promises to keep

Lord Kaien. He’s still king, isn’t he? Only in name? Hanami’s head hurts too much. She can’t remember. She’s so cold, even under the blankets on her futon with the sun pouring over her, shimmering golden like healing magic. Healing magic, like...like...there are no magic-workers here, not since the Geomancers fled to Hingashi, but Mama’s soup is almost magic. The sound of Mama humming, and the sound of the river, and a soft clunk, clunk, the sound of the shishi-odoshi. But--they had a fountain in their house in Monzen, but Monzen is gone--

Hanami’s head does hurt so. Aki will be insufferable, when he finds out she’s so sick. But he’ll still bring her tea and hot water bottles for her head. He’s such a good brother, even when she thinks she can’t stand him.

The door slides open and Mama walks in, a bowl of steaming Dhalmel fricasse in hand, and she strokes her hand over Hanami’s forehead, and she smiles, and she says In your darkest hour, in the blackest night, think of me and I will be with you.

Hanami wakes up.

The fire in the grate has died, and a frozen bit of banner is tapping at her window in the Forgotten Knight. Her head still throbs from the aether drain, from Myste dragging memory after memory from their graves to torment her, from Fray ripping themself free of her to drag them back down.

Even Malvela’s elezen ears must strain to hear her paper-thin whisper over the sounds of combat, but she nods and offers a comforting pat on Styrnbryda’s elbow before rounding the corner. Styrnbryda follows, Ifrit-egi trailing on her heels; ahead, another vanguard falls under Alaihna’s axe and Pyrkaia’s lance, and another contingent of soldiers rounds the corner, armor hastily assembled and weapons drawn.

Styrnbryda’s fingers trace the arrays. Tri-disaster. Shadow flare. Bane. Fester. Ruin. Creeping illness and crippling pain, so familiar, weaponized in her hands, their power stirring an ancient voice that calls through her through the aether--more. More. More. Pain, destruction, retribution, more!

Over the raging of Bahamut’s ghost in her ears, she barely hears the Hoplomachus shout, “Silence the mage!”

Through her trance, Styrnbryda only registers the phantom gag winding itself around her mouth long enough to be amused by it. How unobservant--the captain Aerstlona would never have permitted such a mistake from her soldiers. But Styrnbryda’s mother is not here, not today, and it is not Styrnbryda’s voice that roars in victory, but it echoes in her chest all the same.

She tosses her hands up, her grimoire near glowing with power, and her Deathflare scorches the metal underfoot. The soldiers fall, screaming, and whichever of them gagged her must perish, because the glowing light around her mouth dissolves.

“Nice shot!” Pyrkaia shouts.

Kurenai’s fingers are trembling in time with Hisui’s heartbeat. “I’m not brave,” she says. “The pirates--they were nice. They told me how to bring you back, after--”

“Shh,” Hisui says. Her hand is warm as it runs over Kurenai’s hair. “If you had not woken me, I would have slept for a lifetime knowing you were safe. I would have slept happily, Princess.”

“But I would not have been happy!” Kurenai curls closer, the silk bunching in her fists, under her legs. “You would have been gone and I would have never...never had--you’re the most important person in the world to me, Hisui.”

If she were a better ruler, a less selfish woman, Kurenai would hate herself for it--but she is not, and she feels no guilt in thinking it: she will never love anyone more than Hisui. She would leave the palace, leave Sui-no-Sato, leave the Ruby Sea itself behind if she had to, again, anything for Hisui. And maybe Hisui is a little selfish too, because as the lady-in-waiting she should be telling Kurenai why it’s so selfish, but instead she says:

“How can you say that, when now we both know how much of the world we haven’t seen?”

Hisui’s heartbeat in her horns and her own bed under her: if Kurenai were only selfish, this would be enough. But she is also a princess, and she loves Hisui, and she loves her people, and she knows now: the world holds so much potential, so much strength, she cannot turn her back on it. She cannot stay in this palace alone, not when there is so much to learn and see and bring home to the village she loves, the home she and Hisui would die for.

“When I go,” Kurenai says, “I want you with me, Hisui.”