“How do we seal the deal?” As the pair faced each other before the opulent bed, this time Akim was the one to speak up. “I’ve been working as a merchant for the past year and a half, so I’m big on contracts. I want to see proof that you’ll grant me rank and duty.”
“A reasonable demand.”
Genyou leaned over the writing desk beside the bed, grabbed the closest paper at hand, and took to writing with fluid brushstrokes.
“What is your name?”
“You can call me Akim, or Anki, or ‘that man from Tan.’”
Both parties’ names, the promised remuneration, the responsibilities of the job—Genyou jotted down all the necessary details of the contract, then concluded it thusly:
Contract valid until both parties have taken their vengeance.
“That’s vague. There’s no telling how many years that could take.”
“It won’t be long if you do your job well. Feel free to take anyone with promise under your command. You have my permission to structure the organization however you like.”
It was an unprecedented deal.
Or so Akim thought, but he quickly amended that. This man simply couldn’t be bothered with appearances. Nothing more, nothing less. He had put everything on the line for revenge. Nothing else mattered to him.
“So you are planning to tell me the specifics of your dream revenge, right?”
“Before we get to that, fix the way you speak to me. I am your master, and you are my loyal servant.”
“Uh-huh. As you wish, Your Majesty the Soon-to-Be Emperor.”
On the bed right beside them, the most exalted man in the nation—or formerly most exalted—lay dead. Yet neither of the two men spared him so much as a glance.
Light gradually flooded the room with the rising sun. By the time the real menial worker brought a washbasin, Akim had already become Genyou’s spy.
After that, the long and short of it was that Akim got his revenge over with quickly. He tracked down the Kin lord and put him to death. Armed with the flood of information that reached the emperor’s desk on a daily basis, it was child’s play. Almost an anticlimax.
The gaping old man had failed to comprehend why anyone would be out to kill him, so Akim had told him the story of a woman who died in a flood. He talked about the way her corpse had swelled and what a cheery person she had been while she was still alive, but to the bitter end, the former lord wore a blank look that said, Why is this ant talking to me?
Akim had been sure that this would be the kill that finally made him feel like the sun had broken through the clouds, but it turned out to be no different from the time he had killed the tax collectors. No righteous thunder rained down from the Heavens, and no tears sprang to his eyes. Revenge had proven to feel no different from cleaning up a mess—maybe even defecating. It was like the act of dispassionately eliminating waste. Not doing so wasn’t an option, but neither could he surrender himself to a sweet, long-lasting sense of accomplishment as a result.
He next tried killing the Tan chieftain who had lured his adoptive father to Ei. He murdered noblemen who were committing similar atrocities in the other territories. Each time Akim stared down at the floor where those hideous corpses lay, realizing that no dramatic change would be wrought in himself or the Heavens, he walked away with a shrug of his shoulders.
The same exact scenes played out over and over again.
To make matters worse, killing his hated foe had robbed him of his purpose in life. Now that he had taken his revenge, all that awaited Akim was a life of tedium. If not for the higher cause of killing self-important nobles, he probably would have died of boredom—though, quite frankly, he was even starting to get sick of those assignments.
“Listen here, Akim. You lack the open mind to accept life as it comes.”
Every now and then, Fatma’s grumpy voice would play back in his mind.
She had been exactly right. For all that he was versatile, Akim was also quick to lose interest; in all his years, he had hardly ever settled down and poured his focus into one project. He was always meandering his way through life. If something didn’t work out, he would move on to the next thing. If it did go well, he would start on something new. Sometimes it felt like he was gazing at the world through frosted glass.
Things were quite different for Genyou. His revenge was nowhere closer to becoming a reality after twenty-five years, and his black eyes were still filled with a deep hatred.
Akim felt both envy and pity for the emperor still lost in the raw throes of revenge. After all, he had been by the man’s side for more than twenty years. Genyou was as good as a longtime friend—or something even deeper than that, like another part of himself. He was the Akim of a world where he had never completed his revenge.
Akim’s thirst for vengeance had raged so fiercely that it burned out to ash, but Genyou’s ongoing craving was like ice. Layer built upon layer, and the more time passed, the more solid and immovable it became.
But then…
“I planted explosives in the river.”
A Maiden came along to defy Akim’s every expectation, shattering the frozen river with a graceful smile and a deafening roar. She claimed that breaking the ice during the winter and preventing the formation of a natural embankment would stop the summer floods. Rather than ordering a large-scale public works project, the Maiden had found another way to unceremoniously—and fundamentally—help the community. It had been a while since Akim felt such pure delight.
So that’s her play, eh?
“Allow me to reiterate my previous offer, Akim. Would you care to strike a deal?”
For the sake of a loved one, she wouldn’t hesitate to make an enemy of the emperor. Her recklessness was the spitting image of his former self, who had once plotted to assassinate the emperor in revenge, and Genyou, who had made sure to be present for the moment of his father’s death.
The difference was that neither of the two men had ever looked so full of life. Their eyes had never sparkled so bright, they had never stood so tall, and they had never worn such a fearless smile upon their lips.
Ah, to be young.
Beyond the forest, he heard the creak of the ice floes. He had never known what sound a frozen river made when a crack formed in the ice and its flow was restored.
“Instead of giving up or calling things stupid at every opportunity, you need to settle down and find something fun to do. Let’s look on the bright side!”
For the first time in quite a while, he recalled the sight of Fatma’s smile. Whenever she scolded her badu, her voice would sound angry, but the corners of her mouth would turn up ever so slightly as she pinched his nose.
“I like it.”
Akim rubbed his nose as if to trace where his wife had once touched it.
The frozen river had been shattered that night. Perhaps this year, instead of rainy skies and muddy waters, Treacherous Tan Peak would be graced by a summer of sunshine.
Let’s see what you’ve got.
With a twinkle of eager curiosity in his eyes, Akim hoisted himself to shore with a splash.