fic for silverdoll14 (2/2)

[nino_mod]

For: silverdoll14
From: :3.

Part 1


Sho returned with news later the following evening. He spoke in his overly polite, diplomatic tone. The tone Nino had asked him repeatedly to drop in his presence, but it seemed to be the only way Sho could manage to get his words out. At least where Jun was concerned.

“Prince Jun will meet you in the private baths a week from tomorrow.”

“A week?” He didn’t even want to complain about the planned venue. The baths?

Sho bowed his head in apology. “He leaves the capital tomorrow for a holiday in the north. To get away from the heat here.”

Nino narrowed his eyes. “And how long has he been planning this trip? I thought you heard all the gossip around here, Sho.”

Sho raised his head, perhaps a little annoyed that Nino found him lacking in some way. It was obvious that Yukio had never given Sho as much trouble as Nino did. “There was quite a lot of activity in his apartments this afternoon. Packing and such. Given the frenzied state of it, I’d say this was a rather impromptu holiday.”

Nino took this in, pacing the room. Jun had seen what Nino could do. He was still the heir in name, but how much longer would that last? Nino was illegitimate, but he had the power that Jun lacked. So Jun was likely fleeing the capital to determine his next steps or to find new allies since Nino supposed the ones he had at court might abandon him.

“What about Masaki? What happens to him when Jun runs away?”

Sho made a face at Nino’s tone but otherwise spoke without emotion. “Princess Mariya will care for him. She is not accompanying the prince on his trip. And before you ask, yes, you can trust her in that regard.”

He chuckled. “My paranoia is that obvious to you?”

Sho offered a small smile. “Just a bit.”

“How long before he recovers?”

“Another day or two. I’m sure he’s endured far worse over the years than this.”

Nino wished Masaki didn’t have to endure anything at all, but that all depended on whether Nino could make quick progress or not.

He’d spent the better part of his day in the library, unraveling other scrolls and putting them aside to convince any spies among the library staff that his historical interests were eclectic. His remaining hours had been spent looking at a few of the unmarked shelves housing Raku’s notes. There was one phrase in particular he was looking for, perhaps the key to unlocking other mysteries.

He was looking for the symbols carved onto his skin. Or he was looking for their meaning written out, whether it was “the wind blowing down mountains” or simply the more modern character for “storm.” If Nino could find documents where Raku had written about the tattoos, then it might point him to other solutions.

The language was the thing, Nino had realized. He’d likely have to break the curse by speaking in the language of the gods. The language that nobody knew, at least nobody alive today. Sorcery had fallen out of favor, Rumiko had explained. Of course she’d somehow managed to teach herself bits and pieces, but she was the last person Nino could ask to advise him.

But he had a few ideas.

“Sho, I have another thing to ask of you.”

“Of course.”

Nino grinned. “How do I get onto the roof?”

—

The following night he put on the red servants’ robes that Sho had provided for him, dutifully covering up his tattoos and tying the black mourning ribbon around his sleeve. Sho’s room was on the third and top floor of the servants’ quarters, and a ladder to the roof was housed in one of the rooms nearby. In case of a fire or other emergency, any servants not assigned to a noble or royal dwelling on the palace’s ground floor were expected to climb the ladder and escape onto the roof.

The robes made him a person of little interest as he carefully walked down the corridor with his head down, heading for the stairs. Sho said that princes had been known to disguise themselves in this manner to meet with servant girls. Sho hadn’t bothered to speculate whether those dalliances were always consensual on the servant girls’ side. Nino shoved away thoughts of his mother. Even if her affair with Yukio had been a result of mutual attraction, that wasn’t necessarily a guarantee for others of her occupation.

It was likely best that any servants who might recognize his face in passing just assumed he was sleeping around. It was the better excuse to have if the king or Rumiko inquired about his nightly whereabouts.

Instead Nino made it up to the third floor landing, finding Sho standing in the doorway of his tiny bedchamber. Unlike the lower floors, the servants were tightly packed up here, sharing bathing facilities and living in rooms that could fit little more than the mattress they slept on.

Sho only offered him a nod before going into his room and shutting the door. He obviously didn’t approve of what Nino wished to do, but this was one area where Nino had decided not to rely on Sho’s counsel.

He moved swiftly down the hall and into the empty room with the ladder, shutting the door behind him. Unless there was a fire tonight, nobody would follow him. He climbed the ladder carefully, doing his best not to step on the flowing red material of the borrowed robes as he headed for the roof.

It wasn’t much more than a square wooden door with a hinge, and he turned the latch, pushing it up. The roof of the royal palace was flat stone and lacking in elegance. After all, most people viewed only the beautiful facade, its marble arches and the courtyard fountains. Nobody found themselves up here too often, save for whichever servant had the unpleasant task of cleaning bird shit from the stone.

The palace stretched on for acres, the roof interrupted here and there with rectangular or square openings, the fountains and courtyards and pools of the royal family and their privileged guests three floors below. He was a bit turned around, given the unnecessarily convoluted layout of the residential wing. It took him a few minutes to find the gap in the roof that allowed a spying god to look down on Nino’s own sitting room.

Helpfully, the god was doing just that, perched at the edge of the roof with his bare feet hanging over the side. Nino made no effort to disguise his footsteps as he approached, warmth crawling up his arm as he came closer. Satoshi made no effort to move either. Perhaps he’d expected Nino to come find him.

Without excusing his intrusion on the god’s nightly spying (or introspection), he sat right beside him, trying not to feel intimidated by the sheer drop to the pool in the courtyard below. He sat with a gentle sigh, crossing his arms.

“Good evening,” he said in greeting, knowing he was unlikely to get an answer.

And he didn’t.

Nodding in amusement, he looked aside, taking in the sight of the god beside him. Satoshi’s clothes were just as sloppy and old as the ones he’d been wearing that day in the storage room. Nino was almost reminded of some of the clothes he’d worn back in the caravan, when money and earnings might be better used to obtain food or plants he could use for healing rather than replace a stained pair of still functional trousers.

Satoshi sat, legs hanging over the edge, stretched back comfortably with his hands resting behind him. He was looking up at the moon, almost in another world. It took Nino by surprise a few moments later when Satoshi actually spoke.

“Your Highness.”

The voice of another god. There was nothing powerful about it. Just as Masaki’s voice had sounded like that of an ordinary man, calm and controlled, so was Satoshi’s. Although Satoshi made little effort to enunciate his words. He probably had little motivation to chatter, given how he’d been mistreated for so long.

“He speaks,” Nino joked softly, trying to ignore the warmth spreading beyond his tattooed arm and into his chest. He remembered the change that had come over Satoshi when Nino had given his command. The stubborn, resisting god’s face becoming the most beautiful, heartbreaking thing Nino had ever seen.

The silence continued this time. Perhaps Satoshi only acknowledged him because he feared retaliation if he didn’t. Though Satoshi didn’t strike Nino as someone who was afraid very often. Nino decided it was on him to communicate.

“As I said to you the other night, I won’t force you to talk to me. But I was under the impression that you might someday wish to,” he said quietly. “Since you’ve likely been spying on me ever since I arrived here.”

He looked over again, saw that Satoshi’s expression hadn’t changed. He kept going anyway.

“I don’t know how often you speak with your brother, but he and I…he and I have had our ups and downs so far. You see, Masaki provided me with a very rare plant to ease my suffering after the words of your language were stabbed into my skin. And to return the favor, I did as my grandfather commanded, forcing your brother to provide water until he passed out in exhaustion. I nearly killed him.”

Satoshi exhaled hard, as though keeping up his silence was becoming more difficult.

“The curse of my family, it’s a strong one. I can sit here by your side, at the side of a god, and tell you how I hurt your brother and yet you can’t do anything. You can’t even give me a shove, let me drop and crack my skull open down there. You can’t have the satisfaction of seeing my brains splattered across the stone, can you?”

He was rewarded this time with a smirk. Perhaps Satoshi spent most of his nights out here envisioning just that, Nino’s gruesome demise. Nino couldn’t fault him for it if he did.

“I’m sorry for that,” he said. “I’m sorry for all of it. A little more than a month ago, you were only a myth to me. A character in a childhood story. The two sons of the God of the Waters who came to this place to save us all. I’d half forgotten it, to tell you the truth, because it mattered so little to me. I grew up in a caravan, traveling the desert. I could never picture water like this, I couldn’t imagine water filling a pail or a cookpot or a pool by sheer magic. All the water I’ve known has been precious, hard-won. Not something to decorate your palace, but a commodity more valuable than gold.”

He uncrossed his arms, still feeling the warm throb of pleasurable pain in his tattooed flesh. He leaned back just as Satoshi did, mirroring him.

“You’ve been watching me, sitting up here who knows how many nights. Perhaps you’ve drawn your own conclusions about me. Or perhaps your brother has sought to influence your opinions. I have a brother now too. I didn’t have that before either, though he and I have not been properly acquainted yet. Either way, the reason I’ve come up here tonight, Satoshi, was to tell you that you don’t have to rely on whatever your godly ears pick up from what I say three floors down. You don’t have to rely on your brother’s impressions of me. I’m here if you have any questions or anything to say.”

The silence hung in the air for a solid minute. It seemed like Satoshi wasn’t terribly interested in talking to him. Which Nino felt was fair. But that didn’t mean he planned to stop trying. Satoshi had been watching him for a reason. Something about him had gotten the god’s attention.

He sighed, getting to his feet. Sho wasn’t going to like it, but he wasn’t getting those borrowed robes back any time soon.

“Prince Jun is leaving the palace for a holiday,” he continued, standing back a little from the edge to keep his fears at bay. “I’ve been told that his mother will be caring for your brother while he’s gone. I’m sure you already knew that, but, well, I’m still a newcomer here and I don’t know how quickly word spreads around about these things. Wanted to make sure you knew.”

Satoshi didn’t move a muscle, his dark and uncombed hair ruffling in the breeze.

“Okay. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll come visit with you another time. Good night.”

He was several paces away when he received a reply that warmed his arm (and the rest of him) once again.

“Good night, Your Highness.”

—

Nino made his way to the rooftop every night for the next week. No matter what time he left his room wrapped up in the red servants’ robes, Satoshi was already perched in his usual place, staring up at the night sky. He did little to change up his routine. He greeted Nino politely and bid him farewell politely. He never otherwise spoke. He never otherwise moved from his place.

Nino sat alongside him for hours, chatting about harmless topics until his tongue was heavy and his mouth was dry. Though he got zero response, he told Satoshi about life in the caravan. The constant moving from town to town. Living in a tent. Watching the Water Finding ceremony. Standing with townsfolk, helping them to dig through hard-packed soil or heavy sand to try and find new water sources. He could have told Satoshi the most outrageous lies, since it seemed like nothing he said made a bit of difference to the god.

Perhaps it was cruel in its own way, chattering away like a fool and forcing Satoshi to put up with it. But Satoshi never made an attempt to move, no matter how long Nino sat there talking about himself. At first it had been difficult, speaking his words to the wind and getting absolutely nothing in return. But it grew easier in time.

He had his reasons for doing so. Logically, he was opening himself up to a presumed enemy. He held power over Satoshi, true, but he didn’t use it. He didn’t use any of their quiet nighttime sessions to brag about his tattoos or what he could do. Instead he talked about the past, about his life before the complication of Amaterasu. He wanted Satoshi to know that he was a thinking and feeling person, not a monster like his ancestors. He thought that if he let himself be vulnerable around Satoshi that maybe it would help. He couldn’t do much about the imbalance between them, but he wanted Satoshi to know that he was real. That this wasn’t the life he’d envisioned for himself.

His other reasons were less logical. His guilt clung to him, suffocated him. He hated the idea that Satoshi might fear him. Well, perhaps not fear him but rather fear what the curse of his blood could do. He wanted to ease those fears as best he could. And then there was the other reason, the reason lingering in the back of his mind, where he thought about the first time they’d met. The time when he’d seen Satoshi cry. When the anger had fallen away, the heaviness of his life here in Amaterasu. In that moment, Nino had seen a different person.

Selfish as it was, Nino wanted to meet that Satoshi again. He just hoped it would be under better circumstances. He wasn’t quite ready yet to digest what that might mean and how it might complicate his more noble-minded mission.

Either way, his evenings on the rooftop were a rather refreshing break from most of his conversations downstairs with Sho, going through the notes that he had snuck inside his clothes and smuggled out of the palace library. He’d found a few references to storms in one scroll, but after going over the antiquated language with Sho, they realized that it had only been about a series of freak storms in the Empire of Salt to the north. Nothing useful yet.

When he wasn’t in the library, vision blurring during hours of squinting at ancient text, Nino had been in “training” with Rumiko. Masaki had recovered a few days earlier, but thankfully he nor his brother had been called upon to test Nino’s powers again. Instead Rumiko had taught him a few more words. Combined with those already carved into his flesh, he could exert his will in different ways.

They walked the palace and the gardens together. With only “the wind blowing down mountains,” Masaki and Satoshi would fill whatever was before them, whether it was a pot or an elaborate fountain. With more targeted language, Nino could offer more specific instructions.

He learned the words for north, west, south, and east. The words for up and down, near and far. Combined with words in his own language like fountain, well, or pipe and even numbers, he could order Satoshi or Masaki to attend to things without him having to be present. It was a crude combination of languages, the common tongue and the divine, but apparently the Matsumoto royals had relied on it for generations since those who had properly studied the language of the gods had all died off. Or perhaps they had been killed by a king gone mad and jealous of sharing his power, sharing the words that were his to use and not the purview of scholars.

None of the words Rumiko taught him would likely break the curse.

Come morning, Jun would return and Nino would meet with him privately for the first time. In Jun’s absence, Nino had taken the time to go into the underground passages beneath the palace. The passages had been here long before the rest of the palace, cool caves that offered a welcome respite from the desert heat. The exits had been closed off, sealed so that entry was only possible from the palace above. Unlike the rest of the palace grounds, the water in the baths was all natural, coming from a spring deep within the ground rather than from the sacrifice of the gods.

With Sho at his side, he’d taken in the grand pool that dominated the main chamber, the water lying still under the high, arched ceilings. The walls were painted red and yellow, looking bloody in some areas, sickly in others. Aside from the main pool, there were smaller grottoes down twisting paths, hidden away for more private pursuits. There were heated pools and cold ones depending on who wished to use them. But they largely sat empty, intended only for royal use.

Nino wasn’t sure what to think of his brother’s choice of venue. Tomorrow would be a time to be cautious, to gauge what Jun thought of him and how it might affect his plans moving forward.

But that was for him to worry about in the morning. For now, he could mostly relax.

He climbed the ladder to the roof as he had so many nights already, looking forward to the peace and quiet offered. Even with the bustling palace underfoot, Nino was almost reminded of the quiet of the vast deserts away from the capital. The sands he’d traveled for year after year, thinking only of when he might escape them. He longed for that now, for that simpler existence. For the stink of a camel under him, the swaying motion lulling him in and out of sleep as the caravan progressed beneath a sea of stars. The only sea Nino had ever known.

Satoshi probably had a different sea in mind when he looked up into the sky, silent and alone.

Nino made his way across the roof, wondering if he’d been turned around by accident. Because the roof was empty. Wasn’t this where Satoshi sat? Wasn’t that his own courtyard down below? He looked around, confused. Perhaps he’d been foolish to expect Satoshi to endure him and his stories for yet another night.

He turned when he heard a hissing whisper in the distance. It wasn’t Satoshi. It was Sho.

“Come quickly,” Sho was calling out to him, still standing near the open door above the ladder. “Nino, come quickly!”

He rushed over, not caring if there might be servants in the rooms below wondering what was happening up top. He reached out, grabbing hold of Sho by his arm.

“What’s wrong?”

“The king had need of Satoshi tonight. I’ve only just learned…”

Nino’s heart sank.

“Where is he now?”

“If he’s weakened, I’m not sure. He’s been known to hide in these situations…”

“Sho, make an intelligent guess.”

“It seems the king was dissatisfied with one of the garden fountains. He had it totally drained so it might be refilled. Satoshi was sent out before sundown, but those fountains hold a great deal of water.”

“There are things I will need first,” he said, mind racing at what he might be able to do.

“What kind of things?” Sho reached over, resting his hand against Nino’s shoulder. “You must be careful. Satoshi is acting on the king’s orders, and you cannot interfere.”

“Then nobody can find out, can they?”

Sho sighed. “Very well.”

—

An hour later they found Satoshi kneeling before a fountain in the southeast quadrant of the palace gardens. Nino had walked the gardens with Rumiko the last several days and knew how to best dodge the Kingsguard’s patrols. Night was an added challenge, but their patterns remained predictable.

Nino felt that now familiar burst of heat rush up his arm as soon as he came close enough. Satoshi had his hand pressed against the stone rim of the large fountain, but his grip faltered in the instant that Nino approached. Perhaps the feeling worked in each direction.

“Serve as lookout,” Nino told Sho. “Just around that bend. Whistle if someone approaches.”

Sho wasn’t pleased with the order. “Be quick about it.”

Nino smirked at Sho’s attitude, amused. His bossiness was rather endearing. Sho did as told, though, setting down the basket of items from the storeroom of the palace physician. The guard standing outside had not objected to Nino entering, and it was unlikely the man had known what Nino was taking with him.

With Sho gone, Nino hoisted the basket into his arms, moving to sit on the edge of the fountain with Satoshi kneeling just beside him. He could hear the gentle rush of the water as it sloshed behind him. Draining the fountain had likely been unnecessary, an act performed only by a sadistic fool like his grandfather. It was a waste of Satoshi’s talents, forcing him to remain here until the job was finished to Kotaro’s satisfaction.

“You weren’t in your usual spot,” Nino said quietly, setting the basket down beside him. He took out a mortar and pestle, squinting in the faint starlight to find the packets of herbs that he needed.

“Your Highness,” Satoshi acknowledged, his voice utterly exhausted. But still he held tight to the fountain, concentrating on the task at hand.

“I’m not sure any of the things I’ve brought will work on a god, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to try.”

At that, Satoshi removed his hand from the fountain, looking up from where he was kneeling. For what might have been the first time since they’d started their late night meetings, he looked up into Nino’s face.

“What are you doing?”

Nino tried desperately to ignore the way his tattoo throbbed as a full sentence dropped from the lips of the god beside him. It hadn’t felt like this when Masaki had spoken to him. He worked through the pain, opting for one of his most reliable powders. Four ingredients in equal portions, pounded to dust, mixed with a few mint leaves and some sticky Callavan oil. Not the most pleasant taste.

“This is called Callavan’s Revival,” he explained. “Might have mentioned it to you the other night.”

Satoshi hadn’t moved his hand back to the fountain. He was so unnerved by Nino’s arrival that he was now directly violating what the king had ordered. He wondered if Satoshi’s pain increased the longer he delayed.

“In case you’ve forgotten, which is likely given that I probably told you every single concoction I can make the other night, Callavan’s Revival is often fed to horses suffering from exhaustion in the desert. Not that I’m comparing you to a horse, Satoshi, but I’ve seen how overexerting yourself can be damaging. Instead of seeing you pass out here so you might bake under the sun tomorrow until this fountain is full, I’m hoping that swallowing this will revive you somewhat.”

He finished mixing the solid ingredients, reaching into the basket for the mint, tugging a few leaves and sprinkling them into the mortar. The night’s darkness didn’t slow him down. Nino was certain he could make dozens of things without needing his eyes open. Such was the expertise of a healer.

“I’m just going to mix this with the Callavan oil, and it will be ready in just a moment.”

“No.”

He looked over, seeing that Satoshi had turned back to his task. His hand was back on the fountain now and presumably he had resumed filling it. Nino frowned.

“No?”

“I don’t need your charity.”

“I don’t even know if it’s going to help you. Indulge me.”

“If you tell me to take it, then I will take it.”

This was the most Satoshi had spoken, but it wasn’t the type of response Nino had expected. He stopped grinding the ingredients together, reaching a hand out, stopping just short of resting it on Satoshi’s shoulder. “I’m not forcing or ordering. I just want to help.”

“I belong to this family so do as you must.”

“You don’t belong to anyone. What’s been done to you is wrong, and I’m doing my best to fix it.”

“I’ve said what I think, Matsumoto Kazunari. But if you insist I take it, then I will take it.”

“You’re misunderstanding me,” Nino pleaded, wondering if his weeklong exercise in opening himself up to Satoshi had been pointless.

“You’re the one who is misunderstanding,” Satoshi said, his voice sharp and menacing.

“I just want to help you feel better!” he hissed.

“You want to make yourself feel better!” Satoshi shot back, raising his voice for the first time.

The mortar slipped from Nino’s hand. Before it could hit the paving stones, Satoshi had reached out a hand, catching it deftly. The reflexes of a god, even a weakened one. He set it on top of the fountain at Nino’s side. A bit had spilled over the edges, but the majority of the Callavan’s Revival had been saved.

He shut up, dropping the wet pestle into the basket beside him with a heavy thump. Since Sho hadn’t whistled or come to chide them for being loud, he assumed that Satoshi’s outburst had thankfully gone unnoticed.

Nino sighed in frustration, resting his elbows on his knees, holding his head in his hands. Had Yukio ever felt this way?

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked uselessly, voice shaking. “What the fuck am I supposed to do here?”

A few moments passed, and he tried to breathe, to clear his mind. This was stupid. This wasn’t working. He wasn’t going to save Satoshi or Masaki by being friendly. It didn’t really matter how he treated them. Releasing them was the only thing that mattered. Once freed, they’d likely never give him a second thought. After hundreds of years of torment, Nino’s actions, Nino’s time in Amaterasu would be like the time between breaths, the time between heartbeats.

Short. Meaningless.

He was startled then when he heard Satoshi let out a soft laugh, a chuckle under his breath.

“What?” he asked quietly.

Satoshi’s shoulders were shaking in amusement, and he reached forward, grabbing hold of the mortar he’d caught. Nino watched as he swirled his finger around in it before bringing it to his lips and swallowing Callavan’s Revival down.

Nino waited for an answer. He almost thought Satoshi wasn’t going to give him one, but finally the god flexed his fingers, repositioning his hand against the fountain.

“You’re the first one I’ve ever yelled at like that. The first one I’ve been able to tell what I really felt and I…”

Nino leaned forward, watching the awkward smile cross the god’s face. It changed him completely, that smile. Made him look gentle, kind. Different. Different in the way that made Nino’s stomach tie itself in knots.

“You’re laughing because you were able to tell me to go fuck myself, is that it?”

Satoshi turned the smile to him, letting it fade slightly. He still seemed a bit shocked by his own reaction. “Yes.”

Nino narrowed his eyes. “Terrific.”

“You don’t…you can’t possibly…” Satoshi chuckled again, a whimsical sound that made Nino realize that he was in danger. Not the danger faced by a young royal in the Amaterasu court.

Rather, the danger and the anxiety that came with finally admitting to yourself that you care for someone.

“I’m forbidden to harm you,” Satoshi explained. “Not just physically. When someone in your bloodline gives an order, I obey. When your family’s tattoos tell me to give water, I obey. Until now, all I could do was obey. You’re the strongest in generations and I just…”

Nino listened to Satoshi’s astonished, almost arrogant laughter, torn between the embarrassment that came with being teased and the sheer delight that was hearing Satoshi laugh, showing his feelings so openly.

“I was able to tell you no,” Satoshi said, still laughing.

It was the most incredible sound Nino had ever heard, the laughter of a stubborn god.

“Tell me something…” When Satoshi’s laughter died down, Nino cleared his throat. “Sorry, I shouldn’t phrase things like a command. Let me instead just ask. Did the Callavan’s Revival help?”

Satoshi was focused on the fountain. “Not really.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Satoshi said. His voice was lighter now. “Thank you.”

He was grateful Satoshi could not see him blush. “It was arrogant of me,” Nino mumbled. “Feeding horse cures to an immortal.”

“Masaki is right about you,” Satoshi admitted, though he didn’t bother to elaborate on what that meant.

The moment between them was finally broken when Sho came around the corner, voice hushed. “Fairly certain the patrol will pass this way to check on his progress.”

“Then I’ll leave you alone,” Nino said, getting to his feet and gathering up his items and putting them in the basket. The last thing he wanted to do was get Satoshi in trouble. “Good night.”

“Good night, Your Highness.”

—

He used what influence he’d gained over the Kingsguard to ensure that nobody else entered the private baths underground while he and Jun met.

Nino brought Sho with him, taking the stone steps back down to the pools beneath the palace. The main pool was empty, and Sho led him down one of the narrow side paths. Coming around a corner, they arrived at one of the hot private baths, the chill in the cave lessened by the steam. It was carved out of the cave wall, a deep pool with a ledge jutting out for bathers to sit within. More hot water gushed out from a crevice in the wall to the side of the pool, the bubbling noise not likely to block all conversation but perhaps some.

He wasn’t surprised to find the heir to the throne relaxing in the hot water, resting his back against the stone with his arms out to his sides, perched out of the water. If he feared Nino, he was attempting to convey the opposite, as he’d chosen to bathe without a stitch of clothing on. Nino’s brother was finely formed, muscular and strong, and he knew it. His dark hair was wet, slicked back from his face, and he had a young woman to either side of him. Upon Nino’s arrival, one of the women leaned over as if on cue, pressing her mouth against Jun’s neck. The prince chuckled in amusement, leaning back to expose more of his skin to her.

The other woman’s hands were under the water, perhaps otherwise occupied.

“Brother,” Jun declared, making no attempt to get up. His voice was clear and joking as it had been the first day they’d met. “At last.”

Nino looked aside, saw that Sho was behind him, eyes down, on his knees in deference to the prince. “Am I interrupting?” Nino inquired, standing at the edge of the pool opposite Jun and his elaborate charade.

“I cleared my busy schedule just for you,” Jun replied.

Nino raised an eyebrow. “And your friends?”

Jun grinned, licking his lips. “Well, perhaps I didn’t clear everything.” He turned to the woman beside him, letting her kisses find his mouth instead of his neck. Nino looked away, trying not to laugh. Jun likely thought this would put him off, send him away. After all, it worked on everyone else, this playboy act of his.

“Perhaps Sho was imprecise when I sent him to you last week. I requested a private meeting with you.”

Jun finally let out a heavy sigh, breaking away from his companion. With only a look, he dismissed the two women. They made no effort to move with any speed, and Nino ignored their lithe, wet bodies as they came out of the water, reaching for their silk robes. Instead he looked at the inside of his brother’s bared left arm. The tattoos there looked no different from Nino’s, even after fourteen years.

When the women finally disappeared around the corner, Nino waved a hand for Sho. “Please make sure Prince Jun’s companions find their way to their rooms.”

Jun smiled as Sho quietly rose to his feet. “Do come back, Sho,” he said teasingly. “I know you’ve missed me.”

Sho said nothing as he left, heading off to ensure that Jun’s companions didn’t stick around to eavesdrop. When they were alone, Nino sat down on the ground, watching Jun from across the pool.

“You don’t want to get in?” Jun brought a hand down to the water, splashing gently. “It’s rather nice.”

“No, thank you.”

Jun sighed, leaning back and shutting his eyes. He didn’t seem to mind his vulnerable position. “I’ve spent the last week pondering what you want from me. At first I thought you wanted to ask me to step aside. After that ridiculous show you put on in Grandfather’s chamber, I thought I should expect it. But then I thought a bit more. You’re quite powerful now, Little Usurper. You don’t need to ask.”

“Isn’t that the king’s decision to make?” Nino asked carefully. “Who succeeds him?”

Jun still hadn’t opened his eyes, his hand gently skimming across the steaming water. “Grandfather has Rumiko’s poison tongue by his ear. She loathes me, and now she’s pulled you from a sand dune, fully formed and ready to carry on the family legacy. Bit scrawny for a king, but it’s not as though your people will ever see you.”

“You think I’ve come here to brag?” Nino wondered. “You think I’ve come to tell you that your time is at an end?”

Jun opened his dark, clever eyes. “Haven’t you?”

He spoke plainly. “No, Jun, I haven’t come to brag. I’ve come to meet you.”

Jun raised his arms, droplets scattering as he waved them. “Here I am.”

“No,” Nino replied. “I’m not here to meet Matsumoto Jun, the indifferent prince. I’m here to meet the real Matsumoto Jun.”

Jun lowered his arms, crossing them over his chest. “There is only one me, brother.”

“And I would argue that’s not true. Out of favor with your grandfather. Out of favor with your father. The powers of your birthright never materializing. It’s enough to drive any man over the edge, surely. Any man might revolt against such injustice, get himself exiled or killed after fighting to regain his pride. Instead you’ve fashioned this character, this farce, and you wear it well. A man of apathy, a man of decadent pleasures.”

Jun said nothing, waiting for him to finish.

“You wear it to hide your real agenda, to hide your intelligence. And to hide your heart.”

“You’ve got it all figured out then?” Jun spat.

“You could have let Sho die,” he said sharply. “A Matsumoto descendant of Sorcerer Raku doesn’t look upon a servant and see a human being. He sees a tool to be used, an object. He doesn’t argue for a traitor to live. And the man you pretend to be, who cares only about the next mouth around his cock, why would he argue for a traitor to live? What does he care about the life or death of a servant when there are hundreds here?”

Nino tilted his head, smiling.

“You hid your heart well, Jun. You cloaked yourself in protocol, asking for a stay of execution in honor of Yukio’s death. You didn’t dare ask for the death sentence to be lifted entirely, you’re not stupid, but you found a way to save him without having to look weak.”

“Why do you dwell on the subject of my father’s loyal lapdog? He means nothing to me.”

“Then why did you save him?” He laughed. “If he means nothing to you, then why did you save him?”

Jun’s irritated look assured him that he was right. Had nobody else ever bothered to really understand him?

“As I said, I’ve come to meet you. Not overthrow you. If this is the person you’re going to be every time, this…pathetic narcissist, then I don’t think we will ever meet again, brother. But if you show me the real Matsumoto Jun, then I will show you the real Ninomiya Kazunari.”

He got to his feet, turning his back on Jun and walking away.

“Matsumoto.”

Nino paused, not turning around.

“You may have lofty aspirations, but you are a Matsumoto the same as me,” Jun’s low voice threatened him. “The same as our grandfather, and the same as that witch. The same as Raku centuries ago. I watched what you did to Masaki. Whatever your excuse, however you managed to justify it to yourself, you are complicit in the suffering of the gods. That is the real you.”

He took a breath, acknowledging the truth of Jun’s words. For the first time, Nino had heard the real Matsumoto Jun. He wanted to hear more. But he had to leave that choice to Jun.

“Enjoy your bath,” Nino replied, walking away.

—

Rumiko sent Masaki to the fruit groves with Nino just before dawn a few days later. Target practice, his aunt had said, a way to test Nino’s evolving skills.

They walked the extensive palace grounds in silence, Nino with a bag slung over his shoulder and Masaki always deliberately a step behind him to assure the Kingsguard that he knew his place behind royalty.

The air was perfumed with the scent of orange and grapefruit. Later that morning servants would gather fruit that had fallen during the night or pick what was ripe on the trees. For now, they’d have a few hours alone. It spoke of Rumiko’s trust in him, sending them off to the groves alone. He decided to at least take advantage of it.

Inside his bag he had ingredients for at least a dozen different curatives. Even though the Callavan’s Revival had done nothing for Satoshi, Masaki seemed willing to test alternative solutions. Unlike his brother, Masaki was happy to accept Nino’s charity, even if nothing worked.

When Nino tried to apologize for what had happened in the audience chamber, Masaki had shaken his head. “My eyes are open, Ninomiya Kazunari. My eyes have always been wide open.”

Masaki knew the difference between Nino’s predecessors and Nino himself. That didn’t ease his suffering, Nino knew, but the god was insistent about making that distinction.

Nino practiced his new words. He asked for the wind blowing down mountains and he asked for it to come from above a tree, to fall down through its branches. Masaki did exactly as commanded. But instead of moving on to the next test, Nino ground up herbs and dried berries, stirred in liquids of all sorts, from the bile of a desert footworm to the milk from a coconut.

After each command, he had Masaki try something new and offer feedback. With the frequent breaks, he also hoped that Masaki wouldn’t tire as quickly regardless of what cures Nino was feeding him.

When Masaki had made water soak into the roots of a tree, turning the soil wet and heavy all around them, Nino sighed. “Perhaps I should have specified the amount of water.”

Masaki seemed to be having fun, under orders or not. Nino stirred a medicinal powder and honey into a cup of water, handing it over before cleaning mud from between his toes.

“This is good!” Masaki cheered, his friendly voice a bit scratchy, tired from their long morning together.

Nino’s spirits lifted. “It’s good? It’s helping you?”

Masaki chuckled, shaking his head. “No. Sorry. It just…tastes quite lovely.”

“Oh.”

“It’s probably from the honey,” Masaki added.

“Thank you for your unnecessary comments,” he grumbled. He had to start over.

Masaki grinned. “There was a servant girl, many many years ago. She always gave me massages when her mistress, the Queen, wasn’t around. To ease my tired muscles.”

Nino raised an eyebrow. “And did they work?”

“She was a very sweet girl.”

“Bad, huh?”

The god laughed. “She poked around in places that weren’t as sore as others, if you follow me.”

Nino dug around inside his bag to keep from blushing. Masaki and Satoshi had been here for a very long time. Kings, queens, servants…they’d lived and died and been replaced. The stories about the gods had always been so pure in tone. As a boy, Nino had learned of the two sons of the God of the Waters, obeying their father’s command and going to Amaterasu. He wondered if there were other stories, stories of the gods without a pure moral message.

If the gods looked like humans, or rather, if humans were made in the image of the gods, then did the gods have the same needs? They didn’t need sleep, but they needed rest. He didn’t know if Masaki ate often, but he seemed to enjoy the concoctions Nino was giving him. Did the gods ever want companionship? Or was that forbidden to them here?

He didn’t want to consider the other side of that coin. If his ancestors had used and abused Masaki and Satoshi for their water-creating abilities, what other uses might they have found for a handsome god who had no choice but to obey them?

“Let’s move to the next row of trees, and I’ll try something new,” Nino said instead, shaking away the idea.

They found a ladder, and Nino put a tin bucket used for fruit-picking up in the tree, balancing it against a thick branch. He asked for the wind blowing down mountains, requesting that Masaki fill the bucket overhead with enough to make it topple out of the tree. By the time that was done and the bucket fell, splashing water all the way to the ground, Nino had something new for him to try.

He’d merely filled a cup with water from the jug he was carrying, stirring in a pinch of salt. He held it out, determined. He spoke the words his aunt had taught him, but he chose to use them in a different context, combining them with a command in only the common tongue.

“Masaki. Drink of the far place.”

This time, when Masaki brought the glass to his lips, swallowing, Nino noticed the change almost instantly. Masaki held the glass away from him in shock, his eyes filling with tears of surprise.

“What’s…what’s in this one?”

“Water. And salt. That’s it.”

“Water and salt,” Masaki mumbled.

“Sea water. I commanded you to drink of ‘the far place’. I thought maybe the taste of that coupled with my order might help you to imagine your home.”

Tears fell from Masaki’s blinking eyes and he laughed. “It’s…it’s close. It’s been so long, I thought I’d forgotten but…Ninomiya Kazunari…”

He rested a hand on Masaki’s shoulder, his command as gentle as he could manage. “Drink of the far place again.”

Masaki obeyed, tears spilling out with a fierceness that brought tears to Nino’s own eyes. “It’s helping. It’s…truly helping.”

It wasn’t the salt water alone. It was the word that held power. It was the far place.

“What are the words in your language for healing?” he pressed. “Can you tell me? What about medicine? Or soothe, maybe soothe would be good for me to know…”

Masaki drained the glass, handing it back and shaking his head. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? I know you’ve been living here a long time, but it’s your language…”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying,” he replied quietly, eyes still swimming. “I honestly can’t tell you.”

It ached to hear it. “That’s part of the curse, too? You can’t speak your own language here?” He remembered the day that Masaki had referred to him as a “last hope,” but it had been in the common tongue.

“The only time I hear the words of my people are when they roll off a Matsumoto’s tongue. Ninomiya Kazunari, don’t you think that I would have said something all these years? If I could have taught a human the words for healing or even curse-breaking that I wouldn’t have tried?”

He looked down. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking…”

To his surprise, Masaki leaned forward, embracing him. His body was cool, even as the sun had arrived overhead. Why was he the one offering comfort? Nino couldn’t understand it.

“Don’t apologize,” Masaki whispered. “You are the first to use my language here for something positive. The first.”

“Not even Yukio?”

“He didn’t think the way you do. He was not a healer. He provided us safe haven when we were exhausted, but he never thought to do more than that. ”

He let Masaki go, not wanting the Kingsguard to see and misinterpret. He wiped his eyes, irritated that another possible solution had slipped away.

“Both you and Satoshi are forbidden to speak your language?”

“Yes.”

“Even with each other?”

“Of course,” Masaki said, smiling even through his tears. “They would have assumed we were plotting against them. And they’d have been right.”

“I can’t even imagine,” he mumbled.

He’d grown up speaking the common tongue, then reading it when his parents had taught him. He didn’t know any other languages, maybe only a handful of words from the countries along the Sun Kingdom’s borders, but those were only words for bartering and trading. Sorcerer Raku had been cruel in the extreme. Stealing the sons of the God of the Waters. Abusing their powers. Trapping them inside the palace walls. And taking away their language, their identity. Taking that language and using it to subdue them. He wondered if Masaki or Satoshi had come to hate the words, hate how they’d been twisted.

“When we first arrived here, my brother wanted to see how far it went. After all, they’d used our language to trap us here. I remember him sitting at a table night after night, a piece of paper before him and a pen in his hand. He tried to write the simplest characters. Water. Home. Even his name. And nothing. No matter how hard he pressed that pen to paper, he couldn’t move his hand. It wasn’t easy seeing him like that, when he finally understood the full extent of what had been stolen from us.”

“He’s your older brother?”

Masaki grinned. “In a manner of speaking.”

“I’m guessing it would be rude to ask how old you both are?”

“It wouldn’t.”

Nino let out an irritated sigh. Masaki liked to tease. “How old are you? And your brother?”

“We’re not old, at least not the way you’d expect when you wonder about a god. That’s a silly word, god,” Masaki mumbled. “All I knew growing up was the sea. We didn’t really think of ourselves as powerful. There were many of us, many of Father’s children. We were all the same. I…I guess you could say we looked a bit different, back home.” Masaki placed a hand to his chest, exhaling. “We didn’t need lungs quite like these.”

Nino put the empty water glass and his other supplies back in his bag. They’d done enough training for now. He started to walk, Masaki following one step behind until they came upon a fountain, sitting down on a bench to watch the water flow freely.

“We aged as you do, back home, but at a different pace. We were born, we grew up, we grew old. You had a few choices when you grew old. You could stay as you are, old as the ocean. You might fade away peacefully, but it takes ages. Father…Father was the oldest of us all. You could ask to be reborn, to return again as one of our kind or as a creature of the deep. Few people chose that last one. It’s always strange to consider living a full, long life and then willfully choosing to return instead as an eel.”

Nino listened intently. He wondered how many times Masaki had told this story over the centuries. Surely Nino was not the only one who’d ever been curious.

“So when you ask me how old I am, Ninomiya Kazunari, that’s not rude. But it’s not simple. When Father sent me and Satoshi here, I’d been living for only thirty-four years. Satoshi for thirty-six. Compared to Father, compared to so many others, it was as though we’d only just been born. Our lives until that point were a blink of an eye to my father.”

Masaki smiled sadly.

“We were just kids, I suppose, but Father sent us here with bodies that matched our ages in human years. And since we’ve been here, our bodies have not changed. They haven’t aged. Only our minds, our souls. We had to grow up quickly.”

“And if I’m able to set you free? You will go back to the sea?”

“I know that’s what Satoshi wants. It’s why he’s always looking east. It’s a view I doubt he’ll ever tire of.”

Nino nodded in understanding. Satoshi always sat in the same spot on the roof, he realized. He faced the night sky, but specifically, the eastern sky. The Great Sea lay thousands of miles away. Perhaps that spot on the roof had been Satoshi’s usual spot for decades. Nino moving into the rooms below might have just been a coincidence.

“I’m sure I’d want to go back, too.”

“I’m of two minds myself,” Masaki admitted. “The human world…I’ve seen so little of it. Yukio took me with him that one time, but that’s really the only time I’ve been beyond these walls. What would be the harm in having a look outside? But then there’s the sea. There’s my home.”

“Satoshi doesn’t have much interest in our world.”

Masaki shook his head. “He was always curious, but only about the things that interested him. Otherwise, he could be rather…lazy. He was bold, stubborn…well, that much hasn’t changed about him, as I’m sure you’ve witnessed…”

Nino couldn’t help chuckling softly, almost missing that warmth that signaled that the god was near.

Masaki’s voice was shaky when he spoke again. “But he was so kind and so gentle. Father chose him for a reason. Father wanted to show the humans that we were kind.”

Nino looked down, ashamed.

“This place killed that person, squeezed the joy and the curiosity and the sweetness out of him,” Masaki insisted. “What’s left is a shell. I wonder if Father will even recognize him if he returns.”

“That’s not true,” Nino whispered.

“You’ve seen him…he’s…”

“He laughed,” Nino confessed. “I…I heard him laugh the other night.”

Masaki reached out his hand, taking hold of Nino by the chin, turning his head so he could look into his eyes. His grip was cold, but Nino didn’t budge or protest. He wasn’t afraid.

“You speak the truth.”

“He was laughing at me, if you’re wondering.”

Masaki let him go, looking embarrassed for having touched him without permission once more, even though Nino had quite liked the feeling of a god’s embrace, his touch. It seemed as though both brothers had been able to slightly bend the rules set upon them so many years ago.

“You’ve made him cry and you’ve made him laugh. Sounds I haven’t heard from him in…well…”

Nino waved his hand.

“I thought I had truly lost him, long ago,” Masaki admitted.

“Then I’ll do my best to make a fool of myself from now on so he might always have reason to laugh.”

Masaki jostled his shoulder playfully. “You are a peculiar human, Ninomiya Kazunari.”

Matsumoto, he heard Jun’s voice say in the back of his head.

Nino got to his feet, determined. “We should get back to work.”

—

Restoring the fountain had likely tired Satoshi more than he’d let on the other night. He made no appearances on the rooftop, no matter what hour Nino glanced up from his courtyard, hoping for the sight of bare feet.

He devoted his time to the library and Raku’s scrolls, sitting at the table desperate to understand what had been written. Much of what he was finding now had symbols on them, occasionally a translation into the common tongue beside them. But the ink had faded in so many places. He wondered if he could find a way to sneak things to Masaki - even if the god couldn’t speak or write his language, perhaps he could answer Nino’s questions.

But that was for another day.

Mirei came hurrying into the sitting room without her usual knock after dark one night, and Nino nearly toppled the lantern he and Sho were using to read.

“Prince Jun is coming. I’ll try and delay him.”

“Sho, quickly,” Nino hissed, and they gathered up their contraband, Sho hurrying into the other room to hide it.

Mirei fled to stand outside the door, to do her utmost to delay the prince’s arrival. Nino got to his feet, making sure nothing of their secret work might be visible. But he soon discovered that Jun wasn’t coming to uncover his secrets.

He heard Mirei’s protests at the door, and he went to it himself, opening it before Jun said or did something rude. “Thank you, Mirei. Good evening, brother. What has you so out of breath tonight?”

He was rather surprised at the sight of his brother. There was none of his usual calm, none of his arrogance or swagger. Something was wrong.

“Let me inside.”

“Typically you have to ask permission, especially when someone is older than you. Let me help. ‘Kazunari, my dear brother. Will you grant me the honor of…’”

Jun shoved his way inside. “I don’t have time for this.”

Nino followed him in, closing the door quickly so nobody in the hall might overhear. Sho was already on the floor, head bowed, but Jun apparently didn’t have time for that show of deference either. He reached for Sho’s robes, yanking him to his feet. Nino didn’t even have a moment to protest before Jun had hauled Sho across the room, slamming him back against the wall, rattling the artwork.

Jun’s arm was across Sho’s throat, his voice menacing.

“One of them was turned,” Jun growled in Sho’s face. “I know you trained them all. Which one was it?”

Nino approached cautiously, not daring to raise his voice. He held up his hands in a defensive posture. “Let him go.”

“Which one was it?” Jun pressed, and Sho’s eyes went wide as he shook his head.

“He can’t answer your question if you choke him.”

Jun eased up a little, but didn’t let Sho go. But Nino was confused by the tears in Jun’s eyes. He was showing weakness. Almost too much. Something was very wrong here, and apparently only Sho had an answer.

“I’ve been in here with him the whole night, Jun,” Sho said, looking Jun straight on, using his name in a tone so informal Nino wondered if he’d been deceived all this time. By both of them. “If something has happened, we haven’t been told about it.”

“That witch has had my mother arrested,” Jun explained, voice shaking. “Evidence was planted in her apartments. The King’s schedule, the King’s dinner menus. She’s made it look like my mother was plotting assassination, poisoning.”

Sho lifted his hand, wrapping it around Jun’s forearm. Neither of them looked away from one another’s face. Nino watched carefully, barely remembering to breathe. He watched as Sho gave Jun’s arm a tug, forcing him to back off.

Who was this Sakurai Sho? Where had he been hiding all this time?

“I had nothing to do with this.”

“You’d already be dead by my hand if that were the case,” Jun insisted, finally stepping back and pacing the floor.

Nino was exasperated. “Would someone like to loop me in on the conversation here? You’re saying Princess Mariya has been arrested?”

“For treason,” Jun choked out.

“And Sho here might know something about it?”

Sho shook his head, rubbing at his throat with irritation in his eyes. “I don’t know anything about the planting of evidence. It’s not our doing.”

“Our doing?” Nino cried out.

Sho watched Jun carefully. “Your mother, like your father, was always kind to me. Even if Kazunari had asked me to target her, I would have dissuaded him.”

“For the love of…” He threw his hands in the air. “I’m not in the business of plotting against people’s mothers!”

Clearly exhausted, Jun sat down heavily on the floor. Nino did the absolute least, picking up a cushion and flinging it at him. Jun took the cold gesture in stride, hugging it against his chest.

“Princess Mariya’s household was always under the purview of Prince Yukio’s,” Sho explained calmly, fingers still lingering on his neck. “The Prince, may the Gods favor him, wanted total control over who served her.”

“He spied on her,” Jun grumbled. “From the day he married her until the day he had a heart attack and died on top of some teenage scullery maid. The asshole spied on her, and Sho saw it done.”

To Nino’s dismay, Sho didn’t deny it. “The Princess is from the West Kingdom, and Prince Yukio did not want there to be any outside influences. It was part of my job as Prince Yukio’s advisor…”

“Advisor, he calls himself,” Jun retorted.

“It was part of my job the last few years,” Sho continued, “to vet new candidates for service in her household. The women who dress her, the cooks who make her meals, the girl who empties her chamber pot. Prince Yukio wanted loyalty.”

“And now one of them turned on her. That witch got to someone. Now that my father isn’t here to make her life a living hell, Rumiko has stepped in. She’s wanted my mother dead for decades,” Jun said. “Now she’ll get her way.”

Sho exhaled. “It’s a bold move, even for her.”

“She has him now, Sho,” Jun said, pointing at Nino like he was just another object in the room. “I thought she’d use him to come after me. Grandfather wouldn’t mourn if I was found face down in a pool of water or at the bottom of a stairwell with a broken neck, no matter how suspicious. Hell, she still might be ambitious enough to try it.” Jun shook his head. “But not my mother. I won’t allow her to hurt my mother.”

At last, Nino had gained some insight into his brother’s character. Jun might have revolted years ago, might have protested his mistreatment. The lack of respect from his father and grandfather alike. But he hadn’t done it. He’d played the fool. He’d kept his place at court.

All along he’d been fighting to protect his mother. Nino understood that feeling all too well.

Sho finally sat down to Jun’s left, folding his hands and resting them on the table. “I am sorry, Jun. Truly I am.”

“I don’t want your useless apologies. I want your solutions.” Jun’s scowl was rather frightening, but Sho wasn’t afraid of it tonight. “You were the smart one. Father always liked to remind me.”

There was a lot of history between the two men seated at Nino’s table, and he didn’t have the desire to unpack any of it. Not now. Not when an innocent woman’s life was in danger. Nino hadn’t met Princess Mariya. Given the circumstances of Nino’s birth and how her son had been treated all these years, he doubted that the Princess would like him very much. But that didn’t really matter.

The darkest reaches of his mind saw this night as a turning point. As an opportunity. He suspected that Sho could see it too. Sho, who wasn’t as high-minded and admirable as Nino had been naive enough to believe all this time.

If they helped Jun, helped Princess Mariya, then perhaps Jun would help Nino in return. It was a cruel thought, but a realistic one. And given the politics that ruled the Royal Palace of Amaterasu, Jun likely knew already that Nino would want a favor in exchange for his assistance.

Sho cleared his throat. “Your mother is a foreigner,” he said. “And we’ve always had friendly enough trade relations with the West Kingdom. If they get word that she’s been harmed, the king risks retaliation. It’s a guarantee if the Sorceress finds a way to have her executed.”

Jun scoffed. “And you think the old man wouldn’t welcome a war? Half the royal treasury goes toward the upkeep of the Kingsguard.”

Nino hadn’t known that, and he let it sink in.

“The mourning period works in your mother’s favor,” Sho pointed out. “Even I’ve got another month yet to live.”

Quiet descended over the room at the reminder. Nino watched Jun search for a response, but he didn’t seem to have one. Neither did Nino for that matter.

“So,” Sho continued anyway, “even if Rumiko has had her arrested, the king will not put a princess in a dungeon. I know he’s never much liked her, but the court would protest. Your mother has made a lot of friends with her patronage and gifts over the years. The king would rather risk war with our neighbors than risk the court turning on him. Especially with Nino having the power that he does.”

Jun’s jaw dropped, and he hurried to recover. “I’m sorry, what did you call him?”

“He called me Nino,” he interjected. “As I’ve instructed him.”

Jun held up a hand. “Remind me to be annoyed with that later. So what do you propose?”

“It’s likely the king will put your mother under house arrest while an investigation is conducted,” Sho explained. “All of her servants will be removed from her apartments so they can be questioned. They may all be ousted from the palace, I have no idea. But that leaves a princess without a lady’s maid, and anyone at court will find it insulting, even if your mother’s being investigated for treason. Nino’s maid Mirei is trustworthy and discreet. It’s my suggestion that Mirei is sent to your mother to serve her for the time being.”

Jun raised an eyebrow. “That’s a calculated risk, Sho.”

To Nino’s surprise, Sho smiled back at Jun. They’d known each other a long time.

“A bit heavy-handed, no?” Sho teased. “But it will be made clear to the court and to the king and Rumiko that Nino is on your side. Or at least that he’s on your mother’s side.”

“Brotherly love,” Nino mused, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

“And how do we clear my mother’s name?” Jun asked. “I know a servant has been turned against her, but how do we know which one betrayed her?”

“We spy on them, see who has been coming and going from Rumiko’s chambers,” Sho said.

“Sure,” Jun complained, “and how do we manage that?”

Sho looked to Nino reluctantly.

“We work with some rather uncommon spies.”

—

Come morning, nearly everything Sho had described came to pass. He knew the ins and outs of the Amaterasu court like the back of his hand. Princess Mariya was allowed to remain in her apartments, but everyone who served her from her seamstress to the man who held a parasol over her when she walked in the gardens had been ousted.

They’d been removed from the palace entirely, sent to lonely cells in the Kingsguard’s barracks. One by one, the plan was to have each servant brought before the king for an interrogation. Nino presumed that Rumiko would find her way into those closed sessions in the royal audience chamber since she was the one who’d brought the charge of treason against the princess.

By the afternoon, Nino had already met with Masaki in his sitting room, Sho beside him providing the details that Nino didn’t have. They needed someone in that audience chamber, someone that could watch Rumiko, watch her body language as each servant was questioned. After so many years at court, Masaki was a keen study of human behavior. And he’d be hiding in plain sight. What did the son of the God of the Waters care what happened to Princess Mariya? What incentive did he have for acting against the royal interest?

Nino had spent half their meeting apologizing, almost groveling. He didn’t want it to seem like an order. He didn’t want Masaki to feel as though he had no choice but to help. To Nino’s surprise, Masaki wanted to do his part, no matter the risk involved.

For many years, Jun had asked for Masaki to be brought to his chambers to recover after being overworked by his father or grandfather. But it had always been at the insistence of his mother. Satoshi, too, had been invited, but he’d never wanted their pity. Masaki was fond of the older woman, had been largely disappointed in the way Yukio had treated her.

“The West Kingdom fears the gods,” Masaki had explained. “Because of it, she has always treated me with respect.”

Nino couldn’t help wondering if Princess Mariya’s prayers were what had kept Jun from manifesting the powers of his bloodline, kept him from being able to inflict cruelties on Masaki and Satoshi.

As night fell, they had two confirmed spies in their camp, a divine one, as well as Mirei in the Princess’ empty household. Nino hadn’t had much trouble convincing her to help either. Before she’d been ordered to serve as maid for the mysterious, illegitimate Kazunari from the desert, Mirei had longed to serve at the beck and call of the still beautiful Princess from the West Kingdom, who had gone years without having a servant beaten. A rarity in the royal palace, Nino was informed, his mood darkening.

That left their other potential spy, though Nino doubted this conversation would go as well for him as the others had.

He made his familiar climb to the roof, finding Satoshi in his usual spot. If he’d been here a while, listening in, then it was likely he already knew what Nino was coming to ask him. But knowing Satoshi, he’d never be the one to bring it up.

Nino sat down. “Good evening, Satoshi.”

There was no pause this time.

“Good evening, Your Highness.”

He smirked. “Your brother at least calls me by my name. I don’t know when I’ll break him from calling me by my full name every single time, but I suppose I’ll take what I can get.”

“You don’t like your title?”

Nino chuckled. “It’s not really been formalized anyway. I may be Yukio’s son, but the king has made no move to grant me any official role or title here at court.”

“Sakurai Sho addresses you informally.”

“Sakurai Sho is my friend.”

Satoshi let out a derisive scoff. “Sakurai Sho is your servant.”

Nino nodded in acknowledgment. “Both of those things are true.”

They sat in a companionable silence for a while. Nino couldn’t help watching Satoshi from the corner of his eye, that forlorn gaze of his, that frown as he stared up at the sky, toward the east and home. He’d been in the Sun Kingdom far longer than he’d ever been in the Undersea Palace, but there was likely no comparison. Home was home, whether you were a god who lived under the waves or a man who traveled the sands with a patchwork tent.

“I don’t want to waste your time, so let me get straight to the point,” Nino said quietly.

He explained the situation with the princess, how Jun had come to him for help. He told Satoshi that Masaki already planned to help.

“I just thought I would ask if you’ve heard or seen anything. I never know how long you stay up here, what you might notice that nobody else could…” He cleared his throat. “And if you wished to do more to help, then that would be a kindness. It’s not an order, it’s not a demand.”

“You’re only helping Prince Jun because you want him in your debt.”

He nodded. “I will admit that it factored into my decision, yes. I have no intention to lie to you about my motives. I owe you that.”

Satoshi let out another of his quiet chuckles. “You are the first in your bloodline to feel as though they owed me anything. It’s a strange sensation.”

“I cannot take on Rumiko and the king alone. Even if I somehow find a way to free you and Masaki, they won’t go quietly. Is it wrong to seek allies wherever I can find them?”

Satoshi shook his head. “You have the Matsumoto ambition.”

“More like the Terajima Kazuko pragmatism.” He laughed. “My mother.”

“I know,” Satoshi said.

He looked over, surprised. “You’ve been here for hundreds of years. You’ve seen servants and kings come and go constantly. You actually remember my mother?”

“You look like her,” Satoshi continued. “When you first came here, I thought you looked familiar. When I heard that you were Prince Yukio’s son, I just had to think back to the women he…” He shrugged. “I have no reason to be rude about it.”

Perhaps Satoshi had witnessed the affair or at least heard of it. The thought made Nino a little uneasy. Even though the god sitting beside him didn’t look much older than him, he had been here several lifetimes. Sometimes Nino forgot that most obvious of things about Satoshi.

“Well,” Nino continued awkwardly, “there’s no need to have an answer tonight. It is a risky thing I ask of you.”

“You know for a certainty that Sorceress Rumiko is responsible for what has happened?”

“She’s the one who brought the charges against the Princess, but we have no proof this was entirely her scheme. We’ll be watching her carefully, but no other faction at court really gains from the Princess being in trouble. Rumiko cares more about eliminating an enemy than about the fallout of her actions. But if we can’t find evidence that she’s framed the Princess…”

“I will tell you what I observe,” Satoshi said.

Nino was shocked by the quick response. “Wait. Really?”

Satoshi nodded. “I’m the reason she has that suppression bangle around her ankle. It’s imprinted on the inside with one word from my language. In translation it means ‘cease.’”

Nino said nothing, still surprised that Satoshi was willing to open up, to talk more about himself.

“I saw to it that four people were drowned because she considered them rivals. I have many hateful memories of this kingdom, but those surrounding her seem to trump them all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They were tied up and dropped to the bottom of a well. Servants. Innocents. She’s always seen rivals where there were none. Many of them were likely dying already from the fall,” Satoshi admitted, voice far less steady than usual. “I didn’t realize what my role in it was until I saw the first of them float to the top.”

Nino reached over, resting a hand on Satoshi’s leg. The god’s body was so warm, full of life. “You don’t have to speak of it.”

“It was not the first time I’d been used that way. I suppose it’s just the freshest in my mind,” he said, shrugging. He had not yet objected to Nino’s hand on him.

“You told the king what she had you do?”

“One of her servants confessed first. The lover of one of the people I’d helped to murder.”

“Satoshi,” he whispered, “you didn’t knowingly…”

“When you order Masaki or me to do your will, we know it’s not done out of malice or spite on your part, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. So don’t concern yourself with how I should feel about that incident.”

Nino took his hand back, chastened.

“And don’t say you’re sorry,” Satoshi continued, his voice steadier. “I’ve had so many apologies from you that I don’t think I can handle another.”

Nino looked down, grinning. “Am I at least allowed to thank you? Since you’ve so kindly agreed to help me despite my selfish motives?”

There was a bit more gentleness in Satoshi’s reply. “That…that I think I’ll allow.”

He laughed, covering his mouth to keep from waking anyone in the courtyards below. It was a true shame that Satoshi had been mistreated for so many years. It was clear that he was a kindhearted soul, a gentle soul. But also someone with a sense of humor.

“Then thank you very much.” He got to his feet. “It’s appreciated.”

Before he could walk away, he felt a gentle tug on his trouser leg. He looked down, seeing that Satoshi had reached out to grab hold of him.

“In exchange, I have a request for you. I wish to try the trick with the salt water.”

“The trick?”

Satoshi’s eyes were large, almost hopeful when he looked up at Nino. “Where you speak my language and somehow convince me that I’m home. It’s what you did for Masaki. I want to at least…try.”

He blushed, warmth running through his whole body, not just his tattooed arm. “Of course. Any time. After all, I’m just three floors down. You don’t need an appointment.”

“Thank you, Kazunari.”

He nodded. “Of course. Good night.”

Nino walked away half-dazed. He’d accomplished a great deal in the last few days, and tonight he’d somehow managed to turn the stubborn Satoshi to his side. The plan to exonerate Jun’s mother could move forward at full steam.

And yet none of that, nothing at all could compare to the way his name had sounded falling so gently from the lips of a handsome god.

—

They weren’t naive enough to believe that spying only worked in a single direction. Nino’s choice to openly ally with Jun by sending Mirei to the Princess clearly had Rumiko annoyed. Concerned with his loyalty.

He tried to keep up appearances, inviting his aunt to his rooms for a meal or for a walk in the gardens so he might learn more ways to strengthen his powers or perhaps discover new ones entirely. As the secret sessions in the king’s audience chamber continued, she kept finding excuses to decline.

But her presence was felt firmly everywhere.

There seemed to be more people in the palace library these days, some who would sit just outside watching him enter and watching him leave. It was likely that she had a spy among the staff as well, so he’d started rolling up and reshelving items himself, leaving only his deceptions out for them to find. He memorized useless facts from other scrolls, just in case someone pulled him aside to test him.

Without Mirei to keep them in check, he and Sho performed a few tests of their own on the other maids: Kanna and Natsuna and Kasumi. They couldn’t afford for any of them to be compromised. They left scraps of paper behind on the table in Nino’s sitting room or hinted at Nino’s schedule for the day in passing conversation. All three young women passed admirably. None of the scraps were moved, none of their (nonsense) contents divulged. And nobody suspicious confronted Nino, pretending to have encountered him by surprise. He’d been blessed with extraordinarily loyal people.

Princess Mariya, however, had not been so fortunate. Though Sho had hand-picked most of the Princess’ household, the death of Prince Yukio had left quite the vacuum. Coupled with Sho’s absence and Jun’s outward indifference, some among the staff had decided to make their allegiances flexible.

It took almost a week to make any progress, but the sons of the God of the Waters came through with results. Without Jun or Nino’s input, the two of them had banded together to determine the best plan of attack. Satoshi walked the palace grounds, all but invisible after so many years of purposefully isolating himself. He watched notes change hands between Princess Mariya’s imprisoned staff and a few members of the Kingsguard holding them, who then brought notes to Rumiko’s servants or boldly enough, to Rumiko herself. Satoshi then told his brother who to look out for during interrogations in the royal audience chamber.

Nino didn’t learn any of this until Masaki found him in the library again, providing him with a list of four names. Two had already been freed, cleared of suspicion during the interrogations with a little help from Rumiko. The other two had yet to be interviewed, but they had likely helped to plant evidence. Two maids, the kennel master who kept watch over the Princess’ small yapping dogs, and the teenaged orphan boy who often played shamisen during Princess Mariya’s frequent dinner parties.

“This is remarkable what you’ve found,” Nino said, hanging in the back of the room with Masaki, as far from the door (and the library staff) as he could manage.

Masaki seemed almost giddy. For once he’d been involved in a plot that sought to expose wrongdoing rather than perpetuate it. “You really ought to thank Satoshi. He did most of the work, telling me what he suspected. He was right in every case, my brother. These people will regret allying with that horrible woman.”

“Betraying their mistress won’t even be the worst charge,” Nino admitted. “If they admit to lying to the king during these interrogations, they will likely suffer.”

Masaki was quieter, letting out a soft sigh. “It would not be the first time I’ve seen such punishments carried out. Though I suspect they’ll wait until the mourning period is completed.”

The god flicked at the black ribbon Nino still had tied around his upper arm to keep up appearances. It was a reminder every day of the deadline still hanging over him. Time was running out regarding Sho’s execution.

“Yes, I suspect they will wait.”

He thanked Masaki again, urging him to go straight to Jun with the news.The information provided by Satoshi and Masaki would be his to use as he saw fit. It was only right that the son be allowed to protect and restore the reputation of his mother.

After a mostly fruitless search of scrolls that afternoon, Nino headed back for his rooms. At this hour, he usually expected the maids to arrive with a dinner tray. But when he entered, he found Satoshi already at the table in his sitting room, helping himself to a platter of buckwheat noodles. He had a noodle between his fingers, tugging it from the rest of the pile and slowly eating it.

“Oh please, do go right ahead and eat my dinner for me.”

Satoshi hadn’t looked up when he’d entered, but he had a wry smile on his face now when he did. “You’ve phrased that as an order, Kazunari. You know I have no choice but to obey you.”

It seemed like someone was in a strange mood tonight. Then again, this was the first time Satoshi had come to his rooms. Before they’d been more out in the open, whether in the palace gardens or on the roof. Or, Nino thought darkly, in the storage room with Rumiko and the Kingsguard.

He rolled his eyes, abandoning his sandals by the door and heading for his bedchamber. He had scraps of paper to add to the collection in the secret compartment of his room. The way Satoshi said his name had sent a pleasing shiver down his spine, but he hoped it went unnoticed. When he returned, dressed in more comfortable, loose-fitting clothing as opposed to his royal finery, he discovered that the maids had had food brought in for two.

Satoshi was using a pair of chopsticks to divide the noodles between two plates, a cup of dipping sauce split between them. Apparently the gods really could eat proper meals if they so chose.

“How long have you been sitting here waiting for me that Natsuna saw fit to bring you a portion?”

Satoshi settled some noodles in his cup, swishing them around. “Not so long.”

Nino sat, ceasing his needless arguments in favor of the meal. They sat quietly, punctuating silences with slurps of noodles and slow sips of the rice wine Nino often had paired with his dinners. It was an odd dinner indeed, sharing food with a god. He ate with Sho on many nights, keeping him away from the disappointing options the servants’ quarters likely offered. But this was very different.

Just like on the rooftop, Satoshi sat in a world of his own. He had nothing to say while he ate, just like he’d rarely had much to say while looking out to the eastern sky.

“I’ve missed you,” Nino admitted candidly. “I’ve missed your grumpy face.”

Satoshi had given more time to the spying mission than Nino had even anticipated. It had been a long week without their nighttime chats. But he shouldn’t have underestimated how far the god would go to uncover those who had pledged loyalty to the person he loathed the most.

He swallowed his food, finally offering Nino a nod. “I’ve missed your big mouth.”

Nino grinned.

After Natsuna cleared their empty trays, they sat at the table together. Nino poured, filling Satoshi’s small cup. “Do gods get drunk on human alcohol?”

“Gods whose bodies have been altered by their fathers do.”

He remembered what Masaki had told him, how he and his brother had been sent to Amaterasu in slightly different forms than they’d borne back home. “Hmm, interesting,” Nino said teasingly. “Do you have any other human weaknesses?”

“Masaki likes to gossip.”

“But of course you’re above such things.”

“Of course.”

They chatted and drank, though Nino as usual did most of the chatting. It was too easy to reminisce about the life he’d left behind, the caravan. He found himself telling Satoshi stories of Kazuko and Seitaro as well as some of the odd characters who’d followed the Water Finder from town to town.

Yusuke the carpenter born with extra fingers and toes, who used to scare a much younger Nino by wiggling those extra digits at the nightly campfire. Eiji, who’d given up a career as a scholar to tend the caravan’s camels. Saburo the well-digger with the giant mole on the tip of his fat nose. Aika the reformed prostitute who policed the caravan’s morality until Kazuko had finally asked her to part ways with them.

Sitting here in the center of this horrible palace, this horrible capital, Nino missed them all so much. He even missed Aika, just a little bit. It never took Nino long to feel the effects of rice wine, and he tried to slow himself down. One more drink, and he’d start to slur his words.

“Kazunari.”

He looked over, saw that Satoshi’s face was likely as flushed from the rice wine as his own was. “Hmm?”

“Wanna do the salt water trick?”

He chuckled. “It’s not a trick. It’s a command. We’ve just had a lovely meal. I don’t want to spoil it by controlling you…”

Satoshi ignored his concerns, pulling a fresh cup from the tray Natsuna had left behind. Without another word, Satoshi filled the cup with water, the first time Nino had seen him do so without being forced. He appeared to just think the water into existence.

It seemed that Satoshi was dead set on giving this a try, no matter the physical cost he might endure. “Very well,” he said, slowly getting to his feet. He headed to pull the cord on the wall, summoning Natsuna or whichever of the young women was on call at this hour. As they’d eaten together, as Nino had talked unceasingly about the strange and colorful characters of the caravan, hours had passed.

It was Kasumi who came to the door. Nino merely offered her a merry grin, saying only one word to her. “Salt.”

She returned in a few minutes with an entire bowl of it, and he laughed, dismissing her with a quick thank you. He turned back, showing off his acquisition. Satoshi merely slid the cup of water across the table, waiting for Nino to do his worst.

She’d brought him a spoon too, so he added a decent spoonful to Satoshi’s cup, mixing it as thoroughly as he could without having it all slosh out onto the table. “I’ve never been to the sea,” he admitted, “so I may not have the exact composition right.”

“I wish we could go there,” Satoshi mumbled. “Right now.”

He was warm, from both the alcohol and the idea that Satoshi wanted to spend time with him so willingly. From the start, Nino had all but forced himself into Satoshi’s life. The god had tolerated him for weeks, but now here they were, sitting together. Eating together. Drinking together. The activities of close friends, not of master and prisoner.

“I wish we could go there, too,” he admitted. “Leave all this chaos behind. But since I have made little progress in that regard, let me at least try to send you there in spirit.”

He removed the spoon from the glass, letting Satoshi bring it to his lips. His dark eyes were nervous but trusting, awaiting Nino’s command. He could see Satoshi trembling just the slightest bit.

To help, he leaned over, sitting closer so he could rest a hand on Satoshi’s shoulder. He found him sturdy, solid beneath his touch. Relaxed as much as he could.

“Satoshi,” he said quietly. “Drink of the far place.”

He watched as Satoshi closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before taking a sip of water. There was no reaction at first, until he felt Satoshi’s shoulder start to shake under his fingertips.

“Drink of the far place again.”

This time it wasn’t a sip. Satoshi gulped the water down, tilting his head back. When it was empty he shakily set the glass on the table. When he opened his eyes, they were wet with tears.

“Are you hurt?” Nino whispered.

“Yes. But not…” Satoshi winced, looking down. “Not like it normally does…”

Nino squeezed his shoulder, offering what comfort he could. He remembered Masaki’s reaction to the water all too well. “It made you think of home? Was it my words or more your own wishful thinking?”

Satoshi wiped at his eyes with the palm of his hand, sniffling, almost as though he was embarrassed to show such a vulnerable side. “Your words, my wish…I don’t know. Both? In all the time I’ve been here I’ve never…I don’t know…what you said was so simple and yet…”

“I want to do more to help you,” he admitted. “I’m so limited by the words that I’ve been taught.”

He tried to focus on breathing when Satoshi’s warm fingers moved to twine with his own, holding their hands together against his shoulder. “Then I should probably teach our language to you.”

Nino was confused. “But it’s forbidden. Masaki told me that was so.”

Satoshi met his gaze, dark hair falling across his brow. “You and Sakurai Sho sit here most nights and try to decipher what you’re reading. What you’ve snuck here from the library. I’ve been curious about it from the start. Even if I’m forbidden to speak my language, you are not. You’ve learned some words, you know some of the sounds. Well…” He pondered a moment, squeezing Nino’s fingers tightly. “Well…couldn’t you let me try and help? It may be slow going, but it’s better than you stumbling around a solution for forty years like your father.”

He nodded. “I’ll show you everything. Hold on.”

It almost ached to slip his hand away, his palm and fingers shaking as he moved to his bedchamber, hurrying to pull every scrap he had from his secret compartment. He returned, dumping what he had on the table. Satoshi had filled another glass with water.

“A bit less salt this time,” he ordered, taking the bits of paper and sorting through them. He was sobering up, issuing commands.

Nino grinned. “Yes, sir.”

They passed most of the night in this way. Satoshi examined the papers, spending most of his time concentrating on the characters Nino had copied from the scrolls that had not included a translation from Sorcerer Raku. It was agonizingly slow. Satoshi would tell him what the word meant in the common tongue, whether it was “tree” or “think” or “unwise” and Nino could only start with sounds.

He knew the sounds of the characters on his arm, the sounds of the few dozen words Rumiko had taught him. He had no choice but to sound out the syllables he knew one at a time, let Satoshi indicate if he’d said the right one. One syllable confirmed, they’d have to move to the next. It took them about thirty minutes per “translation,” with Nino often having to go through every sound or word fragment he already knew, waiting for Satoshi to nod that it was correct. And of course there were sounds in the language of the gods that Nino had yet to learn. As their energy flagged, Nino would instead allow Satoshi to fill a glass, then he’d add salt and tell Satoshi to drink of the far place. Whatever the taste, whatever the feelings that coursed through him, it encouraged Satoshi, made him work harder even with tears streaming down his gentle face.

Nino wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he woke on the floor beside the table, one of his cushions under his hip. He opened his eyes, blinking in the morning light.

He was alone.

The scraps were gone, and a note left behind on the table informed him that his secrets were safe. “I put them away,” the paper simply read, and Satoshi had likely left when Nino had fallen asleep.

In the hours they’d worked on the handful of characters and words he had copied from the library scrolls, Nino had only learned five new ones. And yet they were five new words, five new words he might recognize in other scrolls, five new words that might push him in the direction he needed to go. Satoshi had teased him for his accent, for some of his pronunciations, and yet they had made a good team.

It was a far cry from the first time they’d met, when Satoshi had looked upon him with justifiable contempt.

It wouldn’t take forty years, but it would still take time. It was best he got back to work as soon as he could.

Nino got up, stretching, hearing his joints crack. He had a bath to wake up both his body and mind, dressing for the day and eating a solid breakfast. He’d have to double, perhaps triple his efforts in the library. Instead of looking for the familiar in the scrolls, maybe he ought to especially look for the characters Raku had written without offering their translation. Perhaps within lay the words he could test, words he might try using to free the gods from their captivity.

He knew the wind blowing down mountains. He knew how to tell them to drink from the far place, to be reminded of the taste of the sea and their home. He needed darker words, angrier words. He needed words like blood and curse and trap.

Nino was halfway to the library when Takahashi found him in the halls, his face serious.

“The king wishes to speak with you, Your Highness.”

—

He was standing before the throne, King Kotaro watching him with merriment in his eyes.

“You seem rather surprised by this, my blood.”

Nino tried not to panic, merely shrugging. “I was under the impression that my brother was your heir. After all, I’m of illegitimate birth.”

“That’s all about to change,” the king said with his cruel smile.

Without so much as a “good morning,” Kotaro had called Nino to his private audience chamber and told him plainly what he’d just decided. In two months, Kotaro would be celebrating his ninetieth birthday.

However, the celebration would not so much be celebrating the king’s milestone birthday as it would be a passing of the torch. Matsumoto Kazunari would be officially recognized as Yukio’s eldest son and by implication, the true heir to the throne of the Sun Kingdom.

It was clear that Jun had not managed to meet with the king yet, to confront him with the evidence that Rumiko had framed Princess Mariya. If the princess was determined to be a traitor, it was quite possible her marriage to Yukio would be declared invalid, even all these years later. Nino had no doubts that the king and Rumiko would do what they could to further diminish Jun as an heir and make Nino’s claim seem all the more real.

But he knew that he couldn’t speak on Jun’s behalf. Knew that he couldn’t come forward with Rumiko’s treachery himself. The king was likely disappointed that Nino had sent Mirei to the princess, but if he learned that Nino and Jun had worked together, enlisting the gods in their mission, then who knew how the king might react?

“Prince Yukio, may the Gods favor him…”

“Enough of those empty sentiments! He was clearly favored by them, as he somehow managed to take time away from crying over the feckless peasantry to create you,” Kotaro interrupted. “You were a weakling when you arrived, Kazunari, and I’m not yet convinced that you have what it takes to keep this unruly, ungrateful kingdom afloat. But when I look at the options before me, what choice have I? A barren, scheming wretch of a daughter. A legitimate but useless grandson who has fucked his way through my court to beg for my attention. And I have you.”

He inclined his head. “You do have me, Your Majesty.”

“Have I not been generous to you, despite the circumstances of your birth? You were a Matsumoto no matter which slut’s womb you came from. By rights you were mine, you were my blood from the day she managed to trap my son’s seed inside her treacherous, conniving twat, but I left her alone. I left you alone. For the kingdom, I said. For the sake of my heir and the son of his officially sanctioned union.”

Nino could not, would not raise his head. Because if he did, the king would see how he truly felt. The king would see how his eyes burned with hatred as he insulted Kazuko, the greatest woman Nino would ever know.

“I’ve had you brought here. Allowed you to live in utmost comfort. I would see my investment pan out,” the king said. “You spend your days in relaxation, traipsing through my gardens or reading dry histories in my library. That comes to an end now.”

Nino held in a breath. Not now! Not now that he finally had some sense of forward momentum…

“You will leave those guest quarters behind, and I will house you in the palace near me. Yukio’s apartments have sat empty these months, and you will live there. You will have a proper household staff, not just a handful of girls to draw you a bath or suck your cock…”

He stared at the floor, panicking. Panicking, panicking.

“I may have failed with Yukio and with his wretched son, but I will not make the same mistake with you, Kazunari. You will attend all proper meetings of state. You will sit at my right hand in council meetings. You will become acquainted with the ministers that will serve you. And in exchange, you will succeed me.” He heard Kotaro lean forward in the chair. “The Sun Kingdom will be yours as surely as those beautiful markings on your arm make the gods yours.”

He did everything he could to school his expression, even as things were quickly falling apart around him. He’d have no time for the library, for his training with Satoshi. He’d have no time to coordinate with Jun, to convince him to help free the gods. There’d be new servants, more servants. And he doubted they’d be trustworthy. No, they’d report back to the king, Nino was certain of it.

“You honor me, Your Majesty.”

“Unlike your brother, at least you have the strength of character to realize it.”

“I am eager to prosper under your guidance,” he lied, hoping the king couldn’t hear the desperation that was taking him over inside. “But perhaps you might grant me a small favor.”

The king sounded annoyed. “I do all of this for your sake, and yet you require more, boy?”

He dared to narrow his eyes at his grandfather.

“My gratitude does not cancel out the fact that you need me to ensure this kingdom survives when you are gone. Jun has no power over the gods, and this magnificent place will become as dry and dead as the rest of the country.” Nino took a bold step forward, hands in fists. “You need me, Your Majesty, or Raku’s bloodline dies with you.”

Unlike most people, Kotaro seemed almost impressed by Nino’s threats. Of course, Nino knew the man was obsessed with his bloodline.

“Your small favor?”

He stepped back from his aggressive position, bringing his hands to his hips. “I will move to the rooms you set for me. I will attend meetings of state. I will learn more about the burden that will be mine when you are no longer here to guide me.” He took a quick breath, steeling himself. “All I ask is that Sakurai Sho remains my servant.”

The king let out a throaty laugh. “The traitor! You again beg clemency for it!”

“I do, Your Majesty. He has remained loyal and true these past months. It would be a waste to have him die.”

“I have let it draw breath for far longer than I should have. I would see the traitor disemboweled in my courtyard and take pleasure in the sight of it.”

Nino didn’t doubt that. The man was soulless, corrupt. He wasn’t sure how much was from the poison of the curse in his blood and how much was just inherent cruelty.

“Then we are at an impasse, Your Majesty,” he said coldly. “Where you see treason in him, I see valued counsel. Where you see an ‘it,’ I see a man who has devoted his life to serving this kingdom. I pray that my brother Jun has a child with the gifts of our bloodline, for it seems I will not be succeeding you, Grandfather.”

He turned his back on the king, and he heard the pathetic, sputtered cry.

“You have not been dismissed, Kazunari!”

He stopped, but did not look back. “I will have a horse prepared and my few personal items packed within the hour. You may send all the Kingsguard after me that you like, but I will not be taken back here alive. When they kill me, I hope they cut off my arm and send it back to you so you might look upon the tattoos I was given and be reminded until the day you die of how you wasted their potential.”

He was almost to the door when the king called his name again. Nino grinned before turning back. It had worked. To his surprise, Kotaro had gotten to his feet, though he was holding onto the arm of his chair desperately.

“I hope it betrays you, Kazunari,” the king declared. “You will look back, and you will regret this day when the traitor shifts allegiances. You may believe its counsel, but it has been seen in the shadows visiting your worthless brother’s chambers.”

Nino tried not to laugh at the insinuation. But he at least had confirmation that the king would more closely examine any movement between Nino’s rooms and Jun’s. They’d have to be more careful.

“You will be moved tomorrow. Takahashi will provide you with a schedule. I will see you molded into a king.”

“And Sakurai Sho?”

The king’s grip on his chair tightened.

“Keep it.”

—

He thought Jun might have been more upset with how easily he’d been stripped of his inheritance. Instead his brother simply laughed when they met secretly that night in the palace gardens, a hedge separating them in the darkness. Nino sat cross-legged on a bench, pretending to be stargazing, knowing that Kanna, Kasumi, and Natsuna were busy packing up his chambers for the move to the opposite end of the residential wing come morning.

Sho had worked with stunning efficiency as soon as Nino had brought him the news, clearing the secret compartment of its contents and hiding them in his own room in the servants’ quarters.

“You managed to save him where I could not,” Jun admitted.

“Three months ago, I lacked the clout to save him. But things have changed. Our dear grandfather now knows that the kingdom falls without my power.” He chuckled quietly. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Jun replied. “Sho will serve you well when you are king.”

Nino rolled his eyes. It was the last thing he wanted to be. He’d play along for now, attending meetings and becoming acquainted with the affairs of state, such as they were. But none of it really mattered so long as Kotaro clung to life. There were more important things at stake.

“What about your mother?”

“I have not been granted an audience for another three days,” Jun admitted. “That is when my mother is supposed to be summoned before him. Even with what Masaki and Satoshi found, I cannot be certain she will be cleared. But I will fight for her with everything I have.”

“Do you wish for me to intervene? I seem to have a knack for getting my way now…”

“No, it will only complicate things. This is our fight, my mother’s and mine, against that witch. She’s wanted us gone for years. She will not succeed.” Jun took a breath. “But thank you. Truly. You did a lot to help.”

“Masaki would have helped you anyway. You know that.”

“It was Satoshi’s intelligence that mattered most,” Jun said. “I know it makes you uncomfortable to give them orders but…”

“I didn’t order him,” Nino interrupted. “I just asked him.”

Jun was quiet for a while.

“I know that our father wished for them to be free,” Jun finally admitted, his steady voice slipping through the branches and into Nino’s ears. “And I know that is why he sent Sho to find you.”

Nino said nothing, shutting his eyes. Jun had always known.

“I loathed him. I loathed him because he loathed me,” Jun muttered. “But still I believed in his cause, even if he never knew. I prepared for a time when he might be desperate enough to finally seek my help. The power that keeps Masaki and Satoshi here is tied to those symbols, to their words. My mother’s people revere the gods, so I gathered what I could of their language from people my mother trusted. Nothing but scrolls and scraps of ancient paper, paid for with gold and jewels, with my inheritance. I thought that maybe if our father exhausted everything in the Sun Kingdom library that he might finally come to me. That I could help him with what I’d found.”

He heard Jun let out an irritated sigh. Yukio had been a fool to ignore Jun all those years. An out and out fool.

“Instead he sent Sho away, knowing and not caring that it would get him killed. After all Sho had done for him, our father was willing to sacrifice him so easily. He sent Sho off and had you brought here. And then he died before I could tell him that I wanted to help.”

“Jun…”

“When you arrived here, you arrived with the witch. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know if she’d corrupted you or not. I kept clear and kept watch. The witch had you marked, and I watched you hurt Masaki with such ease.”

“I didn’t…”

“Let me finish, Kazunari. I saw all of that happening around you, but then you sent Sho to me. You wished to arrange a meeting. Not even an hour before, my mother had received a letter from an acquaintance in the north. A trader had appeared in town, his cart overflowing with old things. Books, priceless things. I was already preparing to go and see if anything might have the language of the gods. I couldn’t trust you or him with where I was going. I let Sho believe I was unchanged, indifferent. Off for a meaningless holiday.”

“That was what he told me. You couldn’t meet for a week because you were getting away from the heat. I thought you were running away from me.”

“I bought everything the trader had that had at least one character from their language. The trader had no idea of its worth. He had no idea what he even had, just that it was old. I was going to ask Masaki to help me, especially if you grew stronger and couldn’t be trusted. Masaki said I was wrong about you. And after what you’ve done for my mother, I know that he was right.” Jun’s voice grew stronger. “It is all yours, everything I’ve gathered for more than 10 years. I want you to have it. I want it to help you free them.”

“I will be under constant watch now,” Nino said. “The king will have minions watching my every move. I will not be able to meet with you like this again. They will know everything and everyone that comes in or out of my rooms. Even if you smuggle things to me, the king’s spies will uncover my hiding places. And Sho will be watched just as closely. I cannot afford to put him at risk, using him to go between us again.”

“I know. But given how my mother has been targeted, I know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds my cache of divine treasures. It must all go to you now or we will never manage to free them,” Jun said. “Which is why I’ve taken Masaki’s advice, and I’ve already spoken with Satoshi.”

“What?” he hissed, turning around on the bench even though it was too dark to look through the hedge and see his brother’s face.

“You are right that we cannot put Sho in danger after all he’s already endured. And it will be suspicious if Masaki is seen visiting you with regularity. So that leaves only one person to help.”

“He agreed to this?”

Jun chuckled. “He’s a man of few words…or should I say a god of few words…well, either way, he said only that he knew what to do. If I had to wager on it, I’d say that he likes you. And he never likes anyone.”

Nino rolled his eyes, trying not to read anything into Jun’s phrasing. “I don’t see how he will accomplish any of this without being seen.”

He could tell Jun was smiling.

“He longs to be free, brother, and he must believe that you will help him achieve that. So have a little faith in him in return.”

—

Everyone at the palace knew that Nino’s position had risen. His first three days in his new, too large set of apartments had been chaotic. When he wasn’t in meetings with the king, other staffers and advisors had come to pay their respects, to try and find a place in his household. Even though Nino wouldn’t be named heir for two months, it was clear to most courtiers that the title would soon be his.

Instead of the three rooms that had made up his guest quarters, he now had double that. The apartments had been Yukio’s before him, and they were fit for a future king. They also came with enough servants for a king. Seven maids. A personal chef. A secretary to go through any letters or petitions that arrived and to complete his correspondence. And a “gentleman of the chamber,” some sycophantic minor aristocrat who would help him dress for court or for advisory meetings. Though he couldn’t bring him to royal meetings (as the king loathed the sight of him), Nino kept Sho with him at almost all other times, simply to have someone he trusted at arm’s reach.

His first room was a room meant only for receiving guests, filled with plush sofas and chairs. The next was a dining room with seating for up to ten guests. The next room was a personal study with a desk and bookshelves as well as a table and chairs to meet with advisors and staff. The fourth room was a more private sitting room, open to the courtyard outside and with the same thin curtains as his previous sitting room. But instead of a simple pool, there was a statue in the center.

A voluptuous nude woman holding her hands to the sky. From her hands water spouted, shooting up into the air and falling into the pool around her. Water also trickled a bit more gently from her nipples and from between her thighs. The statue had been commissioned by one of the earlier kings in the bloodline, and Yukio had ordered it removed from the palace gardens and installed here in his own chambers.

“Tacky,” Sho had commented. “Your father had the most alarming tastes.”

Ugly statue aside, his new bedchamber and private bath were comfortable. He was glad for it after enduring all the meetings and calls paid to him by people he didn’t care to know. It was well past midnight after his third day of pretending to be an eager heir when he finally asked Sho to return to his own rooms.

“Jun’s mother is on trial tomorrow,” Nino said, stifling a yawn.

Sho nodded gravely.

“I know Masaki will be there. Will you go to him after, find out what happens?”

He bowed his head. “Of course.”

Nino reached out a hand, grazing Sho’s jaw to force him to look up. He could see true fear in Sho’s dark eyes. Sho, who had until just recently had a death sentence hanging over him. “We have to believe that she will be found innocent.”

“I sent those people to serve her,” Sho whispered. “I recommended them to Prince Yukio.”

“She will go free. Rumiko will not win this.”

“I want to believe that. For the princess’ sake.” And for Jun’s sake, Sho didn’t have to say out loud.

“Get some rest, Sho.”

Finally he was left alone.

He changed into more comfortable clothes, a loose-fitting tunic and trousers, after a long day of dressing as his position required. In two months, he’d officially be named heir to the throne. He was not looking forward to it.

He left his bedchamber behind, heading for his private sitting room. He pulled the curtains aside, listening to the splatter of water in the pool just outside. He looked up as he’d looked up the last few nights in his new rooms, praying to see a pair of bare feet.

He was once again disappointed.

Perhaps Satoshi hadn’t yet found a way to reach him.

He headed back inside, moving to close the curtains again when he heard his name coming from high above him.

He looked up, but saw nothing.

Until there was a sudden blur of movement, a figure flying out from the rooftop and into the open air over the courtyard.

He’d jumped. Satoshi had just jumped off the roof.

Nino almost cried out in alarm, covering his mouth to keep in a shout, as he saw the god come hurtling down toward the pool. But at the last moment, the water that was spurting out of the ugly statue merged into one powerful stream, surging upward out of the statue’s left hand.

It was there that Satoshi landed, his bare feet floating mere inches above the spout of water. He looked down at Nino, offering him a friendly wave.

Nino, still trying to catch his breath, scowled in reply. “Show off,” he managed to whisper.

Satoshi chuckled, the water spout lowering at Satoshi’s unspoken command until he was floating in the air just over the statue’s hand. A new water spout floated up from the pool beneath it and Satoshi stepped over onto it, letting it lower him down. He walked across the water for his final few steps, stepping onto the edge of the pool and hopping down to stand before Nino.

“Your Highness.”

“I almost had a stroke watching you fall,” he snapped, not raising his voice too loud. “I might still have one.”

“It has been dull these last few days without you,” Satoshi joked, moving to follow Nino into his sitting room.

Nino halted him with a palm raised. “Don’t even think about coming inside. Just a moment.”

He retrieved a towel from his washroom, returning and kneeling down before the god. He smacked at Satoshi’s damp foot. “Lift.”

Satoshi obeyed, moving his feet to let Nino put the towel beneath him.

He rose to his feet, watching Satoshi bend down to dry himself. “I have more maids now than I know what to do with. You think they won’t be confused to find footprints coming from that pool?”

“It would have been dry by the morning.”

“I’m not taking any chances,” Nino said. “Nice little magic show there. Satoshi, he who walks on water.”

“Masaki could do that too,” Satoshi admitted, finally stepping into the sitting room, dried again. “He just prefers to use doors like you humans. He’s not much of a daredevil these days.”

Nino had to admit it was clever though. Jun had told him that Satoshi would find a way to get to him without anyone else seeing him. His grandfather’s spies were watching the door, had probably just seen and noted that Sho had left for the night. He doubted any of them had been watching the rooftop.

“Is this how you’ll be visiting me now? Leaping from my roof and into my pool?”

“Admit it, Kazunari. I impressed you.”

“Never mind that. What brings you here?”

Satoshi had a seat on the floor at Nino’s table, digging inside the waistband of his trousers for a bundle of cloth tied tight with ribbon. He set it down on the table, sliding it over as Nino sat across from him.

“Courtesy of Prince Jun. There will be more.”

“I have nowhere to store this. I am inundated with spies now,” Nino pointed out, untying the ribbon and unrolling the cloth to reveal nearly a dozen identically-sized scraps of paper, likely pages torn from a book. They were in far poorer shape than what had been in the palace library, but there was no mistaking the characters on them. The language of the gods, untranslated.

“I understand that,” Satoshi said. “I’ll bring whatever we need and take it back with me. I have my own hiding places.”

Nino looked up, smirking at him. Satoshi offered a smirk in return.

He shook his head, laughing. So their language lessons would continue, no matter the risk. “It’s after midnight, and they’ll wake me just after sunrise.”

“That problem is yours, not mine.”

They got to work, tackling the new sets of words Jun had spent years collecting in hopes of helping a father who’d all but abandoned him. It became clear soon enough that the words had been written by a human with little knowledge of the gods. Satoshi was annoyed, finding many of the characters to be written incorrectly, finding many of the sentences to mean little. But it was the words that mattered, and they pushed on.

Over the next few hours, even as his eyes itched, desperate for sleep, they worked. Finally Satoshi gave up, bundling up the papers again.

Nino was half asleep, yawning as Satoshi tied the ribbon. “You and Masaki know exactly what the words are, don’t you?” he mumbled. “You know what Raku said to trap you.”

“Not all of them,” Satoshi admitted. “He’d already marked himself with the storm. The tattoos you bear. He’d already done that to himself when we arrived. We’ve believed for many years that he simply taught himself how to order us not to leave, to obey all those from his bloodline forevermore.”

Nino thought for a moment. “But to break it, do I really need his original words? Don’t I simply have to say that I remove Raku’s curse on you?”

Satoshi rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “We are not the only gods, those of us from the Great Sea. There are gods of the air and sky, gods of the soil and gods of the sun and moon. And gods are not always benevolent. We don’t exactly like being double-crossed.” He looked at Nino sadly. “So I should probably tell you that there are more than two hundred variations of the word ‘curse’ or ‘punishment’ in our language. Raku only had to pick one.”

“More than two hundred,” he sighed.

Satoshi got to his feet slowly, returning the bundle to his waistband. “It’s why I’ve had you learn other words. You should know almost every sound by now. Once you do, we can then combine them to try and make the sounds of the different words for curse. And if it’s none of those, then we can try the words for punishment. For trap. For…”

Nino held up a hand. “What do you mean combine?”

Satoshi grinned. “If I tell you to give me the first two syllables from ‘river’ that you learned tonight and the third syllable for ‘beetle,’ then what do you have?”

He searched his brain for the syllables, for the exact sounds. He spoke them aloud.

Satoshi nodded. “Correct.”

“What’s correct? Was it one of your variations on curse?”

The god smiled. “You have just told me the word for ‘handsome,’ so thank you very much for the compliment.”

Nino backed away from the table in a huff, getting to his feet. “Teach me the words I need to know, Satoshi. If I have to learn two hundred words for curse, then teach me two hundred words for curse. We can’t afford to waste time.”

“I know that,” Satoshi grumbled. “Just like I’ll have to find a way to teach you fifty ways to say ‘break’ and ten ways to say ‘remove’ and I don’t even remember how many ways to say ‘free.’ I don’t know what Raku said, and so we will have to try every single variation! You think I don’t fully grasp the challenge we’re facing here?”

He came around the table, moving into Satoshi’s space. “Then I want you here, as much as you possibly can be. I’m going to complain. I’m going to be tired. And I’m going to be frustrated. But together, you and I are going to break this. You will be able to return to the far place. You will be able to go home.”

Satoshi took a step forward of his own, until he was close enough to touch. “Then I will be here, Kazunari. As much as I possibly can be.”

Nino looked down, unable to meet Satoshi’s determined eyes. “You and your brother will be free. You will never have to think of this place again.”

“Why would I want that? To never think of this place again?”

Nino scoffed, shaking his head sadly. “You’ve suffered here for hundreds of years.”

“But you are part of this place, too.”

“You’ve been trapped here against your will all this time, suffering for generations. Suffering for a length of time I can’t even comprehend. And I’ve only been here three months. I’m simply here to correct a long and terrible mistake.”

“In three months you’ve shown more kindness than I’ve received in eight hundred years, Kazunari. So I ask again: why would I want to forget this place? Why would I want to forget you?”

His left arm burned, warmth traveling up from the tattoos to his shoulders and radiating back down his spine. Satoshi’s fingertips traced along his chin, his hand moving to cup his cheek. Nino, exhausted, was unashamed of the tears forming in his eyes. He let them fall, breath unsteady as Satoshi stroked the droplets away with his thumb.

“You asked me, a short while ago, if I had any other human weaknesses,” Satoshi whispered.

“Just your lungs,” Nino mumbled, moving more firmly against Satoshi’s touch, overwhelmed, barely able to find words. “Just your lungs. And alcohol.”

“No,” Satoshi admitted, his other arm wrapping around him. “I have one more.”

Satoshi leaned forward, the clean scent of him surrounding him, flooding his senses. But Nino couldn’t bear the weight of it all.

“Stop,” Nino whispered.

His order was obeyed.

He felt Satoshi’s breath against his face, against his lips. “Why?”

“Because it isn’t equal between us.” He was unable to keep his tears in check, feeling them slide down his face as Satoshi held him close. “Because I have power over you.”

“You do have power over me,” Satoshi muttered. “But it doesn’t come from your tattoos.”

He finally looked up. Back in Toyone-mura, he’d dreamed of leaving the caravan. Leaving his simple itinerant life and finding somewhere to settle down. He’d even been selfish enough to dream of finding love.

And now here it was, standing before him.

He surrendered, closing his eyes. Surrendering to the love of a god.

Satoshi’s kiss was soft, sweet. Freely given. He moved his head gently, leaning into it, showing Satoshi he wanted this just as much. That perhaps he’d wanted this from the day they’d met. From the day Satoshi had cried and Nino had fallen.

He let Satoshi pull him closer, their bodies flush against one another. He gave in, he gave over all his control, letting Satoshi coax his lips apart with his tongue. He lifted his hands, needing to touch, sliding his fingers through Satoshi’s unruly hair. It was too perfect, it was too good.

It was Satoshi who stopped first, the kiss starting and ending entirely on his terms. He pressed his forehead against Nino’s, breathing desperately, as Nino continued to stroke his hair. “You said they will wake you just after sunrise.”

“They will.”

“Then I will return to you tomorrow, as soon as I am able. As soon as they leave you alone.”

He moved back, wiping his eyes, enjoying the gentle flush he saw in Satoshi’s face. Nino couldn’t help wondering when he’d last kissed anyone…or at least when he’d last kissed anyone of his own free will.

“We still have to have language lessons,” Nino pointed out. “We cannot be too selfish.”

“Not too selfish,” Satoshi replied. “But maybe a little selfish.”

He grinned. “I look forward to that then.”

Satoshi smiled in return. “Good night.”

The god parted the curtains, and Nino followed him into the courtyard. He watched with a full heart as Satoshi stepped up onto the edge of the pool, the water rising up to greet him. He stepped over it, letting it surround him, lift him into the air. Nino could see all of the water coming together for his purpose, draining from the edges of the pool to form the quietly churning column of water that lifted him higher and higher.

He rose through the air, all the way to the roof, riding atop the water he commanded with such ease. The column moved, sliding from the center of the pool and allowing him to walk across it like a bridge until he could hop back onto the rooftop. And as soon as he stepped off, the water column noiselessly slid back down, Nino’s pool returning to normal.

Nino collapsed onto his bed, still in disbelief. But his lips were warm, he realized as he brushed his fingers against them. His lips were so beautifully warm.

—

He struggled to keep awake and alert as he was given a tour of the agricultural bureau. It wasn’t much more than a handful of rooms and a handful of people. There was little in the Sun Kingdom that might fall under the purview of the agricultural bureau anyway. There was farmland in the north where plants could better take hold, but he was told that there were methods for working in the desert that were as yet untested. A very dull man who seemed to be more interested in seeds than people was explaining to him what the bureau might accomplish with more funding. With the meetings Nino had taken the last few days, it seemed like many things might be accomplished across the kingdom if more funding was delivered. How many technological advances had been stalled the last several hundred years with the Matsumoto royal family content to languish behind their walls, content with keeping things as they already were?

Nino doubted that the king would ever shift funds away from the Kingsguard, so the technological stagnation would continue.

“Now,” the poor dull fellow was saying as he showed Nino a model aqueduct, “a partnership with the Empire of Salt was up for consideration during last year’s budgetary talks. We had Prince Jun’s ear on the matter for a while, but unfortunately he was unable to convince the king that…”

The door to the bureau slammed open, startling the people within. Nino’s eyes widened at the sight of Rumiko, hair wild and eyes wilder. She rushed in like an oncoming storm, pushing chairs and even people out of her way. Charging right behind her were half a dozen members of the Kingsguard, their swords drawn.

“Kazunari, my blood!” she shouted at him, making her way across the room. Her hands were shaking as she came up to him, grabbing hold of him, fingernails digging in. “Kazunari, my blood, won’t you speak for me?”

“You will unhand him,” the leader of the Kingsguard ordered. “You will come this way, Madame.”

She let him go, but only so that she could stand behind him, cowering in fright.

“Dear aunt,” he said uneasily, “what’s all the fuss about?”

While Nino had been receiving his lecture about seeds and plows, Princess Mariya was supposed to be standing before the King, her fate about to be decided. Rumiko ought to have been there. Jun ought to have been there. Masaki too. Something wasn’t right.

“You will defend me,” she told him, breath hot against his neck. “You will speak to Father for me.”

The Kingsguard took another step, the remainder of the agricultural bureau staff fleeing the chamber in fright. “Your Highness, I apologize for this. The king has just been informed of her treachery, and he has called for her to be banished again.”

“I will not go back there,” Rumiko was babbling behind him. “I will not go back to that place.”

“Treachery?” Nino asked, even though he knew very well what had likely happened. Jun had presented his arguments, calling out the names of his mother’s servants, the ones that Rumiko had turned against her. The king had not liked what he’d heard.

“She had servants lie to the king in order to cast doubts on the loyalty of Princess Mariya,” the soldier explained.

“That weakling makes false accusations! He would see me cast aside! But I will not go!” Rumiko howled, clinging to him.

Nino held up a hand, asking the Kingsguard to stay back. He turned to her, trying to keep calm even though he could see that the bangle from her ankle was gone. She was cornered now, and she might strike. She could likely summon Masaki or Satoshi from anywhere in the palace and have them clear a path for her. How many might be hurt in the process? Nino had to keep that from happening.

“Dear aunt,” he said gently. “My blood.”

Her crazed eyes were swimming as she looked at him. “My blood. You will not turn on me.”

“Why don’t I speak to Grandfather? Learn exactly what’s happened here.”

“You will defend me.” She smiled, her teeth so yellowed and brittle. “Kazunari, my blood, he will defend me. I’ve taught you. I’ve taught you. I brought you here. I knew you were strong.”

Nino took her by the arm, whispering gently for her to stay calm. The Kingsguard parted as they passed, and dozens lined the corridor. It seemed as though the king had sent everyone under his command to fetch her. He knew very well indeed how dangerous she might be without the bangle around her ankle. She’d likely forced a servant to remove it under pain of death before attending the princess’ trial. Perhaps she’d wanted to be ready in case her schemes had backfired.

But perhaps she hadn’t expected the king to have her banished from court once again.

Nino kept speaking to her quietly, the Kingsguard warily trailing them just a few steps behind as they made their way back to the audience chamber. There were at least fifty foot soldiers between them and the king, who was seated on his throne with a dark expression. Jun and his mother were nowhere to be seen, but Nino supposed that was a good thing.

Masaki stood behind the throne with his usual expression of calm, but Nino wasn’t happy to see him there. Any moment she might try and command him. Nino wasn’t sure what would happen if Masaki was given conflicting orders one right after another. All he knew was that he had to obey the members of the Matsumoto family.

Rumiko clung to him still, so he hung back with her, feeling her nails in his flesh. If he looked down, he’d likely see that she’d drawn blood in her desperation.

“Grandfather, what is the meaning of this?” he asked. “My dear aunt tells me you seek to banish her from Amaterasu.”

The old man didn’t bother to rise from his throne. “Have you asked her?”

“That boy lied!” Rumiko shouted, tightening her grip. “He sees how you favor Kazunari now, so he is lashing out.”

The king seemed more annoyed than angry. This was not the first time this kind of exchange between them had happened, that much was obvious. “Daughter, the servants have confessed.”

“You take the side of a half-blood and his weakling of a mother!”

“Kazunari, step away. I will not see you drawn into her web. She is mad.”

She looked at him, unwilling to let him go. “You and I are alike!” she begged him. “We are the loyal ones, we are the ones who work hard. We have studied and we have bled for this family! And yet we are illegitimate. We are the ones made to suffer!”

She honestly believed that Nino might still be on her side. He didn’t pity her, knowing the horrible things she’d done. But he thought he could at least understand her pain.

“Kazunari, I will not say it again,” the king demanded, and Nino pulled away. Kotaro waved to the captain of the guard. “I want her gone this time! I want her out of my sight.”

“Masaki!” Rumiko screamed. “Masaki, I have as much power over you as my father does!”

“Masaki!” Nino interrupted, feeling the god’s cold eyes turn to him. He pointed to his mouth, using some of the simplest words he’d learned. “Cover. No hurt. No hurt. Cover. Cover!”

And before Rumiko could give a contrary order, could tell Masaki to drown the Kingsguard or wreak other havoc, a bubble of water appeared in front of her mouth, her words lost in a sputter. But she could still breathe through her nose. Masaki was not causing harm to a person of Sorcerer Raku’s bloodline. Just…an inconvenience.

Nino watched his aunt turn to him, the water covering her mouth and only her mouth, almost like she’d been gagged. The expression on her face changed as she realized that talking was now impossible. Her face turned hideous with his betrayal, and she forgot where she was, suddenly leaning down to pull a concealed knife from her boot, leaping toward him in a rage.

“Rumiko!” the king hollered as she raised it high, and she paused, letting it hang there in her hand, only steps away from Nino, who held his hands up defensively. “One more step and I’ll have your head, you ungrateful child!”

Rumiko’s eyes burned with hatred for him. She seemed like she might be happy for a beheading if it meant that he’d go down with her.

Nino took a slow, steady breath, watching her carefully. The woman who’d come to the desert, the woman with the rotting arm. His aunt, the murderer.

Rumiko dropped the knife, bursting the bubble covering her mouth with a disturbingly loud scream. The Kingsguard surrounded her, a few grabbing hold of Nino and pulling him out of harm’s way. He watched as they hauled her up, one brave soldier nearly getting his finger bitten off as he tried to cover her mouth. It took ten of them to remove her from the throne room, kicking and screaming, and Nino finally looked back at the throne, seeing the fury gradually fading from his grandfather’s face.

Masaki was just as placid as ever, though Nino couldn’t help noticing the way his hand gripped the King’s chair, his knuckles white from whatever it had taken him to strike at Rumiko with such precision but not hurt her. He looked at Nino but could say nothing.

“She will not trouble us any longer,” the king said, as though he was speaking of a pesky panhandler and not his own mad daughter.

Nino approached the throne, asking for the full story. Princess Mariya had been cleared of all charges brought against her. Prince Jun had been ordered to take his mother to a royal estate in the east so she might “recover” from the inconvenience she’d undergone. Nino knew better. It was exile. A comfortable exile for the princess, but exile just the same.

The pieces were moving, faster than Nino had even imagined. Mariya, the widow of the deceased heir to the throne, was gone. And after pushing her luck too far, Rumiko too was gone. With Jun’s devotion to his mother, it was likely he’d be staying east with her, at least for the time being. And knowing Jun like he did now, Nino imagined that he’d be staying for a while to ensure that the people who served his mother had her best interests in mind.

In one afternoon, Nino’s path to the throne had been cleared of several obstacles. But without the distraction that was his wicked daughter or his powerless grandson, Kotaro would scrutinize him more than ever.

The walls were closing in.

—

He returned to his rooms long after dark, finding a scrap of paper on the desk in his study. There were three characters on it, a word in the language of the gods, though it hadn’t been written very clearly. He summoned Sho, getting an answer.

Sho seemed a little embarrassed. “Masaki…dictated, you might say. He stopped by late this afternoon after all the commotion. Nobody else was here. I think the whole palace gathered to watch the Sorceress be hauled away in that carriage. Anyhow, he told me how to move the pen, but he didn’t explain what he was having me write. Do you know what it says?”

“Yes,” he said. “It means ‘hand.’”

“Hand?” Sho mumbled.

Nino tore the paper to pieces, just to be on the safe side. He dumped the pieces in Sho’s hands for him to dispose. He moved out of his study and into the sitting room, pulling the swaying curtains aside. “He was with you the whole time?”

“It was no more than five minutes. We stood together in your main reception room, and he told me to leave this on your desk. I never let him out of my sight.”

“Then he had help,” Nino said with a grin, moving out into the darkened courtyard. In the lantern light and starlight, he could see the familiar vial resting in the hand of the naked statue in the pool. It was, of course, just out of his reach.

Sho stood behind him, sighing. “You’d just run out, I was about to find and ask him myself but I guess I didn’t have to ask.”

Nino could see the vibrant strands of blue. More kerida blossom to grind up and add to everything he ate and drank to continue keeping the poison at bay. Masaki had provided it, but Satoshi had dropped it off.

“Thank you, Sho,” Nino replied, looking at the vial and smiling. “That will be all for tonight.”

“The king has doubled the number of guards posted at your door.” Sho rested a hand on his shoulder. “In case you have any visitors.”

He turned, seeing the way his friend’s eyebrow was raised in curiosity. “What?”

“You were nearly murdered in the royal audience chamber today,” Sho reminded him. “But you seem rather…relaxed.”

He teasingly pushed Sho’s hand away. “Never you mind.”

Sho’s expression grew more serious. “Nino. Is there something I should know?”

“Perhaps you should go visit my brother. It seems like he won’t be returning to court for a while. With all the confusion today, the spying servants will be off their game. It might be the safest time to go for a visit. Catch up on old times. Maybe you could help him…pack,” he said pointedly in reply.

Sho was a mixture of angry and embarrassed, turning away. “Good night, Your Highness,” he said haughtily, and Nino held in a laugh.

—

When Sho was gone, he moved into the courtyard, looking up with a knowing smile. It wasn’t long before the water show began, Satoshi leaping even higher this time, riding the spout of water down into the pool. He deftly snatched the vial from the statue’s hand, jumping from the spout to the edge of the pool and into Nino’s personal space with bouncing, eager steps.

He stunned Nino with an unexpectedly hard kiss, nearly knocking him back against the courtyard wall. But he welcomed the greeting, returning Satoshi’s kiss with everything he had. It had not even been a full day since they’d seen one another, and yet it felt like so much had changed. Sho was right - Nino’s life had been threatened that day. It made the moments he had with Satoshi all the more precious.

“She’s truly gone,” Satoshi said, pulling back and pointing at him with the vial of kerida blossom. “I watched the carriage vanish into the distance myself!”

No wonder he was in such a merry mood. The woman who’d made it her life’s work to torment him had been banished once again.

“Your brother played a crucial role in that,” Nino admitted, snatching the vial from the god’s hand and heading inside. “But she really dug her own grave.”

“Don’t jest about graves,” Satoshi chided him, dutifully waiting by the curtains for Nino to fetch another towel for his wet feet. “I will not truly be satisfied until I know she’s in one. Permanently.”

Nino returned, kneeling down again. But this time he lingered, gently rubbing the towel over Satoshi’s feet, feeling his hand rest on his shoulder to keep his balance while he lifted them in turn so Nino could dry the sole of each foot. When he was finished he looked up, seeing a hungered look in Satoshi’s dark eyes.

“I have double the guards posted outside my chambers tonight,” Nino told him. “We’ll have to have quiet study this evening.”

“Then we should locate ourselves as far from your door as we can. Perhaps I’ll let you draw me a bath…”

Nino got to his feet, shaking his head in amusement. Once a stubborn god, always a stubborn god. “We will work in here, but we work quietly. And we will work, Satoshi.”

“If you don’t make my language sound like a cat’s howl, I might reward you,” Satoshi teased. Nino deliberately sat across from him at the table, if only to keep some distance between them for the time being.

It was a rather charged meeting of the minds that night. Satoshi had brought another bundle of papers Jun had given him, but he scrutinized each of them closely before deciding which word and associated syllables and sounds Nino was to learn next. He stumbled his way through pronunciations of various body parts. Elbows, arms, necks. Feet, ankles, knees.

Eyes.

Lips.

Mouths.

He could see that Satoshi was just about to get up when he held up a hand. “Not just yet,” Nino said. “We’ll do some combination words. I won’t allow you near until I’ve learned six new words for curse.”

Satoshi scowled at him, greedy. Nino always liked this part of budding love affairs. Seeing how long resistances could endure before giving up and giving in. Satoshi, being a god, likely wasn’t used to such…games of endurance.

But he obeyed as best he could, helping Nino to construct words from disparate parts. He tried a few phrases, combining ‘curse’ with one of the words for ‘end’ or one of the words for ‘stop.’ Satoshi shook his head. These weren’t the right words, not yet. He’d definitely know if Nino’s tattoos no longer held sway over him.

Another lesson over, the curse still stood. But that just meant that more lessons would be required until they found an answer. With the long days ahead, learning his place at court, he’d at least have something to look forward to.

Speaking of things to look forward to…

He got to his feet, taking Satoshi by the hand and pulling him to his bedroom, shutting the door. In the candlelight, they undressed one another, slowly, purposefully. He pressed a kiss to Satoshi’s bare shoulder when he’d managed to strip the worn cotton shirt from him.

“Tell me something.”

“Yours to command,” came the grouchy response.

He smiled against Satoshi’s sun-kissed skin. “I remember some stories from when I was younger.”

“Mmm.”

“Keep in mind that I never believed in gods in the first place. But I remember one story I heard, I was trying to listen in on some pretty older girls outside my parents’ tent one night. I’m fairly sure it was a cautionary tale meant to scare girls into avoiding strange men who sought to steal their virtue.”

Satoshi tilted his head back, letting Nino kiss along his shoulder, leaving a damp trail up his neck.

“They said that you had to be careful if a stranger came calling. He might be a god in disguise. And if you gave yourself to him, the act might drive you mad.”

“Mad?” Satoshi chuckled, pulling Nino up to kiss him again. He easily opened up his mouth, letting Satoshi slip his tongue inside. Tongue…that was a word he hadn’t learned tonight though. Among a few others.

Nino moved away first, smiling as Satoshi helped to free him from the confines of his linen trousers. “Oh yes, the story said that humans and gods are too different. A human can’t really bear a god’s power.” He chuckled. “I remember one of the younger girls asking what that meant, and one of the older girls said that if a god spilled himself inside you, you’d likely die from the shock of it. And if you survived, it would render you mad.”

Satoshi nearly bent double laughing, struggling with the ties keeping his trousers snug around his hips. “This is what human children speak of?”

“Older children who know the facts of life, I suppose. So tell me, Satoshi…” He waited for the god’s eyes to meet his again. “If I let you come inside me, will I die?”

Satoshi leaned forward, brushing his lips to the corner of Nino’s mouth. “I’m forbidden to harm you.”

“That doesn’t quite answer my question,” Nino teased.

“It has been a very, very long time since I’ve come inside anyone,” he mumbled, pushing his fingers against Nino’s lips to silence him. “So perhaps I’ve forgotten.”

He smiled. Well, there was only one way to find out. And what a way to die, he thought with a soft laugh.

Nino discovered that a god’s anatomy differed very little from his own once they were both free of all their clothes. Satoshi had a small, lean frame as he did, but he was well-muscled, firm and strong. He let his eyes drop lower, drifting down his abdomen, following the soft trail of black hair down, pleased at the sight of the hard, eager cock that proved Satoshi’s desperate interest.

He moved to the bed, saying nothing as he nodded for Satoshi to join him. They lay back against the luxurious abundance of pillows, watching each other for a few moments. He traced his fingers along Satoshi’s arms, down his chest. When he reached along his side, he discovered that a god could be ticklish, too.

He relented, letting Satoshi explore his body as well. He was slow, deliberate, running his fingertips along every inch of skin he could manage as Nino shut his eyes, breathing in the scent of him so close. He groaned a little, sighing as Satoshi’s deft fingers traced inside his thigh, up and down his shaft, thumb brushing over the sensitive head of his cock before moving elsewhere. He only opened his eyes when he felt Satoshi’s fingers trace along the six purple markings on his left arm.

He looked into Satoshi’s eyes, taking a breath. “I could cover it.”

“No,” Satoshi said, shaking his head. “No, it’s part of you.”

Satoshi moved him onto his back, leaning over him, kissing him slowly, almost reverently. Nino had known many pleasurable nights over the course of his short life, but he couldn’t quite remember any like this. He couldn’t remember any nights where he felt like he was being so thoroughly tasted, savored from head to toe.

“Do you have something that will make this enjoyable?” Satoshi finally asked.

He grinned. He’d gone to the rooftop many, many nights in those borrowed servant’s robes to give the impression he was out and about to find his next conquest. It had only seemed natural to have a bit of oil with him for appearance’s sake. He reluctantly pulled away from Satoshi’s soft, lingering kisses and moved to the edge of the bed. This was something he didn’t much care if his new spying servants found. He snuck his hand beneath the mattress and bed frame, grasping for the vial he still kept.

He turned back, holding it with a shy grin. “You don’t need much, it’s a fairly potent mixture.”

Satoshi took the vial, smiling. “This something they teach all healers to make?”

“Not all healers. Just the overly lustful ones.”

Nino learned that it really had been a long time since Satoshi had found himself in bed with another. But since Satoshi had taken it upon himself to teach Nino how to speak the language of the gods, then it was only fair that Nino play the instructor role where he could in exchange.

They took it slow, Nino coating his fingers with the lubricating oil, showing him what needed to be done. It hadn’t been decades for Nino, but it had still been some time since he’d been penetrated. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the cock of a god, so he worked slowly, gently, easing the tip of his finger inside himself. Satoshi was close, watching with those dark, wanting eyes. He encouraged Satoshi to take over, sighing softly when his fingers were replaced inside him with unfamiliar ones. Satoshi kept a hand between his legs, gently thrusting his finger inside him as he curled up next to him, kissing him like each might be their last.

He was hard, and he couldn’t help stroking his cock in time with the languid motion of Satoshi’s finger inside him. He encouraged Satoshi with soft gasps, his body slowly relaxing and adjusting around the intrusion. He bit his lip, crying out when he felt Satoshi slip another warm, slippery finger into him. It was the most thorough preparation he’d ever experienced, his face flushed and his limbs shaking at the building sensation between his legs.

“Please, when you’re ready…I want you…” he murmured, face half buried against Satoshi’s neck.

“You are certain?”

“Please.”

He felt the absence of Satoshi’s touch keenly, groaning in disappointment. He earned a laugh for that, Satoshi moving over to position himself more easily between his legs. He watched, licking his lips as Satoshi’s poured a little more of the lubricating oil into his palm, slicking it over his hard, heavy cock.

“Eyes up here,” Satoshi said.

Nino looked up, grinning. “Eyes up here,” he replied in the language of the gods.

He moaned a bit when he felt the thick head of Satoshi’s cock press against him. But he didn’t tell him to stop. He shut his eyes, breathing in and out as he braced himself for the first few shallow thrusts of a god’s cock inside his very much human body.

He nodded his approval, and Satoshi moved with a slow but steady grace. Their bodies fit together in a way Nino could not have imagined. Satoshi was on top of him, pushing forward, clearly holding himself back so Nino could be comfortable. He felt Satoshi’s breath against his face. Months earlier, if someone had told him that he was going to be fucked by a god, he’d have questioned the person’s sanity.

But here was Satoshi, cursed by Nino’s own family. A god with power beyond Nino’s comprehension. That same Satoshi cared for him, loved him. The stories said that what they were doing right now could kill him or leave him crazed. But all he knew was that he wanted this. He wanted this so much he couldn’t comprehend it.

He leaned up, bringing his hand to the back of Satoshi’s head and pulling him down. He opened his mouth as he’d so unabashedly opened his heart, tears of happiness, tears of satisfaction slipping from his eyes as he felt Satoshi’s thick cock fill him again and again, Satoshi’s tongue moving in time so that every part of Nino might be full with him. Fuck me, he wanted to say. Fuck me and don’t stop, but those were rather dangerous orders to give to a god who had little choice but to obey your command. He thought it instead, thought of staying in this bed, in their small but shared universe, and never letting him go.

He felt almost feverish, his body so hot, burning with the closeness of the god who could make him feel warm from three floors away. “Satoshi,” he begged him, moving his body, his hips, hearing the god moan as Nino met his every eager thrust.

There were guards outside his door, but they were rooms and rooms away. He wrapped his arms around Satoshi, holding tight to his shoulders. “Kazu,” Satoshi replied, entering him again and again. “Kazu…”

Words failed him in both the common tongue and the language of the gods. Where any normal man might have given in, Satoshi persisted, plunging his hard cock into him without seeming to tire. Nino almost laughed, discovering where human weakness faltered and where a god’s power picked up the slack. Perhaps this was the madness the girls feared when they shared their lustful fairy tales. He knew that if they didn’t stop soon that he’d be sore come morning, no matter how much he’d readied his body for it.

“Please,” he finally said, giving in, clinging to Satoshi. “Please.”

He didn’t quite take it as an order, but understood nonetheless. He felt Satoshi’s movements slow, opened his eyes and looked up to see a smile on his face. Nino traced a bead of sweat along the side of Satoshi’s face.

“If you kill me or drive me mad, I will not forgive you.”

Satoshi grimaced, letting out an irritated laugh that sent a tremor of pleasure all the way down Nino’s spine. And then he gave in, shook off all pretense or politeness. Nino could only hold on, gasping, riding it out. He moaned at the surprising surge of warmth inside him, having received no warning. Payback, he supposed. Satoshi stilled within him, humming in a satisfied way that made him smile, knowing he was the cause of it.

“Not dead,” Satoshi murmured, mouth trailing along his neck before gently pulling out of him.

“Mmmm. No, I’m not.”

“Insane?”

“We’ll see come morning. Might take a while to kick in since I am a sweaty, oiled mess.”

“You talk a lot after, hmm?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

Satoshi let out a low little chuckle. “See if you can keep quiet.”

Nino gasped in surprise when Satoshi, hair sticking out every which way and with a grin on his flushed face, took hold of his cock, working him with quick, powerful strokes. It took only a minute before he was moving, thrusting up and into Satoshi’s hand, desperate for the friction. He earned another laugh when he came, dirtying himself further as Satoshi stroked him through it.

When he finally came back to himself, Satoshi was already returning from the washroom with towels and warm water.

He fell asleep to the warm press of cloth along his stomach, to the even warmer press of Satoshi’s lips against his thigh.

“I love you,” he murmured, happily drifting away. Not dead, not mad. But perhaps something new entirely.

—

By day, Nino sat in on meetings, took notes, learned affairs of state. Masaki took over matters surrounding the king’s ninetieth birthday, working with the king’s advisors to plan the event and more importantly, to plan how Nino might be re-introduced to the kingdom’s elites. Sho arranged for an endless parade of tailors to come to Nino’s apartments, draping him in fabric. Poking him with pins.

Thankfully Sho was also available to keep Nino grounded, reporting on the news he’d heard. Things were quieter now that Rumiko and the dark cloud that surrounded her had vanished from the palace. And it was nearly five weeks before Jun finally returned from Katashina-mura, the village that was home to the luxurious estate where the princess was now staying. If Sho seemed a little more nervous than usual about the prince’s return from the east, Nino decided not to tease him about it. At some point Sho would have to admit a few things to himself, now that he didn’t have the fear of death hanging over him. But of course, that was Sho’s business.

It was nighttime where Nino felt safest, happiest. And full of purpose. Another month of language lessons had left him with an even bigger arsenal of words at his disposal. And he suspected he was getting closer. When Nino had spoken one of the phrases that meant simply “I release you,” Satoshi had reacted to it immediately, his eyes filling with tears. Masaki had had a similar reaction, telling Nino it had felt like someone had been squeezing his heart and had loosened their grip just a bit. Initially disheartened, Masaki had enveloped him in one of his gentle hugs.

“I haven’t felt this way in eight hundred years,” Masaki had confessed. “You really can do it, Ninomiya Kazunari.”

They were on the right track. After all these months, and after all those long years, it might truly be possible.

He spent almost every night with his personal tutor, discovering that a god’s stamina and persistence took a lot of getting used to. Sometimes Nino managed to stay awake long enough to watch Satoshi slip away, almost dancing atop a column of water. Other times, bone tired and lips swollen from kisses, he simply fell asleep in his bed, a good night kiss from Satoshi barely registering.

They never spoke about what breaking the curse might actually mean. That, Nino felt, was a pointless thing. Because they hadn’t broken the curse. They worked at it every night, Nino sounding out syllables until his throat was dry, and still they hadn’t broken it. During the day, the king still had the gods doing his bidding. He had Masaki fill fountains, he had Satoshi fill wells. Sometimes Nino was given the assignment instead, either as a test of loyalty or because his grandfather still found him lacking in ruthlessness. Their pain was ongoing, inescapable, unavoidable.

Nino knew what they had together was precious, something he had to cherish while he had it. Of all the humans in all the world, a son of the God of the Waters had chosen to love him. It had been both the most difficult and most fulfilling month of his life, having Satoshi by his side. Satoshi in his bed. But when Satoshi had his freedom, Nino knew that his own feelings didn’t matter.

For eight hundred years, Satoshi had looked off at the eastern sky, longing for home, enduring an impossible situation. A few months with Nino couldn’t really erase that, and so he simply chose not to bring it up. When Satoshi was free, Nino knew, he was free. Free to go home, free to take on the form he was born in, and if that meant returning to the Undersea Palace - a place where Nino couldn’t follow - then so be it. That choice would be Satoshi’s alone to make.

He returned that night from a late dinner in his grandfather’s apartments. The old man was waited on hand and foot by a group of young maids in red robes barely out of their teens. The old man watched them with his half-crusted over eyes, pinching and leering, licking his chapped lips. Nino had barely been able to keep his food down.

“One day this will all be yours,” his grandfather had said, his fingers running absent-mindedly over the rotted, poisoned skin of his tattooed arm.

He found a scrap of paper on his desk, knowing that Masaki had once again found a way to get Sho to write down a secret message. After so many weeks of study, he didn’t have to think long for an answer.

It was a dangerous thing, but he found himself unable to resist. He tore the paper to bits, scattering the remains in a planter and covering it over with dirt. He washed his hands, heading for the exit. Four members of the Kingsguard trailed him through the halls. Even though the threat of Rumiko had gone, his grandfather had him watched everywhere he went.

He paused at the archway that led underground. “I will be bathing, gentlemen,” he said in the firm voice he’d worked so hard to cultivate here in the cruel palace. “I am not to be disturbed.”

They weren’t going to budge, but at least they weren’t going to follow him inside. He was a Matsumoto, and his own brother was known for hosting his raunchy parties in the baths below the palace. Let the Kingsguard (and through them, his grandfather) believe he was no different in that regard.

Of course, there was only one soul waiting for him, sitting on the edge of the main pool. His trousers were rolled up to his knees, his bare feet plunged into the cool depths.

He crossed his arms, trying not to smile. Warmth still trickled up and down his left arm at the sight of him every time, and Nino now knew for a fact that it was mutual. From the moment Nino had been tattooed, Satoshi had been able to sense him. That too would vanish along with the curse, Nino thought before immediately tamping the sentiment away.

“Dangerous,” he said quietly, though the arched ceilings bounced his voice around. “Meeting here.”

Satoshi grinned in reply, getting to his feet. It left him in awe every time, watching what Satoshi could do with water when he wasn’t being forced. Nino watched him step forward, floating only inches above the pool below, gliding slowly across until he was facing Nino, the water gently rippling in the path he’d left behind.

“I want to try something,” Satoshi whispered, holding out his hand. “Please?”

Nino narrowed his eyes. “I’ll sink.”

“I won’t let you.”

He frowned. “Why now? We ought to study.”

Satoshi floated just a bit closer, until some water splashed over the edge of the pool, brushing against Nino’s sandals. “I don’t want to study. I’d like a night off, just once. Just once I want you all to myself with nothing keeping me from you.”

He cocked his head. “You read those sweet words in a book?”

“One of Masaki’s probably,” Satoshi said with a wink. “He’s a romantic fool, you know.”

Nino sighed, slipping out of his sandals and moving to the edge of the pool. It was only a few feet deep, nothing to fear. He took Satoshi’s hand, trusting him despite his wink. In moments they were moving, Satoshi’s arm protectively around his back as Nino rested his hands on his shoulders.

He could feel the water skimming under his feet, whimpering a bit in fright as Satoshi started to pull them to and fro, picking up speed, gliding all around. As they moved, the water lifted them and lowered them, Satoshi guiding them over the waves he created with only his own thoughts.

“You could open your eyes,” Satoshi teased, his grip firm and strong.

“I’ll vomit on you,” Nino complained. “Slow down.”

They did slow, but mostly because Nino had commanded it. Instead of floating around, Satoshi had them simply sway from side to side, as though they were dancing close just over the water. He cracked open an eye, looking into Satoshi’s. Open, trusting. Amused. Nino lifted his hand, stroking Satoshi’s face.

“I much prefer your other seduction techniques,” Nino told him, fearing every moment that Satoshi might drop him simply to laugh about it. “Where you show up in my room and just start taking your clothes off. Simple. Straight to the point. It’s what I like about you.”

“I want to tell you something.”

He sighed. “And so you brought me down here when my room has such amenities as, oh, let me see…a solid floor beneath your feet. Or a sturdy mattress that’s endured a lot these last few weeks. And if you’re in need of water, you could have a bath…”

“Kazunari, be quiet.”

He shut up immediately. Something was wrong.

“Masaki and I have been talking. At least since the other night.”

“I release you,” he whispered, feeling Satoshi’s grip on him tighten.

“Yes, since the night we heard you say that.”

He waited, still a bit irritated that Satoshi had chosen this venue for what seemed to be an important talk.

“It’s about what he and I plan to do when we are freed.”

Nino held in a breath. No. No, he hadn’t wanted to have this conversation. Not yet anyway.

“I thought you should know what I’m planning so it doesn’t come as a surprise. And I thought you should know because I will not allow you to stop me.”

“What…what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to kill the king. And your aunt.”

Nino took a breath, then another. He spoke again. “Get me out of this pool. Now.”

Satoshi obliged, floating them over to the edge of the pool with little artistry this time. Nino was grateful for solid ground, sitting and crossing his legs to keep from shaking. Satoshi moved to sit in his usual way, hunched over with his feet in the water. They sat there quietly for a few moments.

“Masaki is undecided. He wishes for their deaths, even if he won’t speak the words aloud, but I know him. I know my brother, and what he has suffered at their hands,” Satoshi mumbled. “But he is kind at heart. So that is why I will do it myself.”

“The Kingsguard protect my grandfather. And whatever desert hole Rumiko’s in, I can guarantee there are Kingsguard watching her as well.”

“I am a god, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I certainly haven’t,” Nino snapped. “But there would be consequences, even if your revenge is justified.”

“And what consequences are those?” he replied. “Evil is overthrown. You are free to rule. You are free to change things, make this kingdom a better place.”

“Why not just leave? Why not just get away from here?” He laughed bitterly. “After what you’ve endured, you might have your father send a flood and wipe us from existence, this palace, this entire kingdom. It needn’t be by your own hand.”

“Because I would see the light leave their eyes myself,” Satoshi said. “Then I will know that it is over.”

“And if other people get in the way of it? The Kingsguard, the civilians and servants of the palace? Will they die by your hand as well?”

Satoshi looked at him. “If it comes to that, then yes.”

He shut his eyes, trying to find words. He’d feel no sadness if Kotaro and Rumiko were killed, but Satoshi was no murderer.

“There is a cost to everything. You have the markings of your bloodline embedded in your skin, so you know this better than anyone,” Satoshi said.

“You are good. It is not just your brother who is kind at heart,” Nino said. “If you have to harm innocents to get what you want, it will break you, Satoshi.”

“I am prepared for that.”

He got to his feet. There was no arguing with a stubborn god. “You will come for lessons tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will see you tomorrow.”

He wasn’t surprised when Satoshi didn’t bother to tell him good night.

—

He could sense the shift between them over the next several weeks. Satoshi, unapologetic, was pressing Nino hard with darker words, serious words. They had trouble meeting one another’s eyes - Satoshi who refused to stray from his planned course, Nino who knew that he would be the one to unlock everything so that Satoshi could get what he wanted.

The ease with which they’d spoken had reversed, and the soft moments they spent together in Nino’s bed had lost their innocence. Nino reluctantly accepted that he would be complicit in murder. He could pray all he wanted that only Kotaro and Rumiko would be made to pay for their mistakes. But there was no guarantee that a god freed from eight hundred years of pain, his powers fully restored, would be able to rein himself in entirely.

The language lessons went on longer, the time they spent making love grew shorter. Satoshi, understanding Nino’s disappointment in him, no longer initiated anything himself. Some nights their lessons ended, and he simply departed without a word. And yet on others Nino clung to him desperately, the room filled only with the harsh sounds of heavy breathing, of bodies joining. No sweet words, no declarations of love. He only let Satoshi take him from behind, Nino’s fingers clinging to the sheets as he buried his cries of both pleasure and sorrow in the mattress or a pillow. If he looked into Satoshi’s eyes, he was afraid that he might never again see the innocent look he’d witnessed on the day they’d met. He was afraid that part of him, the part of Satoshi he loved most, had been hidden away, never to return so he might fulfill the mission he’d set for himself.

One night Nino abandoned his rooms entirely, walking the palace grounds to clear his mind. The Kingsguard followed him just steps behind, and he could feel movement in the shadows, could feel the burning in his left arm. Satoshi was watching, Satoshi was close, but he couldn’t approach.

He let out his frustration on the servants who were underfoot throughout the day, poking and prodding at him, inconveniencing him at every turn. He could barely speak to Sho, for fear that he might lose his temper and confess it all. It was best Sho believed that Nino was simply exhausted from matters of state, that the dark circles under his eyes had nothing to do with Satoshi.

He sat at his grandfather’s side at meetings, knowing that any night he might learn the words that would result in the old man’s death and more importantly, the words that would result in the deaths of any man or woman who tried to prevent it. Masaki was usually in the room, his expression serious. Nino could see in his eyes that he knew what his brother was planning. And Masaki knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it.

—

The celebration for the king was only a few days away when the words were finally unlocked. Roughly translated into the common tongue, it was nearly as vague as the wind blowing down mountains Nino bore on his left arm.

From the river that was choked and its tributaries emptied, I release you.

As soon as the words left his lips, Satoshi let out a gasp. He backed away from the table, hands at his throat. Nino stumbled over to him, watching him where he lay on the floor, body shaking. His eyes filled with tears, and Nino trembled.

“Say…say it again. Please.”

Nino bit his lip, knowing he had to. He couldn’t keep it from him. “From the river that was choked and its tributaries emptied, I release you.”

Satoshi still quaked with shock, and a few terrifying moments passed before Nino watched him shakily sit up again, hand to his obviously aching head.

“Are you…is it over?”

Satoshi was breathing heavily. “I’m close…I know it’s close. Those are the words. Those have to be the words.” He looked up at him, eyes widening. “Kazu…no. Oh no…”

Nino looked down, shuddering in fright. The six tattoos on his arm were bleeding. No, not bleeding. He panicked, falling to his knees. They were oozing ink, thick streams of it burning across his flesh. It ached. Gods, it ached. “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?”

Satoshi scrambled to his feet, running from the room. Nino was shaking, unable to breathe. All he could do was cradle his arm in his hand, watching the purple stain across his skin. There was so much of it, so much of it. It felt the same as it had in his room that day, the needles plunging into his skin again and again and again. But if he screamed, the Kingsguard might come in and so he bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood. What was happening?

Satoshi returned with a wet towel, the dripping cloth held in his shaking hands. “Let me. Please let me.”

He whimpered as Satoshi pressed the towel against his arm, the fabric soaking through in purple in seconds. But it kept coming, spilling onto the table, the scraps of paper, the floor. He was growing lightheaded, the pain consuming him entirely.

“What’s going on?” he gasped.

Satoshi fled, nearly slipping on the ink that was soaking through the tatami floor. Nino heard splashing in his bathtub. He was filling it with water. He could barely keep his eyes open when Satoshi returned, lifting Nino into his arms and carrying him to the other room. He moaned when he entered the water, some of it splashing out and onto the floor. He looked down at his arm, staring at it until he could no longer see it, the water turning almost black.

It was still oozing from his flesh, the poisoned, cursed ink. There hadn’t been this much of it when the tattoos had been given to him, he thought. Why was there so much of it?

Satoshi’s hands were stained as he grasped Nino’s face in his hands. “Kazu. Kazu, listen to me.”

“Are you free?” he mumbled. “Did I free you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t…I don’t know. But I have to find Masaki. I…I have to find him.”

“I will free him too. I will free him.”

“Stay where you are,” Satoshi said, pressing an urgent kiss against his temple. “Stay here.”

When Satoshi was gone, he let the pain overwhelm him, let himself fade.

—

He woke in an unfamiliar bed, opening his eyes to find Masaki sitting on the mattress beside him, holding a damp cloth against his forehead. Light was filtering in from the neighboring room. It was morning. He’d likely been unconscious or asleep for hours.

“Masaki,” he croaked, feeling weak, exhausted.

Masaki offered him a gentle smile, poking his chin. “It’s good to see you awake.”

“Where am I?”

“Much has happened. You are in Prince Jun’s rooms.”

“Jun?” He tried to move, to sit up, but Masaki pressed a hand against his chest, keeping him down.

“Yes, Satoshi and I took advantage of the confusion to bring you here. You are safe here.”

“I don’t understand…”

“The king is dead,” Masaki said plainly, watching him with wary eyes. “Kotaro is dead. The same thing that you endured happened to him when you spoke the words.”

“Dead?!”

“I was a few rooms over when I heard him scream. They summoned doctors, healers, the Kingsguard. I watched from the doorway, I watched him die.” Masaki took a deep breath, as though even he couldn’t believe what he’d seen. “His bed, the rugs on the floor…his entire suite was full of ink. I need you to know that he died in agony. He choked on it. There was so much of it that he choked on it, drowned in it.”

Nino shut his eyes at the thought of it. “If the king is dead…”

“…then Jun succeeds him,” came Sho’s soft voice.

Masaki finally relented, helping Nino to sit up in bed. He looked down, saw that his arm was bare. His skin had stained patches, blotches of purple they hadn’t fully scrubbed from him. The outlines of the tattoos remained, but their color had faded to a sickly gray. Sho was standing in the doorway, looking just as tired as Nino felt.

“Sakurai Sho is right,” Masaki said. “You would have been named heir in the ceremony to come, but since there was no official announcement, it’s as though the succession never changed.”

“I have no desire to be king,” he whispered. “Let him have it.”

“The palace is a madhouse right now. Kingsguard and advisors. Some of them have simply fled, others are demanding answers. Jun is trying his best to restore order, but people are frightened,” Sho admitted. “Nino, I cannot stay, I’m sorry. I only wanted to know that you are well.”

Nino raised his hand, shooing him. “He needs you. Go.”

Sho bowed to him, hurrying away.

He looked up at Masaki. “Are you free?”

The god shook his head. “No.”

His heart sank. “Why not?”

“You said the words to Satoshi. But I felt them. I felt them, too. I know that they are right. But when you said them aloud, I believe that they only served to cancel out the existing curse. It is why the poisoned ink drained from you. From the king. And from Jun.”

“Did it hurt Jun?”

Masaki shook his head. “Sakurai Sho found him. He wasn’t hurt. Alarmed, obviously, but not hurt. It simply seeped out of his skin. So that left me and Satoshi convinced that the curse breaking affected you all proportionately. ‘You’ being the members of the Matsumoto family who have been tattooed.”

“Jun never hurt you,” Nino mumbled. “Jun had no power.”

“Exactly. The poison simply left him. You, on the other hand, you’ve been made to use your power many times these last few months. So you suffered. And then as to Kotaro…”

Nino felt a sense of satisfaction, somewhere deep down. He took no pleasure in another person’s death, but it seemed a perfect end for someone so cruel, someone who had hurt Masaki and Satoshi for decades. He had drowned, choking on the curse of his ancestors.

“Where is Satoshi?”

Masaki’s expression was grim. “He is gathering supplies for travel. Since he was unable to see to the king’s end himself, he has decided to find Rumiko.”

Nino shook his head. He had seen her arm. He had seen the things she had done, had learned the sins of her past as well. Her body ought to have been full of poison. Her suffering would have been long and painful, the same as Kotaro’s.

“Isn’t it likely that she’s dead?”

“He wishes to confirm it with his own eyes. Or to complete the act himself,” Masaki said. “But he will need your permission to leave.”

He laughed bitterly. “There is no power in me now, is there? I can’t force him to stay.”

“We are not yet free. Satoshi says you spoke the words twice. The words are right, but the method of their delivery is not.” Masaki sounded ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

Nino met Masaki’s eyes, saw in that exact moment what was required.

Before he could speak, Masaki was shaking his head. “You don’t have to. Your body is weakened, you need to rest. It is likely Rumiko is dead anyway, so there is no reason for Satoshi to leave right away. And with the chaos here in the palace, I don’t believe it is the right time.”

“I promised the both of you that I would free you,” Nino said quietly. “I will not go back on that promise. And I will not delay it.”

“It might kill you,” Masaki interrupted him sharply. “I told my brother the same and still he prepares to ride into the desert. He cares only about his revenge.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “Yes,” he whispered. “That sounds like him.”

Nino reached out, taking Masaki’s hand into his own. It was cool, soothing when he twined their fingers together.

“He only has to wait until I can talk with Jun. Work with Sho, Masaki. Help him. And help my brother.”

“Of course,” Masaki vowed.

“And until then, I will rest.” He took a deep breath, squeezing Masaki’s hand. “I will fulfill my promise, no matter what it costs.”

—

He felt warm prickles run up and down his arm as he slept, but when he opened his eyes, the room was empty. Satoshi had been near, but he hadn’t come close.

It was dark when he woke again for good.

He slowly pushed the blankets away, still a bit lightheaded when he got to his feet. He shuffled through the well-appointed bedchamber, finding them all sitting in the next room over, the four of them. Two Kingsguard stood at the opposite end of the room, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice.

Jun and Sho had their heads together, the table overburdened with scrolls and papers. With the king’s sudden, gruesome death, it would be a long time before Jun would be able to assume full control of the kingdom. But he had the best person to help him by his side.

Masaki was sitting in quiet observation, a nervous look in his eyes. And then pacing the floor impatiently was Satoshi, who turned to look at him before Nino could even speak. He hovered in the doorway instead, holding onto the frame to keep from toppling over in exhaustion.

It was Jun who was the first to speak. He turned to the guards and dismissed them. They obeyed without complaint, which meant that Jun was being respected again after so many years of cloaking himself in apathy.

When the five of them were alone, Nino bowed his head to his brother.

“Your Majesty.”

Jun rose to his feet, putting his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath before he spoke, eyes serious. “This is what you truly want?”

He nodded.

Masaki shook his head. “No. We should wait.”

“It is too dangerous,” Sho agreed.

Satoshi didn’t bother to offer his opinion. Nino already knew what he wanted.

“Will you do it?” Nino asked Jun. “I’m sure you’ve had counsel and advice from all of them, but this is your kingdom now and your decision to make.”

Jun had changed considerably from the day Nino had first seen him swagger into the royal audience chamber. It was clear that he had taken command firmly, and that the Sun Kingdom would at last come into the right hands. The journey ahead of Jun was a perilous one, but things would surely change.

“I have already sent a cavalry division ahead to Hinohara Castle,” Jun announced, moving around the table to come and stand before him. “Nobody comes in or out. If Rumiko is alive in there, she will not be allowed to leave.”

Nino held on to the doorframe with his tainted arm, holding out his right one instead, palm up. Jun frowned, taking hold of him by the wrist. Jun’s fingers slid along his unmarked skin.

“It should be done properly,” Jun said quietly. “As ours were done.”

“We don’t need to involve anyone else.” He lowered his voice so only Jun might hear him. “Brother, this is a shared duty. We must see it through.”

“You will be hurt. Again,” Jun whispered, sounding anxious.

“The cause is just,” Nino replied, grinning.

Jun let him go, turning. “Satoshi,” he called out. “When you are free and you’ve ensured that the witch is dead, what will you do? Will you bring trouble to this kingdom? Will you seek further vengeance against me or my family?”

Satoshi stopped his pacing, looking at Jun with a cold stare. “No, Your Majesty. I will go home.”

Nino tried not to react, tried not to let it get to him. He’d made a promise. And he was going to keep it, even if it meant never seeing Satoshi again. Satoshi who couldn’t even bring himself to meet Nino’s eyes.

“Well, there you have it,” he said lightly. “We can all trust that Satoshi will be true to his word. He is not a fickle human, after all.”

“But I am a fickle human,” Jun announced. “And here is what this fickle human demands. Kazunari, you will receive the new marks tonight…”

“No!” Masaki shouted, jumping to his feet.

“But I forbid you to speak the words they represent until you are inside Hinohara Castle. Satoshi. If Rumiko is already dead, then she is no threat to me and Kazunari has my permission to free you. If Rumiko is alive, then Kazunari can free you and you may deal with her as you choose. But you cannot harm anyone else.”

Satoshi’s eyes were dark, unreadable. “And my brother?”

“Masaki stays here in Amaterasu with me when you and Kazunari depart. He is free to leave when the words are spoken. But not a moment before.”

Satoshi stared at Jun, gaze unfaltering. Jun returned the sentiment.

“Your terms are fair,” Satoshi agreed.

“Satoshi!” Masaki protested, moving across the room, shaking his brother. “Satoshi, you cannot do this. Wait another day. Wait a week, at least. Look at him, he can barely stand. Look at him!”

Nino swallowed, saying nothing as he felt the intensity of Satoshi’s eyes finally turn to him. There was no way a handful of months would win out over eight hundred years. Nino had known that all along.

Satoshi easily brushed his brother’s hands aside. “Your Majesty,” he said, “let us proceed.”

It happened quickly. Sho was sent to Rumiko’s now-abandoned chambers for the ink. An angry but obedient Masaki worked with the Kingsguard to find the special chair. And Nino sat at Jun’s side, slowly writing down the characters that Jun would first trace and then stab into his skin.

From the river that was choked and its tributaries emptied, I release you.

He couldn’t just say the words, Nino now understood. They had to be part of him, part of his blood. Forever.

Sho was gentle, tears falling onto Nino’s clothes as he got him strapped into the horrible chair, locking his unblemished right arm into place. He shut his eyes, breathing in and out as he felt the tickle of the pen Jun used to trace each character onto his arm, Masaki beside him ensuring that each one was accurately drawn. For Nino’s sake, they would be drawn small, from the crook of his arm running halfway to his wrist. Their size didn’t matter, only their meaning. And their power.

He could hear the three of them whispering, Jun’s voice the shakiest of all as the long tattooist’s needles were loaded into the tool that had been used on him before. Rumiko had cursed the ink that was used to mark him, and he didn’t quite know the words to say. But he supposed that he didn’t have to say the same thing. He didn’t want it to be a curse this time.

He wanted it to be a promise.

Jun finished tracing, clearing his throat. He opened his eyes, saw his brother sitting beside him with the half-empty pot of ink. It would be enough. It would be more than enough.

“Forgive me,” Jun mumbled, pulling the stopper from the pot and holding it out.

Nino found the words he wanted. “Let Satoshi and Masaki be forever free.”

Though Sho and Jun hadn’t understood him, he knew that Satoshi and Masaki had. He could see the ink bubble, change color. It reacted to the words he’d spoken.

At the last moment, Jun hesitated. But Nino didn’t.

“Brother. Do it.”

Jun simply nodded, upending the pot over his arm, the purple staining across his pale skin, dripping down onto the metal trough beneath. It was still painful, but not as it had been the first time. Perhaps a promise caused less damage than a curse.

It didn’t, however, change the way the needles felt. He looked away, wondering what the members of the Kingsguard in the halls might think. Anyone passing by would think that their new king was torturing his own brother to death.

Jun’s movements weren’t as quick and steady as the tattooist’s had been, and it took an agonizingly long time. Sho and Masaki were already mixing ingredients together somewhere nearby, the stink of kerida blossom filling the room. They would do anything they could to keep Nino from descending into a feverish hell.

He tried to be strong, but he simply couldn’t manage it any longer. Jun plunged the needle tool into his skin over and over, the purple colliding with the red as it had before, and Nino’s screams finally took form. “Satoshi!” he howled, writhing in agony. “Satoshi!”

And then he was there. Then he was there. Crouching down beside him, arms around his middle. He could feel Satoshi’s lips against his neck, his warm whispers against his ear.

“I love you,” he was saying, softer than he ever had. “Kazu, I love you.”

Nino believed him.

—

Hinohara Castle was an eastward journey of four days from the capital, the first three by horse and the last by mule up a treacherous mountain pass. “Castle” was a bit misleading, Jun had explained before they departed. It was an old hunting lodge turned prison. Political exiles had been sent to Hinohara to rot for centuries. King Kotaro had chosen to send his daughter there. Multiple times.

They bore papers with the seal of the king. While the palace struggled to retain order, word of the king’s death had not been spread openly. Only trickles of news were likely reaching the streets of Amaterasu by now, and the countryside would learn of it later still. Jun had stamped everything they needed to get through checkpoints, but he’d used his grandfather’s seal to do it. It would be a while before he had his own.

They’d packed only what they needed, riding together on one horse, Satoshi with the reins and Nino sitting before him. Despite the constant motion, Nino had spent years sleeping in transit. He spent most hours on their horse only half-awake, comforted by the warmth of Satoshi behind him and this last mission that was theirs alone to complete.

They stayed in towns, using the money Jun had given them to see their horse cared for in stables overnight, to obtain food and proper lodging. Satoshi hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to him since they’d departed, hadn’t made a move to touch him aside from when they rode. He was singularly focused, Nino knew. He was driven by the hope that Rumiko yet lived, but only so that he might take her life himself. It was dark, it was ugly.

And Nino would help him.

The pain in his bandaged right arm was an ever-present throb, but the kerida blossom Sho and Masaki had ordered him to slather on his skin, to sprinkle on his food, and to chew on directly kept any fever at bay. He suspected he’d still be sore and tender when they arrived at Hinohara, but he supposed it didn’t matter. He’d only have to say the words once, and Satoshi would be free.

On the final day of their journey, with only the mountain trail still waiting for them, he woke to find their room empty. He ensured that his arms were covered, and he went out into the warm morning air. He hadn’t been abandoned. Such a thing was impossible, and he found Satoshi standing alone just out the back door of the inn, hands gripping the rail of the wooden balcony tightly, his shoulders shaking.

He was weeping.

There was no disguising his approach, and Nino moved to stand at his side, offering what comfort he might. Tears formed in his own eyes when Satoshi pulled on him, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing him tight.

He knew that Satoshi hated Rumiko all the way to his bones, so it was unlikely he was out here feeling guilty, having second thoughts about what he was going to do once they reached the castle.

It took him only a few more moments to understand. The back of the hotel faced the rising sun. This was the closest Satoshi had been to his home in eight hundred years.

“It won’t be much longer,” Nino promised him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “You’ll be there soon.”

Satoshi said nothing, taking comfort where he could until they could delay themselves no longer.

They took two mules up the mountain, a local guide from the town leading the way on a mule of his own. Nino introduced them as representatives from the king’s treasury. The cavalry force that had arrived and gone up the mountain a few days earlier was part of their expedition to determine if Hinohara Castle should continue or be replaced. The guide seemed to accept the explanation. He seemed to have no idea who the castle’s dangerous prisoner might be.

It was midday when the guide left them, and the Kingsguard met them. They knew that the king’s stamp was false, that it was Jun who now ruled in Amaterasu. They also knew that they were forbidden to enter the castle. The captain of the guard informed them that a rotating force of four men had been posted at Hinohara, but that nobody had come out of the place since they’d arrived. Either they’d deserted their posts or were still inside.

Nino asked for the men to stay outside, no matter what they heard inside. Nobody argued. They all knew who Satoshi was, and seeing him away from the confines of the palace likely struck fear into all their hearts.

The captain gave Nino a knife anyway, refusing to let him go inside without being able to defend himself. Nino doubted he would have need to use it, but he accepted it anyway.

He followed Satoshi past the gates, letting the Kingsguard lock them behind them. The iron fence that surrounded the property was as tall as three men and impossible to climb. It was a single-story property, rundown and filthy, the hard-packed dirt home to only the occasional weed.

Satoshi walked in front, moving up the steps to slide open the front door. Nino jumped back in disgust as a body fell, a member of the Kingsguard dead for days, his throat slashed. He could see purple inkstains all over the man’s armor, the tatami flooring inside splattered. The language of the gods, the curse breaking, had reached out across the eastern sands. Rumiko had lost the curse that gave her life meaning, and she had fought against it as the poison had leaked from her.

The estate was quiet, rats rummaging around old furniture as they stepped over the corpse and made their way inside. It smelled of years of neglect, like dried piss and rotted food. Nino picked at the bandaging around his arm, slowly preparing to unravel it. Given the quiet and given the sheer amount of ink covering the walls and floors, it was unlikely Rumiko would put up much of a fight if she was still alive.

They found her in the rear of the house, two more dead soldiers pushed against the door. Nino suspected the fourth had fled for his life. Her clothing was in tatters, and she’d ripped most of the hair from her head, clumps of it lying on the table before her, twisted into little braids or flowers. She was sitting upright, her left arm on the table, nothing but a blackened stain. She was wheezing, still alive by sheer force of will, and when they stepped into the room, she somehow found the strength to lift her head.

The ink had fallen from her eyes like tears, hemorrhaged from her nose and from her mouth, dried streaks of it covering almost all of her face. Her father had drowned in it. But she had survived. Nino wasn’t sure how much of her was still alive in there though.

She couldn’t speak, could only blink, the whites of her eyes stained with the poison ink. Perhaps she had only hung on in hopes that this moment would come.

She looked between them, gaze empty as ink continued to bubble and drip from the corners of her mouth. Satoshi stood before her, arms at his sides.

“She will not be able to fight back,” Nino said quietly, standing behind him.

“I know,” Satoshi said.

“She has suffered here. She continues to suffer.”

He breathed through his mouth, trying not to inhale the scent of death and blood that permeated the whole house. When he got outside, Nino would simply have the Kingsguard burn it to the ground.

“I will not hurt any of the men outside,” Satoshi told him. “I agreed to his terms.”

“I know that.”

There was a tremor in Satoshi’s reply. “Kazunari. Please.”

Nino tugged the bandaging free from his arm, letting it flutter to the ground. He looked down at the small characters Jun had drawn. Purple, the same purple. No infection, no inflammation. Just the words to set them free. Unlike Raku’s curse, there’d never be a need to reverse it. The ink would stay under his skin until the day he died. He didn’t know what it might do to him, but it was worth the risk.

“Will you look at me and not at her?”

Satoshi turned, his eyes rimmed in red, his lips trembling. Nino held his arm out, not caring about the pain.

“Will you touch me while I say them?”

He nodded, holding out his hand. Nino sighed, feeling the softest brush of Satoshi’s fingertips against his scarred skin.

He wanted to say ‘I love you,’ but it wasn’t something to be said in a place like this. Instead he looked into Satoshi’s eyes, just as he had that day in the storage room, sacks of grain piled high to the ceiling. Funny enough, Rumiko had been there too.

Nino smiled with tears in his eyes.

“From the river that was choked and its tributaries emptied, I release you.”

Satoshi cried out, falling forward. Nino barely had the strength to keep them both from tumbling to the ink-stained ground, wrapping his arms around Satoshi, feeling the familiar heat of his body. I love you, he thought. You’re going to leave me, but I love you. I love you. I love you.

He knew something had changed a few moments later as Satoshi straightened up, taking hold of him by the shoulders.

He just knew.

Satoshi let him go, only running a finger along his jaw before turning away. Nino refused to leave. He would stay and see it done.

It went quicker than he’d thought. He didn’t even realize it was happening until Rumiko coughed the first time, a mixture of dark ink and water spurting out of her mouth. Satoshi was filling her lungs with water. She would die drowning.

Her movements were slow after everything she’d already endured, toppling over and clawing weakly at her throat, at her chest. Satoshi didn’t even move, simply standing, looking down at her. Nino crossed his arms, hugging himself. She writhed on the floor until she lacked the ability to struggle. A minute later, it was done.

Just like that, his centuries of pain had come to a quiet end.

—

Without words, they turned and walked out of the room, heading out of the forsaken building and into the clean, fresh air. They lingered together on the far side of the “castle,” out of the sight and hearing of the Kingsguard. They faced the east, and Nino stood a few steps back, waiting for the inevitable.

“Come with me,” Satoshi said.

He didn’t have to say where.

Nino shook his head, sighing. “Jun needs my help.”

Satoshi didn’t turn around to look at him now. “You said you didn’t want to be king.”

“And I won’t be. But it will take him years to undo all the wrongs of the Sun Kingdom, to move past what evils his family committed. The task may actually be impossible,” he admitted. “It is a broken kingdom, but I know that he will spend the rest of his life trying to do what he can. How can I turn away from him?”

“This was always going to be your answer?” He didn’t miss the stubborn tone of Satoshi’s voice, familiar even now.

“I thought you would be gone already,” he mumbled. “I honestly thought you would ride off into the eastern sky on a cloud or a water spout without looking back.”

At that, Satoshi turned. Looking back. And this time, Nino could see the change in him. He hadn’t grown bigger or taller or stronger. He wore the same shabby clothes, his dark, unruly hair falling across his forehead. He was only wearing boots because he had to. Everything that had changed had changed in his eyes. They were still brown, but when the light caught them, Nino thought they might have glimmered. That they might have shone. The power he’d shown at the palace, his water-hopping and glass-filling…those had been parlor tricks.

“I am thirty-four,” Nino reminded him. “You are eight hundred and thirty-six, give or take.”

“Kazunari…”

“I am growing older every second,” he said sharply. “I will age. I will grow old. And I will die. It doesn’t seem that way now, when you and I look similar. But you know it is so. You watched it happen to everyone else in my wretched family. Our lives must seem so quick to you.”

“My father…”

“…will not see things the way that you do,” Nino interrupted him. “I’m from the family that trapped you, and even if he lets me and the rest of the human race remain alive, he will do no favors for me.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I don’t have to.”

Satoshi rested his hands on his hips, staring him down. “You will not be moved?”

“If you doubt the way I feel for you, then look here.” He held up his right arm, the tattoos rough and haphazardly carved. “Look here and be assured of it.”

Satoshi’s look was stern. “I don’t have to take orders from you now.”

“It wasn’t an order, you idiot,” he muttered, unable to keep tears from forming in his eyes. Why wouldn’t he just go? Why wouldn’t he just accept that this was the way of things? He was free.

“We found a way,” Satoshi said. “We are standing here right now, you and I, because we found a way.”

He shook his head. “From the river that was choked and its tributaries emptied, I release you. I release you. Damn it, I release you!” He bent down, tugging the boot from his foot and flinging it across the grassy field at him. It landed harmlessly a few feet to Satoshi’s left. “I fucking release you!”

The look in Satoshi’s eyes softened, and he started to laugh. He started to laugh so hard that he nearly fell over, bending forward and sounding half-mad.

“I’ll throw the other boot! Shoe of mine hit your head!” he hollered in two languages, aiming for menacing and ending in a laugh of his own. They’d been through so much together. So much he couldn’t comprehend it.

They stood there, human and god, laughing until they ached. Finally Satoshi leaned over, lifting Nino’s boot from the grass. He carried it with him, holding it out. Nino refused to accept it, so Satoshi just let it fall back to the ground.

Nino was crying, he was laughing. He had no idea what he felt. But he let Satoshi step forward, put his arms around him. He stood there with one boot, arm aching and heart full, letting Satoshi’s mouth capture his own.

And somehow he knew that once again, they would find a way.

—

Eight Months Later

—

The eastern border town of Kawazu-cho was in need of a full-time healer.

It also happened to be five hundred and six miles closer to the Great Sea than Amaterasu was. Still a bit far from the sea itself, but what started in Kawazu-cho as a muddy stream widened and deepened as it flowed east. It was a tributary of a much greater river that went all the way to the sea. A trading barge might make the journey in a week. Someone who could walk on water a great deal faster.

The town was a common stop for several caravans, Water Finders and traders alike, so he’d had no trouble finding himself a ride. It had been over a year since he’d ridden through the desert at night, a camel beneath him, and he’d missed it. He paid his way to Kawazu-cho by making salves and medicinal powders. And when those things weren’t required, he assisted the Water Finder’s wife, helping to keep track of the camels and the accounts as he’d done for so many years.

As soon as word had reached them about the king’s death, they’d packed up everything and headed for Amaterasu. They’d been worried about him. They’d had no word from him since he’d left, and Ninomiya Kazuko had finally had enough.

It had taken them over a month coming from the southwest, and when they’d arrived, Amaterasu wasn’t the same city she’d left decades earlier. For one thing, there were fewer soldiers walking the streets. The strict water rationing that had defined the capital region for centuries had come to an end.

It was the first law that Jun had passed as leader of the Sun Kingdom, the first of hundreds he had completely rewritten or torn to pieces now several months later. Nino wasn’t sure if Jun or Sho had gotten a full night’s rest in the last several months, but there was still much to be done.

Nobody outside of the palace really believed the stories that there had been gods walking among them. They simply believed that the royal family had kept water from them on purpose. Jun let them think whatever pleased them, ordering new pipes built and new wells dug throughout Amaterasu. The lead engineer on the project, a man with a kind smile named Masaki, had a real knack for finding new water sources near the capital.

“I’ll go home when I’m good and ready,” Masaki told Nino repeatedly before getting back to work.

Negotiations with the Empire of Salt on an aqueduct project, set to be financed entirely from the royal family’s centuries-old cache of gold and jewels, were already underway.

Nino had done what was asked of him without complaint, attending meetings and negotiations on his brother’s behalf. But as the months went on, he’d realized that things would still get done in the capital without him. And he would be even more valuable in the east, forging new trade relationships.

He refused the title Jun wanted to give him. The good citizens of Kawazu-cho might be intimidated at the thought of going to a healer who was also a prince. It was Seitaro who had found a painter, commissioning the new sign that hung over the door of his clinic.

Ninomiya Kazunari, the sign read. Healer and Merchant.

His parents stayed with him in Kawazu-cho for a week before word reached them that the village of Kutotaki-mura to the south had need of a Water Finder. For all the work Jun was doing in the capital, it would be a long time before the far reaches of the kingdom could benefit. Ninomiya Seitaro would always have work to do.

When they’d gone, he locked up the clinic for the night, heading upstairs to his simple set of rooms. Nothing so luxurious as the royal palace of Amaterasu. He had to cook his own meals, clean his own clothes. He slept in a comfortable enough futon on the floor. He chewed on stinky kerida blossom before cleaning his teeth in the morning.

A letter arrived about a week after he’d settled in, sealed with the king’s symbol. But upon opening it, he saw that the entire note was written in the language of the gods, just to make him work a bit harder.

“Masaki,” he said aloud, laughing.

Like always, the language of the gods used many words to say only a little. Nino was instructed to wait by the town bridge on the night of the next full moon. The bridge over the muddy stream that flowed east and over the border.

He followed the instructions given. Kawazu-cho was not a large town, and most residents had gone to bed when Nino pulled the door of his clinic shut behind him, walking to the bridge. The moon was high overhead, the sky dotted with stars. He stepped onto the bridge, leaning against the rail and looking to the eastern sky.

It was only a short while before he saw the ripples. He tried to look unimpressed when a figure came skimming across the water, his bare feet hovering only inches above it. When he finally came close to the bridge, a water spout raised him up, bringing him eye level with Nino.

His hair was longer than it had been, still wild and black. He was grinning, at ease, as beautiful as the day they’d met.

Nino sighed. “Show off.”

—

He declined the offer to be hauled hundreds of miles downriver so he might take in the view of the Great Sea. “I have to work in the morning,” he protested as they walked hand in hand back in the direction of the clinic.

“No fun.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

He unlocked the door, not letting his guest come upstairs until he’d brought a wet towel, cleaning the dust of the town roads from his bare feet.

They climbed the stairs together, and Nino spoke first, as he usually did.

“I’ve missed you,” he said quietly.

Satoshi stepped forward, kissing him softly. He returned it, knowing that now wasn’t the time to ask questions. To worry or to wonder. Now the time was theirs.

It was a simpler setting than Nino’s rooms had been at the palace, but that didn’t matter. They fell into their old rhythm easily, Satoshi’s kisses moving down his stomach, his tongue circling the head of his cock before taking him in his mouth. It was good, maybe it was better, knowing they didn’t have to keep their voices down to avoid alerting the soldiers at the door. There were no soldiers now. Just the two of them.

After receiving Masaki’s note, he’d made sure to have some oil on hand, and he prepared himself, letting Satoshi watch. When he felt ready, he poured out more oil, running his hand up and down the firm length of Satoshi’s shaft. “I’ve missed you,” he said again, leaning over to kiss him.

With Satoshi seated beneath him, Nino moved into his lap, wrapping an arm around him. He moved, their simultaneous moans of pleasure making them both laugh. Nino shook his head, lowering himself down and letting Satoshi’s cock fill him inch by inch. He leaned in, full and needy, kissing him like he’d dreamed of doing all these months alone.

Their lips barely parted, Nino moving a bit clumsily in his need to be fucked, grinding down until he was panting in desperation. Satoshi eventually tired of Nino doing most of the work, moving so that he was on top, thrusting into him hard enough to leave Nino in a daze. Eventually he slowed, stilling within him.

Satoshi looked down at him, tracing his fingertips along his arm. The tattoos that were there to stay. His eyes were red with unshed tears.

“Don’t cry,” Nino said, reaching out and stroking his cheek. “Just don’t.”

And so he didn’t, sliding his hand up until it was joined with Nino’s, their fingers intertwining. He pushed into Nino with long, careful strokes, whispering his name, mouth grazing along the side of his face, his neck.

How lucky he was, Nino knew, to have the love of a god.

—

When he woke in the morning, Satoshi was still there. That was a first. But what alarmed Nino was the snoring.

He sat up, his joints cracking. Despite his need to work and earn a living that day, Nino had been unable to find a reason not to let Satoshi fuck him three different times during the night. He’d pay for it now as he bit back a complaint, staring down at him.

Satoshi was on his back, halfway out of the futon, his bare leg sticking out and his hair falling across his eyes. Nino watched in confusion as his chest moved up and down, his soft snores filling the small room.

Gods didn’t need sleep.

Determined to test the truth of it, he leaned over and pinched Satoshi’s nose closed. That woke him for sure, and he sputtered, pushing Nino’s hand away. He opened his eyes, staring up at him with a scowl.

“Why are you snoring?” Nino asked him.

Satoshi’s face reddened in embarrassment.

“Well? Tell me.”

Reluctantly, Satoshi sat up. To Nino’s continued astonishment, he seemed a bit sore himself, wincing a little. “You’re thirty-five now, Kazunari.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you for the reminder.”

Satoshi didn’t miss a beat. “Well, I’m thirty-seven.”

“Eight hundred and thirty-seven,” Nino corrected him.

“No,” Satoshi insisted. He leaned forward, resting the palm of his hand against Nino’s cheek. “Just thirty-seven.”

He blinked a few times, trying to comprehend. “You arrived on a water spout.”

“Father has made a few adjustments but left the rest alone.” Satoshi leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to Nino’s lips. “I’m thirty-seven. And soon enough I will be thirty-eight. The other day I found a gray hair!”

Nino shook his head, unable to accept it. “You didn’t give up what I think you’ve given up. Satoshi, no…”

“My father was feeling a bit generous,” Satoshi admitted. He took Nino’s hand in his own, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I told him that I wanted to grow old with you.”

“You’re a fool, then,” Nino said, even as his heart swelled with happiness. “When it would have been far smarter to have him make me immortal!”

Satoshi’s face fell. “Oh.”

“‘Oh’ is right!” Nino complained, ruffling Satoshi’s messy hair and getting to his feet. “Does Masaki know?”

“He supported my decision.”

“You’ll regret it,” Nino informed him. “You’ll regret the added human weakness. I’ll add that to your existing list. Number one, alcohol. Number two, lungs. Number three, yours truly. And now number four, a finite lifespan.”

Satoshi got to his feet as well, pulling him close. “Weaknesses aren’t always bad.”

It would take some time to get used to it, to the realization that Satoshi was both a god and mortal. But just like they had in Nino’s rooms at the palace, looking through barely legible scraps for weeks, they had found a solution to a problem. They had found a way.

Satoshi stayed with him in Kawazu-cho for a week before announcing that he wanted to go home. He’d come back, of course. And maybe one day Nino would join him, discovering for himself just what Satoshi had been dreaming about all those years, sitting on the roof of the palace looking into the eastern sky.

They waited until nightfall, until the town had turned in and the lanterns in the streets had been extinguished. They headed for the bridge, Nino leaning in to kiss him goodbye.

Satoshi smiled. “See you when I’m older.”

Since Nino knew that Satoshi was likely going to return to him in a month, it wasn’t all that funny, but he smiled in return anyway.

As a child, Ninomiya Kazunari hadn’t believed in gods. Sure, he’d heard stories, been entertained or scared by them. But he hadn’t seen the gods in the world around him. He’d seen starving people, bone dry villages. Amaterasu was just the place where the taxes went. And water was more precious than gold.

Thankfully some of those things would start to change now. The terrible certainties of his childhood, the certainty of suffering, would become rare. Because now the Sun Kingdom wasn’t ruled by the selfish and the wicked. Water might always be a gift within its borders. Aqueducts couldn’t go everywhere, and a well might dry up on a whim. But water would no longer be withheld on purpose, to control or to punish.

Still, change would take time. And it would take hope. And it would take faith.

“See you when I’m older,” Nino replied.

He watched as the water from the stream rose effortlessly up into the air. Satoshi leapt up and onto it, waving goodbye as he had it push him along, off to the east and out of sight.

Nino didn’t know for certain how much time he had. No human could. But because of his brother, because of his friends, he now had hope. And faith…well…

He moved his fingers to his lips, still tasting the kiss from the god he loved.

Faith he had in abundance.