Twelve

How Brightly The Sun

Hikaru

How brightly the sun shone that morning! I sat quietly on the porch outside Norihiko’s rooms, hidden from all prying eyes by magic. The humans would have been shocked at the state of undress I was currently in, though really it wasn’t much—just my sleeves tied back above my elbows, and the sash on my robe loosened so much of my chest was exposed.

I didn’t care. I needed the sun to kiss my skin, the winds to play with my hair.

I’d crafted the greatest magic of my life the night before, bringing Norihiko back to his true, fox fairy form.

I’d never doubted that I would be able to do it, though releasing Junichi’s soul had been tricky, keeping it trapped in the weaving Kayoku and I had created, not letting it leak away to cause mischief.

Norihiko had shaken so after that, quaked with the magic racing through his body and reforming him. For a while I had worried that maybe he had changed his mind and was rejecting the spell.

But the night passed and he quieted, breathing easily as his new form grew strong.

I didn’t wait for him in the room after the spell was finished. I waited outside, to give him time to come to himself. What would he be like now? I knew he wouldn’t be the same.

Then again, neither was I.

Where would I go now? I had no real home to return to. Maybe I would go to the sea, leave the mountains behind. Learn to call the fish out of the water for my dinner, weave nets out of seaweed, sing to the waves.

Finally, I heard Norihiko stir. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to capture his scent. It had changed, too. It was still sweet and masculine, but held deeper notes, now.

After a short while, Norihiko joined me out on the porch. “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been shouting all night.

“It was my pleasure,” I told him honestly. He looked fit and hale. His shoulders had stayed broad and his chin well–defined. However, his lips now held a sensual smile and his eyes twinkled with laughter.

Norihiko sat down beside me. He had kept the stillness he’d acquired as a sword, a motionless quality that monks would envy.

I didn’t bother him with questions or try to fill up the space with frivolous observations about the sun, the clouds, or even the estate.

It hadn’t been that long ago when I would have.

“I remember more about you,” Norihiko said softly after a timeless time.

My breath caught. I didn’t dare to look at him. Had he come all the way back to me? Was everything I’d done, all I’d sacrificed, finally going to pay off?

“Not everything,” he added after another long pause. “And not fully. It’s more like I’m watching myself do those things. Marrying you. Not as though I’m the one who is doing them.”

Of course. “You’re not the same as you were.”

Norihiko gave a soft laugh. “That’s the truth.”

I finally turned to look at him. He still knelt with his back as straight as an iron bar, his hands loosely resting on his knees. But he smiled and his face was relaxed. He looked more comfortable in his skin than he ever had.

“So what will you do now?” I asked, deliberately not asking about us, about what we would do.

He might remember our love, but he was obviously no longer in love. It was, as he said, someone else who had courted me night and day, who had shown me such tenderness.

Norihiko nodded, growing more serious. “I pledged to take care of the mountain,” he said. “When I was Seiji. It was the only way to survive Junichi’s reforging.” He paused, then added, “So I will stay here. Make this my new home. Become another kami protecting this land.”

I nodded. I had expected as such.

I didn’t know how I would answer him when he asked me what I would do. I was so prepared for that question that I started when he eventually said, “You could stay here with me, you know. Guard the mountain with me.”

I didn’t know how to reply. That he might offer me a place here, to stay with him…it went beyond my reckoning.

“I know you’ll want to go see your sisters first, but after—” he started.

“My sisters?” I asked, interrupting. “I have no sisters.”

Norihiko blinked, startled. “Of course you have sisters. Two of them. They visited me before the battle. I danced with them at our wedding.”

“I don’t have sisters,” I told him, horror building. “I’ve always been alone.”

“You have sisters,” Norihiko insisted. “Did you give them up? Because they would never have let you go.”

I had sisters? Maybe a mother? There were no memories left, just the constant loneliness and wishing I did.

“I could call them. They would like to see you, I’m certain,” Norihiko added.

“I’m not the same as I was,” I told him. Also, I wasn’t certain. I’d killed a man. The weight of it still dragged at my soul.

“None of us are,” Norihiko pointed out.

I sat back and looked back out, over the wall of the estate, toward the trees. There were many wild places on the mountain, many places I could easily call home.

“Please,” Norihiko said. “Stay with me. Help me protect the mountain.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head and laugh. Before, I’d never had to worry about another turning Norihiko’s head. Though it wasn’t in the nature of our kind to be monogamous, I knew he’d always return to me.

Now, I had a built–in rival.

“What is it?” Norihiko asked.

I had to share. “She’s always going to be your mistress, isn’t she?” I asked. I couldn’t help but flirt with him. He looked so much like my love, smelled like him, felt like him. Would probably taste like him as well.

Norihiko laughed, then grew sober again. “I can’t promise anything,” he warned. “There are so many paths leading up and down the mountain. But I’d like to walk them with you.”

“I would like that too,” I told him.

It wasn’t a declaration of love. He might not ever feel that way about me again.

But there was the possibility of love along those paths. Each day, a new sunrise. Each season, new colors for the mountain.

Finally, since that horrible day so many months before, I had hope.