"I…"
Taro's mouth went dry as he gestured towards the sheath, now several steps below.
"I wanted to ask your permission to take this sheath from the armory, valoren."
"I see." Unexpectedly, Yazawa nodded. "I see no reason to deny it."
"Thank you." Taro didn't understand why his knees felt slightly wobbly as he turned to go.
The older warrior smiled. "Do you have a sword?"
Taro stopped.
"I–yes. I do," he flustered, twisting his head back around. "From…my father."
It wasn't a lie. But the words still tasted strange on his lips.
"Perfect."
And Yazawa started back up the stairs.
Almost numbly, Taro made his way down to the sheath. By the time he picked it up, Yazawa was long gone. So was the guard.
Taro brushed off his tunic where the guard had grabbed him, then clipped the sheath carefully to his belt.
Well, he definitely wasn't going to lose it. That was for sure.
Taro stumbled out of the fortress, blinking hard in the sudden light of the afternoon sky. Grinning weakly, he took off at a run for the building he called home.
His mother would certainly be interested in seeing how her son looked today.
Or, at least, that was what Taro thought.
"Hm," the woman murmured as she glanced up from closing the huge oven. "What's the clanking for?"
Slightly defused, Taro stepped nimbly around the counter.
"I've got a sheath," he announced dully.
She eyed it. "Are you taking that hunting?"
Taro laughed.
"Yeah…I guess."
"Huh." The woman turned back to her dough.
Taro bit his lip. He couldn't really explain to her that both his friends would be fully geared, could he.
Well. That was okay.
Clanking, though. That wasn't good.
Back in his room, Taro tore off his mask and tossed it onto his bed before he promptly sat on it and slipped the longsword carefully into the sheath. Much to his relief, it fit perfectly.
Then Taro sprung to his feet again and adjusted the sheath and his belt until he could walk around the room without a single sound.
That done, he reluctantly removed the weapon, standing it in the corner of his room–with his bow and quiver.
He glanced once more at the ornate hilt of the blade, then shrugged. It was obviously more decorative than the average sword, but it wasn't like he was going to be actually using it tomorrow, anyway. Arrows were much more useful than blades when it came to something like rabbits.
Tomorrow would be fun.
Taro swung himself back onto his bed and began to kick his heels.
Then a very specific angle of sunshine peered through the window, and Taro half-jumped off his bed before he decided he wasn't going to walk Sakue home today.
He wouldn't be in town tomorrow. And besides, she hadn't needed him yesterday.
Still, Taro had an annoyingly persistent feeling that when she got home she would be coming to find him.
Minutes passed.
No, not minutes. Hours.
Nene's voice was loud in the bakery downstairs. Taro pulled out the clothes he would wear to the forest tomorrow. The ray of sunlight turned into something older.
Then a new voice snapped its way into Taro's thoughts, subconsciously at first and then disturbingly preeminent.
"She's fine. She's…fine. She just…"
The words were cut off by his mother's anxious tones and a sudden shout from Sakue.
"It's not my fault!"
Whose had been the first voice?
The question had barely formed in Taro's mind when he realized he already knew the answer.
Arai's.
Arai Junzo's.
Taro nearly flew out of his room and down the stairs.
The bakery was a scene. Sakue was soaking wet. Nene was rubbing her down with a towel. And Arai was talking to Taro's mother.
"I guess she just got too close to the edge," he said. "It's a good thing I was around to pull her out."
"Sakue, why would you be anywhere near the pond?" Runa Zayasu sighed despairingly.
"Because." Sakue's face condensed into a pout. "I was looking for Taro!"
She looked across the room–and saw him.
"Why weren't you at school!" the seven-year-old shrieked.
"Sakue, your brother is under no obligation to walk you home, and you know that." Their mother shook her head. "Nene…"
"Sakue always takes too long!" the older girl protested.
Taro stared at them all, his eyes wide.
Then Arai's met his.
The older boy didn't say anything, but his glance did. Taro froze.
And then Arai turned away. Accepted a bun from Runa. And walked out the door.
Taro didn't move.
His sister. She could've drowned.
And Arai, a rebel, had saved her. Instead of her brother.
Who pretended that if he didn't join the resistance, his family wouldn't suffer.
The thought seemed to suffocate Taro. He bit his lip until something tasted metallic.
No, there was no connection. This had nothing to do with him. It was just a matter of time and failed precaution.
And yet Arai…
Taro shook his head.
"Mom…" he began.
She grabbed a rag and started scrubbing the dough-stained counter.
"There's nothing you can do," she said shortly. "Your sister is fine."
She probably hadn't meant it to hurt, Taro knew, but it did anyway.
He turned back towards the stairs, his hands doubling into fists.
He loved his family. Even though they weren't his family. He would do anything to save them. To protect them.
But his mother's words seemed to echo in his ears.
"There's nothing you can do."
"No," Taro whispered to himself as he shut himself into his room. "There's…there's not nothing."
He forced himself to breathe. Sakue was fine. Everyone was fine.
Taro couldn't join the resistance. He…he couldn't leave.
But…
His father had called him king.
Taro glared at the sword that stalked him from the corner of his room.
Three months ago he had still fantasized the day he would hold it. The day it would really be his.
It wasn't a bright dream anymore. It felt more like a heavy stone than anything else. Pushing him down.
Taro sat on his bed and stared out the window, at the village where everyone knew him. Everyone greeted him. Everyone loved him.
And yet…no one knew him.
Taro's eyes misted. He fought the sensation almost furiously.
His family…
"Karun is your family," Arai had told him.
Did Taro even have a family?
The question bit at him, rearing up like a snake that had always been in the back of his mind. Hiding. Waiting.
He was an orphan. He was an heir. The heir to a country that was ten years dead.
Where did he even belong?
"I…I don't want to be King," Taro breathed. The words hung in the air as if they were afraid to fall.
He had said it. He had finally said it.
Tears stung his cheeks.
No. He didn't want to be King.
But could he be anyone else?
~~~
Genjo Masahiro had been riding for hours now. No one was following him.
He hadn't expected them to. His relationships with the other four rebel leaders had long been strained.
Now they were broken.
The sun was high in the sky, though it was beginning to dip definitively into the west. Genjo reached forward, feeling his horse's head thoughtfully. The mare was young, but he didn't want to tax her strength.
Not when she would be his only companion for the next two days. And possibly for longer.
He stopped at Rosrei, a small, un-walled village near the mountains, to water down himself and his mare. Then he was gone again. There were other villages he could have traveled through, but Genjo was traveling on a straight line to Norema.
To Norema and the Hiyashi woods.
Genjo did not yet know what he would do when he got to either place.
Norema… That was where Arai Junzo was now, but Arai would no longer be there by the end of tomorrow. And Genjo had no other means to find out who was the heir decoy.
But if the Hosharans had settled on a lad from Norema to play heir, then there had to be something about the village to consolidate their attention.
Genjo hoped he would be able to find the real heir there.
And as for the rakhai of Hiyashi, as her enemies called her–or ashkai Eishi, as he liked to think of her…
From what Genjo had heard, he needed only to ride into the northern part of Hiyashi, and the rakhai would arrange their meeting herself.
A meeting he might or might not survive.
Genjo fervently hoped it was the former.
Now he glanced back up at the sun, urging his steed–Mai–to something like a trot. Time was slipping by much too quickly for Genjo's appreciation.
Time…
Seven years they had waited. Seven years they had planned.
And only now had Genjo realized the others had, perhaps, never cared about the heir in the first place.
Their loyalties were to Karun. He did not doubt that, and he respected them for it.
His loyalty was also to Karun.
But his hopes belonged to a future that sprang from the past instead of breaking away from it.
Maybe the old legends were only legends now.
But maybe they still lived on in young men and women.
Genjo was determined to find out.