Supposition

The act she signs tears her apart, but she had been the one who begged for a visitor, whatever the cost.

It is simply a scrap of parchment, stained yellow through years of neglect, and yet it allows the transferral of power from herself to the courtiers during her abstinence from court matters. It simply makes their current situation both legal and official.

The news that reaches her ears in dribs and drabs, fed up to her through letters, steadily gets worse and worse, as do the tumultuous storm clouds amassing on the horizon. Having tired of its assault on North Ryoshima coast, the tempest and the hoard are moving eastwards, and already refugees are appearing on the horizon. But the city cannot hold them, its gates can no longer shut against the crowding masses.

Poverty is acute, the sky constantly stained with smoke, even the guards themselves refuse to enter the slum area that the commoner's quarter has become. Yet the priest distracts her, his gaze, the silkiness of his touch, his voice, suave and charming.

She tries to banish him from her thoughts, to focus on helping her people, but there is little left she can do. The nobles refuse to send any aid, the courtiers refuse to anger the nobles or damage their own reputations. And she is left in her room alone, ignored. But she refuses to submit, to allow them the pleasure of her retiring completely.

It is only a few days later when the storm breaks over South Ryoshima coast, rain lashing, wind screaming, waves rocking the shore. The land, and its inhabitants, quickly fall prey to the renewed onslaught.

Guilt and sorrow floods her.

Ankoku Temple will have been destroyed by the assault, of that she is certain. And with it it will have taken both the priest and his wife. Yet some part of her retains a slight glimmer of hope, stubborn in the belief that he will have found some way to survive. She holds it close to her, this tiny snippet, a fragment of the old Atsuko, who believed only in the power of the Gods, and answered only to herself and her great aunt. It warms her even as she watches the storm tear apart the clouded sky.

She stays awake that entire night, watching the cavalcade of rain and bolts of lightning that dance through the air, illuminating them with an ecclesiastical white. By the time morning dawns, the storm has subsided. The spark of hope grows in her. Perhaps the worst is over, and she can once more return to serving her people. There is a sharp knock at the door, and a hiss as the reed floors stretch out across the lava.

Two figures appear in the doorway.

Her hope ignites into an inferno.