Bashira vomited again in the corner of the throne room. No one noticed, just like they hadn’t paid her any attention when she came inside. They were too busy fighting for their lives in knots of bloody struggle tumbling through the rich, red room like dice in a tavern. Why had she come here? Escape in this tumult would be so easy, and wouldn’t it feel better to run away? To start over, instead of trying to understand this chaos?

She pressed her back against a column and closed her eyes, an island of still in all this insanity (wasn’t she?). It was so loud, the clank of weapons—they only rang in stories— the shouts, the screams of dying. Everything smelled of blood and shit and piss, and some sweet, after-smell, like the throne room had once been full of tendrils of incense smoke, now overpowered. 

Her eyes opened. A woman dressed like a peasant stumbled towards her, hands wrapped around a bloody sword hilt, and tried to run Bashira through. She slipped out of the way, and instead of unsheathing her sword, she grabbed the woman’s head and threw her into the column, her forehead connecting with a sharp, horse-whip crack that filled Bashira’s mouth with the hot taste of salt. She swallowed, trying not to vomit again. 

Now, to find him. That’s what she had come for, wasn’t it? Her father. She had loved him before. Until the war started and then again for a long time. Even after her mother got fed up and left them both. Even after the bruises. Bashira squeezed her eyes shut against the self-loathing. Why had she let herself stay so long?

Most of the fighters paid no attention to her weaving through them, locked into their own survival. She didn’t get involved either unless she was attacked, and then she put an end to her opponents as quickly and effortlessly as she had the first. None of the caliber of the long-haired man challenged her in here, and she did not draw on Bad Luck to dispatch them. 

“Shinxi!” she yelled over the tops of their heads. “Shinxi!”

He didn’t turn or answer, but she saw him all the same, slipping into the throne room from a side hall with a man with long hair. He wore a ragged cloak and an oni mask, only unlike the one hanging from Bashira’s belt, his covered the entirety of his face. Its eyes gaped like empty sockets, and one cruel horn was crooked above its snarling teeth.

General Shinxi looked at that masked fiend and gestured toward the center of the room. “There’s the emperor.”

The masked man barely looked at him, just tuned and strode with unerring purpose towards the emperor. As he went, the shoddily clothed attackers seemed to gather strength and reform. Guards fell, lamellar armor pierced, and welling blood against an already slick floor. Their heads rolled, still attached to their glittering helms, and the defenders around the emperor began to falter.

Bashira let them. Her father’s face was still, almost bored, his eyes on the masked man tearing away from him. He did nothing to stop any of this, just sat back and allowed it to happen, like he wasn’t the same man who had stood in her door that morning—had it really happened such a short time ago— and told her that she needed to give back to her empire. He was a part of this, part of the attacks, the deaths.

She unsheathed her sword, and found a cocky smile to hide behind. “Hello, General. It looks like you’ve kept this position for an even shorter time than the last.”

When he turned to look at his only progeny, his expression didn’t change. “You might have avoided all this, you know. I offered you an out. Come with me before the duel, or never duel again.” He laughed. “There won’t be a city to duel in after Wakuno is finished.”

Bashira came to a stop a few feet away, the tip of her sword stretching out before her toward the floor. Her palms were slick, her fingers trembling so that she had to press her right hand against her thigh to keep her blade still. She looked back up at her father. “Why?”

“What do you mean why? They discharged me! For—for nothing! It ruined all our lives. Mine, yours, your mother’s. We could have had something.”

“I think I like my life how it is.”

“Look at you! Are you drunk still, or is this just the aftermath, the withdrawal of a body so used to alcohol that it can’t quite function without it? You need something to fight for, girl, and I’m going to give it to you.”

“Better a drunk than this slaughter.” Listen to her taking the fucking high ground! She should have just left, just stolen away in the dark like her mother. This wasn’t going anything like what she had expected. She needed to ask him, to ask— “Did you do this to me?”

“Do what, make you a drunk? You might blame that on me, daughter, but you’ve made your own choices since you left.”

“No,” Bashira gasped, pressing her fingers to her temples. “The duel. The blood. Hiuping. Did you trick me into killing him?”

“You killed your dueling opponent?” Laughter cracked from his mouth like thunder. “Why the fuck would I have needed to? The city was going to burn either way. You know your mother was a bit crazy too. I guess it just runs in her family.”

“No… no, no…” Bashira shook her head. “You have to have done it. There was the light in my eyes—a mirror?— I couldn’t see him—“

“What? Were you drinking, Bashira?”

Her grip tightened around her sword, and she glared up at him through the dark hair falling over her face. She hadn’t been drinking. Not since the night before. He was lying. Trying to fuck with her head. She just needed to breathe, to figure all of this out.

“Everything will be forgiven if you join us. You’ll have something to work for, to believe it. You’ll be able to save yourself.”

He sounded so reasonable, so trustworthy. Just as he always had when she was young. Do this for me, Bashira, and everything will be better. She’s fallen for that lie a hundred times, but she was older now. She’d made a name for herself, hadn’t she? Before it all came crashing down. She could find her way again.

“The only person I’ve ever needed saving from is [i]you[/i].” Bashira raised her sword and launched forward, but there were more peasant warriors rising to stop her—had they been there all along?— and by the time she fought them off, her father was gone.