“Well, Saitou-kun,” Kouseki asked, eyeing him nervously, “what do you think?”

Saitou glared across the table where the broken instrument had been laid. Seated opposite him, Kouseki paled further. His pearl-white complexion became almost translucent with apprehension. Saitou could see the thrum of his pulse in his slender throat, the bright anxious gleam in his indigo eyes. Kouseki always had an anxious look about him—when he was present that was. Most often he drifted about in a dreamlike state, absorbed with composing abstract verses, mulling over abstruse philosophies or waxing melancholic for unrequited loves.

Handsome, privileged and powerful, Kouseki had every advantage in the world. Nigh unlimited potential. Yet he was a layabout for all of it. A prince Kouseki might be, but he was by no means Saitou’s equal. Saitou rather disliked him, and he certainly misliked the familiarity in his address. He and Kouseki were not friends. He was Touma’s friend, not that that was to any particular credit of Kouseki’s, either. Touma got on well with just about everyone.

It was for Touma’s sake that Saitou was even here, participating in this debacle. Had he been apprised of the full situation, he would have remained in his quarters. He’d just arrived back at the Western Palace from a long expedition, weary and frustrated that the trail of the quarry he’d been hunting had eluded him yet again. He needed to rest and regroup, but Touma had flagged him down with a grin and an exuberant, “Good, you’re back, Brother—help me out with something?”

The ‘something’ had been this crystalline puzzle-box now laying in shambles. It appeared to Saitou to have been a harp of some sort, judging by the pattern of teethlike tines, where threads of youki might be strung to some magical, or simply musical, effect. Clearly it was a complex and delicate instrument, requiring skill to use, let alone adjust.

“What do I think, Kouseki,” Saitou repeated lowly. “What I think is that you’ve bungled this one to new and unprecedented heights.”

Kouseki wilted. “I was only trying to tune it,” he said, despairing. “I didn’t think it would shatter into pieces.”

“What were you doing when it first broke? Show me exactly.”

Kouseki demonstrated with a few glowing flourishes, then broke off with a crestfallen expression. “…I’m afraid I can’t remember the rest.”

Gods. Saitou’s eyes slid briefly shut.

“Well,” Touma prompted, his silver ears pricking forward, “can you fix it, Brother?”

The hanyou sat beside him in a doggish crouch, the bastard sword Tessaiga slung across his lightly-armored back. It suited him, Saitou thought, for the blade like its bearer belied all outward appearances. Neither were to be underestimated for their mettle. Reflecting upon this, Saitou turned his thoughts once again toward his own quest, toward a weapon which might suit him just as well in turn. Could he fix the botched harp?—given enough time, perhaps. But his energies were best spent elsewhere.

And so speaking for the present, Saitou replied succinctly, “No.”

Clutching his face in his hands, Kouseki gave a plaintive groan. “My uncle is going to flay me for this…”

Kouseki lived in dread of displeasing the uncle who’d fostered him from infancy. As such, he lived in a state of near-constant dread. But Saitou pitied him not. Kouseki should have known better when he borrowed this harp to take special care of it. For that matter, his uncle should have known better when he lent it to him.

Saitou told Kouseki as much, adding, “Return it with your sincerest apologies. He can only rebuke you so much for letting you borrow it in the first place.”

As Touma glanced away, Kouseki’s features crumpled in an expression more wretched still. Saitou’s gaze went flat.

“You took the harp without his knowledge.” A beat of grim silence passed. “Well, Kouseki, that’s it for you. You’re finished.”

The last bit of color drained from Kouseki’s pallid face. He sagged where he sat, as though he might melt on the spot. Squinting down at the crystalline fragments, Touma leaned forward, pinching his chin in thought.

“I could give it a try,” the hanyou said.

“No!” Kouseki gasped, shielding the broken harp within his arms. “You’ll only make it worse.”

Touma’s ears fell, but it was the truth. He might as well have hooves for hands when it came to delicate sorceries such as this. Touma was far too brash and impatient. He’d like as not end up smashing the harp into even smaller bits.

“Well,” he grumbled, “pardon me for offering…”

As Kouseki shook his head glumly, Saitou rose to depart. “Best of luck to you, Kouseki-kun. You’re going to need it.”

Touma’s clawed grip on his sleeve arrested him. “Come on, Saitou. There must be something you can do. Look at him.”

Indeed, Kouseki’s whole attitude was the epitome of bleak resignation. He looked very much like he’d given up the ghost. But it was Touma’s imploring gaze that moved Saitou to reconsider.

“As it so happens, Kouseki, I’ve been meaning to pay your uncle a visit anyway. So here is what we’ll do: you’ll take the fall for filching the harp, and Touma, you will take the blame for breaking it. I’ll say that I discovered you with it, which is close enough to the truth. In this way, his anger will be diluted. In my presence, he won’t punish you too severely at any rate.”

…Or so Saitou assumed.

Kouseki’s relief was palpable, though Touma scowled. “I don’t like being dragged into the middle of this.”

“Too late for that, little brother,” Saitou said, starting toward the door. “That’s my offer—take it or leave it.”

Sweeping up the shards, Kouseki hastened after him. With a gruff sigh, Touma followed as well.

…

A crystalline palace rose from the top of the falls. Beneath its gleaming arches, white water roared down like great plumes of glittering smoke. Or dragon’s breath, more like.

Within this prismatic, mist-shrouded fastness, ancillary to the main sprawl of the Western Palace, Kouseki’s lord uncle dwelled. Touching down upon the smooth stone of the ensorcelled bulwark, Saitou led the way to the private study where he was most likely to be found. The enchantments gave way before Saitou with the faintest stir. Now scenting the air, he confirmed their destination with a tilt of the head. Touma and Kouseki trailed after him, into the heart of the fortress.

Servants, guards and retainers drew back at their approach. Before the study, they were absent altogether. Kouseki’s keen-eared uncle did not like for folk to be hanging about. It spoiled his concentration.

And so Saitou was as surprised as the rest of them to detect another presence within. He drew to a stop upon sensing this familiar signature, which Kouseki recognized on instinct about the same instant Saitou did.

“Mother?” Kouseki blinked, stepping forward on his own toward the ornate doors of the study. “That’s strange. It’s a bit early for tea, and they generally take it in the courtyard. Uncle must have some engagement.”

Behind Kouseki, Saitou and Touma shared a pointed glance. It was a known secret that Kouseki’s mother was his uncle’s longtime mistress. A known secret to all but Kouseki, it seemed. Whether he was willfully ignorant on this point or merely blind to it, Saitou could only speculate. Nevertheless, Kouseki seemed as oblivious as ever, as his lady mother greeted them in the vestibule upon entering. High points of red stood out on her fair cheeks. Even the slight dragon coiled about her from waist to shoulder seemed not quite to meet anyone’s eye. Her voice was slightly breathy and her violet eyes slightly misted as she glided toward them in a whisper of silk, touching a slender, silver-clawed hand to Kouseki’s face.

“My beloved son,” she said softly, “are you well?”

“Yes, Mother,” Kouseki said, smiling blithely. “And you? You sound a bit faint.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” his lady mother replied. “Your uncle awaits you within.” Kouseki accepted this deflection just as blithely. Nodding toward Saitou and Touma, she took her leave. “Saitou-sama. Touma-sama.”

“Masaki-sama,” Saitou answered for them both, inclining his head to her in return.

As Kouseki went on ahead of them toward the main chamber, Touma muttered to Saitou aside, “They were fucking just now, weren’t they?”

Saitou said nothing to this. There was no need. Catching up with Kouseki, they entered together. It was a study in mystical opulence, this chamber. Arcane crystals glittered from the walls and floor. Chests loomed darkly at the fringes, filigreed and more mysterious yet for what they concealed. Enchanted flames hovered in the air like balls of dripping light. Scrolls spilled everywhere, but principally across the gleaming surface of the desk behind which Kouseki’s uncle sat, smoothing a hand through his long, light silver hair in a gesture so casual it would’ve fooled anyone except perhaps for Saitou himself.

“Uncle Hirokin,” Kouseki greeted respectfully, fearfully, bowing low at the waist.

From behind the desk Hirokin rose. He was tall, uncommonly fair, though lithe for a daiyoukai of his standing. Not strongly built by any means. Even when Saitou was pubescent he didn’t doubt he could overpower Hirokin physically. Yet for all this, an aura of cool intimidation radiated from the dragon lord, as though armies might beset him at their own peril. His slitted blue eyes slid slowly over Kouseki, his own flesh and blood, with the same cold appraisal they might skim over one of the many missives upon his desk.

“Nephew,” Hirokin said. Those same reptilian eyes seemed to skip right over Touma, before settling upon Saitou with fixity. “My dear prince,” the dragon lord said, advancing. “It has been some time.”

“So it has,” Saitou said, inclining his head. “Sensei.”

Hirokin smiled, a slight coil of lip. Saitou knew, then, as he’d suspected, that Hirokin would be sufficiently distracted by his visit to overlook the rest. Almost as an afterthought, Saitou recounted the falsified tale of discovering Touma with the broken harp that Kouseki had lifted. Hirokin absorbed this all with precisely the cool indifference Saitou had been wagering upon.

“Leave it there,” the dragon lord said briskly, waving toward an empty stand where Kouseki was all too quick to deposit the shards of the harp. Hirokin barely cast the wreckage a glance before he said to his nephew and Touma, “Out. Both of you.”

Kouseki and Touma fled at once.

As the door banged shut behind them, Hirokin stepped forward to take Saitou’s face in his hands. Those sharp blue eyes flitted over his features, as if to divine his state from them, but this was pure artifice. Saitou steeled his mind against his mentor’s attempts to pry into his thoughts. After a long moment, Hirokin sliced him a satisfied smile.

“My dear prince,” Hirokin said again. Releasing Saitou, he glided over to the stand with the broken harp. With a light gesture, the fragments rose, suspended in midair. For a moment they glowed as Hirokin’s blue youki wove expertly through them, piecing them back together with a snap. “So you’ve deigned to visit your old tutor, then. Some burning question must be weighing upon your mind.”

“I’m searching for a relic of nefarious renown.” Detailing the particulars of the lost sword, Saitou concluded, “Have you heard of it, Hirokin-sensei?”

“Riddles and hearsay,” Hirokin replied. “It is a fell thing to chance upon, if half of what I’ve gathered is true. Tread with caution along that path, Saitou. But the ruined city of Yuugure may yet yield a clue.”

Saitou nodded in thanks. Hirokin turned toward him, his blue gaze piercing.

“Is that all, or have you some other ruse to confess, apart from attempting to conceal my imbecile nephew’s blunderings?”

Saitou fought the impulse to tense. “Kouseki isn’t an imbecile,” he said, by way of deflection. “He’s merely careless.”

“Better if he were a fool in truth,” Hirokin scoffed. “At least that could be reckoned upon. His mother has wits enough, but my brother’s idiocy is not so easily surmounted, it would seem. Gods know I have tried with that boy. Perhaps I should have left him to fester in that accursed Lake after all.”

“You do not mean that, sensei.”

“No,” Hirokin admitted. “It would only be the worse if I had.” Setting the harp aside, he turned back to Saitou, sparing him another long, assessing glance. “At least with you my efforts have not been wasted. Come here, my beloved pupil, and share a cup with me. I would hear more of your recent exploits. Your lord father tells me nothing.”

Nor I him, Saitou thought, but did not say.

Hirokin and his father Sesshoumaru were sworn brothers, fast friends since their earliest days. As Lord Tactician, Hirokin served as Sesshoumaru’s right hand in all matters of diplomacy…and other, more shadowy affairs to which Saitou could only dimly conjecture. Hirokin was a master sorcerer, an expert interrogator. He was a consummate actor, an accomplished musician and an erudite scholar besides. Descended from the most ancient of lineages, he was unapologetically arrogant, and held most everyone and everything about him in open contempt. A cold-blooded, acerbic viper with little less regard for those around him than the meager amount he reserved for himself.

Yet for all this, he was a second father to Saitou. In many ways, a truer father to him than his own had been.

…

In the wake of his mother’s abandonment, Saitou’s immense grief had vented itself as rage. Violence seemed the only outlet for the crushing weight of the sadness he felt. It was fair to say that in those days of his adolescence, he was always more or less spoiling for a fight. Perhaps in truth, he was spoiling for a beating that would lay him out flat, that would leave him such a bruised and bloody pulp he couldn’t feel anything but the physical pain. And in this way, the ache in his heart would at last be eclipsed.

Toward his peers he became a ruthless bully to be avoided at all costs. Yet it was only a matter of time before he picked the wrong opponent—or opponents, as it was. A group of young demon males, fledgling soldiers. One of them had made a scathing remark about Saitou’s mother in his hearing, and that had been enough. Though he’d had no business attacking even a single grown demon, Saitou had thrown himself at the group in a whirlwind of fang and claw. Truth be told, his sheer aggression had caught them off guard. So much so that he’d knocked down one before the others had descended upon him. After that, he’d been thrashed near-senseless. Their scornful chuckling grated on his bloodied ears as if from afar, as they’d left him lying sprawled and beaten in the dirt.

“Well,” a voice drawled from beyond him, “that was a poor showing.”

There was the sound of a scroll whisking shut, the sensation of an approaching presence. Spitting out a busted fang, Saitou grunted, rolling himself over into a defensive crouch with cringing difficulty. Cool youki flowed over him as he righted himself, glaring. The feel of it gave him the strangest pause as he eyed the unfamiliar demon who glided toward him. Though Saitou was certain he’d never crossed paths with this daiyoukai before, the wash of his aura elicited a ghostly pang of remembrance nonetheless.

Perhaps it was because there was a ghostly quality to the demon himself. Uncannily beautiful, in his flowing pale silks, with his sheening ivory complexion, his flaxen hair and his wispy smile, he’d seemed ethereal to Saitou. Except for the eyes, which glowed so bright and blue they scorched him where he lay.

“Who are you?” Saitou demanded, his voice thickened by his cut and swollen tongue.

The strange demon smiled, though the light in his eyes remained piercingly chill. “My name is Hirokin. I’m a vassal of your lord father’s, returned from abroad.”

Later, Saitou would learn that while he was yet a small child, Hirokin had gone East, ostensibly to serve as an ambassador of sorts, for his youngest sister was mated to the ruling lord of those eastern territories. After some years, however, Sesshoumaru had recalled him to the West once again. In truth, the circumstances under which Hirokin had left the Western Lands remained as mysterious as the circumstances under which he’d returned. There was no shortage of rumors, each more outlandish than the last. To this day, Saitou wasn’t sure what to make of it all. His suspicions that Sesshoumaru and Hirokin had had a falling out of sorts remained his own.

Saitou glanced balefully toward the vine-wreathed balcony from which Hirokin had descended. Glints of icy blue still sparkled in the air that marked his path. “Were you up there watching all the while? What sort of vassal looks on while a group of soldiers are busting up his lord’s son and heir?”

“A foolish brute deserves his due,” Hirokin replied without remorse. “It was churlish of you to charge them head-on in such a way.”

“They were slandering my mother,” Saitou growled.

“Yes, well, your mother is a duplicitous cunt. A mad, wild bitch who spit out you and your half-breed brother before skipping off in the night like the most faithless of whores.” Trembling with fresh rage and hurt, Saitou bore his fangs, preparing to lunge despite his wounds. Heedless of this, Hirokin leaned toward him, sneering. “So tell me, little brute, what are you going to do about my saying it? Are you going to earn yourself another whipping like the cur you are? What will that serve you? What will it prove?”

Saitou swallowed, shaking violently. His clenched claws cracked through the flinty earth. Through the red haze of his fury, he could not help but ask himself the same. The answer was not forthcoming. Following such an attack to its inevitable conclusion, he knew it would be as savorless as his previous beating had been. The hurt would remain. The impotent anger would remain.

“What then,” he grit out, almost on a strangled whisper, “what else am I supposed to do?”

Hirokin drew back from him, straightening. His look was level and cool. “All that you feel—your lonesomeness, your humiliation, your sadness and anger—let it ripen within you. Let it fuel you in your every endeavor, not explode from you at its own savage whim. Let it mature into something you can make use of. You are a weak boy now, but you will not always be. Bide your time, bide your fury. Make allies who will serve you in your aims. Study your foes from afar. And when you are older, when you are able, channel your passions into efforts that will bring you true satisfaction. A little circumspection goes a long way, princeling.”

With that, Hirokin left Saitou alone to lick his wounds in thought.

…

No one had ever spoken to Saitou in such a way before. Either those who addressed him were obsequious or, like his father, coldly dismissive. Even more than his mother’s gentle encouragement, the brutally candid words Hirokin had imparted to Saitou deeply impressed him. More than that, they galvanized him with their implicit challenge.

Saitou decided he could not wait until he was a demon grown. Taking the lesson to heart, he set to work. Those peers of his he’d bullied he now set out to befriend. This took some time and effort, first to regain their trust, then to whip them into the shape he needed. The sons and daughters of daiyoukai possessed blood arts of unique skill. Even immature demons could draw upon such latent powers, as Saitou could himself.

Meanwhile, he tracked his target, the officer who’d maligned his mother. He learned the young captain’s habits, stalking him with a stealth born of newfound patience, and the promise of sure revenge. With his allies assembled, Saitou pounced upon him at last when he was drunk and alone. A group of skilled juveniles with the advantage of surprise was no small force to overcome. Saitou had laughed at how easy it had been to overwhelm the foolish young captain, to rip out his lying tongue while his friends held him bound and shackled. To teleport him naked and whipped, bleeding and shit-stained, into the heart of a fete being held for a distinguished general.

Needless to say, Sesshoumaru’s fury at the disgusting spectacle had ensured a swift and certain end to the captain’s own military career.

…

The following day, after stalking Hirokin with as much dogged patience as he’d stalked his former disgraced foe, the Lord Tactician had at last paused in his course. Midway down the polished wooden walk, he’d drawn to a halt, turned precisely to where Saitou was hidden and said, “Enough, princeling. What are you, some lowly footpad waiting to spring? You’ve been tailing me for hours. Come out now, and let us speak, face to face.”

In the brush Saitou stiffened. He had learned then yet another important lesson from Hirokin—that he was never one to let down his guard. From his thwarted hideaway, Saitou emerged and strode forward. At the opposite end of the walk, he drew up and stood his ground.

“I took your advice,” he said, smiling in dark triumph. “That disgraced captain my father cut down at the banquet?—I was the one behind his fall. So tell me, dragon, do you take back what you said about my mother now?”

Hirokin smiled back, slight and inscrutable. “Why,” he said, resuming his advance down the walk, “most certainly.”

Saitou scowled after him as he passed. In a flash, he darted forward to cut Hirokin off at the pass once again. Arms crossed and feet apart he glared Hirokin down staunchly as he paused.

“Those things you said were very foul,” Saitou declared. “I oughtn’t forgive you. Still, I’m willing to pardon you in full—for a price.”

Hirokin’s blue eyes glinted. “Oh?” he prompted.

Imperiously, Saitou raised his chin. “Teach me something else.”

Hirokin tisked as he picked at an imagined spot of dust on his shimmering sleeve. “Would that I had the time to humor you, princeling. But your lord father’s demands occupy my attention.”

Saitou set his jaw mulishly. “I won’t get in the way.”

Hirokin’s glance at the blockade that was him was pointed and frank. “You already are.”

As Saitou drew aside, Hirokin continued coolly on. Yet all the way back to his quarters, Saitou dogged his heels. Even when Hirokin snapped the door shut in Saitou’s face, the demon prince was undeterred. He was used to being shut-out, ignored. Compared to his father’s icy, vicious rebuffs, this was nothing. Undaunted, Saitou lingered at the door all through the night.

Somehow, he caught a few scant hours of sleep. He was still half-dozing when the door slid open and Hirokin set out. Slanting Saitou a peeved glance, the dragon lord shook his head and continued on his way. Saitou tailed after him as before, until his training and other duties forced him to abandon the chase.

With Hirokin’s trail lost, Saitou took to sneaking into his wing of the palace and waiting upon him at the door to his rooms. Days passed as Hirokin passed him by, with an expression of mounting chagrin. One night not long after, a bitter storm was raging. Ice sprites giggled in the deluge, sending darts of driving sleet to pelt Saitou on the veranda where he crouched. When the door slid unexpectedly open behind him, Saitou jumped with a start.

“Well,” Hirokin said witheringly as Saitou shivered, “you’d best come inside. I can’t hear myself think over your chattering fangs. But if you dare so much as to lay a claw on anything, I’m kicking you right back out. Understood?”

Saitou nodded. He entered, touching nothing, content merely to sit drying in the warm threshold as he watched Hirokin at his work: reading and inking correspondence, tuning arcane devices, studying relics, poring over spiny tomes that required blood to bear their secrets, holding audience through strange portals, wreathing spells with his blue-limned youki, all while stoking the will-o’-wisp flames that floated about, lending the room a clarifying, spectral glow. One such flame settled on Saitou’s shoulder like an itinerant spirit. Later, he would learn that it was not so far removed from that, this incandescent ball of near-sentience. Faintly it hummed, and listening to it, Saitou smiled, enchanted.

…

It would be some time yet, before Hirokin condescended to teach Saitou anything more than the value of persistence.

This long-awaited lesson came in the form of shougi. Saitou had never played the game before, and Hirokin did not bother to apprise him of the rules, let alone the basic strategies. Instead, Saitou was forced to learn them one grueling defeat after the next. Tenaciously, he strove to better himself, but no matter how seemingly clever his tactics, Hirokin bested them all.

Frustrated, Saitou growled out one day, “It’s pointless. I’ll never beat you.”

“Certainly not, with that attitude. Instead of beating your opponent, you should focus on winning the game.”

Saitou was confounded. “…Aren’t they one and the same?”

“No, my prince,” Hirokin said with a slight, silvery smile. “They are not the same at all.”

…

By then the dragon lord had set him to task. Seeing as he was always ‘hanging about’, Hirokin made him into a courier of sorts. Perhaps, Saitou thought wryly, now looking back, this was simply to have a reprieve from him. ‘Hirokin’s errand-boy’ Sesshoumaru remarked in disdain, but Saitou wasn’t discouraged in the slightest. He’d long since given up any hope of pleasing the father who spurned him. But with Hirokin he saw a chance to win the esteem of a mentor who could sharpen him in the way that he craved. Of sword masters, Saitou had plenty, but for whetting his mind, there was none better.

What were a few years of menial tasks? Saitou viewed them as obstacles on a proving ground whose length he could gauge by the grudging approval in Hirokin’s eyes. Slowly but surely, Hirokin began to teach him more. Slowly but surely, Saitou proved he had a knack for it, and was no foolish brute.

Tagging along with Hirokin in his diplomatic endeavors, Saitou remembered with pride the day, at long last, when Hirokin had introduced him not as his ‘liege’s son’ but as his protégé.

…

“…How you used to hound me,” Hirokin said presently, with a chuckle, as he reached for the jar of sake once again. He was by now more than a little drunk, but then so was Saitou. “I couldn’t be rid of you. You were terribly fond of me, in those days.”

“I’m still fond of you,” Saitou insisted.

“Tch.” Hirokin waved. “All boys must grow up. When that happens, you see that your idols are far closer to you than ever you thought.”

“Sensei, has the wine made you maudlin?”

“Perhaps it has,” Hirokin said, with a rueful curve of lip. “I’m afraid you must forgive me, Saitou. Even I am capable of sentiment, it would seem.”

Now there was a lie if Saitou had ever heard one. As he’d grown older he’d come to realize that Hirokin was as dead inside as his father was. A pity for Masaki, who loved him, though she didn’t seem to see it. Perhaps only Saitou did. Perhaps in this way, Hirokin and Sesshoumaru were brothers in truth. Wastelands of indifference, with only the nexus of their cynicisms to distinguish them.

Sesshoumaru’s was Kagome, and her sons by association, but what was Hirokin’s? Saitou could only wonder, as he took a sip from his brimming cup.

“Well,” Hirokin said suddenly to him, with a sobering sharpness that cut Saitou to the marrow, “out with it now. We’ve dithered long enough.”

“Out with what, sensei?”

“Your misstep. Begin.”

The curt phrasing took Saitou back to his boyhood. His early lessons with Hirokin had consisted of such recitations. Saitou would rack his brain, as he was wracking it now, to discover what fault his teacher had found in his approach, and trace it to its origin, however seemingly miniscule it often was.

“My first sip,” Saitou said with a dry smile, lifting his cup. “This stuff is too strong by far. It clouds the mind.”

“Don’t blame the wine,” Hirokin said ruthlessly. “You have grown complacent, Saitou. Perhaps there is a bit of your mother in you after all.”

Saitou’s reactions were slowed. There was nothing to prevent Hirokin from seeing the way he stiffened at the mention of Kagome, the defensive tightness that corded through him before he could repress the base impulse to bristle. There was no question in Saitou’s mind that Hirokin’s mention of her was not simply to get a rise out of him. No, it was nothing if not deliberate, this baiting.

Despite his extensive training, it hit Saitou precisely with the keen jab Hirokin must have known it would. There was an implication there that could not help but rattle Saitou to the core. Never in all these years had Hirokin spoken of Kagome in such a way. Oh, of course he knew of her—who didn’t? But there was an implication in those words, an implication that Hirokin knew his mother in truth.

Or at least, he wanted Saitou to think that he did.

It was all the demon prince could do not to grind his fangs, thinking of how long Hirokin had been holding this bit of ammunition in reserve. Whether it was artifice or not, it was galling. It was worrisome.

What did Hirokin know? Even if he knew nothing, what did he suspect? This proposition was more than dangerous enough. For him to suspect anything at all about Kagome meant that Saitou had indeed made some misstep.

“I should have known your display of sentiment would have some barb behind it,” Saitou said coolly. “A low scheme, sensei, even for you. But there are no depths to which you won’t sink, are there? You’ve been going about on your belly for my father for a thousand years. It is all you know.”

Saitou’s only hope at this point was to rile Hirokin to distraction. He had been drinking too, after all. But the twisted old snake was unfazed. His basilisk eyes glittered, cracked blue frost.

“Low or not,” Hirokin said, smiling mirthlessly, “you dropped your guard. Would that that was your only folly. But we both know what you are hiding. Or who, I should say.”

To this veiled accusation, Saitou’s face had returned to stone. “Speak not in riddles, sensei, unless they are all you have.”

It was Hirokin, after all, who’d taught Saitou the value of pretense. How many secrets had Hirokin discovered over the centuries merely by seeming to know them beforehand? To this reply of his, Hirokin merely smiled. If there was a touch of approbation in it, Saitou was too guarded to appreciate it.

The silence stretched between them, taut as a wire. Hirokin was a master of such silences. Yet Saitou refused to dance upon his strings.

At last, it was Hirokin who was forced to break their stalemate. Refilling his cup, he said casually, as if remarking upon the season, “Across the sea there are wonders to behold. Some pilgrims have made the journey. Perhaps one day, I shall make it myself. The grass is always greener on the other side, as your mother would say. I wonder what she would say to me now.”

“If you knew anything of her,” Saitou said icily, “you would have told my father.”

“For all you know, that is precisely what I intend to do,” Hirokin replied mildly, though his skewering glance was anything but. As though changing the subject entirely, he said, “One hears the wildest rumors on occasion. Sightings of a warrior priestess of eerie resemblance. But the eyes are wrong, they say. Black as slate. Strange fires are glimpsed in her presence. The same strange fires lost souls might see, in the deepest and darkest reaches of the wilderness to the south…” Touching a pearly nailtip to his chin, Hirokin mused aloud, “What would your lord father make of her, I wonder?”

Blindsided by this threat to his little sister, Saitou’s stony façade crumbled. “Leave her be,” he rumbled out. “She has no part in this.”

Hirokin’s look was almost pitying. “Alas, my prince—for now I know for certain that she does.”

But Saitou no longer cared. His eyes flashed with killing intent. In that same flash, Hirokin’s throat was in his claws. No doubt Hirokin had provisions against his own death—he had provisions against everything. Even with a glimmer of blood threading from the corner of his mouth, Hirokin yet smiled.

“I am not your enemy, Saitou.”

Saitou’s grip on his throat tightened further. “Nor are you my ally. How long have you known?”

“About your mother,” Hirokin hissed out, “or your sister?”

The bitter emphasis on her didn’t escape Saitou. Distantly, it surprised him. Vitriol he might’ve expected, but there was something strangely personal in the rancor of this inflection. It stood out to Saitou only because he’d never seen his apathetic mentor show personal interest in anyone or anything.

“Both,” Saitou answered him on a growl.

“Far longer than you,” Hirokin snapped bloodily. “Not long after Kagome returned through the well, I knew of it. She is skilled at hiding her tracks, but I know her mind. Better than your father. Better than you. Better than her, even.” Raspily, he laughed, the sound underpinned by the same strange, bitter undercurrent from before. “Trust her to find a way to buck the yoke.”

Unconsciously, Saitou’s grip relaxed. “All this time…all this time you’ve known, and yet done nothing…” Baffled, he could only stare. “Why?”

He didn’t understand it. Hirokin was his father’s creature through and through. Or so Saitou had always supposed. Now, he wasn’t sure what to think. What to believe.

Rubbing at his red-striped neck, Hirokin frowned askance, as if he were asking himself the same. He stared away, into some unfathomable distance. Whether it was the past, or the future, or some time that had never been nor would ever be, all Saitou perceived was that he could not follow him there. Wherever Hirokin’s thoughts dwelled was beyond his ken.

“Complacency is your enemy, Saitou,” the dragon lord murmured roughly at last. “For all the mists that might disguise it, you stand upon a precipice. Falter for a moment, and all will be lost.”

Circling around the table, Saitou knelt before him. “Help me, sensei. Help me to keep her hidden. Help me to keep her free from him.”

Hirokin’s pupils shrank to vicious slits. He reared from Saitou like a serpent poised to strike. On instinct, the demon prince recoiled from his mentor’s venomous flare.

“Ask it not of me,” Hirokin seethed. “I helped your mother once, and it cost me dear. I’ll not make the same mistake again.”

Beneath the cold fury, there was real pain in his voice. The agony of some heartrending regret. It shook Saitou to hear it. Never before had Hirokin used the word ‘mistake’ in connection with himself. There were ‘pivots’, ‘recalculations’—but never ‘mistakes’. What had happened, Saitou wondered grimly, to make him speak in this way? To react in this way?

What had happened, Saitou wondered, between Hirokin, his father, and his mother?

It was all connected, he sensed. They were all connected. Morbid curiosity and dread churned within him. A concoction of long-festering, deepest foreboding.

With your silence, sensei, you’ve helped her already—this Saitou wanted to say, but in the end, he settled for nodding instead.

Hirokin relaxed at this. Depleted, he seemed to coil back into himself. His cup was empty. As Saitou refilled it, Hirokin inclined his head in thanks. After a while, he spoke again.

“Do you remember, dear prince, what I once taught you about secrets?”

“That there are two kinds,” Saitou recalled with a frown. “Those which you know, and those which everyone knows.”

Hirokin set down his cup with a resounding click. “Let us hope, then, that you will prove me wrong.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

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