...
After leaving the girl, Megumi stopped in the courtyard. She knelt on the earth, in the dark, before the stone marker. It was so quiet. Hushed. It was like he was there, listening, waiting, calm and patient as always. Patient and peaceful and stubborn as that stone. Damn him.
Megumi sighed and closed her eyes. She might have tried to conjure him, capture him, but she knew he was gone father than her powers could reach. And even if he lingered, he would not speak to her.
"What was it you fell into, Kiyosato? Why did you force me to make that promise? What have you brought on us?"
Silence, as she expected. Even the insects had gone quiet in the cold. Silence but for the gentle whisper of a heartless breeze.
...
...
After a fitful sleep, Kaoru woke with the new day dawning.
She understood that she was in the daimyo's villa.
She believed that the shamaness would not harm her.
She was a guest.
She was a prisoner.
Either way, Kaoru felt that something, some power had had drawn her here - something that would not simply let her leave.
The wolves were coming.
She dressed quietly. Wanting to avoid spirit-talkers and soldiers and politicians, she crept around the covered walkways of the mansion, through a morning grey and damp with dew and fog, until she found the path to the kitchen.
Inside it was bright and rich-smelling and warm.
"Excuse me..."
The kitchen servants stopped their work and stared. "Are you lost... ma'am?"
"Um... Not exactly. The daimyo and the head shaman... they say I am a guest, but I don't know anyone, and I don't have anything to do... I thought perhaps I could... help. Please, I don't want to be a bother, but I'm just... lonely... and bored." She smiled and tried to seem innocent, harmless - what she had been, when she had first lost her memory.
The women kept staring, but one girl spoke up boldly. "You're the sorcoress."
"No!" Kaoru insisted. "At least... I don't think so. I don't know anything about spirits or demons or magic."
"Well," another woman, who seemed to be in charge, spoke: "Do you know anything about chopping vegetables?"
...
After they had shown her, a few times - the proper way to hold the radish, move her fingers, hold the knife - really she was ruining more food than she was preparing, but something about her led people to forgive her, help her, trust her - after they had shown her, a few times, how to chop properly, and Kaoru was finally making slow but acceptable progress through a platter of root vegetables, she started to ask, "What will happen...?"
"Yes?" Okohira, the mistress of the kitchen, asked from the vicinity of the soup pot.
"What will happen... It's just... At the other town, there was a battle, and, from what was said, I mean, I wonder... What will happen... if enemy soldiers come?"
The olther girls grew quiet while Okohira began to ladel the soup into a heavy iron bowl heated with coals to keep the daimyo's breakfast warm. "...What have you heard?"
Kaoru gave a stilted answer - hearsay - the soldiers, the shamans. The Mibu and Mackimachi had joined forces. Something had happened to the Koshimizu. It could be... disaster... for the Kiyosato.
Okohira put the finishing touches on the daimyo's breakfast table. The younger women began to prepare rows of trays for the soldiers' meal.
"What will happen is... what has always happened," Okohira spoke. "Many will be killed. Some will be injured. Their soldiers may rape some women. Much will be stolen. Perhaps the estate will survive and there will be a new master, but almost certainly some stores will be pillaged, some fields will be trampled, and next winter more of the people will go hungry."
"And isn't there anything... anyone can do?"
Okohira glanced at her almost with pity. "Nothing. Nothing but pray for an honorable death. Come, Mirine, Ayame," she spoke to the girls. "It's time." She picked up the daimyo's table and moved to the door. "Not you, miss. It was bad enough that you helped prepare the food." She softened her words with a smile. "You mustn't be seen to serve it."
...
Brighter and warmer since she had entered the kitchen - more like daylight than the murky dawn, but the sky was overcast. The light was still grey. At least the rain had stopped, for a while.
It promised to be a dreary day, but still Kaoru could see that someone had taken care of this land. It was subtle, but the earth all around the estate had been cultivated, like a garden. Each turn in the corridors and the pathways around the mansion opened onto a different feeling, a different view.
Kaoru heard a group of people approaching and stepped quickly around one of the side porches to avoid them, and she almost walked right into - warm eyes. His eyes warmer than she remembered them - gazing at her, seeing her, warm and relieved and pleased.
The samurai.
Kenshin.
He was holding her arms, as she had startled when she saw him and might have stumbled, but he was still holding her arms, as he had done the night of the battle, the night of the storm, but now with warmth and relief in his eyes.
"You're alive."
...
...