The Blue King's hunting party proceeds towards the east into the woods. Their procession is disrupted as they spot a group of strange men at the nearby lake, shouting foreign words some of them jumping onto their horses readying themselves to confront the Blue King's people.
"Barbarians." one of the king's ministers says covering his mouth.
Munakata looks towards the group at the lake, where it seems to him that he can see a fairly young man of strange complexion surrounded by his fellows. Munakata's eyes have never been strong and with the blinding sunlight reflecting from the water surface setting his vision ablaze, he looks away.
When the evening comes the court is bustling with rumours of the young king's mysterious ailment, dark clouds over the eastern skies, enemy alliances, danger, danger.
At noon the next day he rides to the same spot near the lake. The red haired man is sitting under the tree, his clothes and arms lying on the ground. He looks up at the Blue King, his eyes expressionless. He gets up, his pale limbs moving reluctantly as if he had just awaken from a long slumber, he leans over, takes a dive and disappears under the water surface.
Looking down at the crude weapons and leather garments discarded at his feet Munakata can't help but feel disappointment at the thought that of all the things that could interfere with the peace and order of his kingdom, this is what the fate brought him. He lets himself stare with contempt at the lake, watching the man's pale body while he swims.
A moment passes and the man finally reemerges from the water, stands up, looks Munakata straight in the eye and extends his hand.
"Join me." he says and it catches Munakata off guard, the man's voice sounding clear and deep, nothing of the intelligible guttural sounds he heard the other day.
Munakata looks down feeling suddenly ashamed of having stared at the man.
"But I can't swim." he mutters under his breath. The man smiles and dives into the water. The blue king returns to his castle.
On the next day, as they both ride deeper into the woods, every now and then the Red King halts in front of a tree and says its name out loud as if acknowledging it. These are names Munakata knows, names he's heard countless times, but never really bothered to see what they stand for.
They come to a halt and Mikoto goes around the tree while inspecting it closely.
"Oak." Mikoto's voice informs him. Munkata looks up at the wide branches above their heads, and wonders what does the Red King's land look like.
The language they communicate in was crafted by generations of poets and philosophers, fit for grasping complex ideas as well as expressing fickle emotions. He's well versed in the art of rethorics, but the moment he enters the woods words start eluding him. He's always felt that his knowledge is lacking, that there are just too many things that go beyond his understanding, a fault of vast gaps in his education or simply his crude obtuseness, because no matter how many verses of treatises he memorized he still felt like a blind man groping for his way in darkness.
That evening he can't fall asleep. He goes to the oratory and looks for manuscripts, leather bound itineraries describing travels to far away lands, ancient lands that existed ages before the first cartographer put the name of Munakata's kingdom on the map. He finds a distraction in the fantastic descriptions of creatures half-men half-beasts dwelling at the edges of the world. He stops at a passage about sacred blood ceremonies performed over stone altars and he shivers in the darkness of his chamber. The feeble light of the candle flickers, a drop of wax trickles down from the candelabrum, as he wonders at the senseless cruelty and he can't help but smile. It would seem fitting for the Red King to be anointed to his position with the blood of his lovers and relatives. He covers his eyes from the shaky light of the candle, slowly slipping into the embrace of sleep. In his dream he sees trickles of blood turning into rivers, spreading all over the earth, washing over its bones that are the stones seated deep inside it, sticking out from under its surface, the unmoving stones so cold and unforgiving in the face of human tragedy.
They ride through the forest, pass the lake, going further still deeper into the woods. They stumble upon a dead fox. Mikoto swears and looks him in the eye. The further they go, the darker it gets. The sun is already setting when they dismount their horses. He can tell they're not far from the red king's settlement, as the distant aura of light from the bonfires made by his people in preparation for the night reaches them, making it seem as if the whole forest was being set on fire.
"Join me." the red haired man turns to him. The shifting shadows distort his features, obscuring his face. And they lay in the shrubs.
Tomorrow he'll receive the Red King in the throne hall, in an official audience in the presence of his ministers arrangements will be made for the upcoming conflict and he'll seal it with his emblem ring.
He rides back to the castle. The fortress cuts out against the evening sky, the pale towers looming over him, hundreds pairs of eyes directed at him. But it doesn't matter now, it doesn't matter anymore. Because they see the fire too. And the fire will consume all.