Chapter Five
"History Repeats Itself"
The following week, everything felt strained. To put it mildly.
She'd heard hide nor hair from her mother, and she'd only caught sight of her brother in passing.
Which hurt a bit more than she'd thought it would. Then again, she'd assumed that her mother would be more forthcoming in the details leading up to and causing her father's murder.
The nobles all wanted appearances with her privately, and while she understood that some of them were concerned about their standing in the courts, she really didn't want to give them any more of her time than they were already taking.
It would seem her little stunt had prompted several to either hide their embezzling better or try to reverse it entirely.
And Kagome didn't have the patience to humor them and their little nepotistic endeavors any longer than she already had.
It was bad enough that a few of the younger—and some of the not so young—ones were very clearly attempting to garner some romantic attention and favor
While some of them weren't bad on the eyes, it was their personalities that made her want to slam her fingers in a drawer rather than go on a walk with any of them.
Thankfully, while she was in her requested individual meetings with the nobles, Sango was readily available and had taken the measure upon herself to interrupt with another alleged "meeting" that Kagome had to attend once an attempted suiting had made itself present.
This time, however, Sango had slipped out to run a quick errand for her.
"I'm afraid there are some things that require my attention," Kagome insisted, taking a step back.
"Well, allow me to escort you, your highness," Lord Sasaki insisted, holding out his overly plump arm for her to take.
"Oh, I would not dream of taking up any more of your time. My guard is more than enough to escort me to the library."
She hid her wince as she gave away where she was heading.
"The library, you say! I was quite the scholar back in my day! It would give me great pleasure to assist your Highness in her research!"
Well, this was definitely not going according to plan.
"Your offer is more than generous, but my guard—"
"Oh, come now, I can ensure your safety to the library of all places! I was quite the swordsman back in my day!"
Her questions of how fabric and time had allowed him into such a state of belief remained quiet—thankfully—and she attempted to fumble around in her head for some sort of excuse aside from literally just turning tail and running away.
"Come," he said, guiding her through the door, and Kagome attempted to put her foot down and stop him, but his grip was almost bruising in its strength stifling her voice as his fingers dug into her forearm.
"Lord Sasaki!" Sango shouted after him, hand on the hilt of her sword as she strode up after them.
"Captain," the lord said with a curt nod. "The Queen wanted to go to the library, I was merely—"
"You will take your hands off of her Highness before I assist you in the matter." Her thumb flicked the blade up just enough to be seen over the hilt, and the lord finally released Kagome's arm as Sango moved between them, forcing the Lord to take a step back.
"I was merely offering a nicety to our beloved Queen," he spat.
"It is not a kindness if it is forced upon someone," Sango said, taking a step forward. "I appreciate your concern, but the Queen goes nowhere without her guard. Is that understood?"
"The Queen hardly needs your permission to court a man of my standing, and—"
Kagome could see Sango's back straighten with offense, and she was prepared to stop her friend from punching the man in the face.
"Finish that sentence, and I will run my sword through your jowls."
Or there's that too.
"You would threaten a lord?"
"I would threaten anyone who would think of harming my queen. If you would like to wait, I will take extreme gratification in breaking each finger that has marked her skin."
Lord Sasaki had long broken into a sweat at the confrontation with Sango, and Kagome didn't blame him. Sango was a force when she wanted to be, and Kagome was only more glad that Sango seemed to have a soft spot for her.
"Let me see your arm, your highness." Sango held her hand out, and Kagome carefully put her wrist in Sango's outstretched hand.
"If you will excuse me," Lord Sasaki said, quickly bowing before nearly scrambling out of the hallway.
Once he was gone, Sango turned on her, still holding onto her wrist firmly.
"Why didn't you say anything?" She asked, pulling her sleeve back.
"I was trying to be polite!" Kagome insisted as Sango ran her fingers along the pale flesh of her arm.
"Be polite, and if they don't listen, break a finger, then they'll listen."
"I think that's a little extreme, also I don't know that I could break someone's finger."
Sango snorted.
"Just grab it and bend it backwards, that usually does the trick, even if you don't break it."
She tsked over the red marks where the fabric of her sleeve had irritated her skin but seemed to find the state of her arm acceptable.
"Can we go to the library now?" Kagome asked, and Sango let go of her arm and motioning for her to lead the way.
Hours later, Kagome was still trying to cipher out her father's code for the ledgers.
She'd found a few matching numbers and made notes about how he'd altered the names and purposes.
It wasn't complete jibberish. There was a pattern to his words, and when the payments repeated, so did they—for the most part. Which made the deciphering that much more difficult, because everything wasn't the exact same.
It was looking like he'd changed the meaning of the words, but she was having trouble narrowing down what each one meant.
Kagome had never wished that she'd been taught more than just how to embroider and paint and play feminine instruments—of which she'd completely failed to master at all.
Her brother was being tutored in rhetoric and mathematics and science, and Kagome had the basic fundamentals, but she was only just realizing how lacking her education really was.
Her father had suspected that something bad might happen and yet, he'd left her completely unprepared. Left his daughter completely in the dark about everything.
It's wasn't like her father had planned on dying, but the fact that he knew something was wrong and made no preparations for her was—frustrating to say the least.
"Do you want me to have your dinner brought here?" Sango asked, making her jump.
"That's fine," she answered still looking for something that made sense. She had several pages that were filled with random scribbles.
Sango sighed, walking out of the library to fetch a servant.
Kagome refocused back on the task at hand, only pausing when Sango brought additional candles to light the room.
Sango's late night trainings were quickly becoming a respite.
She'd managed to come close to hitting the target, and Sango had finally let her hold the sword without fear—well, without much fear—that she'd cut off a limb or digit.
Sango wanted Kagome to try to attack her with it tonight.
"But I don't want to hurt you," Kagome said, holding it out with both hands.
"Look, if you can hit me, then you need a new body guard."
Kagome huffed, swinging the sword around her body.
"Easy, killer," she commented, grabbing onto Kagome's wrist to halt her movements. "Don't throw your entire body weight into an attack like that. You're going to leave yourself open to a counter attack."
"I'm not strong like you," Kagome whined. "Throwing my body weight is going to be the only strength I have. I already have to hold it with both hands."
"That's something we're working on. Strength doesn't come overnight. And sometimes it's better to be fast than strong."
"Okay, well, I'm not exactly either, so," Kagome huffed.
"Well, you've been at this for exactly a week, and you're already almost hitting the target, so that's something of an improvement already."
Kagome didn't exactly see it that way, but she supposed that Sango was making a point.
Days before she hadn't even been able to draw it back enough to get it more than a couple of feet, and here she was able to actually shoot it.
Not enough to actually injure anything substantial, but she was able to do it.
And now she was holding onto a sword for the first time in her life and attacking her body guard. Also things that she'd never really thought that she'd do.
It was a start.
Just like being a queen was a start.
"One step at a time," her father used to say when she started getting in over her head.
And for the first time in the entire time her father had been gone, she realized that she'd never hear his voice again.
Her father was gone and gone forever.
No more interrupting his work or watching him smile as she brought him flowers or showed him the newest piece she'd learned to play on the pianoforte. He'd never clap for her achievements or laugh with her as they wandered through the gardens. They'd never ride horseback together, and he'd never give her a strong and warm hug.
He was gone from their lives, and she realized how little anyone cared about that.
Her father was dead, and they only cared about currying favor with the next leader.
"Kagome?" Sango asked, watching as Kagome dropped her sword to the ground and covered her mouth as a sob escaped her.
The rest of their lesson was spent crying over lost parents in the dark of the trees.
Kagome had decided to take several ledgers up to her room to study late into the dark. It kept people from wondering what she was doing up late and stopped the interruptions and most of the prying eyes.
Sango was right—she admitted it begrudgingly—someone had been spying on her through her maidservants.
They no longer talked about anything of consequence when the maids were around.
Sango had taken to post a guard at the hallway leading up to the stairs, because she was beginning to suspect that someone had been wandering around her chambers.
Nothing with proof or evidence, just shadow-quiet footsteps that lurked in a hallway with no clear source of the sound. Kagome had initially chalked them up to echoes down the hallway, but one night, they were both walking back from the library, and they'd both heard the steps just ahead of them on the stairs.
The pattern sounding like someone coming down and then sprinting back up. They'd both run after them, Sango taking the lead because of her speed and shoes.
At least that's what Kagome liked to think.
So now, she just borrowed the ledgers and kept them stashed away in her own reading room turned study.
Sango took the brief opportunities to spend time with her own family, and Kagome would've done the same, except that her mother hadn't made any move to see her, seeming to actively avoid her at every cost.
She'd gone up twice, knocking on her door in the late evening only for their to be no answer from within.
The last time, she'd clearly heard voices inside that quieted when she knocked and remained silent until she left.
She only got updates on her brother through Sango because of Kohaku. She looked out her window to see him and Kohaku riding horses through the plains just beyond the walls of the castle. There were a few other men on horses as well, and Kagome could only assume that they were part of Sango's village.
Who would be leaving soon. They couldn't stay here forever.
Even though they probably would if she asked, but there was nothing for them to stay. There was nothing that they'd uncovered to proof anything substantial, even Sango admitted it.
So all they could do was wait and hope that they caught the person responsible before they managed to do some real damage to herself and her family.
Kagome refocused her thoughts on the ledgers before her.
The best that she could figure out is that her father used alternating codes from ledger to ledger, which only made things more complicated for her to decipher.
If she could just get the start of the code, she could figure out the rest of it.
She'd sent Sango to search for books on code breaking, but nothing seemed to make sense in her head. Then again, most of these required some more advanced mathematical skills, not something that she'd been trained in extensively—or really even one of her strong suits. She would've liked to blame her upbringing, but she'd always struggled in just basic math.
Words she could do; math, well, not without trials and tribulations it would seem.
It was getting really late, but she felt like she was closer than she had been in days.
She'd work until Sango popped her head back inside yelling at her to go to bed.
No dobleths here, she mused, wincing at her own joke. Wait. Were they called dobleths? At this rate, she might have gotten that word wrong too.
If he used a cipher—Kagome didn't know what she'd do at that point. It would forever remain a secret if she didn't figure out the code word, and at this point, she had not even the faintest idea of what a code word for her father might look like. From what she'd read it had to be five letters.
Her name was out. Her mother's was out.
Souta, maybe? But that felt too easy. Anyone would guess that.
And there were words in the coded ledger but nothing just made sense. From what she'd seen and read, ciphers looked like jibberish—all sorts of letters thrown together.
These just looked like the words of a raving lunatic.
She'd seen the phrase "lattice" and "coral" plenty , and there were a few that referenced "breaths" and even more that referenced "enchantment".
So what did the entry, "tending the garden breaths" mean?
Maybe her father had been losing his mind from poison or something. That would make more sense.
But there was a clear shift mid-year in the ledgers. Her father had made a choice, clear as day to hide his entries.
And they were consistent.
There was a code.
Kagome just had to figure it out.
Easy peasy.
She snorted a laugh at herself as she continued to dig further into her father's mysterious need to code his information.
Something rustled behind her, rousing her from her sleep.
The fire had dwindled down to embers, and her candles had gone out with the draft.
It was late into the night, perhaps even early morning. They were long past the heat and brightness of summer, and the nights were just starting to get longer.
No where near winter, but just long enough that the nights could become misleading.
She rose, her house shoes as soft as socks across the floor.
Rubbing her face, she moved to the doorway, watching a man raise a dagger, the metal edge gleaming and glinting the soft light of the moon, and plunge it into her rumpled bedding. It sank easily into her bed, and she could see the confusion reflected in his form.
Everything froze.
She started to call for Sango, but she didn't know if Sango could get here in time, because the man was already in her room, and he already knew that she wasn't in her bed. Kagome ducked behind the door, searching for something—anything—that would allow her to defend herself.
She saw her quill on the table, and yeah, the pen might be mightier than the sword in theory, but Kagome felt pretty sure that she was going to be the one at a loss here.
He was going to come in here.
He was going to find her.
Kagome lunged for the metal tools next to the fireplace. Her fingers wrapped around one of the tools as a hand latched into her hair ripping her backwards and sending her crashing into the floor.
She rolled onto her side as the knife sliced into her arm, barely missing her shoulder. He reared back to stab again, and Kagome swung, twisting herself in the process, and slamming the handle into his face.
The sharp end of it cut into his cheek, blood flecking across the floor and herself as she struck.
"Fuck!"
He reared back, and she swung again, catching him in the side of the face with the metal pole, knocking him onto his side.
"You bitch!" He snarled, holding onto the side of his face as she scooted away, swinging again, catching him across the hand and face, and sending him to the ground. Scrambling to her feet, she started for the door, only to turn and see him climbing to his feet. There wasn't a choice.
She swung once, knocking him back to the ground, and when he moved, she swung a second time, sending him crashing down to the floor.
She was gasping at this point, and once her brain seemed to catch up with events, she found her voice.
"SANGO!" She bellowed, waiting to hear her friend's footsteps, but also hesitant to look away from the man on the floor in front of her.
When he didn't move, she ran for the narrow hallway connecting their rooms.
She burst in, door slamming into the wall loudly and hard enough to rattle some of the hangings.
Running for the bed, she flipped the sheets back to see absolutely nothing. Sango wasn't in her room.
Sango wasn't here.
Sango wasn't coming to save her.
She darted back out, heading straight for her other door, leading out into the hallway.
There was a guard there, and she burst through, seeing the guard crumpled on the floor, the dim light making the pool of blood under him look black.
She took a step back inside the door, whirling to look at the man on the ground in her study.
Except—there was no man.
Her shoes were right by the door, and she slid on the flats, before starting out the door, leaving the attacker to stay in her room.
Footsteps came rushing up the stairs, and Kagome hesitated.
She knew the attacker in her room, but she didn't know who was coming up the stairs.
Did she risk it?
Sango's face appeared as she began clearing the stairs.
"Get inside!" She shouted, staggering towards her as she reached the top.
"But there's—"
"Inside!" She shoved Kagome back inside the door, slamming it shut and locking it. Sango was gasping for air, and Kagome reached out to touch her shoulder, recoiling when she touched something warm and wet. Her fingers came back dark with blood.
"Sango!" She shouted.
"I'm fine. We have to go," she said, pushing off from the door, and pushing her away from the door.
"No! There's someone here!" Kagome shouted at her, grabbing her arm. She could feel Sango's pulse racing under her fingertips as she gripped her bicep.
Sango's eyes lingered on her, eyes narrowing, and Kagome followed her gaze to the growing red stain on her arm—which oddly enough didn't really hurt.
Getting stabbed in the arm should hurt, right?
"Where?" Sango asked, fingers tightening their grip on her sword. Kagome didn't have to look because she could hear the leather creaking under the strength of her grip.
"I don't know. I knocked him out—I thought I knocked him out—and when I came back, he was gone."
Sango grabbed Kagome's hand, twisting around and putting her hand at her belt.
"Hold onto me. Don't let go," she ordered, and Kagome tightly wrapped her fingers around Sango's belt.
She moved around her room, but there was no sign of the intruder.
"Maybe he left?" Kagome whispered, eyes watching as Sango's back shined unnaturally in the moonlight. "We really need to look at your back," she commented.
"It's fine. We need to get out of here."
"What's happening?"
Sango was walking around with Kagome in tow like a meandering toddler.
"All I know is that my father and I were ambushed—"
"Is he okay?!"
"We're fine. Put this on," Sango shoved her cloak at her as she shoved other things into a small bag.
"Who ambushed you?"
"The guards," she clipped. "Where is your coin purse?" Sango said, pulling open all her drawers as she searched.
"In here," Kagome said, letting go of the belt and the fireplace poker as she pulled out a small hidden drawer at the bottom and pulled out her small purse. It didn't have much money in it. She'd never had to really carry anything. It was mostly just coins that she'd found or what little her mother and father had given her for when she went outside the castle walls. But most anything that she wanted she was able to have the castle pay for through either credit or money sent later. This was just for trinkets.
Sango shoved it into the bag, closing it and slipping it over Kagome's shoulders.
"Keep this close," she ordered, snagging her wrist and dragging her towards the hidden connection between their rooms. "I'm going to pack you a change of clothes that are better for travel."
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere—" She paused at the entrance to her room. "Someone's been in here."
"Oh, that was me," she said. "I thought you were asleep when I came looking for you when that man tried to kill me."
"Can you please not say that so casually?" Sango asked, dragging her farther into her room, pushing her to sit down on her bed. She moved quickly through her things, coming back with clothing and another pair of shoes. "We're going to have to move quickly. Put these in your bag," she nearly threw the clothes at her as she grabbed a few other things, including her sword, a bow and quiver, and finally her boomerang.
"Hold onto me, and stay close."
"Are you sure you should be carrying that with your injuries?"
Sango rolled her eyes, shifting the weight and wincing. "It'll be fine. I need to get you to safety. We're compromised here."
The castle was compromised?
Sango started towards the secret passageways, and Kagome could only stare, before Sango doubled back and grabbed her hand.
"Wait," Kagome said, stumbling after her.
"There's no time!" Sango hissed, dragging her closer.
"The guards attacked you?" She asked, and Sango only grunted an affirmation. "But why?"
"My guess is that someone paid them a lot of money."
The steps were narrow here in the winding stairway down, and Kagome fought to keep her footing and not take the both of them out in a tumble. How Sango was able to see in almost near darkness was a mystery and a point of envy.
The large boomerang barely fit in the space, and Kagome used her hands to keep her balance on the walls, only slipping twice as they moved.
Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Sango pushed the door open slowly.
It was the holding room that they'd been in before. Moonlight drifted in, lighting up the small space just enough to see that something had happened.
The tables and chairs were knocked over, strewn across the room haphazardly.
And there were bodies.
"Shit!" Sango hissed, moving slowly towards the nearest body, kicking it over with her foot. Her sword had never been put away.
The man rolled limply onto his back.
The uniform he wore was one of her own guards.
Maybe Sango was right. Someone had infiltrated the guard, and her own people had turned on her.
"These aren't any of my people," she said finally.
"That's good, right?" Kagome asked, taking a step closer to her friend.
"Yeah," she sighed. "Means they got everyone out. Your mother and brother are fine. We just need to hurry to the rendezvous point."
"Will they leave us?" She asked.
"There's a backup in case things go bad. Don't worry; you've got me on your side." Sango reached back, squeezing her hand before letting go. "Stay close, and I don't care what happens, if I tell you do something, you do it."
Like she'd have to tell her twice.
Well, she definitely wouldn't have to tell her three times.
Kagome nodded vigorously, and Sango marched towards the other doorway, stepping over the fallen body of a traitorous guard.
Pushing the door open, Sango checked the area as Kagome kept a just a step behind her.
The castle was eerily quiet and still. It was late, but she didn't think that a coup would be this quiet. How many people were involved? How many people had died already? How many people were innocent and just caught up in the madness of one person?
She looked to the wound across Sango's back.
How many people would be injured defending the throne? Defending her?
They moved quickly through the castle, but again, it seemed almost too easy.
No one stopped them. No one appeared from the shadows. No bodies littered the floor in a sign of a skirmish.
There was just nothing except the sound of their footfalls on the tiled floor.
And that made Kagome's skin crawl.
The high windows let in the moonlight without restriction, but there was no sign of an insurrection. No sign of a coup. No archers on the roof. No mass encroaching army.
Her throne would be stolen in the quiet of the night, and in the morning, a new king would rise.
Sango stopped in front of the door leading out to the gardens.
"We're going to have to run," she told her. "From here on out, you don't stop running until you reach the fishing pier. No matter what you hear, you keep running."
"But," she started and Sango shook her head.
"Someone will be waiting to take you down the river. My people will be there. I will be right behind you."
"Sango," she whispered urgently.
"No, this is my job. This is exactly why I'm here. Now, run!"
She threw the doors open, grabbing Kagome's arm and shoving her out into the open.
An arrow thudded into the ground at her feet, and there was a shout behind her and the familiar whirl of the boomerang being released into the air.
Her feet thudded through the pebbled path, taking each turn with a familiarity of someone who'd walked each one countless times. Kagome knew these gardens.
Though she'd thought that she'd known her home and her people too.
Her feet thudded into the soft gravel as she moved, and she felt the muscles burn as she pushed them to move faster and faster.
If they could just make it to the cover of trees, then the arrows that sank into the ground near her wouldn't be as much of a danger.
Another shout and the whoosh of air as the boomerang returned.
She glanced back, seeing Sango pause, reaching up to grab the boomerang midair and sliding in the path as the weight threw her backwards.
Looking back to the front, Kagome narrowly avoided the slice of a sword at her stomach. A flash of fire and cream blurred past her, tackling the near-assassin to the ground. His shout ended in a gurgle.
"Kirara!" Sango shouted in relief, and the fire cat took off for the air, heading back towards the castle with a deafening roar. "Come on," Sango pressed, grabbing her arm and tugging her forward.
Kagome could hear the shouts and cries behind her and the roar that silenced them all.
Sango pressed them forward through the trees and towards the river.
Recent rains up north made it swell to just within its banks.
But it was the sight at the banks that made them slide to a stop in the dirt.
Kagome had never seen a massacre, but she felt pretty sure that this would be a close resemblance.
There were just—people everywhere. She knew some of their faces.
The one who had guarded her at the coronation was draped half over the pier, eyes staring up at the stars. His arm dangled off into the water, and his chest was filled with arrows.
Sango's grip on her arm tightened to the point that it was painful, and Kagome only winced as she stared at the bodies of so many soldiers that littered the ground.
Deep gouges ran across their flesh, and the ground seemed like it would slosh with all the blood staining the ground.
But there was a blip of hope. Her mother was nowhere amongst the bloodshed and neither was her brother. No signs of Kohaku, but Kagome didn't miss the choked sob as both she and Sango saw the slumped form of her father, pinned to a tree with a spear.
"Sango?" She asked, and the hand gripping her arm released her.
"We have to go," she said quickly, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hands. "We need to get out of here." She turned back towards the castle. "Kirara!" She bellowed.
"Sango," Kagome started, but Sango shook her head.
"Don't. I'll deal with it later. You're more important."
And maybe—in the grand scheme of things—she was, but Kagome knew that Sango loved deeply. Maybe even more than Kagome did herself. She loved with a passion, which is what made her so good at her job. Sango cared about others.
But Sango was right. They needed to get out of here before one—if not both—of them was killed.
A distant roar sounded, and Kagome turned towards the noise, only to see someone emerging from the tree line. Sango jerked Kagome behind her as she pushed them both back away from the intruders, and Kagome saw the glint of weapons in the moonlight.
"Stay back!" She snarled, shifting her stance to swing her weapon towards them.
A few men advanced, and Sango's ponytail swung in the moonlight as she kept turning her head to keep all the enemies in her line of sight.
And as they advanced, Sango moved them both back, maintaining the distance between them.
"Who do you work for?" Kagome shouted. "Who hired you?"
No words from any of them, but then she heard it, the high pitched sound of bowstrings being pulled taut.
Sango caught the sound too, but it was too late.
The arrows whistled, and there was the sickening thud of each one sinking into their target.
Sango staggered back a step, and Kirara landed claws and teeth sinking into the people who'd struck down her mistress.
"Sango!" Kagome cried, arms wrapping around her friend to help support her.
A wet gurgling sound escaped her, and she staggered forward, using her boomerang as a crutch.
The men ran as the fire cat flared bright and burned anything that touched her and tearing apart anything that she could reach.
"Sango, stop!" She tugged at her friend, who was trying to move forward.
Kirara bounded in front of her, sliding down as Sango tried to pull Kagome onto her back.
"You first! I'll get on when you're on," Kagome shoved her back towards the cat, and after a second, Sango begrudgingly pulled the boomerang haphazardly over her shoulder and collapsed onto Kirara's back.
Kagome climbed on not even a second later, though somehow less dignified than Sango's collapse, and then Kirara was already taking to the skies.
"Sango?" She asked, but there was no response from her friend. "Kirara, wherever we're going we need to hurry!"
The cat flew across the skies, heading deeper and deeper into the forest. She could see the river and it's swirls and eddies, and for a moment, she could see the beauty of her kingdom.
And then a hard thud that rattled the cat beneath them. The blow jarred Kagome enough that she began to slide from her back, and her fingers scrabbled to hold on and save herself, but even then, Kirara tumbled from the skies, the large lance sticking out of her side almost glittering in the moonlight.
Kagome twisted in the air, tumbling head over foot, eyes catching the ground and the water just moments before she struck.
A/N: I did it! I finally managed to get this edited (roughly) and posted! So sorry this has taken like months to get posted. It's been written and the brain just hasn't been able to get it edited. I'd read like five words and just catastrophic brain failure.
If you see mistakes, I read it and called it 'editing.' Changed a few words and went, "yeah, that's good."
After sleeping for more than 3 hours a night, I will probably regret posting this, but sleep-deprived and currently ill me is really digging it, so enjoy.