[TRC] The Heralds of the White God (NC17, AU, Kuro/Fai Syao/Saku) 6/20

[mikkeneko]

The Heralds of the White God: 6
Title: The Heralds of the White God chapter 6 - The Gathering Wave, Part II
Rating: M
Warnings: Violence, sexual content
Summary: In which many people argue, and absolutely nothing is decided.
Author's notes: Not much action here, just a lot of Kurogane and Ashura sniping at each other.

---

 

 <- Previous

Syaoran craned his neck to compensate for his blind side as he followed Sakura through the narrow passages. They snaked off in an amazing number of directions, and he was awed as he tried to gauge by eye where they all ended up. He had to admit, when the princess had promised to show him a secret, he'd been thinking she would show him some hidden treasure of her own. He hadn't been expecting anything like this - secret passages within the heart of the castle itself! "This place is a warren," he marveled. "Does anyone have plans of the castle that show all these hallways?"

"Shhh," Sakura tugged on his hand as she held her finger to her lips. She leaned in close to him, her breath puffing against his ear and sending delighted thrills down his spine. "You've got to keep quiet! Some of these vents open up in busy areas. They'll hear us if we're not careful!"

Syaoran obediently fell silent, following along behind her down the dusty corridor. They were extremely narrow, only what could be squeezed into a thick stone wall; if he'd grown much over the past few years, he would have found it an uncomfortably tight squeeze. Sakura scampered ahead like a squirrel, heedless of the tight quarters, her sandals scraping over the dusty stone as she climbed a steep staircase. Syaoran remembered the servant girl's accusation about peeping with a mortified blush, and kept his eyes resolutely averted as he climbed behind her by feel.

At the top of the stairs was a low-ceilinged causeway that both of them had to crawl to fit through. A long, low opening in the stone beside them spilled lamplight from some gallery on the other side of the wall, and voices echoed in from the gallery below. As they reached the end of the passageway, Sakura sat back on her heels and beckoned him over.

"Look down, but don't lean out," she whispered to him. "And don't speak loudly. The audience chamber is right below us!"

Fascinated, Syaoran leaned on his hands until he could see over the stone parapet. The chamber below them was large, and echoed cavernously; no tapestries or carpets softened the sound. A huge fire crackling on the hearth at the end of the hall and torches set in intervals struggled in vain to light the whole space; smoke and shadows danced near the ceiling. "There aren't any of those lights here," Syaoran wondered.

"The clan lords are very traditional," Sakura whispered behind her hand. "They refuse to use anything the wizards make. All of the major clans are represented here - the Silverlodes, the Lapidaires, the Adamites, the Pyrites, and the Ironholms. Look, there's Father, at the end of the table - he sits with them as equals here, since he's the last of the Fluorites."

Syaoran leaned forward eagerly, almost forgetting her earlier warning not to be seen. To his intense disappointment, he could only see the back of the King's head from this vantage, a smooth fall of raven hair capped by a silver circlet. He'd wanted to see the King's face, and yet at the same time, he was relieved not to.

Voices drifted up to them along with the smoke, long convoluted phrases in the Ceresian language. Syaoran listened, fascinated; he couldn't understand any of the words, but the strident, angry tones were clear enough. "What are they talking about?" he asked in a hushed voice.

Sakura listened for a moment, frowning, then shook her head. "I don't think I could translate it all," she said apologetically. "Basically, they're just being difficult. They want him to restore some of the traditional privileges of the clan lords - tithes and the like - and they're refusing to cooperate unless he does."

"Oh." Syaoran quickly lost interest in the finer points of Ceres politicking, instead turning to study each clan lord with interest. They all seemed to be tall, dark-eyed and strong-featured, although their skin and hair coloring was still much lighter than was normal in Nihon. One large man, with long hair that was nearly pure white, sat at Ashura's left hand; he put his hand on the king's arm and leaned in to whisper in his ear, only to be angrily shaken off by Ashura.

"That's Lord Taishakuten," Sakura supplied for him, "and going around to his left is Lady Kisshou, Lord Koumoku, Lord Bishamon, and Lord Kumara. It's really kind of weird to see them all in the same room like this - normally they're fighting among themselves like anything. But I guess they're really determined to get something from Father this time. They're threatening to pull out their troops and workers unless he cooperates, and that's a clan right that hasn't been invoked in hundreds of years."

"You know a lot about politics," Syaoran commented, tearing his gaze away from the gathering below to meet her eyes. "For someone so young, that's really amazing. Do you listen in on the council sessions often?"

Unexpectedly Sakura dropped her eyes, blushing like a child caught out in a misdemeanor. "Only sometimes," she mumbled. "I… I want to know what's going on in Ceres, and because I'm just a girl, nobody will tell me what's happening."

Sakura looked away, biting her lip. "Let's go back," she said quietly.

"Okay." Syaoran followed humbly behind her, wondering what he had said to upset her so and kicking himself for it. She stayed uncharacteristically quiet as they navigated carefully through the maze of passages, not saying a word until they had come out of the concealed entrance to the main hallways.

"Sakura," he said finally, unable to take the subdued quiet any more, "what's wrong?"

She shook her head, and gave him a wan smile. "It's nothing you should be worried about, Syaoran. It's nothing you can do anything about."

"If it's bothering you, I want to know what's wrong," he said boldly. "You don't know that I can't help until you ask."

Sakura sighed, and sat on the stone step with her legs folded together, rubbing her palms over the smooth material of the dress. "I just hate to hear them talking like that," she said in a tiny voice. "They're not happy that the war ended, they want more of their land back. If things keep going too badly… then they might want to go to war again."

"What?" Syaoran stared at Sakura in shock, and felt anger flare within his chest. "Attack us again? Why? Just because they want more land? That's not fair! They shouldn't have the right to do that!"

He'd promised himself he wouldn't yell at the princess for things that weren't her fault; but once he'd started to give vent to his feelings, the long frustration that had bottled up inside his chest came boiling out. "You attacked us with magic, wizards that called poison out of the sky and fire out of the ground! What chance did we have against that? It wasn't fair! There were innocent people living up on the borders who died along with all the soldiers! And now the ones who got to run away have no homes, no place to live. And now they want to start all that again? Just because they're greedy and the land they have now isn't enough for them?"

Tears sprang up in Sakura's eyes, and she hugged her arms around her bent knees. "I'm sorry, Syaoran-san," she whispered. "I don't want war! It's horrible, it hurts so many people. But we didn't have a choice."

"Everyone has a choice," Syaoran fumed. "You always have a choice not to attack other people and steal their things!"

"No, we didn't!" Sakura said, more sharply than Syaoran had ever heard from her before. He stared. Her eyes shimmered with tears, but there was a stubborn set to her mouth underneath them. "Nihon's army had ten thousand soldiers, and we had none! We had to use magic to defend ourselves, it was the only way to survive. And we need that land, too. Without it, the people of Ceres will starve, like they have been starving for as long as I've been alive! I don't want us to go to war! But I don't want any more of our people to die, either!"

Syaoran stared at Sakura with his mouth hanging open, stunned by her sudden vehemence. His sensei had tried to tell him the same things, but he'd let the argument roll off the cloak of his angry, carefully nurtured hatred. Sakura continued, her voice rising with passion.

"Even in Ruval, down in the city below the palace walls, there are people starving to death, people who put their children out in the streets because they can't afford to feed them, there's not enough grain for everybody, they have to save it for the people who can work. There's nothing I can do to stop it I have everything here, but there are so many people who have nothing. Those are my people! I should be helping them, but I can't do anything! I'm the princess of Ceres, but what good am I to anyone?"

She burst into sobs, the tears streaming down her face, and Syaoran didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say to her, what anyone could possibly say, and he cursed himself for making her so upset. He wanted to comfort her, he knew he ought to. But he didn't know how. He'd never been very articulate, always preferring to show his feelings through action instead of words. Years of living with Kurogane had reinforced this habit; there was no point in talking about something if you could just do it. But he had no idea what to do to make things better for her.

At a loss for anything else to do, he awkwardly put one arm around her back, and rubbed her shoulder. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," he mumbled, feeling stupid but not knowing what else to say. "It's not your fault. I was just angry, but it's not like there was anything you could do about it…"

"I just wish," she said between sobs, "I just wish that I could. I don't want there to be war! I don't want people to be hurt and killed and have everything taken away. But what other way is there? I just wish there was something I could do!"

"Well," Syaoran said, struggling to find words that would be comforting, that wouldn't come out sounding wrong; "you're still just a kid, right?"

She glared at him, which was at least a relief from the sobbing. "I'm not a child. I'm fourteen."

Just one year younger than himself - but her sheltered innocence made her seem much younger. He backpedaled. "Well, nobody expects you to save the world all by yourself before you're fifteen years old," he said instead. "You still - have some growing up to do. Other chances will come. You just have to be ready to - to take advantage when they do."

He held her as she sniffled, occasionally patting her gently on the shoulder, and tried not to look too hard at his own thoughts.

He'd always wanted to think of Ceres as the villain, a faceless country of foreboding evil that was responsible for all that was wrong in the world. It had all started when they - a faceless, unknown They - had murdered his father, and he'd only been vindicated in his opinion when Ceres unjustly declared war on Nihon, unleashing terrible devastation on their borders and killing thousands. Other people, including his sensei, had tried to convince him that they had their reasons too, but he had refused to listen.

Now he couldn't refuse to listen, or to look; now Ceres had a face to him, a pretty tear-stained face with ginger hair and green eyes. Sakura was a Ceresian - more than that, she was a member of the royal family, child of the diabolic King Ashura who was responsible for all Ceres' evil. But he couldn't think of her as evil, couldn't associate her with Ceres' crimes at all. She was gentle and kind, she had a beautiful laugh, and she worried and cried so much over her country's subjects - little people, peasants and farmers, the people whom kings and nobles tended to ignore. But she cared about them. She really did.

And Syaoran couldn't help but think, if she cared so much about them, then maybe they were worth caring for. Maybe Ceres was made up of human beings just like Nihon, who had lives and who laughed and cried just like normal people. He tried to block that thought, push it away, because it threatened the foundations of his hatred; but he couldn't shut it out entirely.

 

His father wouldn't have wanted him to hate. He could admit that now. Fujitaka had been a kind man, a peaceful academic, generous and forgiving. He'd been excited by the reports coming out of Ceres of the amazing things they were doing with scholarship and magic, and he'd wanted to learn. For the Ceres wizards to turn all that gentle curiosity back on itself - for them to murder him so unjustly - Syaoran had hated them for years. Avenging Fujitaka had been the only thing he had left of his father, the man who'd picked him up off the street when he'd been too young to remember and raised him. Without that last connection to his father, who was he?

He'd told Sakura that you didn't need to have a purpose in life to be happy, but wasn't he the same way? Despising Ceres and the evil it represented, setting himself up as a crusader for justice - that had been his whole purpose in life. He was afraid to let go of his thirst for revenge, because without it, who was he? Who did he serve now?

I have Sakura now, he reminded himself sharply, giving the sniffling girl a little hug. Even if nobody else needed him, she still did.

---

 

Yukito arrived after all the other wizards had gone, flushed and out of breath from running and his amber-colored eyes bright with joy. His relief and happiness at seeing Fai up and healthy was unabashed, and he at least had the decency not to embarrass Kurogane by teasing him over what exactly he'd done to bring this about. Fai had asked to be filled in on what had happened while he was out of things, and the two quickly fell into a rapid and animated discussion that excluded Kurogane entirely.

Kurogane had intended to listen in out of a vague feeling of obligation; as Nihon's only ambassador, surely it was his duty to understand as much of what was going on in the palace as possible. But he found it impossible to keep up with what they were saying; half the time they were speaking in Ceresian, the other half they talked in what sounded like Nihongo, but using such obscure and unfamiliar terms that it made absolutely no sense to him. After a few minutes he stopped trying to follow along and just leaned against the wall of the chamber, watching them.

He eventually realized that he could pick up more from their body language - and from the faint resonance of his connection through Fai - than with his ears. From Yukito's frequent headshakes and hand-wringing - and Fai's rapidly oscillating feelings of disbelief and disappointment - he gathered that there was bad news. Something wasn't getting done, or at least not done right, and Fai was upset and annoyed by the lack.

"…I'm telling you, my lord Fai, is that Ashura just doesn't trust me anymore," Yukito was saying, and the mention of that name brought Kurogane's attention abruptly back. "He won't let me re-establish the screens - he won't even let me start! He keeps saying he wants Clef to do it, but you know he can't. He knows he can't, he doesn't have the right skills. All he can do is re-send the seeker spells at regular intervals, but that was never something that was meant to work on a permanent basis, and it's not like he has the time to spare to keep it running every day or so."

"What is he thinking?" Fai exclaimed with annoyance. "So long as the aural screen is down, we're wide open! Anyone with the right words could get right up the valley as far as the palace itself, before they hit the protected walls, they wouldn't even need -"

"He's counting on the physical access points being protected so that nobody can get through," Yukito answered, and spread his hands helplessly at the exasperated look Fai leveled at him. "I know! But he doesn't. Talk to him, Fai, please! Make him understand how important this is. He's not interested in technical details, but he trusts you. I have to have permission to work with Ruval's intrinsic magics again, or I can't do anything."

Fai sighed, and ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. It was getting longer, Kurogane noticed irrelevantly, and now threatened to hang in his face every time strands escaped from the ponytail he kept it in. "I don't know why everyone has such hopes from me," he said. "You know I can't force King Ashura to do anything once he's made up his mind."

"You could at least try," Yukito said hopefully. "If nothing else, you could do what Clef can't. If he really refuses to trust me on magical defenses any more…"

Fai made a face, but before he could reply, the door to the inner chamber abruptly swung open, and both fair heads swiveled abruptly towards it. Kurogane pushed himself off the wall and took several steps forward as the majordomo stepped into the room.

"His majesty's audience with the clan lords has concluded," he announced importantly, "and he now wishes to see the First Senior Wizard. Come, please."

Kurogane fell into step behind them as they entered the audience chamber; they were just in time to see another group of men - Kurogane assumed they were the elusive clan lords who were being such pains in the asses to everyone - departing. His attention was quickly riveted by the Ceres King, who was looking up and frowning to see Kurogane.

"This is a business meeting to discuss state affairs," he said brusquely, "not a social affair. I asked only to speak to my wizards; you were not invited, Lord Suwa."

"Getting a chance to see you is an obstacle course, it seems," Kurogane snapped back. "I have no intention of cooling my heels in the hallways while you find excuses to avoid me for the next few weeks."

Ashura opened his mouth to snap back some reply - perhaps to call for guards to haul the unwanted ambassador away - but then Fai shifted a half step closer to Kurogane.

It was a subtle movement, and nothing was said, but the change in his body language was clear; leaning closer to Kurogane but with his eyes on Ashura, an unspoken defiance in the set of his shoulder and tilt of his head. If you throw him out, you'll have to throw me out too, was the silent challenge.

It warmed Kurogane's heart, but had the opposite effect on Ashura; his face soured, and he glared indiscriminately at the both of them. "Very well then," he snapped, then seemed to recover his composure somewhat. "I trust you are finding my hospitality acceptable, Ambassador Suwa? I would hate to disappoint such an honored guest."

"It's about as good as I expected," Kurogane returned, matching his glare with one of equal heat. "At least better than last time, when 'guest' was just a nicer way of saying 'prisoner.' "

"Of course. You will find us a kind and accommodating people, when you come to us not as an enemy soldier, but as a supplicant on behalf of a defeated people," Ashura said with false pleasantness. Kurogane scowled fiercely, absorbing the insult, and drew a breath to retort when Fai intervened.

"Your Majesty, Kurogane, this is not the time to re-open unpleasantries," Fai said hastily, stepping between them. It was only a symbolic gesture - a good head taller than him, Kurogane could continue to exchange glares with Ashura over the top of his head - but he looked away and let out his breath unspoken anyway.

"Indeed, it is not," Ashura said after a moment of difficulty. He turned from Kurogane to Fai, and the animosity drained out of his expression, being replaced by something that genuinely resembled concern. "Fai. You are feeling better?"

Fai smiled. "Much better, Sire," he answered. "I'm quite fit to get back to work. Kuro-s - Lord Suwa's aid has been invaluable to me. I owe him my health and my life." He stole a glance back at Kurogane, giving him a smile that was meant only for him, and creeping his hand into Kurogane's.

"Idiot, you don't owe me anything," Kurogane muttered, not wanting to expose such weakness in front of Ashura."

"Yes, of course," Ashura said, a slightly disgruntled tone in his voice despite his sincere gladness to see Fai well. "You have Our thanks for responding so swiftly to our plea. In all seriousness, you will find our hospitality is not lacking - the guest quarters you were placed in are merely a temporary measure. I will have my servants arrange for a better suite of rooms to be prepared for your permanent residence."

"There will be no need for that," Fai said, stepping in swiftly before Kurogane could respond to that permanent. "He'll be staying in my quarters."

Fai and Ashura locked gazes, and Kurogane began to feel like a bone that two dogs were worrying for possession. "Wait," he said, breaking into the deadlock. "What's this permanent supposed to mean? I'm not going to be staying here forever, I have to get back home before too long."

Beside him, Fai had gone very quiet and still. Ashura's eyebrows went up. "Well, of course your appointment is a long-term one," he said. "Was that not made clear to you? Fai will, of course, continue to require nourishment from you. Did you not come expecting that? And you will need to have some place to stay in the castle - rooms that are your own, not belonging to another - during the weeks that Fai is away on his duties."

Kurogane fell silent, momentarily stunned speechless by this rapid readjustment of his priorities. Stupid, he hadn't been thinking - of course Fai would continue to need him, he couldn't just take off for home now that his duty had been done once. But - weeks alone in the palace? How long would need to stay away from his homeland? He hadn't foreseen this at all. Was this what Tomoyo had meant when she'd told him that he wouldn't be returning home anytime soon?

"Duties that have been put off for far too long," Ashura was now saying, taking advantage of the momentary silence. "I am glad that you are well, Fai, not only for myself but for the good of the kingdom; we have sore need of your power and knowledge. Are you prepared to take on your workload once again?"

"I am at your command, Sire," Fai said, sounding unusually subdued.

Ashura smiled - a small, quickly controlled smile of triumph, and turned his attention to a stack of papers on his desk. "Good," he said. "As Yukito should have informed you already, the first crop of wheat is almost ready for harvesting in the lower valleys. It should be ready within the next several days. Miroku has been overseeing the growth acceleration spells, but more will be required when we actually go to harvest. We'll require good weather for all the days of the harvest, and aside from General Ko, who has other duties, your weatherworking skills are the most potent. In addition, the harvested grain will require constant monitoring to make certain it does not begin to accelerate into rot. And then there is the question of providing security to the laborers - "

"Security, my lord?" Yukito broke in. "Security from whom?"

Ashura paused in his list of chores, eyes narrowing at his errant wizard. "From bandits, of course," he said after a long pause.

"Bandits, here?" Yukito echoed with surprise. "We haven't had attacks from roving bandits in many years. Surely you don't think any of our people would be so patriotic - or short-sighted - to sabotage our own harvest."

Ashura's lips compressed in irritation. "Very well. Security from Nihon marauders, then," he said impatiently.

"Have there been attacks from over the border by Nihon?" Kurogane broke in, alarmed by the implications. Crap. If some of the hotheads from Nihon had gotten it into their head to resume the old games of across-the-border raid and reprisal, then any chance of securing a peace treaty would be out in the midden heap.

Ashura transferred his exasperated glare to Kurogane, who met it head-on. "Perhaps you had forgotten, but we lost most of last autumn's harvest to the depradations of Nihon's -"

"But have there been any attacks since then?" Kurogane interrupted. He remembered the smoke rising from the scorched fields in the Ceres valley all too well, the burnt-out hollows of buildings.

"No," Ashura finally admitted grudgingly. "But it is still a risk we cannot take."

Kurogane breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that northern Nihon still remembered the terror of the wizards of Ceres in a way that the capital probably did not. But there was no telling how long that fear-induced docility would last.

This seemed to be the opening he'd been looking for, and Kurogane seized on it. "That's all the more reason that Nihon and Ceres should settle on a peace treaty as soon as possible," Kurogane said strongly, ignoring the astonished stares of both of the wizards as he leveled a challenging glare at the king. "If we had an official treaty, then anyone who pushed across the border would be in violation, and we could punish them for it."

Ashura looked around at the three of them, then groaned, dragging his hand over his face. "I should never have allowed the three of you in the same room," he said in a muffled voice. "It's like a three-headed hydra. I should invite Minister Galladon in here, and then the four of you could howl for a treaty in four-part harmony."

Who the hell was Gallawix? Kurogane caught the movement of Fai's head as he turned slightly away from his king, his eyes rolling slightly in exasperation.

"Look," Kurogane said firmly, stepping into the center spot before Ashura's chair. "You don't have to like me. You don't have to like my countrymen, and you certainly don't have to like my queen."

Ashura raised his eyebrows, and Kurogane bit his tongue; he supposed that hadn't been very diplomatic. But he forged forward anyway. "But what I'm telling you is that you need to sign a treaty," he said. "Now, not later. While you can still get the court at Shirasagi to accept it. They're afraid of you now, but that won't last forever. After a few months when the memories of what you did to them on the battlefield begins to fade, then the clamor for revenge will only increase. They hate you, King of Ceres. They hate you enough that in another year Amaterasu will be ready to risk another war. She has to, or risk losing her throne."

"I can't decide if I'm listening to a proposal or a threat," Ashura said acerbically. "What do I care for the tender feelings of Nihon nobles? For the bloodthirsty arrogance of your idiot empress? If she wants another war, then let her come! We'll defeat them as easily as we did the last time - again and again until they are no more than a miserable collection of survivors huddling in holes in the ground!"

"Can you really do that?" Kurogane shot back, his own hackles raised by the threat and the insults to his empress. "Look, I'll be blunt. It's clear that you have the better force, you can beat any army we put in the field against you. But how long can you keep it up? It's obvious you're up against a wall here. You're straining everything past its limits just to maintain what you have. You need peace right now, even if you don't want it.

"Nihon may not be able to win against you, but they hate you enough that they're willing to take losses trying; and you know perfectly well, Your Majesty, that Ceres cannot afford another victory like this one."

Ashura sat back, fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of his chair, gazing at Kurogane through slitted eyes. The pressure simmered in the close stone room, oppressive in the magically generated warmth. It was obvious he wanted Kurogane to sweat; he refused, returning the glare with equal intensity.

"I wonder," Ashura said at last, and some of the dangerous edge had gone out of his voice, leaving him sounding almost tired. "What is it that makes your people hate us so. Is it the land? You people have more land, more than than we have ever dreamed of, more than you can possibly use. I have heard of the barbarous provinces that Nihon has conquered to the east, to say nothing of the vast wilderness to the west. Why, then, is this relatively unimportant strip of land so important to you?"

"It isn't about the land," Kurogane replied honestly. "It's pride. You've beaten us, Your Majesty; and that's something we're not accustomed to. It's not something we've had to deal with very often."

"Perhaps it is time for you to learn," Ashura said acidly. "But here, Lord Suwa, I thought your people prided themselves on their honor. You consider yourself warriors, do you not? Can you not respect an adversary who clearly displays greater skill, greater strength?"

"My people value their honor very highly, King Ashura," Kurogane said stiffly. "It is not only a question of strength, but of appearances. If one man defeats another in fair combat, he would never boast or gloat about his victory - he would always offer the loser some way to keep his dignity and reputation. The Empress won't just accept an unconditional defeat, the lords would never accept that. If you could offer her some concession - "

Ashura lifted his head from his chest, the corners of his mouth pulling down. "You're saying that I, the victor, owe something to those who tried to destroy my country?" he demanded incredulously.

"I'm saying that the fastest way to secure peace," Kurogane replied through his teeth, "and stability in this corner of the world, is to give the Nihon government some way to save face."

Silence rang in the audience chamber for a long, stony moment.

"We will not concede any of our ancestral lands," Ashura said, his voice obstinate as granite. "That is final."

Kurogane shrugged. "It doesn't have to be land," he said, saying a silent apology to Kendappa for not being able to win that; he knew a sticking point when he saw one. "Something else of value."

"And what do your people value?" Fai put in, bemused. Kurogane was caught off guard, having almost forgotten that he was there.

"Well, we," Kurogane cursed himself for the stutter in his voice; he hadn't anticipated this question and he had no prepared response. "We honor the gods and revere our ancestors, of course. Family - blood-kin is the strongest bond that we have -"

"It doesn't make a very good gift, though," Fai sounded amused. "You told me once that a steel suit of armor could buy enough grain to feed a family for a year. Steel?"

"We are not in a hurry to put our finest weapons in the hands of a Nihon army, either," Ashura growled.

"What about magic?" Yukito asked eagerly. "We have learned many arts and techniques with wizardry which Nihon could take advantage of, to better their country and the lives of their people. Such a huge empire - imagine how they could benefit from a few long-distance gramerhains!"

Kurogane winced. "I don't think they'd be interested in something like that," he said. "Right now people have little enough love for wizards."

"And why is that?" Ashura pounced on that statement. "It was, after all, the same wizards that you despise which saved your country from the depredations of the demon army last year -"

Hypocrite! Kurogane thought furiously. After you keep flogging poor Yukito over saving us, but now, when it's convenient for you, you can so easily take credit for it? He managed to keep his tongue, and a neutral expression, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Fai wince.

" - and indeed, you have no shortage of magic-users of your own," Ashura continued relentlessly. "By what hypocrisy can your countrymen justify their hatred the wizards of Ceres?"

Kurogane controlled his temper with an effort. "We have our own female magic-users, Your Majesty," he said impatiently. "Magic in Nihon has always been the business of women. Men who use magic are strange at best, a perversion at worst."

Ashura sputtered incredulously, leading Kurogane to wonder if he had really never known this before. The other two obviously knew; Yukito was unsuccessfully fighting off a deep red blush, and Fai seemed to have trouble containing his laughter. Kurogane scowled at him, silently urging him to take this seriously. "And we don't mix magic with war. The reason why Nihon does not respect your superior strength in battle, King Ashura, is because as far as they're concerned, you cheated, and you used men to steal away what rightfully belongs to the sacred women."

"Ridiculous," Ashura huffed, sitting back on his throne. "Stupid superstitions. No wonder the Nihon empire is as willfully ignorant as it is, to leave all affairs of importance in the hands of women!"

"Perhaps the Nihon court would respond more favorably if we sent a female ambassador," Fai interjected placatingly. "It sounds like they would be more receptive to a female wizard."

"Apart from General Ko, who has more pressing duties, I have none to send," Ashura snapped, glaring poisonously at Yukito. "Female wizards are valuable and rare; and Karura, my only other female student, died in a senseless battle in a place where she should never have been."

"If General Ko has too many duties to spare," Yukito said, then gulped and continued "Why not send me? Since you've made it abundantly clear that I have no purpose to serve in Ruval! Apart from the general, I am undoubtedly the best candidate for an emissary. I have - I have a status on Nihon, and connections there as well. Surely I could be more use to you there than wasting my days around the palace here. Let me serve my country again, sire!"

The unexpectedly passionate declaration rang in the suddenly still air of the chamber.

"I will not lie to you, Yukito, I have long wondered," Ashura said in a voice that was deceptively pleasant, dangerously calm. "Having rescued you, raised you, and taught you all those skills of wizardry that you so esteem, I would have thought that you would remain loyal to the country that nurtured you, not the one that cast you out. And yet - it remains true that you were born in Nihon. Does some quiescent nature of your blood, some ineradicable part of your bones, still incline you towards the country of your birth? Where does your allegiance lie, Yukito? Are you loyal to me - or are you loyal to Nihon?"

"Your Majesty -" Fai started to protest, stepping forward quickly, but Yukito stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, shook his head. He took a deep breath and slowly turned to face his king, and only those standing close enough would have seen the death-grip that his fingers had on his staff.

"My loyalty lies with the future of Ceres," Yukito said, and his voice rang out with such unshakeable confidence and certainty that Ashura sat back, frowning. But Yukito wasn't done yet. "I strive, as I always have, towards the future in which Ceres is powerful and rich; our fields full and fertile, our people healthy and strong. I see a vision of the future where Ceres is feared and respected throughout all the lands around, where our language is spoken at courts all over the world, where kings in distant countries envy our sophistication, and compete to send their children to Ruval to be educated.

"That is where my loyalty lies, your majesty. Is that not where yours does too? Is that not the goal that you have toiled all your life, all your reign to bring to pass?" His voice had risen in passionate conviction as he spoke, and this last had the force of a challenge.

"I have," Ashura said, sounding thoroughly taken aback. As though he could do otherwise, when presented with a picture like that.

"But Sire, I believe - as I always have - that to achieve that future, to spread our influence throughout the lands, we must first come to terms with our closest neighbors," Yukito insisted. "We cannot conquer the world - not with armies, not in our lifetime. Even a wizard's lifetime is not long enough to see Ceres grow so strong. Surely you must know that, Your Majesty, even if you don't want to admit it. Surely you can see that it's time to try another way."

"It's time for us to try another way, also," Kurogane spoke up, his voice ringing out in the silence. "Your Majesty - King Ashura - you probably know the history of Nihon as well as I do, if not better. We're a warrior people, and we always have been. We don't really know how to deal with other countries except to conquer them by force of arms and subdue them to tributary states.

"We've never had to deal with a power like Ceres before - one that we can't beat no matter how hard we try, one that could burn us down to the ground. But I think we're going to have to learn. If we're going to stay a great people, then we're going to have to learn peace. And there's no better time than now. The High Priestess and the Crown Prince favor peace; they have kind intentions towards your country. Between them, they can keep the Empress in line - kin and clan are powerful binding forces in our society, second to none. There will never be a better time."

"Surely it would be better for both of our countries to form an alliance." Fai broke into the conversation there, his voice soft and gentle, persuasive. "What each country has, the other lacks. Nihon is overflowing with people, capable workers, and have an abundance of food, wood, cotton, all the fruits of the land. If we could stop trying to kill each other for a few years, long enough to see the benefits of cooperation…" He let the sentence trail off suggestively.

Ashura sat very still on his throne, his face an cold unmoving mask. Kurogane shifted uncomfortably, unsure whether he should throw in an additional argument, but Fai's hand caught his and squeezed warningly, and he kept quiet.

At last, Ashura stirred. "There may be truth in what you each have to say," he said reluctantly, the words sounding like they were dragged out of him. "I will think on it. Fai, begin your preparations, but do not depart for the border today. The full council will convene in two days' time and I want you to be there for it. I will announce my final decision then. This audience is over."

There was a firm finality to his voice that reminded Kurogane inescapably of Amaterasu; she had just such a manner when she wanted to chew over something in private. As much as he wanted to continue the debate, and disliked leaving a battle half-fought, he didn't resist Fai's hand on his elbow as it tugged him insistently away. Yukito, too, looked like he couldn't escape the audience room soon enough.

Once they were safely outside the doors, Yukito shuddered and let a high sigh of relief. "Phew! That went much further than I expected," he said. "Lord Suwa, you don't fool around, do you?"

Fai laughed breathlessly, although the sound was as much relief as humor. "I'm glad, though," he said. "I never thought we would get His Majesty to agree so quickly."

Kurogane looked at Fai in surprise. "But he didn't agree to anything," he objected. "All he said was, he'd think about it."

Fai chuckled dryly. "Do you have any idea how hard it is, to get him to concede even that much?" he asked. "He'd never just agree to something proposed by his advisors just like that. He'll think about it, and tomorrow at the council he will present a new vision, one that has his own ideas in it instead of ours. That's the only way he can feel like he still regains control."

"Huh." Kurogane frowned, viewing the conversation with the monarch in this new light. If Ashura really was seriously considering a peace treaty, that was good; but unlike the two wizards, who were now chattering happily in relief, he didn't quite trust in Ashura's judgments that much. Somehow, he suspected, the king would still manage to surprise them, and he didn't think he'd like how Ashura did it.

---

Fai walked together with Kurogane back towards his chamber to change for dinner, just close enough that his fingertips brushed lightly against the warrior's. He was looking forward to a peaceful evening; although Kurogane's blood had restored his health, he was still not used to the rush of activity and stress again, and he felt wrung out.

Being caught in a room with Ashura and Kurogane at once - feeling both of them pulling at his emotions, clamoring for his attentions - was draining. They were both so domineering, in very different ways; Kurogane's bullheadedness stubbornly eluded Ashura's every attempt at coercion and manipulation, and Ashura's unending tendency to belittle him drove Kurogane into fits of rage. Although, he had to admit with a smirk, watching Kurogane and Ashura go at it would be funny if it weren't so stressful.

"Niisan!"

Fai whirled around, and was almost knocked off his feet by a small, ginger-haired bundle of energy. "Sakura!" he cried, sweeping her into his arms and twirling them around in a circle in the hallway. "How are you, little flower-princess?"

Kurogane had stopped walking, too, and turned to regard them. He folded his arms in a posture and let out a sigh of exaggerated patience, although a small fond smile twitched at the side of his mouth.

"I'm fine, of course! I haven't seen you in so long!" It was a long minute before she was willing to loosen her viselike grip enough to step back and turn her face up to him. Her eyes were red and puffy, as though she'd recently been crying, and Fai felt his heart twinge in remorse for making her sad. "I was worried about you!"

"Are you really all right?" she demanded anxiously.

"Now that I've seen your smiling face," he told her cheerfully, reaching out to pluck an errant feather from a crease of her clothes. Feathers, hmm? She must have been on the roof again. "That's all I need to feel better! It's a hundred times better than any medicine!"

Sakura's brows drew down in a frown, and she put her hands on her hips. "If that were true, then why didn't you let me see you while you were sick?" she demanded.

Touche. Fai sighed. "Because seeing you cry would have made me feel a hundred times worse," he said gently. He tugged at her sleeve. "I'm all right now, Sakura, truly. Kuro-ouji will make sure that I don't get so sick again."

"You're damn right about that," Kurogane said in a fierce voice. " - and what's this ouji business about, anyway?"

Fai only smirked at him. "Every princess needs a charming prince, Kuro-ouji," he said.

"Oh!" Sakura whirled to face Kurogane, gawking, then clasped her hands and bowed deeply in front of the larger man. "Kurogane-san! I'm so glad to see you again. Thank you so much for coming all this way to help Fai-niisan."

"It was nothing," Kurogane said gruffly, and Sakura beamed at him before turning back to Fai.

"Fai-niisan, will I see you at dinner?" she asked anxiously. "Something wonderful has happened, and I want to tell you all about it!"

"I'm sure I can manage to sit near you," he said cheerfully. "I can't wait to hear all about what you've been doing the past few weeks. Have you been keeping up with your studies with Kazahaya and the other students?"

Sakura's smile dimmed a bit. "Um, didn't you hear?" she asked timidly. "Kazahaya was sent to the northern valleys last week. All the classes have been postponed. There's no one left to teach us." There was a loneliness in her voice that bordered on resentment.

"Oh." Fai was taken aback. He gave her another little hug. "I'm sorry about that, Flower-princess. I know that we've all been very busy lately, and nobody has time to spend with you. But with any luck, something good will happen soon that will let all of us ease up a little bit."

"Fai-niisan, can't you teach me?" she said plaintively.

Fai sighed. "I don't know, princess. I don't think so. Now that I'm better, King Ashura has a lot of chores for me to take care of. I'll spend what time with you that I can." He felt a mild twinge of regret at losing even more of his precious time spent with Kurogane, but it couldn't be helped.

"But, but, what about my lessons?" Her face bunched in anxiety, hands twisting in the hem of her skirt. "How can I learn about magic when there's no one to teach me? If I don't learn, then how am I going to be able to help you when you are king and I am queen?"

The question stopped him cold, literally; the blood rushed away from his face and for a moment he had trouble breathing. Kurogane came abruptly away from his lurking posture, gaze intense on Fai's face. He had to get control of himself; he managed to force a laugh. "S-sakura-chan, don't you think that's all much too far away to think about now?" he said weakly. "Your father will live for many, many years yet, and you're just a child still!"

"But I won't be a child forever," Sakura said seriously, staring up into his remaining eye. "I have to start getting ready, I have to start thinking about what I can do to help everyone. If not now, then when?"

Several beats passed while Fai was unable to come up with a reply. Before the silence could get too obvious, Kurogane hmphed and moved up beside him, taking his arm. "We're going to be late while you dawdle here," he said. "We need to go get changed. Princess Sakura, it's good to see you again; we will talk more during dinner," he told her seriously.

"Oh, okay!" she said agreeably, and she stood staring, watching them until they turned the corridor out of sight.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kurogane hissed as they passed out of earshot. "Is she the only one in the palace who doesn't know about you and me? You can't keep her in the dark about this!"

"I know, I know," Fai said, shaking his head helplessly. "But - how can I explain things to her, Kuro-chan? I'm supposed to be her husband some day. I can't - I can't just tell her that I'm in love with someone else, another man. She would be devastated."

"If not now, then when?" Kurogane parroted back remorselessly. "The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be, you know."

"I know," Fai repeated again, and shut his eye as he leaned against Kurogane's shoulder, blocking out sight of the world. "I know. I'll tell her. But not tonight."

 

 

---

 

~to be continued...

Next ->