Chapter 20 Asami Eiko
Asami Eiko
Maps sprawled before me like corpses awaiting dissection, daggers thrust through villages we’d already burned. Yubi. Kishima. Tanaka. Yubi was a prize, but the others were insignificant victories, hollow satisfactions, the kind of scraps that kept soldiers fed but left generals starving.
I wanted Bara.
Nothing mattered but the capital.
My fingers drummed against the throne’s armrest. Toshi Daiki’s seat had been comfortable once, I supposed, before I’d painted it with his blood. Now it bore my weight, my fury, and my impatience poorly disguised as regal stillness.
“Our scouts report the eastern villages have surrendered without resistance, Daimyo.” General Tanaka’s voice droned like a monk at prayer, steady and lifeless.
He gestured to the map with the confidence of a man who’d never felt a blade kiss his throat.
“We suffered no casualties. The granaries are ours, and—”
“And the capital?” I cut through his recitation like an axe through kindling. “What of our preparations to besiege Bara?”
Silence.
Around the table, my war council exchanged the careful glances of men who knew the wrong answer might cost them their tongues. Twelve faces, some scarred, some soft, all wearing expressions of studied neutrality.
Only my daughter met my eyes directly.
Katsumi stood in her blood-red armor, one hand resting on her katana’s hilt with the casual readiness of a woman who knew exactly how fast she could draw.
At eighteen, she already commanded respect that took most men decades to earn.
She’d inherited my height, her father’s lean build, and my talent for seeing through courtly muck.
She was magnificent.
And in that moment, she looked like she was preparing to contradict me.
“The passes are closed, Mother.” Her voice carried across the room without rising, trained to command attention rather than demand it. “The first snows came early this year. Our scouts report the spine is already impassable. Even messengers are not able to get through.”
“Then we find another route.” I leaned forward, feeling the throne creak beneath the shift in my weight.
Gods, even the furniture in this place was weak.
“We have fifteen thousand troops sitting idle while Bara crowns a new emperor and consolidates power. Every day we wait is another day they prepare.”
“Every day we wait is another day our men don’t freeze to death in mountain passes.” Katsumi’s tone remained respectful, but steel undergirded every word. “General Kitaro, what is the latest from the scouts?”
My uncle stepped forward, his weathered face carved with lines that made him look like he’d been hewn from mountain stone.
Kitaro had served my father, had helped me secure power when every other man in our han thought a woman belonged in the breeding halls rather than the war room.
I trusted his counsel more than any other living soul.
Which is why his next words felt like a betrayal.
“Princess Katsumi speaks truth, Daimyo. The passes will not clear until spring, perhaps late spring given the early storms. We have supplies to maintain our position through winter, but not to advance through impassable terrain.” He traced a gnarled finger along the map, following the mountain range that separated us from our prize.
“Any force we send will die before reaching Bara. We would only feed the mountain gods corpses for no gain.”
My jaw clenched so tight I could hear my teeth grinding. “So we do nothing? We sit in these conquered villages like fat merchants counting coins while Takashi’s drunken whelp sits the Jade Throne?”
“We consolidate our gains.” This from Lord Matsuda, whose military strategies had won us Yubi but whose caution grated like sand against skin. “Fortify our positions, assimilate Toshi soldiers into our units, train the conscripts, prepare for a spring campaign that will—”
“Spring!” I slammed my palm on the table, sending the nearest dagger quivering. “By spring, Akira Haru will be Emperor. The coronation will have—” I caught myself, feeling the words claw at my throat, desperate for release.
The coronation would restore the tether. A new dragon would be born. Magic would return to every temple and shrine with renewed strength, and everything we had worked for would weaken before a renewed divine will.
But I couldn’t say any of that.
None of the men in that room knew the truth about the Imperial bloodline, about the cosmic joke the gods had played on humanity by tying all magic to one family’s survival, one man’s survival.
They knew only that killing an emperor weakened the Empire, not that it severed the very source of their enemies’ power—and that of our own monks, priests . . . and others.
Only Kitaro and Katsumi knew the full truth.
Only they understood why Takashi’s assassination had been necessary, why timing mattered more than territory.
I forced my voice to steady. “By spring, we face a unified Empire under a new emperor’s banner. We lose the advantage of chaos and surprise. We lose the chance to strike while they’re vulnerable.”
“Mother.” Katsumi moved closer, her armor plates whispering with each step.
She stopped just short of the throne, close enough that only I could hear the gentleness beneath her formality.
“We understand, but winter is not our enemy—it is our ally. Bara’s forces cannot reach us any more than we can reach them.
The Empire is vulnerable, yes, but it is vulnerable for us, too. This pause gives us time to—”
“To what? Grow soft? Let fear calcify into caution?” I met her dark eyes, seeing my own determination reflected back at me. “You sound like your father, all prudence and planning, forgetting that wars are won by those willing to take risks others call madness.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered in her gaze. Hurt, maybe. Or disappointment. “Father won you the loyalty of the Maria before he died in battle because his ‘madness’ finally met its match. I would prefer you not follow his example.”
The room had gone silent as a tomb.
No one dared speak to me like that. No one dared suggest my tactics might lead to failure, that my hunger for action might blind me to danger.
No one except Katsumi.
I wanted to rage at her, to remind her who commanded here, to show these men that even my beloved daughter bent the knee to my will.
Instead, I laughed.
Sharp and bitter, but genuine. “You think I am being reckless.”
“I think you are a leopard trapped in a cage.” She didn’t look away. “There is a difference between wisdom and haste. One wins wars. The other loses them.”
Around the table, I saw relief ripple through the generals like wind through grass. They’d been waiting for someone to voice their concerns but were too afraid to do it themselves. My daughter had done their arguing for them, and they were grateful.
I hated that she was right.
“Speak, then.” I gestured to the map. “What does caution counsel?”
Katsumi moved to the table, and the generals parted before her. She studied the positions, the markers showing our forces, the vast emptiness of the mountain range between us and Bara that winter had transformed into an impenetrable wall.
“We hold Yubi and the surrounding territories. We have secured the granaries, and wakō ships continue to strangle the capital, which means we eat through winter while Bara has to feed an army and its people on reduced stores.” Her finger traced our supply lines.
“I say we use this time to do as Uncle suggests. We train the conscripts and turn farmers into soldiers. Come spring, we do not march fifteen thousand troops toward Bara—we march twenty thousand well-fed, well-trained men and women on a long campaign.”
“Twenty thousand takes time to raise and coin to pay.” Lord Matsuda leaned over the map, his eyes sharp despite his earlier caution. “Where do we get the men?”
“The villages that yielded.” Katsumi’s smile was my smile, all teeth and certainty.
“We offer them a choice: join our forces and share in the Empire’s future wealth or starve through winter.
They surrendered to our troops. Let them now surrender to our will.
Survival is persuasive, would you not say, General? ”
“Conscripts fight poorly.” General Tanaka frowned, not taking my bait. “Unwilling men break when pressed.”
“Unwilling men with full bellies and the promise of land fight better than willing men who are starving. And last I checked, men whose women and children remain behind with our blades at their necks carry an even greater motivation to remain loyal.” Katsumi looked to me.
“We can’t reach Bara now, but we can ensure that when we do, we are unstoppable. ”
I studied the map, seeing the truth in her words even as everything in me screamed to move, to act, to strike while the advantage was ours.
But what advantage did we truly hold?
The Empire was in chaos, yes. An emperor and crown prince lay dead by our hand, yes. But our troops were also separated from their target by bitter cold and snow-covered mountains that killed as efficiently as any blade.
A caged tiger could rage and snarl, but it couldn’t hunt through bars of stone and snow.
“Fine.” The word tasted like defeat even though I knew it to be strategy.
“We winter here. We build our forces. We prepare.” I swept my gaze across the council, letting them see the fire still burning behind my eyes.
“But come spring, we march on Bara with everything we have. No half measures. No caution. We take the capital or we die trying. Understood?”
“Hai, Daimyo,” they chorused, relief clear in every voice.
“Get out.” I waved them away like servants. “Go make your plans, train your farmers, and count your gods-damned rice. Go!”
They didn’t need to be told twice. Within moments, the room had emptied in a rustle of armor, silk, and hurried footsteps. Only Katsumi remained, hesitating near the door.
“Mother—”