Dragon Sword and Wind Child (10 page)

“There is nothing to fear. You are the one who said you loved me. Am I wrong?” Prince Tsukishiro spoke quietly, but there was something suppressed in his voice. Saya could sense it, too, in his dark eyes, in his sigh. Flustered, she looked frantically around the room for help, but found only the screens with their overwhelming images of outlandish creatures. Feeling faint, she closed her eyes and was pulled closer to him. She caught the fragrance of anise from his stiffly starched clothes.

At that moment a voice echoed unexpectedly in the room. “Really! You said you would keep the girl just as she is. But no sooner have the words left your lips than you behave like this!”

Feeling Prince Tsukishiro's grip relax, Saya gathered her courage and sprang away. For an instant she was grateful to the speaker, but her savior, Princess Teruhi, stood with folded arms, looking upon them coldly.

Prince Tsukishiro, however, did not seem surprised.

“I thought you would come, sister.”

“Of course. For I told you that I would see with my own eyes whether you kept your word,” said Princess Teruhi, advancing. As usual, she was dressed in trousers, and tiny gold bells attached to the garters below her knees jingled faintly as she walked. Her sharp, sweet scent wafted toward them. “Unlike you, I keep my word.”

“Have you made some progress with your work?” asked Prince Tsukishiro.

She glared at him angrily. “I'm sure that you would love to be rid of me as soon as possible, but the priests wish me to perform the purification ceremony. I will proceed to the campaign in the west when that's finished.”

“You are certainly more suited to perform the purification than I, sister.”

“Is that sarcasm?” she snapped. Sweeping her hair out of the way, she sat down. Although her gestures closely resembled her brother's, she radiated such energy that even his brightness faded beside hers.

She turned to Saya, who, having brought her fear somewhat under control, sat huddled in the corner unable to leave. She smiled. “At times like this, the Water Maiden usually flees without a backward glance. This one seems to have the nerves of a chicken who forgets the heat once the scalding broth has passed its throat. It appears that when you and I are together, her curiosity gets the better of her and she just can't leave.”

Prince Tsukishiro defended her. “That's because she has done nothing of which she need be ashamed.”

“She's just a child!” Princess Teruhi said derisively. She gave the Prince a searching look. “Do you really intend to make such a little innocent your bride?”

He raised his eyebrows. “She will not remain naïve forever. She is not like us, someone who never changes.”

“I see. So she will grow old and feeble, then wither and die before your very eyes,” she said in a mocking tone, but her eyes blazed. Only the Prince could withstand the intensity of that gaze, so fierce it would have made the hairs rise even on an innocent bystander. “That will never be, brother,” she said in a low voice. “The Water Maiden will never live long enough to grow old. Soon she will take her own life and slip like water through your fingers. Do you understand, Tsukishiro? I will not tolerate a repetition of this useless behavior. I was not made to live on this earth in order to watch such folly. I will not allow you to make that girl your wife. I will destroy your foolish obsession with my own hands.”

Prince Tsukishiro raised his head abruptly. His expression was grimmer than Saya had ever seen it. “What can you do? You excel at destruction above all else, but you can't see where my passion lies. How then, sister, will you destroy something you cannot see?”

Princess Teruhi's cheeks were tinged with red. She looked breathtakingly beautiful, and dangerous. “And how can you possibly see something that I cannot?”

“Your eyes, my sister, are so fixed on our celestial father's brightness that they see nothing else.”

“Are you saying that you do not love our father, the God of Light?” she cried in a thunderous voice.

“Of course I love him,” Prince Tsukishiro replied, his voice as stern as his sister's. “I, too, look for the day when the land of Toyoashihara will be transformed into a land of pure light befitting the coming of our celestial father. That is why we are here, you and I, the demigods bequeathed to the earth.”

“And one other, though that one be a failure,” Princess Teruhi murmured.

Prince Tsukishiro paused for a moment and then continued. “Even for us, however, a long time has passed since we first stood upon this earth. I never imagined that the purification of Toyoashihara would take this long. And recently I have begun to wonder what our celestial father truly desires . . .”

Princess Teruhi shook her head. “And I can't help thinking that if you didn't repeatedly fall into the snare of the people of Darkness as they strive to make you their ally, they would have been exterminated long ago.” She rose, her hands on her hips. “You asked me what I can do. Don't forget that it was I who seized the Dragon Sword. If we can but use it to slay the Goddess of Darkness, her people will be destroyed along with her. It can't be long now. As for that girl, she is the last of the Water Maidens.”

PRINCE TSUKISHIRO
looked at his sister, his face an emotionless mask. “As I said, what you cannot see is the direction in which my passion lies.”

His voice was very quiet. Princess Teruhi returned his gaze with a baffled expression, then turned her back on him abruptly. “Of all things
,
I like least the frivolous words of men,” she said and left without a backward glance.

With a start, Saya hastily pressed the palms of both hands to the floor and bowed low. “Pardon me, but I beg your leave to depart,” she mumbled hastily and dashed out of the room. Peering through the darkness, she ran along the wood floor of the passageway, brushing the entangling train of her skirt roughly aside. Perhaps the noise of her steps reached the Princess's ears, for she turned at the corner and looked back, allowing Saya to catch up.

“P–please!” Saya leaned against a pillar and gasped for breath, thankful for the darkness. Without it, she could not have spoken like this to someone who inspired such fear in her. “Please! Tell me.

How did Princess Sayura die?”

A faint glow like starlight seemed to float from Princess Teruhi's clothes as she stood in the darkness. But Saya could see only her slender silhouette, and not the expression on her face.

“Please!”

“Well, well. You're brave, or perhaps ‘foolish' would be more apt,” said Princess Teruhi, scrutinizing her.

“Is it true that Princess Sayura took her own life?”

“Quite true,” Princess Teruhi replied bluntly. “Your people considerately die one after the other. As soon as the odds look bad, you kill yourselves. Of course, you're reborn, but I will never recognize that as a strength. To die is to escape. It is weakness. Try standing in the shoes of we who may never hope to, nay, are not permitted to run away from our mistakes. Do you understand? Because the next time you throw yourself into the pond, I will wrap a rake in your hair and drag you out. Be prepared.”

And with those words, she walked away, leaving Saya in pitch darkness. She slumped down onto the cold floor. Her head ached in confusion. But one thing she had clearly understood.

Prince Tsukishiro's gaze is not directed at me. Not now, not ever. He
doesn't see me.

At first she had thought he was seeing Princess Sayura rather than herself. But she had been wrong. Perhaps Princess Sayura had grown weary of life because she realized that his heart was not hers. While drawn to the Water Maiden, in reality he was gazing far into the distance, and even the Prince himself did not really understand. But Saya did, and most likely Princess Sayura had, too: the object of his gaze was Teruhi's reflection glimpsed in the water's surface.

Intuition, like the sixth sense of a small animal, gave her this insight. That the immortal twins quarreled every time they met was not simply because they did not get along. It was because they revolved around each other like orbiting stars. Just let an outsider try to intrude upon such an unfathomable love-hate relationship, to break the intense bond in which the violence of their feelings caused them to repel each other!

No mortal can possibly ease the Prince's pain, the rift created by the
gods, when heaven and earth were sundered. No one can but the two
immortals themselves, the sun and the moon who each represent one
half of the other.

Saya knew that she had at last discovered the truth, but it did not help her. She could only meditate on the emptiness of her two open hands.

“
PERHAPS
we should call for a physician. For Lady Blue,” the senior handmaiden said to her assistant after Saya had left. The assistant, who was putting away the writing desk, turned and smoothed her hair.

“But she has become much more pliable. With the ceremony soon to take place, a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”

“Ah, but it makes me nervous when she is so well behaved day after day. There was a time when she ate a shameful amount, yet recently she hardly touches her food. I wonder if she is ill.”

“I see what you mean. Perhaps you're right.” The assistant pondered the problem.

“It would be bad for our reputation if people thought that she had become ill because we harassed her. We'll have to do something,” the senior handmaiden said.

It did not take long for her quick-witted assistant to come up with a plan. “A physician might be overdoing it. But what if we gave her a child servant? Having no servant of her own, she has had to do everything for herself. Perhaps this would ease her burden.”

The other woman nodded in agreement. “An excellent idea. And perhaps if she had her own servant, the other girls would be less inclined to treat her as a serving girl.”

“Well, as to that, who knows,” said the assistant with a faint sneer.

EVERYTHING SEEMED
like too much trouble. It was partly the change in climate: the rainy season had been followed by intense summer heat and relentless sunshine. But more than anything else, Saya, who had never before lost her appetite from heartbreak, was defeated by herself. Her confidence in every area had evaporated, and she no longer even hoped to continue as a handmaiden.

Maybe if I fall ill and die, Princess Teruhi won't revile me
, she thought. But it would be too galling to be confined to her bed and treated as a nuisance by the coldhearted people of the palace. She longed for her home in the east. There, when the heat became intense, they had swum freely in the river and brought out benches at night to sleep under the stars. But neither the cool breeze nor the fresh morning dew reached the deep recesses of the palace. There was only the sun glaring down on the hard dry earth. Summer in the palace hung heavy and stagnant.

One sleepless night, Saya thought she really would die. Although she did not really understand what it meant to die, it seemed as if her soul was flailing wildly trying to escape her physical frame and all its troubles. It no longer mattered to her whether it would be she who discarded her body or she who would be left behind. She only knew that if she could just get away, she could find relief and flee into the bracing freedom of emptiness. Like a bird, something within her beat its wings, poised for the moment of flight.

If I'm going to die anyway, I don't want to leave my body lying here,
she thought suddenly.
I'd rather die in a purer place—yes, in cool,
peaceful water . . .

She imagined her hair spreading out like a fan on the water, swaying gently like waterweeds. That would not be so bad. It would look beautiful. She sat up abruptly. All was quiet and it seemed that the night watch was far away. Stealthily she slid open the double doors. The half moon hung in the midnight sky, casting a clear light. Its reflection floated serenely on the still surface of the ancient pond surrounded by a thick grove of trees. Drawn by the deep stillness of the water's surface, Saya stepped forward only to stop dead in her tracks. A small black shadow, like that of a little urchin, crouched at the top of the steps, blocking her path.

“Who's there?” she whispered hoarsely. “What do you think you're doing in front of my room?”

“I have been sent as your new servant,” the shadow replied. “I have come to serve you.”

“I don't recall summoning you. Get out of my way.”

“I have some skill as a physician. I was told that you weren't feeling well.”

“I have no need of a physician either,” Saya replied firmly.

“Really?” The child's tone suddenly changed.

Saya caught her breath in amazement. She had heard that voice before. “Torihiko! Is that really you?” Kneeling down, she could make out his large mouth opened in a grin, and his sparkling acorn eyes. Still she could hardly believe it. This boy always appeared at the most extraordinary times.

“Officially I am your servant, Lady Blue,” Torihiko said gaily. “The senior handmaiden told her footman, the footman told the guard, the guard told a servant, and the servant grabbed an appropriate-looking person from outside the gate. It seems that even the notorious palace guard has a few holes in its armor.”

“But this is insane!” Her voice rose and she hastily lowered it. “I don't like it. The two of us together—think what would happen if your identity were known. Even if we tell them we are not plotting, no one would believe us. Why did you come? You know how dangerous it is!”

“I came because I am plotting, of course,” Torihiko said coolly. “Why are you always so slow? You heard about the Dragon Sword. That sword will determine our fate, so naturally, I want to get it back.”

“Well, it has nothing to do with me,” Saya said. Then she suddenly stood up, drawing in a sharp breath. “You . . .” she said in a low voice, clenching her fists. “Surely you didn't plan this all along, that I should come unsuspecting to the palace, just so you could get your foot in the door?”