Chapter 11
Haru
“Again,” Master Chen barked, his reed cutting through the morning air with unnecessary enthusiasm.
Yoshi moved through the form, his speed now controlled enough that he only looked like he was falling instead of actually falling. That was progress, I supposed.
“Better,” I called from the sideline where Esumi and I had been relegated to “observation duty”—which really meant the masters didn’t want us interfering with their teaching methods anymore. “Your hip rotation is—”
“Prince Haru-sama.” The voice came from behind us, formal and breathless.
I turned to find a young monk I didn’t recognize, his face flushed from running. Behind him stood Master Giichi, his weathered face unharried but grave.
My stomach dropped before my mind could catch up.
“Gūji,” I said, bowing. “I didn’t expect—”
“We must speak privately.” His eyes held the kind of weight that made breathing difficult. “Immediately.”
Esumi’s hand found my elbow, steadying me before I even realized I needed bracing.
“Of course.” My voice sounded distant to my own ears.
We followed Giichi through the temple grounds, past the training rings where life continued its ordinary march, past the meditation gardens where monks tended flowers that would bloom and die and bloom again, oblivious to whatever news had carved deeper lines into Giichi’s face.
He led us to his private chambers—a simple room with walls of polished wood where a single scroll hung in the alcove. The characters read: “All things pass.”
Ominous choice, I thought.
“Please sit, Highness.” Giichi gestured to cushions arranged around a low table.
I remained standing. “Just tell me.”
Esumi stayed at my shoulder, close enough that I could feel the heat of him.
Giichi’s exhale carried the weight of mountains. “Your father, our Divine Father Akira Takashi Tennō, has ascended to join the gods.”
The words slammed into me, fists pounding against my flesh. They bounced off something hard and numb inside me, and I felt an inner wall built over years of palace life begin to crack and splinter.
Giichi stared and waited, perhaps for some emotional response, some childish tears or tremor of my lips.
None would come.
“When?” Esumi asked, because I’d apparently forgotten how to speak.
“Three days past. The messenger arrived this morning. Prince Haru-sama, I am . . . I am deeply sorry.”
Three days.
Father had been dead for three days while I’d been here making jokes about Esumi’s ass and critiquing Yoshi’s footwork, while I’d been sleeping peacefully in Esumi’s arms.
“How?” The word scraped out of my throat.
Giichi’s pause stretched too long. “The message says he died peacefully in his sleep.”
“That’s horse piss,” I said flatly. “Father was healthy and stubborn as an ox. He trained every morning and rode each evening. On some days, he swam in the palace pools. Speak plainly, Gūji. What really happened?”
Another pause, this one far longer, almost painfully so.
“Gūji,” Esumi said quietly. “Haru deserves the truth.”
Giichi’s shoulders sagged as he nodded slowly. “The official proclamation states natural causes. However . . .” He withdrew a smaller scroll from his robes, sealed with wax I didn’t recognize. “This came separately from your uncle Ryuji Dai Shogun. It holds answers the official notice omits.”
My hands shook as I unrolled the paper. Esumi read over my shoulder, his sharp intake of breath confirming what my eyes couldn’t quite process.
Poisoned darts.
Multiple puncture wounds.
Nawa also poisoned.
Someone murdered Father and his dragon.
The scroll slipped from my fingers. Esumi caught it before it could fall, just as he always protected me before I could fall. Only this time, the falling was happening somewhere inside where his hands couldn’t reach.
“The Dai Shogun has called the banners,” Giichi continued, his voice coming from very far away. “The Empire prepares for war. Your presence is required in Bara immediately.”
“Kioshi—” I managed.
“The message only says that Prince Kioshi was away on a mission when your father died and is expected to return to the capital soon.”
Of course, Kioshi was handling everything. Perfect, capable, born-to-rule Kioshi was already managing the Empire’s crisis while I stood here struggling to remember how to breathe.
“Haru-sama.” Giichi stepped closer, his hand settling on my shoulder in an almost intimate gesture. “This is a terrible shock. I knew your father. He was a good emperor, and an even greater man. The whole of the Empire mourns with you.”
“Thank you,” I heard myself say, the word breaking as waves on the shore.
Giichi stepped back and bowed deeply. “I will begin preparations for your journey. You should leave at first light. The roads are not safe. There are rumors of unrest, of Asami sympathizers. I will escort you myself with a guard of our finest.”
“That isn’t necessary—”
“It is.” His voice held steel beneath the compassion.
“Your father’s murder means the Empire is in chaos.
You are of Imperial blood, Prince Haru-sama.
You are a target whether you wish to be or not.
Beyond your safe passage home, the Empire will need our Buddhist mahou if it hopes to win this war.
With the passing of the Divine Son, the tether has snapped.
Only with the rise of a new tennō will Amaterasu’s gifts be restored.
Our paths align, as I am needed in the temples of the capital as well. ”
He bowed again and stepped out of his chamber, leaving Esumi and me alone with a scroll about impermanence.
“Haru—” Esumi began.
“Don’t.” I held up a hand. “Don’t say it. Don’t say you’re sorry or that it’ll be okay or that the gods have a plan. Just . . . don’t.”
“I was going to say you should sit down before you fall over.”
I squinted and looked at him then, really looked at him. His face was carefully neutral, but his eyes held a storm of worry and love so fierce it made my chest ache.
“He’s dead.” The words felt foreign in my mouth. “My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“Someone murdered him in his own palace.”
“Yes.”
“And now I have to go back there. To Bara. To court. To all those vultures circling Kioshi, and they’ll—” My voice cracked. “They’ll expect me to be . . . to do . . .”
Esumi’s arms wrapped around me before I could finish the thought, pulling me against his chest. I grabbed fistfuls of his robe and held on like he was the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly tilted sideways.
“I can’t do this, Es,” I whispered into his shoulder. “I can’t. I’m not Kioshi. I’m not Father. I’m just—”
“You are Prince Akira Haru, third son of the Emperor, Divine Son of Heaven, bearer of the dragon’s gift, and the man who just helped a terrified boy learn to control power that might have destroyed him.
” Esumi’s hand moved in slow circles on my back as he whispered into my ear.
“You are also the man I love, the one who makes terrible jokes when he’s nervous and pretends he doesn’t care about protocol while memorizing every rule—mostly so he knows exactly which ones to break, but still . . .”
Despite everything, a laugh tried to escape.
It came out as something between a sob and a cough.
“Father loved me,” I said. “He never expected anything of me except to be happy. He gave me freedom when he could have demanded duty. He let me be a horrible, terrible son . . . an even worse prince. Es, he let me just . . . be me.”
“He did.” Esumi squeezed me tight against him. It was only his warmth and strength that kept me upright.
“I never told him—” My throat closed around the words. “I never thanked him for understanding, for not making me into something I wasn’t. I just . . . I just left. I mean . . . he sent me away, but still . . . I came here, and I was so relieved to be away from court, and I never—”
“He knew.” Esumi’s voice was firm, his hand now gripping the back of my head, fixing me against his shoulder. “Haru, he knew. Fathers always know.”
“How? How could he know when I never said it? When I was never sure of it myself?”
“Because you are his son, and because love doesn’t always need words.
” He pulled back enough to look at me, his hands framing my face.
“And because the next time he saw you, you were going to tell him. You said so last week, remember? When we were falling asleep, you said when we went home, you’d tell him everything .
. . how happy you were, how much Suwa had changed you, and how grateful you were for his blessing. ”
Had I said that?
That memory felt distant, from a different lifetime when my father was alive and I still had time.
“I’ll never get to tell him now.”
“No,” Esumi agreed, because he’d never lied to me. “But you can honor what he gave you. You can become who he wanted you to be—yourself. Just . . . maybe . . . a version who doesn’t hide when the Empire needs him.”
“The Empire doesn’t need me.” I scoffed. “It’s never needed me. It needs Kioshi.”
“The Empire needs both of you, and if something happens to your brother—”
“Don’t. Gods, please don’t finish that sentence.” I pushed back from him, something cold sliding down my spine. “Don’t even think it. Kioshi is fine. He’s away on Imperial business. He’ll come back. He has to come back because I can’t—”
The door slid open.
We both spun, Esumi’s hand moving toward weapons he wasn’t carrying.
Kaneko stood in the doorway, his face pale, Yoshi behind him looking equally shaken.
Yoshi nodded, his usual energy subdued. “If there’s anything we can do—”
The boys stepped into the room, and Esumi pulled them into our embrace, forming an unwieldy hug that refilled my heart and offered support in ways I wasn’t sure I’d ever known from anyone save Esumi.
Kaneko and Yoshi had become so much more than casual acquaintances or mere students.
In the blink of an eye, they had become like family.