Chapter 16

The summons arrived on an otherwise unremarkable morning, carried by a messenger in the shogun’s own livery whose presence at the gate sent a ripple of quiet urgency through the household before a single word of the message itself had been read aloud. Meimi watched from the practice yard as Fuyuki received the sealed missive in the main hall, his posture straightening with the grave formality he reserved for matters of genuine consequence, and felt an old, unfamiliar unease settle over the otherwise ordinary morning.

She had grown accustomed, across her year in this house, to the small rhythms that marked an ordinary day from an extraordinary one — the distinct hush that fell over the servants when something significant arrived, the way Fuyuki’s shoulders shifted almost imperceptibly when a matter required more than his usual measured attention. She recognized all of it now in the messenger’s arrival, though she could not yet have said what exactly had shifted, only that something in the morning’s texture had changed the moment that sealed letter crossed the threshold.

He found her still in the yard some time later, the messenger already departed with Fuyuki’s formal acknowledgment in hand, and settled onto the low step at its edge with an expression she had learned, across their months together, to read as careful deliberation rather than any immediate alarm.

“I am to travel west, to Lord Sanada’s territory, to help secure his continued loyalty to the shogunate,” he said, without preamble, once she had crossed the yard to sit beside him. “There have been rumblings of discontent in that province these past months — nothing openly rebellious, but enough uncertainty that the shogun wishes a trusted hatamoto present to remind Lord Sanada of the benefits his continued loyalty affords him, and the costs its absence might invite.”

“How long will the journey require?”

“Some weeks in transit alone, given the distance, and I cannot say with any certainty how long the negotiations themselves will take once I arrive. Lord Sanada is not a man who moves quickly through any conversation, diplomatic or otherwise. I would not be surprised if the whole of it consumed two months or more before I am permitted to return home.” Fuyuki’s voice carried a reluctance he made no effort to disguise, an honesty Meimi had come to expect and treasure in equal measure. “I do not relish leaving you and Hikari for so long a stretch, particularly not on the shogun’s business rather than my own. But it is not a summons a hatamoto refuses, whatever his personal preferences might otherwise dictate.”

“I understand the nature of your position. I do not think either of us imagined, marrying into it, that it would ask nothing difficult of us in return for everything else it has provided.” Meimi reached for his hand, aware of how naturally the gesture had come to feel across their months together. “When do you depart?”

“Within the week. The shogun’s business rarely permits the luxury of unhurried preparation.” He studied her face for a long moment, something searching in the look. “You will be safe here, with Hikari and the household guard. I do not say that merely to reassure myself of a comfort I cannot actually guarantee. I say it because I have watched what you have become, this past year, and I do not believe there is much within these walls that could genuinely threaten either of you, guards or no guards.”

Meimi felt a small, private pride at the observation, though something beneath it, some old instinct she could not immediately name, kept her from receiving the reassurance entirely at face value. “I will miss you regardless of how safe I am.”