In some ways, we surely were. I could no longer think of us as a prince and his retainer, since I had surely destroyed those skins for us.
I slept poorly, when I slept at all, and the bandage on my lord’s arm was a constant reminder of what ill I’d done alongside the good.
Never before; never again. I’d done it for him, hadn’t I, and not for myself? The answer would never be sufficient. Another day passed us by like a dream, my lord trapped by my very silence.
It was another day before he spoke again. He was ever braver than I, in this respect.
“Kouje,” Mamoru said, from somewhere far and high above me. He was riding the horse as I walked beside him, but the distance had grown with each step so insurmountable that it was a miracle I could even hear him.
I said nothing.
For a time after that he was quiet, and I was a coward and grateful for the quiet, until he spoke again, that time with more vigor. “We ought to stop soon. I hear the sound of a river.”
The horse whinnied, a steadfast though foreign mount, and gazed at me as though he meant to condemn me, too. I’d driven them both too hard, but the smaller injustices withered when placed next to the only one that mattered.
“Come,” I whispered to the horse, and led him toward the water to drink.
Mamoru dismounted without my help and fell to making camp. By then, the shadows were too deep to see his face and I sat against a log to consider what came next. I would take him to Honganje, then I would lock myself away like that lord in the keep. At dawn, I would do the honorable thing, with Mamoru safe and my service fulfilled.
My arm should rot away as we walked for what it had done.
I should wake in the morning to discover it had turned to snakes, writhing beside me.
The flesh should turn the color of ash and my fingers would be burned into the soil first, followed by the palm and the wrist, until nothing was left of the offending limb.
No apology was true enough, no action clear. I did not watch my lord as he readied himself and went to sleep, and I sat with my back against the log until I, too, drifted off, where dreams rose up to cover me with thorns.
I woke to the sound of my lord shouting.
At last, they’d caught us, I thought, despite all that we’d both sacrificed. I fumbled for something to use as a weapon, and cursed myself for thinking all was safe enough to rest. With a stick in hand—my new weapon, it seemed—and the bark rough against my palm, I raised my arm and prepared to attack the enemy.
But not even the sound of footfalls greeted me, and no shadows of soldiers moved across the moonlit darkness.
We were alone, and my lord was crying out in his sleep.
I dropped the branch and moved to his side. It had been many years since last Mamoru had experienced a nightmare. When he’d been a boy, I’d slipped into bed beside him and rocked him back to sleep, feeling his feverish brow and calling for the servants when he was peaceful at last. They brought him cold water and the usual medicines, teas, and powders, none of which seemed to make one whit of difference. We had no such assistance with us, but when I pressed my hand against his brow, I felt that it was fiercely hot.
“Mamoru,” I whispered, all else forgotten. “Mamoru, wake up!”
He writhed—much like a snake himself—and struck out at my face. His nails caught against my skin and tore at it, and I was too stunned by the blow to say anything when his eyes opened, and fixed upon me in the night.
A fever, at this time of year?
Perhaps we had gone too far too quickly. Or, with his constitution, so many nights spent blanketed by the evening chill and the morning dew had at last taken its toll.
Or I had beaten him too hard, a guilty voice added, twisting its miserable fingers deep inside my belly, the blade of a knife carved solely for suicide.
Mamoru whimpered, his arm falling limp against my shoulder, and I felt something still within me. I had no time to be feeling guilty when my lord was in need of me.
“Mamoru,” I said again, now that his eyes were open. I passed my