“Which woman stays there?” I asked, looking up at the place the man had left last night.

  “There?” Taira looked to the largest, best room in the place. He pulled my gaze away as the door opened and a woman exited, accompanied by her attendants. “That’s The Empress and her quarters. You especially need to stay away from them.”

  I looked back at the woman leaving. She, like all the women in this place, wore paint and perfumes to a degree that left her largely indistinguishable from any other. The only difference was her garments themselves. Instead of flowers or mere dyes and embroidery, her kimono depicted the Ho-ō. Her hairpins doing the same. Bright blues, oranges, and reds.

  I could remember her from that much.

  The wooden image of the sword in my hands was insignificant. Our mimicry of the samurai training under whatever insignificant general was hardly suitable for training, but it was the best that could be managed, so it would have to do.

  “Percision Ryuunosuke!” Taira said, his voice as close to his father’s as it could get. “Percision over speed.”

  Precision over speed. Speed over strength. Strength behind precision.

  I put it back at my side, as if it were sheathed.

  “Again.”

  Again. I pulled it out. Precise. Had his sword not been there, it’d have been straight across his side. Speed was lacking. Strength was not.

  “Speed over strength.”

  Again.

  “Speed over strength.”

  Then it was "Precision over speed.”

  So it continued. The initial strike, made the moment the sword left its sheath, was the most vital. It did not have to be lethal. To disarm an opponent was to kill them. Precision was key. Speed was a necessity. Strength was crucial. My strength was never lacking. That much had always been so.

  “Speed over strength.”

  “Precision over speed.”

  So it repeated. Again. Again. Again. Again. Until the wooden placeholder in my hands split the his in half, the strength of my blow hitting his side. I heard the air leave him and he doubled back.

  I put the sword down, putting my hand to his side.

  “Nothing is broken,” he said. “Only bruised.”

  Severely bruised, by only touch alone. It would look worse. These wooden swords were no good for training for this very reason. This had happened only last month. Breaking our focus from training to new equipment that would break itself in similar time, and causing unneeded injury to Taira.

  “I’m alright.” He put his hand to my head.

  “I know.” I said.

  He stood up, his hand holding his side. “You may want to hunt for yourself today.”

  I nodded.

  The food from the kitchens had run out months ago. Things were back to how they were supposed to be. No one in my matters, no one to owe.

  Small animals were better to bring back alone. Rabbits and birds. Whichever came first. The only weapon I carried was a tanto. A bird landed on a tree not too far, but shielded by the branches. More flew overhead, too high to get to without a bow, but one landed in the dirt, searching for its own prey beneath the soil and so becoming itself. I picked up a stone beside me, small and smooth.

  Easy to throw.

  It hit the bird between its eyes and it fell dead immediately, scaring off the nearby wildlife, and leading a rabbit toward me. The tanto ran through its chest as it passed, and that was today’s food.

  He stayed on the ground waiting for his body to mend itself, while I climbed a tree and began carving out a length of wood appropriate for a new sword. This was happening more and more often. It was to be expected. A wooden sword was hardly acceptable for someone carrying the Dragon’s Blessing.

  Even the tamahagane that made up proper swords could be broken by me in the future. How near that future was didn’t matter.

  The lack of weapons we were allowed showed in how dull the blade of my tanto was. Used for anything I needed, when it wasn’t in its purpose to fill that need, it would probably be useless after it carved this out, maybe even before that. Taira had more. A tanto he could get his hands on. It was a sword we weren’t allowed.

  Us being out here was no secret. Taira argued it wasn’t allowed, but no one made a move to stop us. No one stopped us from watching the samurai. No one stopped us from what we did out here. The only thing they did was keep us from real weapons.

  It wasn’t a question as to why.

  That much was obvious.

  There was an incident they refused to acknowledge happened. There was a reason Taira and I were at the palace instead of under his father’s care. There was a reason we were here at all. Alive. Those swords they kept away from us had something to do with that. They wouldn’t say that was the reason. They wouldn’t give a reason. They didn’t have to. I didn’t need to see their eyes to see through them. The fact their eyes ran away from mine was all the answer I needed.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  One way or another, we’d get our hands on real swords. Until then, it was too much trouble.

  The blade had dulled beyond cutting anything. I was only grinding it against the tree. Slower progression, but progression. I could get another one tomorrow. I’d use this until it was done.

  The handle splintered against my hand and the tree as the blade disappeared. It was truly useless when it became little more than an inch in length. The shape was largely carved out. All that was left was to take it out of from the tree. It would have to be done tomorrow. It couldn’t be done in the dark.

  I climbed down, handing him what remained of the tanto.

  “You really used it until there was nothing left.” He said, throwing the leftover wood behind him.

  “What else is there to do with it?”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” he stood up, his hand no longer holding his side.

  “It’s fine now.” He said, following my gaze.

  I nodded, following him back toward the palace. There was no sign in his walk that his injury lingered, nor that there was pain. That meant nothing. Not with him. He was more adept at masking pain than I was. He wasn’t bleeding from it either, so my smell did nothing to gauge how well he really was.

  “I’ll get you another tanto tomorrow.” He bowed outside the Kōkyū.

  “Stand up.” I said. “I know you will.”

  “Rest well.”

  I nodded, turning to my place.

  He did as he said, as he always did, bringing the blade he had promised, sharpened, and new. He’d even hunted before getting me. My gaze went to his side, but there was little reason to suspect it was still in pain.

  He finished before I did, never eating as much despite his larger size, and climbed up another tree.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “If one sword broke, the other will soon,” he said. “May as well get a new one now.”

  I grunted, finishing my own food and returning to the tree I’d been in before. The newer blade made quicker work, and it wasn’t more than a couple hours to dislodge the carved length from the tree.

  I returned to the ground, beginning to carve out its shape, sharpening the blade as needed. More often than was needed for the stab and dragging motion used to carve this stick out in the first place. The shavings fell onto the ground, the sound of carving and hacking the only sounds in the forest apart from the wildlife. Wildlife that kept itself away from Taira and I for hours before deciding we were of no harm to them. We weren’t, at the moment.

  Birds, rabbits, and other smaller things crawled closer in foolish curiosity, but it wouldn’t hurt them. It was almost a benefit to have them around, for one reason– they turned and ran, and I looked up. The benefit being, they would run from intruders before we could perceive them, as they did now.

  It was the brother of mine with the Ho-ō eyes. The older one.

  “I figured I’d find you out here.” He said, folding his arms as he leaned against a tree. The tree Taira was in. He’d stopped carving into the tree when the animals left. “Didn’t think I’d find you alone.”

  Self-control. He said it so many times I heard it even when he was staying silent.

  “Do you intend to attack me?” I asked.

  He laughed. “No, no. Do you take me for a fool?”

  “Yes.” I said.

  His smile dropped, the least deceitful I’d seen him. “Where’s the Taira boy?”

  “None of your concern.” I said. “What do you want?”

  “Well I was going to bother you a bit, but it’s riskier without his leash on you.”

  I glanced up at Taira, who shook his head. Don’t. I could hear him in my head, his words

  that predictable.

  I could attack the brat in front of me– kill him even, and he’d never bother me again. Taira wouldn’t be able to get down fast enough to stop me, and he’d have no choice but to help me hide the evidence.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked, continuing to drag the blade against the wood, sharpening the blade out.

  “Not at the moment,” he said, dusting a fallen leaf off his sleeve. “But I will soon.”

  He let the silence drag on as if I was intended to break it. I didn’t.

  He only sighed. “You’ll never survive in the courts.” Then he left.

  Taira was out of the tree the moment he did so.

  “What did he want?”

  “To bother me.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He’ll have something better to do soon.”

  “Why did he say that?” He asked, grabbing my shoulders.

  “I asked him if he had something to do?”

  He looked off toward where he left. “We should get back to the palace.”

  “What for?” I pulled away from him.

  “He was telling you something with that.” He said.

  “He wasn’t saying anything!”

  “He was saying that something worth his attention is about to happen.” He said.

  “His attention doesn’t mean much.”

  “It does if it’s undivided,” he said. “Remember that whatever you think of him, he’s in line for Emperor one day, and he’s lived longer than you.”

  “Fine.”

  So we went back to the palace.

  Maybe Taira had been on to something. Things were definitely going on in the courts. Not that it meant much. Things were always going on in the courts.

  “Get to your room,” he said to me. “I’ll tell you what I’ve heard when I’ve made sense of it. Don’t make a fuss.”

  I never made a fuss. I went to the Kōkyū.

  The place the Empress dwelled was loud and busy, more so than the other places here. It made sense that she was the one who stayed there. About the only thing that made sense in this place. The degree of noise and fuss was more so than usual. It drowned out another sound. I only heard it as I made it to my room.

  The sound of a woman weeping as a room was cleared out. It only meant one of three things. Loss of favor, loss or lack of pregnancy, or loss of child.

  I found out which it was when I made it to my room. I didn’t go inside, standing in the doorway. On another mat, in the corner of the room was a lump. Crying not nearly as loud as its mother was. It couldn’t cry that loud. Dying and illness did that to a child, but another one so soon?

  Something was going on in the courts, as Taira said, but what I said still remained true. Whether it involved the women or children, politics or death, it was no concern of mine.