Chapter 6
Haru
Sleep refused to come.
I lay in the darkness, my hand drifting across Esumi’s exposed back, tracing lazy circles between his shoulder blades.
His skin was warm beneath my fingertips, marked here and there by old scars from training and one real battle he never spoke about.
His breathing had deepened and slowed, but I remained painfully awake, my mind refusing to quiet.
The sounds of night filtered through our window—crickets, the continual splash of our mysterious bath refilling itself, the soft chanting of monks at their midnight devotions.
There was such peace here.
No servants hovered at every doorway, no courtiers whispered behind painted fans, no mother arranged marriage meetings with eligible daughters of powerful families.
Here, it was only the temple, the training, and Esumi.
Gods, I loved it.
Even when my muscles screamed for relief, for a day without feeling the painful lessons of a bokken or endless weariness of eternal days of labor, this place brought me such . . . stillness.
And to be open and free with Esumi?
To smile in his direction without worry for who might see?
To hold him and enjoy the innocence of a private moment without fear of a councilor’s scowl or mother’s scorn?
Those moments were worth a lifetime of struggle and pain.
They were everything.
What if I simply . . . stayed?
The thought bloomed like a dangerous flower in my chest.
I could renounce my name, my birthright, and become another wandering swordsman, teaching at temples, earning rice with honest work.
Esumi and I could have this—not stolen moments between duties, but a real life.
We could wake each morning without pretense, train without ceremony, love without the weight of scandal.
My hand stilled on Esumi’s back as one word lodged in my throat like a stone.
Duty.
Father’s voice then echoed in my memory, patient and insistent as water wearing down stone: “We do not serve ourselves, Haru. We serve our people and we serve the gods who blessed our bloodline. Every Akira before you has carried this burden—not because we desire power, but because someone must stand in the rift between chaos and order.”
I’d been six or seven, complaining about calligraphy lessons while other children played.
He’d taken me to the palace’s highest tower and shown me the capital spreading endlessly below. “Every light down there is a family who looks to us to keep them safe. Every temple, every market, every home exists because your ancestors chose duty over their own desires.”
“But what if I don’t want to?” I’d asked with a child’s honesty.
“Then you must do it anyway,” he’d said simply. “That makes us worthy of the gift in our blood, not the power itself, but the willingness to bear its cost.”
Esumi shifted in his sleep, murmuring something unintelligible.
I leaned over and pressed my lips to his shoulder. He deserved more than stolen moments, but Father had been right:
The people deserved an empire that didn’t tear itself apart.
The gods deserved descendants who honored their gifts with service, not abandonment.
I could dream of being a simple man, but I would wake, always, to the truth of what I was—divine blood carrying divine obligations, whether I wanted them or not.