On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Thirty: Spring Fawn

            Snowflakes danced through the sky, twisting and looping and falling until they crossed the Phantom River where they became sakura petals that were just as soft, just as pale. Spring returned on a gentle breeze.

And so did Lady Yuina Kimsura.

She arrived on a gust of wind that quickened as they passed the miwa gates, as a host of Kimsura soldiers arrived to escort her to the fortress. By the time they'd passed the gilded district of Lantern Town, it had grown determined, assertive, unyielding. Befitting of an empress of the Dragon Court. Strong enough to bear a white-feathered Phoenix and the fire streaming from the tips of her wings.

Sliding the carriage window aside, Yuina closed her eyes and breathed in the verdant air, felt the sun warm her skin for the first time in months. And she let it set her aglow. Let it dazzle her eyes as she climbed the carved stone steps, passing glowing lanterns still speckled with dew.

She stopped at the threshold and the doors to her domain swung open to greet her.

She found the welcome waiting on the opposite side to be far less inviting.

Raia looked her up and down, her eternal frown growing ever deeper. She pursed her lips at the woven shawl, the dangling charms singing blessings. Underneath it, Yuina wore a flowing Hikarishi-style dress. One the Phoenix Dowager should have to search hard to find reason to complain about. She'd brushed and styled her hair, adorning it with enameled combs and sticks with jewels dripping off them like rain. She wore the Ryuu-Uzukumaru necklace Dai had given her as a first-wedding present. Spirits, she'd even gone to the trouble of applying cosmetics.

Still, Raia turned her nose up at her every feature.

And every extra inch of her.

"Could you possibly have arrived looking less conspicuous," the dowager hissed, Mistress Naoki nodding dutifully along at her side.

"Less...preg-"

"We do not say that word!" Raia snapped, her tongue a knife that shivved Yuina beneath the gathered crowd's notice. Servants passed with their heads down. Courtiers gossiped with their eyes on the floor, sneaking glances whenever she blinked. "You are indisposed. You were sent to the Hall of the Silver Flower to recover from what those spirits-scorned Kopere did to you last autumn."

"I am due to have a baby in eleven days."

The skin left bare of lead powder turned white like the fur of a Steppes fox to match it.

"Is that no longer a good thing, tsuv-maj?" crooned Yuina, and the Shirub honourific turned the dowager red. Scowling, the woman beckoned her forward, ordering her into the waiting palanquin with its thick crimson drapes. Thick- to block out sound.

It took much strain and much help to seat the Phoenix inside. Many uttered prayers to calm herself in spite of Raia's glares. Was it such a crime for a woman, nine-months with child, to have to cradle her womb while lowering herself down?

Judging by Raia's glowering presence in the palanquin with her, the Hikarishi answer was yes.

So it made no sense when her predecessor's scathing glare cooled and evaporated in a veil of mist. Clutching her bamboo fan, Raia Kimsura's lips thinned. "We do not display that a lady of our household is with child until said child lives among us. Especially when said lady is the Kimsura Phoenix. Too many things could go wrong."

Yuina helped herself to a berry. "So I was sent away not for my own comfort, but-"

"For your own protection, and ours. You remember the Two Serpent Courts' gossip after Jia. I would not have the shogunate humiliated in the same way, by an assassin's fault or your own."