"Ah."
"My sister is not shy about such matters. She made it clear to me that nothing occurred." She paced across the cave, Tova at her side, her hand on his head. "I'm sorry if this agitates me, but I'll speak on it no more. My sister is innocent. My sister is in trouble. Whatever else you need me to do, first I must find her, and hopefully Tyrus and Daigo as well. They search for her, too."
"That is a lot to do, Ashyn."
She straightened and turned to him. "It is. If you can help me, I would appreciate it. If not, then I'll take my leave, and you can tell me how to contact you once I've found them."
"I would not let you undertake anything so dangerous without help, child. Let me bring dinner and then we will discuss how to best handle the search."
To help Ashyn understand what they faced beyond the safety of this mountainside, Edwyn explained what had been happening in the empire. It was, unfortunately, what Ashyn feared. Alvar might be banging the drums of war, but he seemed to have no immediate plan to actually appear on a battlefield. While he continued to muster and train troops and to sway warlords to his side, his primary tactics seemed to be lies and treachery and fear-mongering, which suited the clan of the Kitsune, the nine-tailed trickster fox.
Ashyn and Ronan had witnessed this in a tiny, nameless outpost--an inn on the road with a small community grown up around it. Alvar's men had tempted the locals into joining them. Then they'd pretended instead to be imperial guards and beheaded every "traitor" in front of their friends and family, before mounting the heads on pikes. In an empire that had outlawed capital punishment, that had been an unimaginable insult and cruelty to hitherto loyal citizens, and it was not the only such "punishment" visited on similar communities that night. By morning, word was out that the emperor had apparently become the tyrant that Alvar Kitsune's men claimed he was.
"So that is how he's winning troops among the commoners," Ashyn said when Edwyn told her more of Alvar's treacherous deeds.
"No, that is how he's inciting sedition. Alvar Kitsune might have been the empire's marshal, but he was never its greatest warrior. That distinction goes to Jiro Tatsu, and Alvar knows it. Do not expect to see war anytime soon. If at all."
"What?"
"There are ways to break an emperor without engaging him on a battlefield. Ways to divide an empire without ripping it asunder in war."
"Does Emperor Tatsu know this? He's preparing for war, and if that's not . . ." She remembered what the emperor had said, when he first discovered Alvar Kitsune lived.
Prepare for a war unlike any the empire has known.
To Ashyn, that had meant war on a grand and unimaginable scale. But that was not what the emperor had meant at all. He knew what kind of war this enemy would fight.
"The emperor must rally his troops and prepare for battle," Edwyn said. "If he does not, then that is the moment Alvar would indeed strike. Emperor Tatsu must be ready for war, and yet prepare himself to fight a very different battle on much less familiar terrain. I do not envy him the task. I only trust he is up to it."
As do I.
After that, Edwyn explained his plan for them. Moria would have fought it tooth and nail, because it involved sitting and doing little while others took action. But in the end, Ashyn recognized her limits. She was no warrior. Tova would protect her with his life, but he was not a battle dog or a tracking hound. She had no idea where to begin hunting for Moria. Ashyn herself was both easily recognizable and easily mistaken for her supposed-traitor sister. And Ronan was here, deathly ill, and she did not know these people well enough to leave him in their care.
Edwyn said he would send scouts to make contact with those he knew in the imperial city and elsewhere. They would seek news on Moria and Tyrus, and in the meantime, Ashyn would stay where she was, while Edwyn prepared her for the dragons. That was the important thing. Alvar Kitsune might be lying low for now, but he would make a move soon. Edwyn was sure of it.
"Traitorous sorcerer that he is," Edwyn said after he took a drink from the waterskin. "He'll keep to the shadows for as long as he can. Alvar Kitsune plans to lead the emperor on a terrible chase, horror and destruction in his wake. But this dragon knows this fox, and Tatsu's trying to run him to ground rather than launching his army to an empty battlefield. When we bring Jiro Tatsu an actual dragon . . ." Edwyn smiled. "That is when things will change."
"Will one dragon truly make a difference?"
"In battle? It would help, but it would not guarantee easy victory. What matters here, child, is not the beast itself but the symbolism."
Ashyn nodded. "The dragon has woken dragons. The goddess has chosen her champion."
A smile crinkled his face. "Your mother would be so proud of you."
"Can you tell me about her?"
That smile broadened, lighting his blue eyes. "With pleasure, child." He passed a plate of dried persimmons. "When she was a child, she used to . . ."
TEN
Ashyn blamed the dream on the talk of young men and women and the yearnings of the body. While her sister was much more aware--and interested--in those yearnings, Ashyn was not unfamiliar with them. Nor, if she admitted it, did she find them unwelcome. Yet it was certainly uncomfortable and confusing when she'd find her gaze lingering on a young man she would never consider romantically interesting, because unlike Moria, Ashyn could not fully untangle the two. She wanted someone she could kiss and, yes, more, when the time was right, but she also wanted someone she could talk to, laugh with, and love, and the thought of one without the other confounded her.
That night, she dreamed of being curled up on a sleeping pallet, another body beside hers, lean-muscled and hard, her fingers running over his nakedness, exploring as she kissed him and as he whispered in her ear, telling her how much she meant to him, how much he cared for her, how he'd always cared for her, and she was whispering back, telling him not to talk so much, not now, that she wanted him to kiss her and to touch her and--
She woke then, at some noise or disturbance, hearing herself make a sound not unlike Tova's growl as she pulled the blankets back up and tried to snuggle back into the dream, that delicious dream. It was the first time she'd ever experienced such a thing, though she remembered Moria talking about similar dreams, and she remembered how she herself had felt stabs of confusion
and relief and envy, all rolling together--confusion because she didn't quite understand, relief because she suspected she would not enjoy such dreams as much as her sister, and envy because, well, because she might not enjoy them as much as her sister. But now, having had her first, all she wanted to do was return to that dream, and it made her ache and sigh and struggle to reclaim it, to find him again. For there was no question who he was--it was not some mysterious figure haunting her dreams. Her heart and her desire never changed, no matter how often she might fervently wish they would.