in deeply and closed his eyes. Smelled dew instead of gunpowder in the air, though fire and smoke still lingered.

Strange.

Why was it war seemed to follow him?

Why did he bring it with him wherever he went?

He stiffened at the sound of bare feet against hardwood. At the break in the air beside him. Yuina's fur-lined cloak brushed his arm when she sat down at his side, held his hand in her lap. She was so clean- and warm. And he was freezing cold.

Brown eyes flickered like candlelight- blazing ever brighter. She frowned at the look on his face.

Daiki Kimsura, the next great imperial shogun of Ogonsekai had no choice but to retreat yet again.