Courtyard

The second intruder lunged for Kiyomi.

I didn't look back.

Didn't have to.

I knew if I turned my eyes from the bastard in front of me, it'd cost more than a scar.

So I let go.

The world narrowed to a point. The kind of clarity only pain could buy. Every breath the ink-robed bastard took, I heard it. Every twitch of muscle, every weight shift, every flaw in his form—I saw it.

And started fighting like I used to.

Like an animal.

He parried high.

I bit low.

Not metaphorically. I bit—sank my teeth into the meat of his sword arm, tasting iron before blood burst loose. He screamed, and that was the second mistake.

The first was showing up.

My head cracked into his nose. I heard cartilage collapse.

He swung wild—panicked. I ducked, grabbed his kimono, and drove my forehead into his mouth.

Teeth broke.

Then I slammed him to the ground.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

The fourth time, the floor cracked instead of him.

Someone shouted. I couldn't hear the words.

All I heard was my heart.Pounding like it was trying to escape my ribs.

And then—hands. Not on me. Not against me.

On my face.

"Toki!"

The word broke through like sunlight through a boarded-up window.

Kiyomi.

She had one hand on my cheek, one on her chest. Breathing hard. Her talisman had fizzled at her feet—burnt out in a spiral of ash.

I looked down at my hands.

Still clutching the ink-wielder's body. Barely alive. Face a swollen mess. Blade broken at his side.

I should've killed him.

I wanted to.

But I didn't.

Not because I stopped myself.

Because she stopped me.

"I'm fine," she whispered, voice shaking. "I'm fine."

No she wasn't.

Neither was I.

She dropped to her knees beside me, and for a moment neither of us said anything.

Not until I asked, softly:

"Did you see that?"

She nodded. Didn't look away.

"I saw everything."

Guards arrive too late. Servants sweep in with cloth and hush. But all the noise in the world can't drown out what just happened.

Kiyomi stood.

Wobbled.

Stayed standing anyway.

I stayed kneeling, hands still stained red, knuckles raw from stone and flesh. I wasn't breathing heavy. I wasn't breathing at all.

The moment I did, I'd smell the copper again.

I'd want it again.

The lead retainer, the one who hated me the most, barked orders like it'd make him useful. Two others grabbed the intruders' bodies. One alive. One not.

"You will answer for this," he snapped at me.

I met his gaze with eyes colder than steel. "Try me."

He didn't.

Kiyomi didn't speak until we were alone again. She took me through the back halls of the estate, away from eyes, away from ears. Her steps were silent.

Then she stopped.

Turned.

And asked the question I'd been dreading since I saw her fingers trembling.

"What was that?"

I leaned against the wall, peeled a drying smear of blood from my jaw. "You mean the part where I saved your life, or the part where I almost painted the floor with someone's skull?"

She didn't flinch. "Both."

I didn't answer.

Because I didn't know how to say:That's who I am.That's who I was before you made me forget how good killing felt.

"It's not the first time, is it?" she said, softer now. "Losing control."

"…No."

She stepped closer. "How far has it gone before?"

My fingers twitched.

A muddy field. A boy's face. One I didn't recognize until the screaming stopped. Until I was pulled off him by a monk with only one arm and a face full of judgment.

I came back to her voice.

"Toki."

I looked at her. At the girl who could call wind and light with her words but still looked so damn small in the shadows of this place.

"I was raised in the kind of places where monsters don't hide under beds," I said. "They sleep in them. And if you didn't become worse than them, you didn't wake up at all."

She looked away then. Down the empty corridor.

"You're not a monster."

"You don't know that."

"I do. Because if you were… I'd be dead."

She started walking again. Slower this time. "Come. The scroll they were carrying—it's being brought to the archive wing. I want you with me when we open it."

"Why?"

"Because whatever's inside was worth trying to kill me for."

She glanced back. "And because... I trust you."

For a second, I almost smiled.

Then I followed her into whatever trap fate was laying next.

Stone floor. Rows of sealed tomes and sacred texts. The air was thick with dust and reverence. Only two types of people came here—scholars and schemers.

Kiyomi was both.

We stepped into the archive chamber flanked by two guards. They didn't look at me. Smart choice.

A thick table sat at the center, and atop it: the scroll.

It pulsed.

Not literally. But something about it felt wrong. Like it was breathing just under the surface. Like opening it would let something out that had no business walking in daylight.

"Only the heir of this house may break that seal," said one of the scribes, bowed so deep his forehead brushed the floor.

Kiyomi said nothing. Just stepped forward and laid her hand on the scroll.

The seal cracked.

Not with light. Not with fanfare.

With a whisper.

Like something glad to be awake again.

She unrolled the scroll slowly.

Line by line.

First came the calligraphy—tight, elegant, unmistakably Imperial. Not a forgery. Not this time.

Then came the content.

And I watched Kiyomi's breath hitch.

She read aloud.

"To the one born under the Fox Star, bearer of the Red Wind, child of legacy yet unnamed...""You are summoned not to serve, but to ascend."

She blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed. Her fingers trembled above the parchment.

"Keep going," I said.

Her voice was quieter now.

"Beyond the Temple of the Hollow Flame lies the Record of Blood—sealed at birth and guarded by the pact your mother died to uphold.""Seek the truth of your inheritance. Alone."

Kiyomi dropped the scroll.

The room was silent for a full five seconds.

Then—

"She never told me."

Her voice was glass, about to break.

"I was told my mother died of illness. That she was a healer. That she died before I ever cast my first spell."

She looked up at me. Her eyes weren't wide with fear.

They were burning.

"They lied to me."

I picked up the scroll. Ran my fingers over the final lines.

There were more words.

They weren't written in ink.

They were written in blood.

"If she is reading this, she is the last. The pact is broken. The others are dead. They will come for her now—not because of what she's done…""…but because of what she was born to do."

Kiyomi backed away from the table like it might bite her.

And I understood now.

This wasn't about politics.

This wasn't even about the Emperor.

It was a bloodline purge. And the girl I'd just promised to protect?

She wasn't a noble.

She was a threat. A weapon. A prophecy.

And every killer in the land just got handed a target.

The air's still thick with truth. The scroll lies open, forgotten. And Kiyomi's walking—fast, aimless, away.

She didn't speak.

Didn't run.

Just walked and I followed.

Not close. Just enough to keep her in reach. In case she snapped.

Or collapsed.

She stopped beneath a withered tree near the back wall of the estate. One of those old things nobles keep around because it's historic, or tragic, or expensive.

Then she sat.

And didn't move.

I waited.Then finally broke the silence.

"You breathing?"

"Yes."Her voice cracked. "But I wish I wasn't."

That wasn't the kind of thing you replied to with a joke.So I said nothing.

Kiyomi stared at the ground. Her hands were in her lap, clenched so tight her knuckles had gone bloodless.

"I'm not her," she whispered. "This mother they speak of. This... Fox Star. I never knew her. I never asked for this."

She turned her head, jaw trembling.

"I'm not some savior. Or a legacy. I'm a girl who wanted to read books and pass exams and maybe—maybe—live long enough to fall in love before politics killed me."

That last line hit me harder than it should have.

Because it wasn't dramatic.

It was just true.

"I don't even know who I am anymore."

"You're Kiyomi," I said.

She laughed. Bitter. "That name doesn't mean anything anymore."

"It does to me."

She blinked at that.

I sat down beside her. Not touching. Just there.Like a shadow with a pulse.

"You think you're the only one who's been lied to about their past?" I asked.

She looked up at me. Slowly.

So I told her.

Not everything.

Just enough.

How my mother's face never stuck in memory.How I used to flinch when monks raised their hands—even in prayer.How the first time I killed, it wasn't for coin or orders. It was because I was hungry. And the boy had rice.

Kiyomi said nothing for a long while.

Then:"Do you remember his face?"