That risk was worth taking. He stared down at his shaking hands.

"Lord Teru," he whispered, his voice choked and rasping, "did the daimyo really betray his ally? Is he truly to blame for Kamui's death?"

The man didn't answer. He only tilted his head, staring at Shion with those intensely searching eyes. If he considered it treachery to ask such a thing, Shion was most certainly doomed. Most likely Teru would smile and act as though everything was perfectly normal as he attempted to ask Shion where he had heard it. He was determined not to answer. He'd rather die himself than implicate Yuma in any way-

"Yes," Teru responded at length. "What Lord Yuma told you is true." He shifted in his blanket, making it obvious he wished to sleep, or at least to say nothing more on the subject. Shion, for his part, kept staring into the fire.

"Lord Hatori and the others will arrive here in the morning."

He thought it polite to nod, and so he did, but his thoughts remained far away. The man Yuma had sworn himself to had betrayed the man he loved. It must've been torture to know such a thing yet not be able to do a single thing about it. His life was Hatori's. His rank and wealth and all the meaning in his life-

Yuma owed it all to Lord Hatori.

Had he been secretly pleading for Shion's help? What did Yuma expect him to do? The man had mentioned poison-

He sat there for a very long time, lost in thought, unable to sleep. The chamber grew very quiet. At some point, he became aware of a kind of restrained sobbing.

Shion sought out the source of the sound. One head rose above the slumped rows of sleeping figures. It was Toshiwara.

He approached the youth slowly, hesitantly. It was a long chamber. He had to wind his way past the edges of many blankets. For a moment, an image flashed before him, soldiers not sleeping but dead, the floor a single, massive pool of blood-

Shion shook himself. The cold feeling of gnawing dread remained with him, until he found himself meeting the lame youth's tear-streaked face.

The boy hastily rubbed his sleeve against his eyes. They were red and swollen, and his cheeks were absolutely pale.

"I am sure you think me a coward," Toshiwara murmured. "What is a little pain when one has already felt so much? What is a little more damage when one's body has already become entirely useless?"

Shion sat down beside him. "I don't think you're a coward. This is a difficult decision, and success is not entirely guaranteed."

"It would be humiliating to be sent home like this, for my mother to see me, and weep. At least, if I had died, I would no longer be a burden-"

"Your mother would weep more if only a corpse made it back to her."

"I can tell you are a kind man, but you do not understand what it is to have your entire identity ripped away-" Toshiwara shook his head. "It is not just this injury. I do not want to fight for Lord Hatori. I do not want to endure what you have proposed for his sake. He is- a vile man, and his men, they are-" The words were punctuated with sniffling. Was this what Yuma felt as well? This sense of desperation? Of loss? His fragile, makeshift identity-

"Lord Yuma is not like that," Shion whispered. "I cannot speak for the others, but he has already intervened on your behalf. You would have been sent home already, had he not wished to help you."

"He is as selfish as the rest of them. Helping me is only a way to consolidate his control."

Shion felt a pang of guilt. After all, if Yuma could be said to be using the boy, he was certainly using him as well-

Toshiwara sighed. ""I too am from Lord Hatori's province. I had a choice, as did Yuma, whether he wished to follow that man or Lord Kamui, his ally. After he left his father, Kamui had no lands of his own, nor any hope of attaining soldiers save the ones he had persuaded to come with him, and so he struck a bargain." Young Toshiwara shook his head. "Our lord was effectively in exile. Some thought us nothing more than mercenaries. There was no room for ambition, no hope for wealth, or status, in his ranks. We chose to follow Kamui because we believed in his ideals. Those who went with Hatori- believed in something else."

Shion hadn't understood how difficult it would be to join these two forces together, but now he thought he glimpsed something of what Yuma was up against.

"Do you think your ideals have failed you?"

The young man nodded. "Even if you make it so I can fight again, I have no idea what use my life is to me any longer."

The cold prickling sensation was growing steadily worse. He could smell it now, too, the terrible stench of death-