Reclaimed – Chapter 9

Why is it that every day on this world is filled with complete madness? People talking to animals. Animals talking back to people. A warlord on a rampage to rid the world of my bloodline. And now I find out people are microchipped and they don’t even understand the whole story of how the technology works or where it came from in the first place. I knew everything about my birth control implant before I got it. I knew it had been around for hundreds of years, who invented it, and why it was so important to get one. These people understand so little about the technology in their own bodies, it’s bewildering.

Jiro and I exit the house to the garden after dinner, stuffed full of food and information. Sakai tried to follow us out but I asked him to leave us alone. I have no doubt he wants to talk me out of my next move, but I’m not making any decisions without Jiro’s input first. He’s my husband and the only person whose opinion I trust one hundred percent. I love Sakai, but he has his own agendas he keeps from me. Always has.

Jiro clasps his hands behind his back as we walk through Romi’s garden with two dogs and three cats at our feet. The orange striped cat runs ahead, leaping into the air after a moth that flew across his path.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask him, bumping into his side.

“Everything. Our duty, our lives, our family…”

I run my fingers over the long grass and flowers in Romi’s garden, the crisp edges tickling my skin and rasping against each other. I love nature. I often think of my time in Nishikyō and wonder how I lived without plants, animals, fresh air, and sunlight.

“While I was lying in bed this past week, I thought a lot about everything that’s happened to me since I found out I was going to be an empress. The anger, the confusion, the injustice I felt because I had been lied to my whole life. I remember when Sakai immediately charged in and took over. I can close my eyes and picture him seated across from Aunt Kimie and Lomo in our tiny apartment. Then he moved me to Sakai building and kept me from leaving because I was in danger.”

“You were.”

“I know. I only doubted it one time. I tried to walk out of the building once and security stopped me.”

I laugh when he turns and raises his eyebrows at me.

“I forgot about that! Oh my gods, I was so scared, and I told the security guards not to tell you I tried to leave. It was right before I started drinking all the time to hide how alone I was, when the depression started.”

Jiro chuckles, bends down, and picks up a rock, tossing it in the air and catching it. “Only you would do something like that.”

“I wanted a semblance of normalcy, to be married like my friends, and have a family. To be able to walk out the front door, shop at the grocer, and drink coffee at the café.”

I stop and stare at the flowers growing in the beds. I don’t know any of their names but they’re arranged in beautiful sprays of gold, violet, and fiery red.

“None of that matters any more, does it? Back in Nishikyō, my fate was decided by the law. I couldn’t marry for real and take your name. We had to get around it by declaring you would be my only consort. Here my life is controlled by my blood and other people want to capture me and steal it for themselves. My sense of normalcy is skewed. I always wanted things to be easy, black and white, right or wrong. Now, they’re complex. A complexity I can barely understand.”

We walk quietly for a minute, the only sound in the garden the gravel under our feet, frogs in the pond, and insects buzzing.

“I’ve been praying,” I confess, playing with the sleeve of my yukata and not making eye contact. “I never used to pray. I’m not even really religious. But every town we come to, I sit and pray to my grandfather for guidance.”

“You don’t pray to the gods?” He drops his stone in a pond we come to around a corner.

I shrug my shoulders and kick at the stones. “He’s right there in front of me — my royal ancestor. Something told me I should pray to him.”

“We’ve been covering both sides of the godly divide.” Jiro brings his hands up and rubs them together. “I feel like the gods were quiet for so long. I hadn’t heard them since the New Year’s Eve that I asked for you.”

Heat burns my cheeks, and I close my eyes and thank them for bringing us together.

“Since then, I would ask for guidance and never hear their advice. I always left the temples or shrines more confused than when I went in.”

“I didn’t know you still prayed.” I squeeze his hand and thread my arm through his and behind his back.

“I thought…” He sighs and rests his head on mine. “That they put us together for a purpose. They kept you alive when I needed you most. I figured one of us should thank them, and I knew you weren’t religious.”

“Well, I prayed today and asked for guidance because of all the stupid decisions I’ve made in the past few months.”

Jiro pulls me around and squeezes me to his chest, and I rest my cheek on his chest.

“We’ve made a lot of poor decisions between us because we haven’t been listening hard enough, to other people and to the gods,” he mumbles into the top of my head. The rumble of his words echo through his chest. “We’ve failed in so many ways, but you’re still alive with a mission in front of you. What more can we divine from that?”

We stand like that for a long, dozen breaths before I peel myself from him, and we turn to continue our walk through the garden. The gray and black striped cat, though, sits in my path and meows up at me.

“What?” I ask, as he places his front paws on my legs. I open my arms and he jumps right into them, sitting against my chest and resting his head on my shoulder. “Sweet cat.” A recalcitrant smile leaks onto my face as I run my cheek against his head.

“Do you want the chip?” Jiro is serious, his body language tight and all business. His gaze settles on parts of my face where he can detect a lie, my nose, the pulse at my temple, my eyes and how they widen when I’m excited.

I smile at him and blink my eyelashes. “What do you think?”

“I think the gods are trying to talk to you, to us, and we finally have the chance to listen.” He sweeps his hand over the cats, the dogs, the monkey. “Look.” Jiro gestures to the short wooden fence surrounding the garden. Dozens of cats sit perched upon the edge, their heads turned towards me, each moving aside at the whimpering of dogs and the call of birds trying to peek over the fence as well. A large, stately animal with a rack of horns shooting from its head stands behind. We’re surrounded by animals, quiet and peaceful, merely observing me. A chill shakes my body though the air is warm.

Jiro grasps my hand and holds it tight in his while I clutch the cat with one arm. He strokes his thumb over my pale skin, a pained expression playing across his lips. I wrest my eyes from him and look to the fence.

“That time I went to Ku 8 with Sakai, to the Extinction Ward, and saw the animals in the zoo.” I shake my head. “I had a connection with those animals, every single one. I looked in their eyes and just knew I was meant to be with them, like the first time I held Kazenoho, or the first time I ever saw you.” I tug on his hand and smile at him when his eyes meet mine. “Have I really ignored it for almost a year? Many years? There are so many things I’ve tried and screwed up. I thought I should stay sequestered. That didn’t work. I thought I would try to learn more weapons. That didn’t work either. I thought I would be the good council member and negotiator. That just got people killed.”

I hug the cat and listen to him purr as all the dozens of eyes follow me.

“I’m bad about following my instincts, aren’t I? I always said, ‘No one can tell me what I can or cannot do,’ but I didn’t even listen to myself.”

My arms relax and the cat jumps from them to the ground, slinking in and out of the other cats, no doubt bragging about all the attention he got from me.

I link my arm with Jiro’s and face our audience. “This was what I was destined to do — be with you, carry Kazenoho, and ally with animals. Everything else will fall in line with that. The chip is mine. We leave for Oda’s city tomorrow.”