The mist clung to the rice paddies like a burial shroud. Jin Sakai guided his horse through the gray morning, following the thread of smoke that stained the sky above Azamo village. The smell reached them first—not the clean scent of cook fires or the sweet burn of incense, but something else. Something that made his mount's ears flatten and nostrils flare.
"Easy, Nobu." Jin's gloved hand found the horse's neck. The animal's muscles trembled beneath his palm.
The smoke thickened as they climbed the gentle rise toward the village. What had been white wisps from a distance revealed themselves as black columns, oily and wrong. Jin's throat tightened. He'd smelled this before, during the border conflicts. Buildings didn't burn like this when accidents happened.
Nobu stopped without being asked. The horse refused to go further, sides heaving. Jin dismounted, boots squelching in mud that should have been brown but looked dark as old blood. The wooden sword lay half-buried beside the path—child-sized, carved with careful hands, split down the middle.
"Stay," he told Nobu, though the command was unnecessary. Wild horses couldn't drag the animal closer to whatever waited ahead.
Jin drew his katana. The blade whispered against its scabbard, a sound that usually brought comfort. Today it felt inadequate. What use was steel against what had already happened?
The first body sprawled beside the village gate. An old man Jin recognized—Tanaka, who'd sold him persimmons last autumn. The merchant lay face-down in the dirt, his traveling pack scattered, coins glinting in the mud like fallen stars. Crows rose from their work as Jin approached, black wings beating against the gray sky.
The gate hung from one hinge. Beyond it, Azamo village smoldered.
Forty-three buildings had stood here yesterday. Jin had counted them during his last patrol, cataloguing each family, each face. Now timber skeletons poked through ash heaps. Smoke leaked from collapsed roofs. The smell of burned wood mixed with something sweeter, more terrible.
A child's voice echoed in his memory: "𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘚𝘢𝘬𝘢𝘪! 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥?"
The little girl who'd asked that question lay beside the shrine. Her wooden doll still clutched in her arms. Jin's vision blurred. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of ash across his cheek.
The raid was hours old. The bodies had stopped bleeding, their wounds dark and final. Flies buzzed in lazy circles. The silence pressed against his eardrums like water.
Jin walked the village's single street, his footsteps hollow on scorched earth. Thirty-seven bodies. He counted each one, marking faces he knew. The blacksmith who'd repaired his stirrups. The tea seller who'd shared news from the mainland. The mother who'd bowed so low when he'd helped find her lost son.
Children. So many children.
His hands shook as he knelt beside a family huddled near their home's foundation. They'd died together, the parents' bodies curved around their daughter like a shield that hadn't been enough. Jin touched the father's shoulder—cold, stiff. The man had carried a rice pole, not a sword. What chance did farmers have against warriors?
The weight settled on Jin's shoulders like a mountain. Thirty-seven people. Thirty-seven souls who'd looked to House Sakai for protection. Who'd trusted that their lord would keep them safe.
He'd failed them all.
The shrine still stood, though its walls bore scorch marks. Jin climbed the steps, each footfall an accusation. Inside, the Buddha statue gazed down with serene eyes. Offerings scattered the floor—rice, flowers, coins. The smell of burned incense mixed with smoke from the village.
"Forgive me," Jin whispered to the empty air.
The statue offered no reply.
He found the tracks at the village's far end. Boot prints in the mud, too uniform to be farmers' work. Horses, too—many horses, their hoofprints cutting deep gouges in the earth. The trail led north toward the coast.
Mongols. It had to be.
Jin followed the tracks a hundred paces before stopping. His sword felt light in his grip, useless as a practice blade. What could one man do against an army? Even if he caught them, even if he killed a dozen, a hundred—would that bring back Tanaka's smile? The little girl's laughter?
A sound made him turn. Footsteps in the ash. Jin raised his blade, but only Nobu appeared through the smoke. The horse had overcome its fear enough to follow.
"You're braver than I am," Jin said, sheathing his sword.
He walked back through the village one more time. Thirty-seven faces stared at nothing. Thirty-seven families who'd never see another sunrise. The weight of their trust, their faith in his protection, pressed down until he could barely stand.
The morning mist was burning off. Soon the sun would shine on this graveyard, this monument to his failure. Jin mounted his horse and turned away from Azamo village. But the smell of smoke followed him, and the memory of a child's wooden sword, broken in the mud.
Behind him, crows settled back to their feast. The silence stretched unbroken except for their harsh cries—a funeral song for the dead, a judgment on the living who'd failed to save them.
The weight on Jin's shoulders grew heavier with each step. Thirty-seven souls demanding answers. Thirty-seven ghosts asking why their lord hadn't been there when they needed him most.