“The Kou Palace is on the western side of the court. The morning light never quite reaches the room in its innermost depths. This makes it easier to sleep without interruption, so the sick are often made to rest there out of consideration. But to be perfectly honest, the longer a night drags on, the harder it is on the bedridden.”
Sometimes when Reirin fell ill at court, she would be confined to the same room where Gomei once slept. It was a tranquil and quiet space, stripped of all external stimuli until it was pervaded with nothing but compassion. Yet it was always a trial to be trapped in that perpetual gloom. To spend so many long hours lying alone in the vast and vacuous chamber.
“The patient is filled with anxiety over being left behind, being forgotten, but they cannot speak up for fear of burdening others.”
In those moments, Reirin always stared into space and strained her ears from her sickbed. She longingly sought signs of the sunlight ever so slowly dyeing the palace in its hue—of the court ladies in the neighboring room stirring one by one.
“They come to crave tidings of the dawn or the presence of others. A person perpetually kept waiting will be far more alert to a visitor’s arrival than that visitor realizes. They become sensitive to even the slightest hint of light or footsteps.” Reirin paused there and fixed Genyou with a penetrating look. “Your Majesty, you told us that you called upon Prince Gomei every single morning after he went blind. The light of the torch Your Majesty held, the sounds of you setting down your gifts or prostrating yourself… I believe those became Prince Gomei’s idea of dawn.”
Genyou gasped.
“Each time you paid Prince Gomei a visit from the northern Gen Palace, you shone a light on his heart more brilliant than the sunrise.”
Reirin could imagine how the prince must have felt as he lay in that room, deprived of his eyesight and all hope of accession. As the days went by, he had likely received fewer and fewer visitors. Over time, those who sympathized with him had no doubt begun to handle him like a delicate glasswork. This was to be expected, so Gomei probably couldn’t bring himself to discourage them. All he could do was find ways to fill the slow crawl of time day in and day out, waiting for the end.
Forced to live in that bleak world, Gomei must have found immeasurable solace in Genyou’s daily visits from the Gen Palace. In that western room never graced by morning light, the torch Genyou held aloft had surely looked more dazzling than the sun—so much so that Gomei could still make it out with his impaired vision.
“From the north comes a heavenly sun to bathe you in its glow…”
That poem was dedicated to the dead laid to rest in the mausoleum, but it was also aimed at Gomei himself. Without sight and distanced from the voices of his subjects, he wrote it as a reassurance—as a reminder to himself that he had his own beacon of light.
Genyou’s eyes widened, and he said nothing for some time. Eventually, a trembling breath escaped his lips, a precursor to some kind of utterance. Then he closed his mouth, thinking better of it, and instead clenched his flute in both hands and pressed it to his forehead.
“I always thought it was a requiem,” he murmured, low and hoarse. “Even stripped of his future prospects, my brother was a kind man. I assumed he wrote it to console the departed souls resting in the mausoleum. Hence, I never drew the connection between the word ‘north’ and myself.”
Genyou had only seen his brother for his strength, so he had never even considered the possibility that the prince had written the poem for his own solace. Quite the oversight, considering Genyou knew full well that the man had his moments of doubt.
“Moreover, the Palace of the Golden Qilin rarely let me in to see him, so I assumed that my visits meant nothing to him.”
In Genyou’s eyes, Gomei had been as radiant as the sun shining high in the sky. He’d never dreamed that Gomei saw him as the light.
“I can only hope,” he let slip at last, a wobble in his voice, “that I brightened my brother’s life even the smallest of fractions.”
For a while, Reirin looked on without responding. She knew she had no right to brush against the coldhearted emperor’s most tender spot.
Still, after some thought, she added, “Those of the Gen prefer to hide the things dear to them, but the Kou long to parade them for all the world to see.”
Long ago, Kenshuu had scolded Reirin’s brothers for picking out a pillar for their graffiti. The lecture had come across as humorous, but perhaps her true aim had been to keep the pillars reserved for Gomei’s writings. After all…
“To leave his poem somewhere as conspicuous as a pillar and carve it so it could never be erased, he must have been quite proud of you.”
Gomei had etched his poem into the most prominent spot of all in the hope that Genyou would find it.
A long silence fell. “Your Majesty,” Reirin said to break it.
Genyou said nothing. He only tightened his grip on his flute to ride out a wave of violent emotion. He looked less like the ruthless ruler of a nation and more like a child devastated to have lost sight of his parents.
“You didn’t simply let Prince Gomei die. You attempted to strike down the assassin—and ended up killing the prince instead.”
Although it was a matter of life and death for her and Keigetsu, Reirin had chosen to prod at Genyou’s greatest vulnerability the day before. Despite telling Gyoumei she had no desire to hurt the man, she had gone and ripped his heart out.
“About yesterday…”
She didn’t want to apologize. She had only done what was necessary, and the two of them had been at war, in a sense. Still, she felt the need to acknowledge that she had stooped to rather cruel methods.
“I behaved like quite the villainess. I shall gladly accept the stigma.”
Genyou raised his head to look at her. The corners of his eyes appeared damp, but Reirin chose to write that off as a trick of the moonlight.
After battling some kind of emotion within himself, Genyou spoke in his usual mild tone. “I should head to bed. I have an important plan to carry out in the morning.”
Saying as much was probably the biggest gesture he could make toward accepting Reirin, Keigetsu, and her magic.
Just as Reirin was about to send him off with a demure bow, she heard an approaching sound.
Flap, flap, flap!
A white-winged dove cut through the darkness and swooped down to meet Reirin and the emperor. The pair started in surprise; its movements were clearly not those of a wild bird. Genyou reached skyward, and the dove landed smoothly on his arm. A thin strip of paper was tied around its leg.
Found the sorcerer. He’s hiding in a cave across the lake north of the settlement. No changes to the plan.
Once the pair finished scanning the note in Keikou’s handwriting, they exchanged glances and nodded.