V
This wasn't about the river, for which Rinkah knew the royal family couldn't care less. This was about knocking down one of the pillars of Flame Tribe society. Their life expectancy was 40, meaning the young men Lady Hinoka wanted were in their prime. Never again would they be as fit, as handsome, as capable. They were invaluable soldiers, blacksmiths, farmers, healers. Husbands. Fathers. And they could all be gone in an instant, to suit the whims of a foreign power.
She considered the other option. They could simply let the river go, but what would that be inviting? Surely, Shirasagi would enforce the ban by keeping their soldiers stationed around the river. There would be a small army base right outside Flame Tribe territory. Always watching. Always listening. Always armed.
"You've been quiet since you got back."
Kaze emerged from their home and sat down beside her on the steps of their backdoor, a few feet away from the start of the forest. He brought Midori out with him, absently rocking her as she cried.
"How long have you been watching me?"
"Long enough to know you're overthinking something."
On the eve of her wedding—for which no one in the tribe provided their blessing—her father gave her one piece of advice: never tell that Outsider too much. Love will not be enough to keep him in line—only ignorance can. Of course, even though her indignant anger she had understood the reasoning being his words. Ninjas did not lead normal lives. The very first lesson Kaze had learned as a boy was that he had to be willing to kill his father, his brother, himself, if a royal asked it of him. And yet here he was: devoted to a tribe he would never fully be a part of, enduring discrimination and famine, all out of love for her. How could she not tell him? "Kaze, can I ask you something?"
"Yes."
"What can you tell me about King Ryoma's siblings?"
Kaze stared blankly into the thicket of leaves. "So, Lady Hinoka's the one heading this campaign."
"Never said that."
"You didn't have to… it comes as no surprise, really. Lady Hinoka was always the most militant growing up. She trained the hardest and the longest, determined to prove to King Sumeragi she'd be better suited leading troops into battle than as the obedient wife of some unworthy nobleman. I don't know if she ever convinced her father, but King Ryoma understood. Last I heard she was due to receive several honors for her work in taking down the piracy ring that ruled the northern shoreline."
"So, she's a respected general."
"Yes."
Rinkah chuckled humorlessly. "My, your king must think quite highly of our capabilities if he sent a war hero to confront us."
"She's more of a war criminal. She rounded everyone involved in the ring, locked them in padlocked cages, and had them dragged into the ocean. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone—from the captains and their families, all the way down to the slavehands. She drowned thousands in a week's time, all for the crime of cheating the capital out of what they felt was theirs."
"And these were the people you used to defend?"
"Please understand, my dear, sweet wife," he said in his most bitter tone, "I've known Lady Hinoka since we were children. We played in the courtyard together. She used to share her sweets with me. She was the only one of her siblings who could beat Saizo in an arm-wrestling match. She cried just as hard as Lady Sakura when Hana and Subaki… did what they did." He clenched his fist. "In another life, the two of you would have gotten on famously. Sadly, this is the life we lead." His eyes pressed shut. The girl I once knew is dead, and her reanimated corpse has proven herself to be a monster."
It made sense, then. It all made sense. "She's holding the river hostage. Says her army will remain stationed where they are, blocking it off, unless we hand over every Flame Tribe man age 16 to 25."
Kaze opened his mouth as if to comment, but no words came out. In the distance they could still hear shouts, pleading, the occasional wail. Their daughter's cries subsided; she stared up at Kaze's face listlessly, blinking blearily against the evening light.
"Those men make up a quarter of our trained warriors," she continued. "Handing them over for flames-know-what will leave us unable to defend ourselves. But if we hand over the river, the Hoshidans will want to keep their soldiers there to enforce the blockade. It'd be an invasion waiting to happen."
"So you agree." He swallowed thickly. "This is all just pretext for an invasion."
"Is there any other way to see it?"
"It's the only thing that makes sense. I don't see why they won't just declare war and be done with it."
Rinkah missed all her siblings, except for one. Even as a young girl she knew there was something off with her third brother. His favorite hobby was lurking around the river's edge, where he'd stand very still and wait for some unfortunate toad to wander within arm's reach. Rinkah would watch from afar as he sliced their limbs off with a butcher's precision, always at the joint and never through the bone, careful to extend the creature's life. He would then set it on the floor and watch it flop around, belly to back to belly to back, mouth agape in agony. Sometimes he left them to die that way; other times he'd burn them alive, ensuring the most painful death possible. It was one thing to hunt for game, another to hunt for sport, but her third brother simply enjoyed watching helpless creatures suffer.
Rinkah figured there wasn't much difference between her brother and Hoshido's ruling family. The question now was whether she would again stand by and watch it happen. "Why do you suppose we're being targeted for this?"
Kaze stroked the side of Midori's face. "People are afraid of what they don't understand. You all have a totally different way of looking at the world—I know, because I still feel like an Outsider even after all these years. If I feel that way, imagine how those in Shirasagi feel?" He sighed, rolling his shoulders and earning an ugly pop from his back. "Our very existence must feel like such a threat to them."
"I might buy that, if it weren't for the man the younger princess married. Isn't he of another species? You can't get much different than that."
"Oh, but that's the true insult in all this." He smiled listlessly. "Lord Kaden is one of theirs. Of course they'd make an exception for him and his."
Rinkah pressed her hands to her mouth, eyes pinched shut. She hated what she was about to ask, but could see no other way… "Can you go talk to your brother again?"
"Rinkah—"
"Tell him what his liege is doing. If anyone's close enough to King Ryoma to even attempt to steer his hand, it's him!"
Kaze stared at her with an unreadable expression. Then, wordlessly, he handed Midori over to her and left.
No matter how she turned the situation over in her head, she couldn't think of a solution where the tribe emerged unscathed.
In another life, four or five years ago, she would have said no to both sides of the ultimatum and simply had their army fight their way out, but they were so weakened by the hunger she was sure Lady Hinoka's men would have them beat in a week's time, perhaps even less. With what Kaze told her, she could easily imagine Lady Hinoka piling their river high with Flame Tribe corpses. King Ryoma was probably hoping she'd make such a pigheaded error.
The decision ultimately rested with her father, but she doubted he had any better sense of what to do than she did. When she asked him what his thoughts were, all he said was that he needed to pray. She couldn't say she was entirely surprised by that—during his childhood and the first half of his reign, the Flame Tribe had an oracle whom he would turn to when making major decisions. But that oracle died long before she was born, and the God of Flame mandated that only the mentally disabled could act as his speakers; because no one with that gift that had survived to the five-year mark since, they had no one who they could safely turn to for guidance.
Kaze returned well into the bright-night several hours later, sneaking in through the back entrance. He silently waved her forward.
"What is it?" Rinkah whispered. "Did you—"
He pressed his finger to his lips; she stopped talking. He went over to Midori's crib, picked her up, and carefully situated her into the sling on his chest. He refused to leave the girl alone even for the shortest length of time.
With their sleeping daughter strapped to him, she let him lead her through the thicket of forest that acted as their unofficial northern border, which no one had any real reason to go to and thus, was unoccupied by Lady Hinoka's army. When they reached they edge, she saw Saizo, Orochi, and two others waiting for them.
He gestured at the two unknown people. "These are representatives from the Ogasawara and Soga clans."
Rinkah nodded. "Okay."
"These are the families from which Subaki and Hana hailed from, respectively."
Rinkah's mouth dropped open. Oh.
"Their villages have also been adversely affected by the policy."
Rinkah took a closer look at them—they also appeared quite gaunt. Was that how she looked like to other people? Compared to the lot of them, Saizo and Orochi looked downright rosy. "I see."
"It's the Flame Tribe today, and our villages tomorrow." The woman from the Ogasawara clan bowed briefly. "Let's work together, for the sake of all our survivals."
"We're willing to help in any way we can," the man from the Soga clan added.
She looked to her husband. "Work together?"
"Brother tells me he may have thought of a solution to all this, one where we won't have to confront King Ryoma at all" he explained.
"And here I thought he wanted to remain blind to the truth," Rinkah quipped before she could stop herself.
Saizo scoffed. "Even ground into the dirt, you still bite the hand that feeds you." He tossed the sack he had been carrying at her feet. It spilled open, and grains of rice sprinkled across the ground.
"There's more where this came from," Orochi told her. "We can get you as much as you need."
"Where did you get this?" Rinkah asked, breathless.
"It's part of Igasoto's rations," Saizo explained, his good eye flickering over to Kaze, whose own gaze was fixated on the rice. She knew he would eat it raw. Her mouth also salivated at the sight of it.
"You don't need to go through that for our sake. We'll make due." She would not compromise the pride of her people by forcing another village to go hungry.
"It's no trouble," Orochi grinned. "The timing couldn't be better, truly! The census data for our region is coming due. That's the information the court uses to determine the size of our import. Kaze came to us, explained the situation, and… well, who's to say Igasato didn't have a population boom in the last ten years?"
"We're willing to add the populations of your respective villages to our own numbers," Saizo explained. "As Orochi said, we'd fake a population boom. We'd then distribute the surplus to the rest of you."
"But how would we hide it?"
"Our ninjas are adept at not being seen. We change the route regularly, make sure you're never caught with food not native to your lands… and in the interim, I'll work at turning the king's gaze away from you all."
It was a plan far better than anything she could come up with with her available tools—but still, receiving this sort of help made her feel small. "Why are you doing all this?"
"I don't want my brother or niece to starve. And I don't believe entire villages ought to be blamed for the crimes of a few, no matter how unforgivable," he nodded at the two envoys.
"And Lady Hinoka?" Rinkah asked, hoping there might be some painless cure for that as well.
Saizo did not respond immediately, eventually sighing heavily behind his mask. "I think you would agree," he said slowly, tone almost regretful, "that a few thousand men is small price to pay for the survival of the Flame Tribe."
Rinkah stormed ahead of Kaze on their way back, bag of rice clenched tight in her hand.
She did not allow her tears to fall until she caught sight of her village, small homes occupied by large families peppering the valley. She fell to her knees.