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Nearer to the solstice, the weather warmed significantly, thickening the air. There wasn’t much for idle time where I could paint. My days were occupied in foraging and tending the garden and ducks, or in weaving and sewing, and, of course, helping to train Statsu and Yuki. They’d make for fine hunting companions and protective friends.
More, a wedding was planned for a girl one year younger than myself to her beloved (a boy from a different village). I’d spent hours every evening working on something to give as a wedding gift. When a merchant had bolts of white fabric and a small collection of dyes, I had a plan. Not for courtly clothes, but for a beautiful blanket. I’d outlined what I wanted with thread, acting in place of a stencil, and took care so as not to smear the color once added.
With clear weather, I took full advantage to give the lengths of fabric their first rinse and rid them of excess dye. Setting them in the sun, I decided to work on my canvas while I waited for them to dry. It made for an excuse to let Koji run free.
I’d been engrossed in my art, and didn’t notice someone approach until the last strides. After a moment, I recognized the man as Kwan’s brother. Standing, I gave a polite bow and greeted, confused as I was.
“I’m told my foolhardy brother has engaged himself to you.”
I looked up, blinking and not sure how to respond.
“You know the very idea is impossible.”
This again. I dropped all politeness in my posture, standing straight with my feet firmly planted. “If the idea is impossible, why did you come to speak with me, my lord?”
He frowned. “Since Kwan is too hardheaded to understand the ramifications of the union, I assume you’re sensible enough to comprehend.”
It seemed a usual thing to try and talk over my head. So, I countered simply. “From what I understand, you, and Seong, and likely Beom—perhaps the whole family—dislike that I’m human, and that somehow makes me unworthy.”
“Crudely put.” He crossed his arms, a subtle display of his muscle beneath his clothing.
“So, you came here to try and put me in my place. You’ve wasted a journey. My place is by Kwan’s side.”
“Impudent girl,” growled Yuz, baring a scowl.
“I love him,” I said, a little louder to emphasis how I wouldn’t crumble at his tone. “And if he wants me beside him, then that’s where I will stay. I’d sworn repeatedly to only marry for love, and I’ve turned down other Juneun offers—even as everyone else told me I should accept. I will marry the man I love and stay with him all my days.”
“That is precisely the problem.” Yuz looked over his shoulder, as though something more interesting beckoned his gaze. “You are poor, of ill breeding, and short lived. Your presence will only bring hardship. And when you die, you will leave disorder in his house.”
“Lord Genji didn’t think so. And neither do I.”
He looked at me, unamused. “You cannot weaponize Lord Genji’s name with me, child.”
“I don’t plan to,” I said, staying rooted. “Merely to show how a more powerful Juneun disagrees with your way of thinking. You can’t threaten me with things like titles, or say that no one else would support our marrying.”
“You know not the disorientation left in the wake of Genji’s human wife—”
“Her name was Lady Isaden,” I interrupted, for no other reason than to bully him back. “And she was like the wind.”
He blinked at me, astonished at my boldness.
“Lord Genji and I are friends. He spoke to me about his late wife at length. There isn’t much I don’t know. And Kwan has a more manageable household that my own departure—”
“You are too presumptuous, girl.”
“I suppose next you’ll bring up Gumiho to try and scare me away,” I countered. “But Kwan has already told me all of it.”
He stared. A red color surfaced on his neck, and his breathing deepened.
“You’re running out of things to threaten me with, Lord Yuz. I’m poor. I’m not pretty. I’m human. And I’m better informed than you think about my friends and the man I love—the man I will marry.”
“You would have him disowned by his family? For you?”
“From what I’ve seen, family is only a word to you,” I snapped. “You treat each other with contempt. You may as well be soldiers—or strangers—clawing for power.”
“Then you know nothing!” He stepped forward, looming over me.
Scared as I was, I wouldn’t let my feet move, and silently commanded my body to ignore any desire to tremble. I couldn’t let him see that I was frightened, even slightly.
“If you cannot understand the way of things as they are, then you do not understand the weight of what we’ve lost. My brother’s ignorance nearly destroyed us once before, and he’s set to repeat his past.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, quieter than I intended. “Is that how you threaten him? Bringing up the past? Because, if that’s all you can think of, maybe that’s where you should live. But I’ve spent too much of my life already living in the past and wishing things were different. Not anymore. I don’t have the luxury of a long life to waste in the past. So I will live in the present. And into the future, with my husband.”
He leered at me, and I could tell he searched for something else to try and force my submission by the intensity of his brown-orange eyes.
“My brothers thought Kwan my jailor. Cold and callused. And they’ve accepted my decision. I’m more fortunate than him in that regard.”
His expression slackened. Tension loose, he pulled away only just.
When he parted from me, I waited until he was out of sight before I collapsed and allowed myself to shake. Koji ran up, and I clung to my dog, my little protector, as I held off tears.
****
A year complete since I’d come home. Autumn seemed to want to come early, ridding the clouds from the sky and ushering in cooler nights. While there was an awkwardness to my coming to a wedding in the village, it morphed into a different kind at my gift. I stayed determined to show I had worth beyond rumors, and earn back my reputation. Something I could use to mend the reputation of my brother.
I wasn’t sure how much good it did, except to bring curious looks and marvel at the thing. She’d packed it delicately, I heard, before leaving for the other village to begin her new life.
I wasn’t naïve enough to think I’d get such a reception at my own wedding. But I preferred the idea of a smaller gathering. Perhaps held at Tetsuden, under the wisteria tree, like Kwan suggested. It did make for a pretty scene in my imagining.
After that event, Fumei braved coming over to see me, against her mother’s wishes.
She’d brought over wild grapes, and we talked at length as we worked on some menial task in preparation for winter. All of it interrupted by a different visitor. Spotting him through the opened door, allowing a cross breeze, I went rigid. A rush of indignant anger coursed through me. I wouldn’t be found cowering in my house, but meet my adversary head on. If I made myself go out to face him, maybe I could trick my body to think it shouldn’t want to tremble or flee.
Stopping short, I made my polite greeting to Beom.
He stared a long while, looking past me to Fumei peeking out from the doorway and back in slow and controlled movements before speaking. “My brother Yuz is marrying this autumn.”
I dipped my head in a slight bow. “Congratulations.”
“Are you so naïve to think I came to bring this as news?”
I steeled myself. “I think you came to take your turn in trying to scare me out of my engagement.”
His face grew colder, silver-green eyes boring into me. I kept still.
“You will end this absurd infatuation.”
“I will not,” I said, final.
He narrowed his gaze. “If you do not, I will—”
“Strike me?” I interrupted. “As you did before?”
From right behind me, a low growl. Koji was there, picking up on my mood.
“Mind your tongue, girl.”
“I will mind my tongue as strictly as you mind your hand.”
Beom breathed in deep, glancing over his shoulder and tempering himself. “You are a toy to him. And once you’ve aged beyond any usefulness or sport, you will be discarded for another. Whatever child you might produce will go untitled and ignored.”
I couldn’t stop my next set of words. “Speaking from experience?” He’d tried to get at me with tired tactics, things Kwan and I had already talked about and I knew weren’t true coming from Beom. “At least your late brothers had the decency to acknowledge their children in their life. You’re more brute than lord by compare.”
His face became sever. In his offense, his hand went to his sword. “Speak of my late family again, and I will cut out your tongue.”
Koji barked.
“Why am I such a threat?” I demanded, ignoring all else. “If I’m only temporary, why are all of you so worked up? Should I expect Kwang to visit next? Or another from Seong?”
“Because your association taints us!”
Koji lunged at Beom’s roar, and I almost didn’t catch him.
“You know nothing of Juneun society. Of what it is to act as a lord.”
“Maybe I don’t want to!” I snapped back, trembling. “It looks to me like a miserable kind of life in nice clothes, drowning in wine and hiding in castles!”
To my surprise, Fumei ran out, fearfully trying to pull me away for my own protection. But I wouldn’t budge.
Beom scoffed at the sight, speaking low. “You’d have been better off with the toad.”
“So would the woman who bore you a child,” I said in equal volume. I knew I shouldn’t have, but there was no stopping once my anger took control of me, anchoring me to finish the fight. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, Beom. I know Kwan won’t tolerate you striking me. I don’t think Kwang would either. Nor would Lord Juro or Lord Genji or Prince Urekkato.”
He raised a brow at how assuredly I named off prominent Juneun figures, appearing indignant. I wasn’t so sure my list would actually come to my defense, but I held my bluff.
“While you were abusing servants, I was fortunate enough to earn friendships and make allies. Do you want these names on your list of enemies? I imagine it’s already a long list, given your temper and lack of control.”
“You speak too bold.”
“Were I still a servant,” I countered, soothing Koji (though he still growled). “Now I speak freely as your sister by law.”
My self-proclaimed title did the trick. A final offense that stalled his words, forcing him to carefully choose his next action. Hand away from his sword, he vanished in a step, leaving a violent gust in his wake.
I’d done it. On my own, I’d stood against adversaries that five years ago would’ve had me whimpering on my knees. It solidified in me that I was no longer that scared girl dashing up the mountain in desperation. No longer Hisa of the little village. I could never be that girl again.
Now, I was Hisa of Inori.