seems in keeping if they were allies. I am not a fool, Hiro.”
“No? And what does your beauty say when she lies in your arms at night? That she loves you?” Hiro flourished his blade in his iron hand, hissing fingers drumming across the hilt. “A woman’s betrayal cuts bone- deep, cousin.”
“Not all of them are liars, Hiro. Not all of them are false.”
“What would you have of me?”
“To set Michi-chan free. Under my recognizance. She wishes to see her mistr—”
“We have spoken of this before.”
His breath returned, Ichizo struck without warning, the blow narrowly missing Hiro’s face. The Daimyo struck back, ferocious, no smile on his lips, pressing hard with blow after blow until Ichizo again backed away.
“Tenacity is one of my strengths, great Lord,” he grinned, gasping.
“You ask the impossible, Lord Magistrate.”
“I would consider it a personal favor, Daimyo.” Ichizo looked at his cousin, eyes pleading. “To a kinsman who ran with you when the deadlands in Blackstone province were still lotus fields, and who always let you beat him with the bokken.”
“Let me beat you?”
Hiro laughed despite himself, his smile bright. For a brief moment, the facade of the Daimyo, the Iron Samurai, fell away, and all that remained was the boy Ichizo had always known. The boy he’d grown up with. The boy he trusted.
“Lord Izanagi strike you down for a bastard and a liar, cousin,” Hiro grinned.
“Please, cousin.” Ichizo stepped closer, smile slowly fading. “There is much to be said for a merciful rule.”
Hiro stroked his goatee, breathed deep. He stood for a silent minute, motionless as the training dummies surrounding them. Blue-black smoke hung about his brow, turned his eyes the deep green of lotus leaves. When he finally spoke, his voice rang across the dojo, cold and hard as a knife sinking into Ichizo’s back.
“Those boys you spoke of are men now, Ichizo-san. Those days you spoke of are gone. Best to forget they ever were, and remember what you
“I am a man in love, cousin.”
Ichizo looked at Hiro with pleading eyes.
“Surely, you remember what that was like?”
Without a sound, Hiro raised his blade and struck, faster than Ichizo would have believed possible. The blade cracked across his shoulder, another strike smashing his sword from nerveless fingers. Hiro circled behind, struck him across his back so hard the blade simply shattered, a hail of splinters filling the air along with a damp spray of spittle, a strangled cry as Ichizo stumbled forward, collapsed to his knees.
The Lord Magistrate rolled onto his back, wincing, gasping, empty palm upheld in surrender. His Daimyo stood above him, shattered blade clutched in his iron hand. His voice was cold as tombs.
“I remember what it was to be a man in love, cousin.”
Hiro cast the broken sword onto the floor with a clatter, held up iron fingers, curling them into a solid, hissing fist.
“Every single night.”
“I wonder what you would say, if I asked you to marry me.”
They lay entwined amidst the bed’s ruins, sweat drying on their skin. Michi’s hair adrift across her cheeks, her head upon his chest, lulled almost to sleeping by the song of his heart. But his words dragged her back into full waking, incredulity creeping into her voice as she raised herself up on one elbow and stared at the viper in her arms.
“… What?”
Ichizo was watching the ceiling, one arm behind his head, the other wrapped around her shoulder. Her body was pressed tight against him, the swell of her hips and breasts, the leg thrown over his thigh, like puzzle pieces made to interlock perfectly with his own.
“I said I wonder what you would say, if I asked you to marry me.”
A slow blink.
“You are asking me to marry you?”
“No,” he smiled. “I simply wonder what you would say.”
“I would say you were crazed, my Lord,” she scoffed, resting her head back against his chest. “I would say you have only known me for a handful of heartbeats. I would say the lotus you were smoking must be of a rare breed indeed, and wonder if you might lend me your pipe when you were done.”
A soft chuckle. “That is what I thought you might say.”
“A good thing, then, you did not ask.”
Ichizo was silent a moment, a frown slowly creeping into his voice.
“What do you mean I do not know you? I have known you since last spring festival.”
“You knew me after a glance across a crowded room and a three-minute conversation about poetry?”
“I knew you were beautiful. Intelligent. Possessed of a keen wit and a romantic soul.”
“Oh, indeed? A romantic, am I?”
“Poetry calls not to a heart of stone, Michi-chan.”
She was silent, one finger tracing the lines of muscle down his stomach, a landscape of hard foothills and deep valleys, traversed by a thousand goosebumps.
“And why should we not be married?” Ichizo was truly frowning now, rolling her off his chest, raising himself up to stare into her eyes. “I know you better than Hiro knows Lady Aisha, and
“To prevent the entire nation falling into chaos,” Michi replied. “To reforge a dynasty two centuries deep. I hardly think the Imperium will come crashing to an end or spring miraculously back to life if we make our little fling official, my Lord. Not to mention the difficulties we might face squeezing our guests inside this pleasant little prison cell of mine.”
“A fling?” He blinked. “Is that what you think of me?”
“Better that than the alternative.”
“What, that I love you true?”
She stared deep into his eyes, watching his pupils for fight or flight response.
“That you still believe me part of the Kage rebellion,” she said. “That all this is simply a magistrate interrogating a suspect.” A small smile, just the right mix of hopeful and afraid. “That at the end of all this, you will break my heart.”
Warning in his eyes. Pupils dilating. Fear? Suspicion? She had struck true, surely …
“I might say the same about you.”
She pushed him back with a long kiss, straddling him, pinning his wrists above his head, long dark hair draped about her face. Leaning in close, swathed in perfume and fresh sweat, feeling him stir as she breathed the words, lips brushing as if feathers against his own.
“Say it then, my Lord. Say you do not trust me. Say all this is a lie.”
“But that would be the greatest lie of all,” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss, denied as she drew back out of reach. “I am yours, my Lady. At your mercy. Ask anything. Give voice to any question and I will answer.”
His smile seemed true. No veiled intent behind his eyes. He was so good at this.
“Do you love me, then?” She moved her hips, the simplest gesture, shifting the entire world. He sighed with her, muscles flexed as she pressed at his wrists, leaned in close again, breathing into his ear. “Love me true?”
Her mouth upon his, gifting him the kiss he’d sought as he shuddered beneath her.
“I love you,” he breathed. “Gods help me, I do.”
