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The first thing Satoru learned about Suguru Geto was that he did not breathe quietly.

Most people did when they entered Satoru’s rooms.

They stepped as though crossing the floor might wake something dangerous beneath it. They softened their steps, their voices, even the air moving through their lungs. Some held their breath when they approached him, apparently convinced that blindness had sharpened every other sense into something monstrous.

It had not.

Satoru merely noticed when people were frightened.

The young man standing beyond the silk partition was frightened, though not enough to disguise it well.

His breath came slowly through his nose. His weight rested more heavily on his right foot than his left. The fabric of his robes brushed his ankles when he moved, plain linen rather than the stiff ceremonial silk favored by the household. He had entered with Lady Yaga and stopped exactly four paces from where Satoru sat.

He had not bowed yet.

That was interesting.

“Geto Suguru,” Lady Yaga announced. “Come forward.”

Suguru obeyed.

Four steps.

Then the whisper of cloth as he lowered himself to his knees.

“My lord.”

His voice was lower than Satoru had expected.

Warm, too, although currently restrained into something careful and formal.

Satoru sat beside the open doors leading to his private garden, his hands folded in his lap and a white bandage wrapped three times around his eyes. Sunlight warmed the right side of his face. Somewhere near the pond, water moved over a line of smooth stones.

Lady Yaga waited.

Suguru waited.

Satoru considered making them wait longer.

He had been told that the new companion was eighteen, the same age as him. The son of a minor physician from the southern provinces. Literate. Healthy. Patient. Unmarried. He knew court etiquette, could swim, could ride, and had received enough combat instruction to protect Satoru until the guards arrived.

None of that said anything useful about him.

They had said similar things about Riko.

Riko could sing, paint, mend torn sleeves, identify twenty-six medicinal herbs by scent, and lie without changing her breathing. None of those things had prevented a cart from crushing her beneath its wheels on the mountain road.

Satoru had seen it nine days before it happened.

He had not known where.

He had not known when.

He had only seen rain on black stone, a snapped wooden wheel, and Riko’s hand lying beneath a red maple leaf.

He had warned the household.

They had locked the western gates, forbidden her from leaving, inspected every carriage and ordered that she remain inside until the danger passed.

On the ninth day, when the sky was clear, a kitchen servant had fallen ill. Riko had volunteered to carry medicine to the woman’s family in the servants’ quarter.

The delivery cart had lost a wheel on the inner road.

There had been no rain.

There had been no maple trees.

But someone had spilled a bucket of water across the stone, and one red leaf had blown in from the gardeners’ courtyard.

The future was rarely obedient enough to arrive exactly as he saw it.

It only arrived.

Lady Yaga cleared her throat.

Satoru tilted his head.

“Does he always stand like that?”

A small change occurred in Suguru’s breathing.

Lady Yaga sounded weary already. “Like what?”

“Like someone placed a rod through his spine.”

“I am kneeling,” Suguru said.

Satoru smiled.

At least the new one answered for himself.

“That sounds even more uncomfortable.”

“I was told it would be disrespectful to stand.”

“You were told correctly,” Lady Yaga said.

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Satoru told her.

“You rarely do when you should.”

Her steps moved away from him. She stopped beside Suguru, possibly looking down at him.

Lady Yaga had been part of Satoru’s household for as long as he could remember. She was not his mother. Satoru’s mother had visited him twice before dying of a winter fever when he was seven. Lady Yaga had never pretended to replace her.

She managed his rooms, his schedule, his meals, his ceremonies, his physicians and, most importantly, the succession of companions assigned to remain at his side.

Satoru’s own title was the Divine Oracle of the Six Eyes.

It belonged to the Gojo family before it belonged to him.

For centuries, children had occasionally been born into their bloodline with eyes capable of looking beyond the present, even though those same eyes could make little sense of the world directly before them. The births themselves were not as rare as the priests liked people to believe. There were records of several children carrying the Sight within the same century.

Survival was the rare part.

Most died before they learned to speak. Their minds could not endure the constant pressure of light, movement and futures that had not yet happened. Others survived infancy only to become ill as they grew, consumed by visions their bodies were too young to understand.

Very few reached adulthood.

Satoru had.

No one knew why.

The priests called it divine favor. The physicians credited the veils, the quiet rooms and the careful restrictions placed upon him since birth. The Gojo elders preferred to say that the heavens had chosen him.

Whatever the reason, Satoru had lived long enough to become valuable.

Once each month, and during emergencies when the council demanded it, he was brought before priests and officials. The veil was removed. The lamps were lit. Satoru opened his eyes and waited to discover what the future intended to show him.

Sometimes he saw failed harvests before the crops began to wither.

Sometimes floods, sickness or armies approaching through mountain roads.

Sometimes he saw nothing useful at all, only a silver bowl falling from an old man’s hands, a child crying or blood spreading across snow without a name, place or date attached to it.

The council recorded everything.

They compared his visions to military reports, weather patterns and rumors from distant provinces. When the fragments made sense, the kingdom prepared. Grain was stored. Villages were evacuated. Borders were strengthened. Physicians were sent where illness had not yet arrived.

Entire towns had survived because Satoru dreamed of them burning.

For this, the Gojo household possessed more land and money than Satoru could properly imagine. He wore silk woven only for him, ate before ministers during times of scarcity and lived inside a residence large enough that some servants never entered its eastern half.

People bowed when his name was spoken.

They prayed for his health.

They called his eyes sacred.

In exchange, Satoru’s eyes remained covered almost every hour of his life.

The official explanation was that the Six Eyes were too powerful to remain exposed. Ordinary light caused him pain, and an unguarded glance could invite visions without warning. The veil protected his mind from seeing more than a human being should.

In practice, his importance meant that he was watched constantly, escorted everywhere and rarely permitted to cross a room without someone knowing where he intended to go.

The kingdom had given him wealth, titles and reverence.

It had also decided that the Divine Oracle required a permanent nursemaid.

Suguru Geto was now to become his new nursemaid.

The official title was Keeper of the Veil.

It was an old name, invented in an age when the seers of the Six Eyes had supposedly torn open the border between mortals and gods. The title made the position sound sacred.

In practice, a Keeper read aloud to Satoru, guided him through unfamiliar corridors, attended his baths, slept in the adjoining chamber and made certain he did not walk into ponds.

Satoru had gone through five of them.

One had become ill.

One had married.

Two had requested reassignment.

Riko had died.

He could remember all their voices, though he had never missed one after they were gone.

Riko had come closest.

That was precisely why he had no intention of caring about the sixth.

“Get up,” Satoru said.

Suguru hesitated.

“That was an order,” Satoru added.

Fabric shifted. Suguru rose.

“Come closer.”

He did.

“One more step.”

He took it.

Satoru lifted his hand.

Suguru became very still.

People often did when Satoru reached toward them. They knew what his uncovered gaze could do. They forgot that his hands were ordinary.

His fingers found linen at Suguru’s abdomen.

Suguru jerked back.

Satoru laughed.

“Are you frightened of being touched?”

“No.”

“You moved.”

“You reached for me without warning.”

“I’m blind.”

“I had noticed.”

The answer came so evenly that Satoru paused.

Then his smile widened.

“Have you?”

“The bandage provided some indication.”

Lady Yaga made a sound that might have concealed amusement.

Satoru extended his hand again.

This time Suguru did not move away. Satoru touched the edge of his sleeve, felt the coarse weave between his thumb and forefinger and followed the cloth down until he found Suguru’s wrist.

His pulse was fast.

“You are frightened,” he said.

“I am standing before a man who is permitted to dismiss me before I have unpacked.”

“I’m not permitted to dismiss you.”

Suguru’s pulse slowed slightly.

“That is not what I was told.”

“You were lied to. They do that frequently here.”

“Satoru.”

Lady Yaga’s warning carried across the room.

He ignored her.

“What were you told?” he asked.

“That I would remain at your side for as long as you found my company agreeable.”

“Completely untrue. I found my last Keeper annoying for three years.”

“I was informed that Lady Riko was well liked.”

He released Suguru’s wrist.

The garden continued making its small, peaceful sounds.

Water over stone.

Leaves touching leaves.

A bee wandering lazily among the late-summer flowers.

Lady Yaga said, “Geto.”

A quiet reprimand.

Suguru did not apologize.

Satoru lowered his hand into his lap.

“She is dead,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You’re supposed to avoid mentioning that.”

“You brought her up.”

Satoru turned his face toward the garden.

The heat of sunlight had shifted closer to his cheekbone.

He could picture Suguru only as an arrangement of sounds. A low voice. Slow breathing. Linen sleeves. Long limbs, perhaps, judging from the distance between his footfalls. Hair that smelled faintly of smoke and cedar oil.

Not unpleasant.

Still unwelcome.

“You can go,” Satoru said.

Suguru did not move.

Lady Yaga did.

Her shoes crossed the wooden floor and stopped beside him.

“You have not finished the introduction.”

“I have.”

“You have not explained his responsibilities.”

“He can read the rules. You make everyone memorize them.”

“He is to accompany you to the eastern hall this afternoon.”

“I know the way.”

“You walked into the musicians’ gallery last month.”

“They were playing badly. Someone had to stop them.”

Lady Yaga exhaled.

Suguru made a peculiar sound.

Small and abruptly swallowed.

Satoru turned toward him.

“Did you laugh?”

“No.”

“You did.”

“I cleared my throat.”

“You don’t sound ill.”

“I’m recovering.”

“From what?”

“This conversation.”

Satoru stared at the darkness behind his bandage.

Then, despite himself, he laughed.

It escaped him more loudly than he intended, bright and brief in the quiet room.

Suguru’s posture changed. Satoru could not see it, but he heard cloth shift as some tension left his shoulders.

Lady Yaga waited for Satoru’s laughter to end.

Then she said, “Geto will return after the midday meal. You will show him the rooms.”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

“I have an important engagement with the pond.”

“The pond has survived without you all morning.”

“It has been very lonely.”

“Then introduce Geto to it.”

Lady Yaga left before Satoru could object.

Her steps crossed the room, descended to the outer gallery, and disappeared.

Suguru remained.

Satoru counted five breaths before speaking.

“You can leave too.”

“I was ordered to remain.”

“She orders everyone to remain. It makes her feel powerful.”

“She appears to possess considerable power.”

“That is an illusion.”

“Of course.”

Suguru’s voice was still formal, but something moved beneath it now. A dry edge. Perhaps amusement.

Satoru turned his head.

“Are you mocking me?”

“I would not dare.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Clearing my throat?”

“Lying.”

This time Suguru actually laughed.

It was quiet.

Not hidden, exactly. It seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised Satoru.

The sound made him younger.

Satoru had imagined someone severe when he heard the careful footsteps and measured voice. Now that image shifted, gaining an uncertain mouth that wanted to smile.

He disliked that he wondered what the smile looked like.

“Your first responsibility,” Satoru said, “is to leave when I tell you.”

“I don’t believe that is written in the rules.”

“I’m the most important person in this palace.”

“So I have been told.”

“Therefore, my word outranks the rules.”

“I was specifically informed that it does not.”

Satoru clicked his tongue.

“They prepared you too well.”

“I spent three weeks being warned about you.”

“Only three?”

“Lady Yaga was thorough.”

“What did she say?”

“That you are clever, impatient, often rude and inclined to test every person you meet until they either disappoint or entertain you.”

Satoru frowned.

“That makes me sound exhausting.”

“I believe that was her intention.”

“What else?”

“That your sight must remain covered except during sanctioned revelations or emergencies. That I am never to remove the veil without permission. That I should not describe confidential documents, political visitors or routes outside the palace. That you dislike mushrooms, heavy incense, bells before sunrise and people who speak slowly because they assume you cannot understand them.”

“She forgot that I also dislike her.”

“I suspect she knows.”

Satoru leaned back on his hands.

The sun had warmed the floor beneath his palms.

“And what do you dislike?” Satoru asked.

There was a pause.

“I have not yet been instructed to provide that information.”

“Now you have.”

Suguru sighed. “I dislike mornings.”

“Good.”

“Being interrupted.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Sweet wine.”

“Terrible taste.”

“People who ask questions and then criticize the answers.”

“That sounds difficult.”

Suguru laughed again.

Satoru felt something unfamiliar stir beneath his ribs.

Not affection.

Certainly not interest.

Only relief, perhaps, that the new Keeper did not sound unbearable.

“Fine,” he said. “You can stay until lunch.”

“I was meant to.”

“Don’t become arrogant.”

“I will try to contain myself.”

Satoru turned back toward the garden.

Suguru moved several steps away, then settled near the wall. The sound suggested he had lowered himself onto a cushion.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Satoru had always been good at silence.

Other people found that difficult to believe. They mistook his fondness for provocation as an inability to be quiet. In truth, he had spent most of his life surrounded by silence. It filled the sacred residence in the hours between ceremonies. It lived in the long halls where servants walked softly. It sat beside him during meals and slept in the chamber beyond his own.

Silence was not absence.

Every silence possessed a shape.

Lady Yaga’s was firm and watchful.

Riko’s had been restless, filled with fingers tapping against her knees.

Suguru’s silence was attentive.

He did not shuffle or search for something to occupy himself. He seemed content merely to sit.

After several minutes, he asked, “Is the pond truly lonely?”

Satoru smiled before he could stop himself.

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you should introduce us.”

That was how it began.

Suguru learned quickly.

He learned that Satoru did not need a hand inside familiar rooms but preferred someone walking half a step ahead outdoors, close enough that their sleeves occasionally touched.

He learned to warn Satoru about low branches but not changes in the ground, because Satoru felt those through the thin soles of his shoes.

He learned that Satoru could count every stair in the residence and knew which floorboards creaked in each corridor.

He also learned that Satoru sometimes deliberately stepped into doorframes when important visitors were nearby, then accused the household of endangering their sacred oracle.

This had caused three officials to apologize, two servants to panic and Lady Yaga to threaten to attach a bell to Satoru’s ankle.

Suguru had laughed for so long that he needed to sit down.

“You were supposed to catch me,” Satoru complained.

“You knew the doorframe was there.”

“You cannot prove that.”

“You turned your shoulder before you struck it.”

“Instinct.”

“Deception.”

“Survival.”

They did not become friends immediately.

Satoru would later remember this with some confusion, because his life divided itself so cleanly into the years before Suguru and everything that came afterward that it seemed impossible there had ever been days when Suguru’s presence felt unfamiliar.

But there were.

During the first weeks, Suguru remained cautious. He spoke when spoken to. He read histories, poems and reports aloud in the evenings, his voice steady even when Satoru interrupted every few paragraphs to argue with dead scholars.

He attended meals but did not eat until Satoru began.

He slept in the adjoining chamber.

He never touched Satoru without announcing it first.

“My apologies,” he would say before guiding Satoru away from a servant carrying a tray.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“For touching your shoulder.”

It irritated Satoru.

He did not know why.

Everyone else touched him too easily or avoided it entirely. Physicians held his face without asking. Priests pressed fingers to his temples before ceremonies. Servants arranged his clothing, combed his hair and washed him as though his body belonged to the household.

Suguru behaved as if Satoru owned himself.

It was strange.

On the nineteenth evening, rain struck the roof hard enough to drown the sound of the garden.

Suguru sat near the brazier, reading a military account so dull that Satoru had begun inventing elaborate deaths for every commander mentioned.

“General Hara moved his forces north,” Suguru read.

“Where they were devoured by wolves.”

“They were not.”

“They should have been.”

“After securing the river—”

“The wolves learned to swim.”

Suguru turned a page.

“General Hara negotiated safe passage through the valley.”

“With the wolves?”

“With the local governor.”

“Less impressive.”

“Satoru.”

“Hmm?”

“Would you like me to stop?”

“No.”

“Then let me read.”

“This document is not entertaining at all.”

“It is a record of grain supplies.”

“Everything can be entertaining if told with enough emotional commitment.”

Suguru sighed.

Satoru smiled and stretched his legs toward the brazier.

The room smelled of rain, hot iron and the oil used on the wooden screens. Suguru sat close enough that the edge of his warmth joined the fire’s.

Riko had sat in the same place.

The thought came without warning.

A vision followed it.

Not a true revelation. Only memory.

A hand beneath a red leaf.

Satoru’s smile faded.

Suguru continued reading for several lines before stopping.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“The grain supplies finally moved you?”

“I said it’s nothing.”

Suguru closed the book.

The soft thump of the covers meeting irritated Satoru more than it should have.

“Keep reading.”

“You aren’t listening.”

“I wasn’t listening before.”

“That much was apparent.”

“Then nothing has changed.”

Suguru was silent.

Satoru disliked the shape of it now.

It had become worried.

He stood abruptly.

The movement shifted the bandage over his temple. A flash of pale light slipped beneath the lower edge, not sight exactly, but enough to make his skull ache.

He crossed the room.

“Satoru.”

“I know where I’m going.”

“You are walking toward the wall.”

“I know where the wall is.”

“Then why—”

Satoru struck it with his palm.

Pain flashed through his wrist.

He heard Suguru rise.

“Don’t.”

Suguru stopped.

The rain filled the room.

Satoru kept his hand against the wall. The wood beneath his palm was cool and solid.

He wanted to push through it.

He wanted to walk until there were no walls left.

Instead, he said, “She sat there too.”

Suguru did not ask who.

“I know,” he said.

“Everyone sits there.”

“I can move.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“What is?”

Satoru did not know.

That angered him.

He turned, though the darkness made the gesture meaningless.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

Suguru did not respond immediately.

When he did, his voice had changed. It was no longer careful.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Yes.”

“For tonight?”

“For good.”

The rain struck harder.

Suguru’s breathing remained slow, but Satoru had learned enough of him to hear the effort in it.

“You don’t know me,” Suguru said.

“I know enough.”

“You know my voice and three things I dislike.”

“Four. You dislike boiled cabbage.”

“Everyone dislikes boiled cabbage.”

“You pretend not to because you’re polite.”

“That hardly seems reason to dismiss me.”

“I don’t need a reason.”

“No,” Suguru agreed. “I suppose you don’t.”

Footsteps crossed the room.

Satoru’s fingers curled against the wall.

Suguru passed him.

He was leaving.

That was what Satoru had ordered.

He listened as Suguru reached the door.

“Riko was not you,” Satoru said.

The footsteps stopped.

It was a foolish thing to say. Obvious and cruel in a way he had not intended.

“No,” Suguru replied. “She wasn’t.”

“I saw her die.”

The words entered the room without permission.

Satoru had not spoken of the revelation since the funeral.

The priests had asked him to recount it for the archives. He had refused. Lady Yaga had sat beside him for three nights and never once asked.

Now he told Suguru, who had known him nineteen days.

“I saw it before it happened. I warned them. They changed everything, and it still happened.”

Suguru remained by the door.

“The future does that sometimes,” Satoru continued. “It shows me something small enough to make me believe I can prevent it. Then it finds another road.”

“Is that why you want me gone?”

Satoru lowered his hand.

“I don’t care whether you stay.”

“That was not my question.”

“It was my answer.”

“No. It was a lie.”

Satoru turned fully toward him.

“You’ve become bold.”

“You’ve become predictable.”

“Take that back.”

“You provoke people when you want them closer and dismiss them when they begin to matter.”

Satoru’s chest tightened.

“You know nothing about what matters to me.”

“I know you stopped interrupting when you remembered her.”

The words were not gentle.

Suguru did not speak gently when he believed gentleness would become another kind of lie.

Satoru hated him for it in that moment.

He also wanted Suguru to cross the room.

Suguru did.

His steps came closer until he stood within reach.

He did not touch Satoru.

“You saw her die,” he said. “Did you see me?”

“No.”

“Then stop burying me.”

Satoru’s breath caught.

The room seemed very quiet despite the storm.

Suguru waited.

Satoru lifted one hand.

He found Suguru’s chest first, his palm resting over the linen robe. Beneath it, Suguru’s heart beat quickly.

He followed the fabric upward, over the line of Suguru’s collarbone, until his fingers reached the side of his neck.

Suguru allowed it.

His skin was warm.

“Your heart is frightened,” Satoru whispered.

“So is yours.”

“You can’t hear mine.”

“I don’t need to.”

For one suspended instant, Satoru imagined removing the veil.

He imagined opening his eyes and discovering what waited in Suguru’s future.

Blood.

Age.

Departure.

A red leaf.

His hand fell.

“Keep reading,” he said.

Suguru remained close for another breath.

Then he returned to the brazier.

He did not sit where Riko had sat.

He placed his cushion beside Satoru’s instead.

When Satoru joined him, their knees touched.

Suguru opened the book.

“General Hara moved his forces north,” he began again.

“The wolves were waiting.”

Suguru’s shoulder shook against his.

This time, he did not hide his laughter.

The first bath was worse than Satoru had expected.

He had bathed with attendants his entire life. As a child, two servants had washed him beneath Lady Yaga’s supervision. When he became old enough to object, the number had been reduced to one Keeper.

It was practical.

The bathing chamber was unfamiliar after every seasonal renovation. The stone became slippery beneath water. Steam distorted sound. Satoru’s veil had to be exchanged for a thinner cloth that could become wet without loosening.

There had never been anything intimate about it.

Bodies were bodies. Water was water.

Then Suguru entered the chamber, and suddenly Satoru possessed skin everywhere.

He sat on a low wooden stool while a servant unwound the dry bandage and replaced it with a narrow strip of white cloth. The fabric clung closely over his eyelids.

Suguru waited near the bathing pool.

Steam softened the sounds of his movements. A robe loosened. Cloth slid over skin and dropped onto the bench.

Satoru heard every part of it.

He became aware of his own bare knees.

His shoulders.

The line of his spine.

The servant folded the removed bandage and left.

The door closed.

Satoru and Suguru were alone.

“This is unnecessary,” Satoru said.

Suguru’s bare feet moved across wet stone.

“I was told it is part of my responsibilities.”

“I can enter the bath alone.”

“I’m certain you can.”

“I have bathed here since I was ten.”

“Then you know how slippery the third step is.”

Satoru frowned.

“How do you know?”

“I nearly fell while inspecting it.”

He imagined Suguru naked and indignant, arms flailing as he fought for balance.

A laugh threatened.

He suppressed it.

“I don’t need you.”

“Stand up.”

“That was rude.”

“Satoru.”

Something in Suguru’s voice made obedience feel less like surrender.

Satoru rose.

Warm air touched every part of him. He resisted the urge to fold his arms across his body. He had never done that before. The impulse itself annoyed him.

Suguru approached.

“My hand,” he said.

A moment later, his fingers closed gently around Satoru’s wrist.

Suguru’s palm was damp.

Satoru wondered whether he had already stepped into the water or merely washed before entering.

He wondered what Suguru looked like without clothing.

The thought arrived so naturally that it took several seconds to alarm him.

“You’re quiet,” Suguru observed.

“I’m reconsidering your employment.”

“Again?”

“You are naked.”

“So are you.”

“That is the problem.”

Suguru stopped walking.

Steam gathered between them.

“I can call an attendant.”

The immediate offer made Satoru feel ridiculous.

“No.”

“You seem uncomfortable.”

“I am not uncomfortable.”

“You have been pulling against my hand since I touched you.”

Satoru forced his arm to relax.

“I’m cold.”

“The room is full of steam.”

“I have a delicate constitution.”

“You walked barefoot through frost last week.”

“That was different.”

Suguru released him.

The absence of his hand was worse.

Satoru stood beside the water, acutely aware that he had created the distance himself.

Then Suguru said, “I’m going to step into the bath. You can follow when you are ready. The rail is beside your left hand.”

He entered the water.

Satoru heard the gentle displacement around his legs, then the deeper movement as he lowered himself.

No teasing.

No impatience.

Satoru found the rail.

The first step was warm beneath his foot.

The second submerged his calves.

He found the third carefully, resenting that Suguru had been correct about its slickness.

On the fourth step, his heel slid.

Water surged.

A hand caught him at the waist.

Satoru grabbed the first thing he could find.

Suguru’s shoulders.

For a moment, they remained frozen.

Satoru stood two steps above him, bent forward, both hands gripping bare skin. Suguru’s arm circled his waist. Their chests nearly touched.

Water lapped against Satoru’s thighs.

Suguru’s breath brushed his collarbone.

“Delicate constitution,” Suguru murmured.

Satoru shoved him.

Suguru lost his balance and fell backward into the pool.

The splash struck Satoru from chest to face.

He stood in stunned silence.

Suguru emerged coughing.

“You—”

Satoru began laughing.

He could not help it.

Suguru splashed him again.

Satoru released the rail and lunged toward the sound.

That was a mistake.

Suguru caught him before he could fall, but Satoru had enough momentum to drag both of them beneath the water.

They surfaced tangled together.

Satoru’s wet hair stuck to his cheeks. The cloth over his eyes had remained tied, though water streamed beneath it.

Suguru was laughing.

Not politely.

His head had fallen against Satoru’s shoulder, and every burst of laughter moved through both their bodies.

Satoru clutched him around the neck.

“You tried to drown me.”

“You attacked me.”

“You deserved it.”

“For preventing your fall?”

“For mentioning it.”

Suguru’s arm remained around Satoru’s waist.

The hold was practical.

At least, it had begun that way.

Neither of them released the other.

Water made Satoru light. Suguru’s body was solid within it, warm skin beneath Satoru’s forearms, breath moving against his neck.

Riko had never held him like this.

No one had.

Satoru’s laughter faded first.

Suguru quieted a moment later.

They were still smiling. Satoru could hear it in the slight unevenness of Suguru’s breath.

“Are you all right?” Suguru asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you strike anything?”

“No.”

“Your veil?”

“Still there.”

Suguru lifted one hand.

His fingers paused near Satoru’s temple.

“May I?”

Satoru swallowed.

“Yes.”

Suguru adjusted the knot behind his head. His knuckles grazed the shell of Satoru’s ear. The touch was careful, but something inside Satoru reacted as though he had been struck.

He held Suguru more tightly.

Suguru’s hand stilled.

Neither said anything.

Then Satoru stepped away.

The rest of the bath passed peacefully.

Suguru washed his hair while Satoru sat against the curved wall of the pool. He described what he was doing before every touch, though his voice sounded different now.

Closer.

When his fingers worked soap through Satoru’s hair, Satoru closed his covered eyes and leaned, barely, into them.

That night, while Suguru slept in the adjoining room, Satoru pressed his own hand to his waist.

He could still feel where Suguru had caught him.

Autumn settled over the residence.

Satoru knew it through temperature, scent and the changing songs of birds. The stone paths cooled beneath his feet. Chrysanthemums replaced summer lilies in the garden. Servants began burning cedar after sunset.

Suguru described the colors.

He did not do it because Satoru asked.

One morning, while they sat beneath the old plum tree, he said, “The maple beside the southern wall is turning red.”

Satoru leaned against the trunk.

“All of it?”

“Only the highest branches. The lower ones are still green.”

“Ugly.”

“It looks like someone dipped the top in fire.”

“Better.”

A leaf drifted down and landed near Satoru’s knee.

Suguru picked it up and placed it in his hand.

Satoru traced its edges.

“How red?”

“Deep red. Almost the color of wine in shadow.”

“I don’t know what wine looks like.”

Suguru considered that.

“The color of warmth after it has begun to cool.”

“That is not a color.”

“It is now.”

Suguru’s descriptions were often useless.

They were also the only ones Satoru remembered.

He described dawn as pale gold spreading beneath a blue so soft it looked tired. He described the moon as a fingernail clipping when it was thin and a silver coin when it was full. He described the first winter frost as sugar scattered over the grass.

He described people less kindly.

“Lord Nishimi has a face like an offended carp.”

“What does an offended carp look like?”

“Lord Nishimi.”

Satoru laughed so loudly that the official heard him from across the courtyard.

In return, Satoru taught Suguru the palace through sound.

He showed him where the wind sang through a crack in the northern tower. He taught him to identify each temple bell by its echo and each cook by the rhythm of their knives.

He revealed that one could overhear council meetings by sitting inside the unused linen cupboard behind the western chamber.

Suguru called this spying.

Satoru called it responsible governance.

By the first snowfall, they had become inseparable.

The household noticed.

Satoru heard it in the indulgence of the servants when Suguru stole sweets from his meal tray. He heard it in Lady Yaga’s sighs when she found them lying side by side beneath the table in the records room, hiding from a visiting priest.

He heard it most clearly when Suguru was absent.

The residence changed shape without him.

Corridors lengthened. Meals lost their flavor. Books became unbearable in other voices.

Suguru was given one free day every tenth morning. At first, Satoru had barely noticed. By winter, he began dreading them the evening before.

“Where do you go?” he asked while Suguru combed his hair.

They sat before the open doors to the garden. The morning was cold enough that Satoru wore two robes, though Suguru insisted on leaving the doors open because snow had gathered on the pine branches.

“My family has rooms in the lower city.”

“I know that.”

“I visit them.”

“What do you do?”

“Eat.”

“You do that here.”

“My mother believes no one feeds me.”

“I feed you constantly.”

“You throw sweets at my head.”

“And you catch them.”

The comb moved carefully through the ends of Satoru’s hair.

He liked when Suguru did this. Suguru’s fingers occasionally brushed the back of his neck, and Satoru could pretend not to notice.

“Do you have siblings?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

A brief pause.

“A few.”

“What are they like?”

“Why?”

“I want to know.”

Suguru resumed combing.

“Shoko is training with a physician near the western gate. Nanami works in his family’s shop. Haibara wants to join the royal guard, although I doubt he understands what guards do.”

“Do they know about me?”

“Everyone knows about you.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

Suguru set the comb aside.

Satoru waited.

“They know I serve as your Keeper.”

“Do you talk about me?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you say?”

“That you are clever, impatient, often rude—”

Satoru reached backward and caught Suguru’s sleeve.

“You already used that joke.”

“It remains accurate.”

“What do you really say?”

Suguru’s silence changed.

It became soft around the edges.

Satoru had learned that silence too.

“I say that you are lonely,” Suguru said.

Satoru released him.

Cold air moved through the room.

“I am not.”

“I know.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I thought you were lonely when I arrived.”

“And now?”

Suguru’s fingertips touched Satoru’s hair, separating a strand that had caught beneath his collar.

“Now I think you were bored.”

“I was.”

“And angry.”

“I still am.”

“And waiting.”

Satoru turned toward him.

“For what?”

Suguru’s fingers went still against his neck.

“I don’t know,” he said.

The answer felt incomplete.

Before Satoru could question it, Suguru gathered his hair and tied it loosely at the nape.

“There. Finished.”

Satoru reached behind him and touched the knot.

“Is it ugly?”

“Yes.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Of your hair?”

“Everyone says it’s beautiful.”

“Everyone is required to say that.”

“Not you.”

“No,” Suguru said quietly. “Not me.”

Satoru felt warmth rise beneath his collar.

He stood too quickly.

“Read to me.”

“We are expected at the eastern shrine.”

“I have foreseen that the shrine will survive my absence.”

“That is not a true revelation.”

“You cannot prove it.”

Suguru rose behind him.

Before they left, his hand rested briefly against the center of Satoru’s back.

It was not necessary.

Satoru thought about it all morning.

The previous month’s revelation had been simple.

Simple by the standards of the future, at least.

Satoru had opened his eyes in the Hall of Clouds and seen rain falling over the southern province. He had seen the river swell until black water pressed against the old retaining wall outside a village called Minase. A crack had appeared near its foundation. Grain floated through flooded streets while temple bells rang beneath a colorless sky.

The vision had lasted less than a minute.

It left him cold and tired, but not ill.

The council found Minase on their maps. Reports from the south confirmed that the retaining wall had not been repaired in nearly forty years, although the river remained low and no storms had been predicted.

This time, they listened without argument.

Workers were sent to reinforce the wall. The winter grain was moved from the riverside storehouses to higher ground. Several families complained when soldiers ordered them to leave their homes, but temporary shelters were prepared before the first rain arrived.

Eleven days later, a storm settled over the southern valley.

The river rose through the night.

Part of the old wall collapsed shortly before dawn.

Water reached the lower streets exactly as Satoru had seen, but the storehouses were empty and the houses nearest the river had already been evacuated. No one drowned. Most of the grain survived. By spring, the wall would be rebuilt entirely.

The council sent Satoru a formal report.

Suguru read it aloud beside the pond.

“Not one death,” he said when he reached the end.

Satoru trailed his fingers through the water.

“They would like me to accept their profound gratitude.”

“You sound unimpressed.”

“They should have repaired the wall forty years ago.”

“That would have required competence.”

“An unreasonable expectation.”

Suguru folded the report.

“You saved them.”

“They saved themselves. I only told them where the water would go.”

Suguru’s hand settled over his wet fingers.

“You told them before it arrived.”

Satoru did not answer.

Some revelations were like that.

A warning received clearly.

A danger understood.

People listened, and the future was allowed to become something gentler than what he had seen.

The next revelation was nothing like that.

It came during the winter audience.

Twenty-four officials had gathered in the Hall of Clouds. Satoru could smell silk, incense, old paper and fear.

He sat behind a curtain of white threads on a raised platform. The veil had been removed.

His eyes remained closed.

The High Priest recited the invocation while attendants lit six lamps around him, one for each century since the last bearer of the Six Eyes had died.

Satoru heard none of it.

A headache had begun behind his temples before dawn. It pressed outward now, a familiar blade seeking entrance.

Suguru knelt beyond the curtain.

He was not supposed to speak during a revelation.

His presence was enough.

Satoru opened his eyes.

Light consumed him.

The hall disappeared.

He saw a field beneath a black sky.

Men running.

Horses screaming.

A banner bearing the crest of the eastern province burned in the mud.

Then a bridge.

A child standing in its center.

Water rising beneath her bare feet.

The images changed too quickly to grasp.

Satoru reached for them.

The future resisted.

He pushed harder.

The field returned.

This time he saw the soldiers’ faces.

Young.

Terrified.

Not an invading army.

Their uniforms were torn. Their weapons lowered. Behind them, smoke climbed from a village.

Refugees.

The eastern governors had reported an approaching rebellion. The council intended to close the mountain passes before spring.

If they did, these people would die in the snow.

The vision shattered.

Satoru’s body followed it.

He heard someone shout as he fell sideways.

The curtain tore.

Hands caught him before he struck the platform.

Suguru.

Rules broke around them.

Officials stood. Priests shouted for him to step away. The lamps wavered.

Suguru ignored everyone.

“Satoru.”

His voice came from very far away.

“Satoru, close your eyes.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

The future still poured through him.

A woman weeping beside an empty cradle.

A knife beneath a council table.

A ship breaking against white cliffs.

Suguru’s hands closed over his face.

Not touching his eyes.

Shielding them.

Darkness returned.

Satoru inhaled violently.

“Stay with me,” Suguru said.

Satoru gripped his wrists.

The visions receded in pieces.

When he could speak, he whispered, “The eastern passes.”

“What about them?”

“They must remain open.”

The High Priest approached.

“My lord, what did you witness?”

Satoru pressed his forehead against Suguru’s chest.

He knew twenty-four officials were watching.

He did not care.

“They are not soldiers,” he said. “They are running from something. If you close the passes, they die.”

The hall filled with murmurs.

The High Priest asked for details.

Satoru had none.

They always wanted details.

Names.

Numbers.

Dates.

The future rarely provided what people needed. It gave him grief in fragments and expected him to arrange it into salvation.

His stomach turned.

“Satoru?” Suguru murmured.

“I’m going to be sick.”

Suguru lifted him.

The hall erupted.

The sacred oracle was not supposed to be carried like an ordinary person. Certainly not away from a council still demanding answers.

Suguru carried him anyway.

Satoru buried his face against his shoulder.

In his rooms, Suguru lowered him beside the garden doors and dismissed every attendant.

Satoru vomited into a basin.

Suguru held his hair.

Afterward, Satoru lay on his side with his head in Suguru’s lap.

No one had permitted that either.

The veil had been tied around his eyes again. His skull throbbed beneath it.

Suguru stroked his hair slowly.

“The child was standing on a bridge,” Satoru said.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“Water was rising.”

“Satoru.”

“I don’t know whether she drowned.”

Suguru’s hand moved from his hair to the side of his face.

“You saw what they needed.”

“No. I saw pieces.”

“You saw enough to keep the passes open.”

“What if that causes something worse?”

“Then it does.”

Satoru turned his face against Suguru’s stomach.

“That is a terrible answer.”

“It is the only honest one.”

“I hate honest answers.”

“I know.”

“They make you sound wise.”

“A terrible burden.”

Satoru gave a weak laugh.

Suguru’s thumb moved over his cheek.

“They come here because they believe I know everything,” Satoru whispered.

“They come because they are frightened.”

“So am I.”

Suguru’s hand stopped.

Satoru had not meant to say it.

The words felt naked between them.

Then Suguru bent over him.

His forehead touched Satoru’s temple, carefully avoiding the veil.

“I know,” he said.

That evening, Suguru climbed into Satoru’s bed for the first time.

There was no discussion.

Satoru woke from a dream of rising water and found his own hand stretched toward the empty side of the mattress. Suguru entered from the adjoining chamber before Satoru called.

He sat beside him.

Satoru caught his sleeve.

“Stay.”

Suguru lay down over the blankets.

Satoru tugged at him until he moved beneath them.

They faced each other in the dark Satoru always carried with him.

Suguru smelled of sleep and cedar oil.

“Closer,” Satoru said.

Suguru obeyed.

Satoru placed one hand against his chest, over the steady rhythm of his heart.

Suguru’s arm settled around his back.

It was not practical.

There were no slippery steps. No unfamiliar corridor. No physician’s order.

It was only an embrace.

Satoru had been held before.

As a child, servants had carried him when he was ill. Lady Yaga had occasionally pressed him to her side during the worst revelations. Suguru had caught him, steadied him and guided him hundreds of times.

None of those touches had felt like this.

Suguru did not hold him because Satoru was fragile.

He held him as though he wanted him near.

Satoru moved closer until their knees tangled.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Suguru asked.

“No.”

“You have stolen most of the blanket.”

“You’re fortunate I allowed you any.”

Suguru’s breath warmed his forehead.

“Go to sleep.”

“Tell me something.”

“What?”

“A story.”

“I read to you for three hours today.”

“Those were reports.”

“They contained events involving people. That qualifies as a story.”

“Tell me something about you.”

Suguru became quiet.

Satoru waited with his hand over Suguru’s heart.

“When I was nine,” Suguru said at last, “I stole a horse.”

Satoru lifted his head.

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see the sea.”

“Did you?”

“No. The horse belonged to our neighbor and refused to cross the first bridge.”

Satoru laughed against Suguru’s chest.

“I tried bribing him with an apple,” Suguru continued. “He ate it, turned around and carried me home.”

“You were defeated by a horse.”

“I was nine.”

“I would have succeeded at nine.”

“You walked into a pond at twelve.”

“That pond was malicious.”

Suguru’s arm tightened around him.

Their laughter softened together.

Satoru traced a line over Suguru’s robe.

“Did your parents punish you?”

“My mother cried. My father made me clean the stable for a month.”

“Did you ever see the sea?”

“Yes.”

“What is it like?”

Suguru thought for a while.

“Loud,” he said. “Much louder than you expect. It never finishes moving. Even when the surface looks calm, you can hear it pulling stones back and forth beneath the water.”

“What color?”

“Blue when the sky is clear. Gray during storms. Black at night.”

“You’ve seen it at night?”

“Yes.”

“Were you frightened?”

“A little.”

Satoru lowered his head again.

“I want to hear it.”

Suguru’s heartbeat changed beneath his palm.

“One day,” he said.

Satoru smiled.

He fell asleep before he could ask whether that was a promise.

After that night, Suguru’s bed went mostly unused.

Sometimes he returned to it out of principle.

Satoru would wait until the residence became quiet, then call his name once.

Suguru always came.

Other nights, he did not bother leaving.

They spoke in whispers beneath the blankets, sharing secrets that would have sounded unimpressive in daylight.

Suguru admitted that he hated frogs.

Satoru confessed that he had once pretended to receive a revelation merely to end a five-hour ceremony.

Suguru threatened to report him.

Satoru threatened to foresee an unpleasant marriage for him.

They began waking tangled together.

The bathing chamber changed with the bed.

Satoru could no longer remember precisely when being naked beside Suguru had stopped feeling strange.

Perhaps it had happened gradually, through repetition. A robe falling onto the same bench. Suguru’s hand waiting for his at the top of the steps. Their knees touching beneath the water without either of them moving away.

Perhaps it had happened the first time Suguru entered the pool without announcing every movement.

By winter, the chamber no longer filled Satoru with the alarming awareness that he possessed skin. Suguru’s nudity ceased to be a mystery demanding his attention, and his own body no longer felt newly exposed simply because Suguru was there.

They bathed.

They argued over the temperature of the water.

Suguru washed Satoru’s hair and complained that there was too much of it. Satoru retaliated by gathering Suguru’s loose hair and dipping the ends into the bath whenever he became distracted.

Once, Suguru put soap directly into Satoru’s hand and told him to wash his own shoulders.

Satoru dropped it deliberately.

Suguru refused to retrieve it.

They spent several minutes searching the bottom of the pool with their feet before Suguru discovered that Satoru had trapped the soap beneath his thigh.

“You are unbearable,” he said.

“You were neglecting me.”

Suguru splashed water into his face.

Satoru pushed at his chest in retaliation and nearly sent them both beneath the surface.

Their laughter echoed against the stone walls.

There was an intimacy in the absence of embarrassment.

Bodies were still bodies.

Water was still water.

But Suguru’s body had become Suguru, and that made all the difference.

Satoru learned the shape of Suguru slowly.

Not all at once.

A shoulder beneath his cheek in bed.

A hand resting open on the pillow.

A knee fitted between his own.

He learned that Suguru’s feet were always cold and that he clenched his jaw in his sleep when worried.

One morning, Satoru woke before him.

The room was quiet. Winter sunlight rested weakly against the shutters.

Suguru lay on his back.

One of his arms remained beneath Satoru’s neck. His breathing was deep and unguarded.

Satoru lifted his hand.

He had touched Suguru many times by then, but always in fragments. A wrist. A cheek. The line of his back through clothing.

Now curiosity grew too large to ignore.

His fingers found Suguru’s chin.

Soft.

Suguru did not have a beard.

Satoru traced the curve of his jaw, then moved upward. His thumb passed over a closed mouth.

Suguru’s lips were softer than he expected.

He lingered.

Suguru breathed in.

Satoru froze.

The breathing settled again.

Still asleep.

He continued.

The straight bridge of a nose. Thick brows. A smooth forehead.

Hair lay across the pillow. Satoru caught a strand and followed it.

It did not end where he expected.

He drew more of it through his fingers.

And more.

His hand reached Suguru’s shoulder, then his chest, and the hair continued.

Satoru sat up.

“Suguru.”

A sleepy sound.

“Suguru.”

“What?”

“Your hair is long.”

Suguru opened his eyes, though that made no difference to Satoru.

“You woke me to tell me that?”

“How long?”

“What?”

“Your hair.”

“To my shoulder blades.”

Satoru gathered a handful of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I assumed you knew.”

“How would I know?”

“You touch it constantly.”

“I thought that was part of your robe.”

Suguru went silent.

Then he began to laugh.

Satoru struck his chest.

“You allowed me to believe your hair was clothing.”

“I did not realize you believed that.”

“This is deception.”

“This is your failure to ask a basic question.”

Satoru leaned over him and searched for more hair.

Suguru attempted to catch his wrists.

They struggled beneath the blankets until Satoru managed to pin one of Suguru’s arms and gather his hair in both hands.

It was thick.

Smooth near the top, slightly tangled at the ends.

Satoru ran it through his fingers with fascination.

“Why is it so long?”

“Because I have not cut it.”

“Excellent explanation.”

“You asked.”

“Is it black?”

“Yes.”

“How black?”

“Like ink.”

“Does it make you look frightening?”

“Devastatingly.”

“You’re lying.”

“I have been told I’m beautiful.”

“By whom?”

“My mother.”

Satoru laughed.

Suguru took advantage of the distraction and rolled them over.

Satoru landed beneath him.

The mattress dipped on either side of his body where Suguru braced his arms.

Their laughter faded.

Suguru’s hair fell around Satoru’s face.

Satoru touched it again.

Then his fingers moved to Suguru’s cheek.

“You might be ugly,” he said.

“I might.”

“I would never know.”

“You could ask someone.”

“They would lie.”

“Probably.”

Satoru traced the corner of his mouth.

Suguru became very still.

“Describe yourself,” Satoru whispered.

“I have dark hair.”

“I discovered that.”

“Dark eyes.”

“What shape?”

“I don’t know.”

“You see them every day.”

“I see them. I don’t measure them.”

Satoru smiled.

“Your nose?”

“Ordinary.”

“Your mouth?”

Suguru’s breath touched his fingers.

“Ordinary.”

Satoru pressed his thumb lightly against Suguru’s lower lip.

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

Suguru inhaled.

The air between them changed.

Satoru did not understand it, but he felt it everywhere.

In the space beneath his ribs.

In the hand resting against Suguru’s mouth.

In the sudden awareness that Suguru’s body covered his without touching.

Suguru moved first.

He sat back.

His hair slipped from Satoru’s face.

“We should get up,” he said.

Satoru lay still.

“Yes.”

Neither of them moved for several moments.

Afterward, Suguru tied his hair into a high knot.

Satoru spent the morning imagining how it looked loose around his shoulders.

Spring arrived with warm rain.

Suguru began taking Satoru farther through the grounds.

At first, only to the neglected northern gardens, where old stone animals guarded paths no one used. Then to the orchard beyond the shrine, officially part of the sacred residence but distant enough that the palace roofs vanished behind the trees.

The world expanded in increments.

Satoru discovered that the orchard became loud with bees at midday. He learned the river could be heard from the western wall when the wind changed. He found an abandoned watchtower where Suguru claimed the entire valley was visible.

“Describe it,” Satoru demanded.

They sat on the upper platform with their backs against the stone.

Suguru’s shoulder pressed to his.

“The palace is behind us.”

“I know.”

“The city spreads south. The roofs are mostly gray, but some are painted blue or red. There is smoke from the markets. Beyond the walls, the fields are green. The river divides them, shining where the sun touches it.”

“And farther?”

“Mountains.”

“How many?”

Suguru laughed softly. “A great many.”

“Useless.”

“They are dark near the ground and white at their peaks. Clouds are caught between them.”

Satoru leaned his head against Suguru.

“What is beyond those?”

“More mountains.”

“And beyond those?”

“The sea, eventually.”

The sea.

A thing that never finished moving.

“One day,” Satoru said.

Suguru did not pretend to misunderstand.

“Yes.”

They sat until the afternoon cooled.

No guards searched for them. Suguru had informed Lady Yaga of their destination, though not how far they intended to climb.

The freedom was borrowed, but Satoru cherished it.

His life had always been measured in permitted spaces.

The ceremonial hall.

His rooms.

The inner garden.

The eastern shrine.

The bathing chamber.

Every door opened for him, yet nearly all led somewhere within the same walls.

Suguru spoke of streets crowded with vendors, festivals where strangers danced, inns where travelers exchanged impossible stories. He had seen the sea, climbed trees, stolen a horse and once eaten fried dough so hot it burned his tongue.

Satoru had been worshipped by thousands.

He had never purchased his own food.

The injustice of it began as an irritation.

Suguru turned it into anger.

“They say it is for your protection,” Suguru said one evening.

They were lying beside the pond with their sleeves rolled to their elbows. Satoru trailed his fingers through the cool water.

“It is.”

“From what?”

“Kidnapping. Assassination. Foreign courts wanting access to my visions.”

“You could leave with guards.”

“The guards would attract attention.”

“You attract attention here.”

“I’m supposed to.”

Suguru plucked grass beside him.

“They treat you like an object.”

Satoru turned his head.

“They treat me like the most important person in the kingdom.”

“Those are not opposites.”

No one had ever spoken of his life that way.

Even Satoru had not.

He was privileged.

Honored.

Fed before others during famine. Dressed in silk woven specifically for him. Given rooms larger than most families’ homes.

How could a person possessing everything complain that nothing belonged to him?

“Without the residence, I would be in danger,” he said.

“I know.”

“People need the revelations.”

“I know.”

“The veil protects my mind.”

“Satoru.”

Suguru’s voice softened.

“I know.”

Satoru removed his fingers from the pond.

Water slipped down his wrist.

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to know that you are allowed to want more.”

The answer frightened him more than any argument.

Wanting was dangerous.

A vision could be endured because it came from somewhere beyond him. Duty could be endured because it had existed before he was born.

Wanting belonged entirely to Satoru.

No one else could carry it.

“What if more isn’t possible?” he asked.

Suguru’s hand found his wet one in the grass.

Their fingers intertwined.

“Then you should still be allowed to want it.”

Satoru held on.

Suguru removed the veil for the first time in early summer.

Not for a revelation.

Not for physicians or priests.

For himself.

They were in Satoru’s room after the evening meal. Rain had fallen earlier, leaving the garden damp and fragrant. Moths struck softly against the paper lanterns.

Suguru sat behind him, untying his hair.

Satoru’s bandage had become uncomfortable in the heat. Sweat gathered beneath the layers at his temples.

“It’s too tight,” he complained.

“I tied it the same way as always.”

“My head has grown.”

“That would explain many things.”

Satoru elbowed him.

Suguru caught his arm.

“Should I retie it?”

“No.”

“You will complain all night.”

“I will complain regardless.”

“I know.”

Suguru’s fingers found the knot.

Then stopped.

Satoru waited.

“May I remove it?” Suguru asked.

The garden seemed to quiet.

Satoru’s heart did not.

“Why?”

“Your skin is irritated.”

“You could loosen it.”

“I could.”

Suguru did not move.

Satoru understood then that the question was not about discomfort.

“You want to see.”

Suguru’s fingers remained near the knot.

“Yes.”

There was no shame in the answer.

Only honesty.

Satoru had opened his eyes before hundreds of people. Officials fell silent when he looked upon them. Priests lowered their heads. Some cried. Some shook.

No one had ever asked to see him simply because they wanted to.

“What if I see something?” Satoru whispered.

“Then close your eyes.”

“What if it’s you?”

Suguru’s hand lowered to his shoulder.

“Then we face it.”

The same terrible honesty.

Satoru hated it.

He depended upon it.

“Take it off,” he said.

Suguru untied the veil.

The cloth loosened slowly, each layer whispering over Satoru’s hair and skin.

Cool air touched his eyelids.

The final strip fell away.

Satoru kept his eyes closed.

Behind them waited light.

Color.

Possibility.

His vision was not ordinary. He had been born blind to the present and open to things that had not yet happened. When the veil was removed, he sometimes perceived the world in fractured impressions, light without shape, movement without distance. The physicians believed his eyes gathered too much of everything and therefore understood nothing.

People called them beautiful.

People called them divine.

Satoru had never seen them.

Suguru came around and knelt before him.

His breath was unsteady.

Satoru smiled nervously.

“Open your eyes,” Suguru murmured.

Satoru did.

White light flooded him.

He gasped.

For an instant, the room became a field of brightness without edges.

Then darkness gathered inside it, forming the vague impression of someone kneeling before him.

Not a face.

Not truly.

A shadow crowned by darker hair.

Suguru.

Satoru stared.

Pain began behind his eyes, but he refused to close them.

The shadow moved.

A hand touched his cheek.

“You look like an angel,” Suguru whispered.

Satoru’s throat tightened.

“Angels aren’t real.”

“You are.”

“I’m not an angel.”

“No.” Suguru’s thumb moved beneath his eye. “You’re stranger than that.”

Satoru laughed shakily.

The light splintered.

For one terrifying heartbeat, the future opened.

He saw Suguru standing beneath a summer tree.

Older.

His hair longer.

He was smiling at someone beyond Satoru’s sight.

The image vanished before Satoru could understand it.

He closed his eyes.

Suguru’s hands framed his face.

“What happened?”

“Nothing bad.”

“What did you see?”

“You.”

Suguru went still.

“Dying?”

“No.”

“Leaving?”

“No.”

Satoru opened his eyes again, though only darkness waited now behind his closed lids.

“You were older.”

“How much older?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ancient?”

“Hideous.”

“Then it could not have been me.”

Satoru smiled.

Suguru leaned forward.

Their foreheads touched.

“You were smiling,” Satoru said.

“At what?”

“I couldn’t see.”

“At you, probably.”

The answer came too easily.

Suguru seemed to realize it after speaking.

His breath stopped.

Satoru did not know what to say.

So he lifted his hands and explored Suguru’s face again.

This time Suguru guided him.

He turned slightly beneath Satoru’s palms, allowing fingers to pass over his forehead, cheeks and jaw.

“You have a scar,” Satoru said, finding a thin raised line near Suguru’s temple.

“I fell from a roof.”

“Were you stealing it?”

“The roof?”

“You have a criminal history.”

“I was twelve.”

“Old enough to know better.”

“You pretended to be a god at fourteen.”

“They already believed I was one.”

Satoru traced the scar once more.

Then he found Suguru’s mouth.

Suguru did not move away.

“What do I look like?” Satoru asked.

Suguru’s lips brushed his fingertips when he answered.

“White hair.”

“I know that.”

“Very pale skin.”

“Boring.”

“Eyes unlike anything else in the world.”

“That is what everyone says.”

“Then everyone is right.”

Satoru frowned.

Suguru caught his wrist and kissed the center of his palm.

The touch was brief.

Almost nothing.

Satoru stopped breathing.

“You’re beautiful,” Suguru said. “Not divine. Not frightening. Not because of your powers.”

His mouth remained near Satoru’s hand.

“You are simply beautiful.”

No one had ever called him simple before.

Satoru thought it might be the kindest thing anyone had said.

The idea of leaving began as a joke.

Most dangerous things did.

They were sitting beneath the plum tree when Suguru said, “The summer festival begins tomorrow.”

“I know. They have been hanging bells for a week. I hope all of them break.”

“There will be food stalls along the river.”

“I hope those survive.”

“And musicians.”

“They can go with the bells.”

“Dancers.”

“Unimportant.”

“Lantern boats.”

Satoru paused.

“What are those?”

“Small boats made of folded paper. People place candles inside and release them onto the river after dark.”

“Why?”

“To honor the dead. Or make wishes. It depends who you ask.”

Satoru leaned back against the tree.

“Have you done it?”

“When I was younger.”

“What did you wish for?”

Suguru plucked a blade of grass.

“If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

“That is childish.”

“You asked.”

Satoru listened to wind move through the branches.

From beyond the residence walls came the distant clatter of the city preparing for celebration.

The gates would open at dawn.

Families from the surrounding villages would arrive. Children would carry painted masks and paper suns. The palace would distribute grain and coins in Satoru’s name.

He would remain inside.

“What does fried dough taste like?” he asked.

Suguru was quiet for a moment.

“Sweet.”

“I know what sweet tastes like.”

“Crisp outside. Soft inside. Hot enough to hurt if you eat too quickly.”

“I don’t eat too quickly.”

“You swallowed an entire dumpling last month.”

“It was escaping.”

Suguru laughed.

Satoru turned the matter over in his mind.

“Take me.”

The laughter stopped.

“To the festival?” Suguru asked.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You haven’t considered it.”

“I considered it before you finished speaking.”

“You said I was allowed to want more.”

“I did not say I was allowed to help you get kidnapped.”

“I won’t be kidnapped.”

“A convincing argument.”

“Take me somewhere else, then.”

“Satoru.”

“Outside.”

“You walk outside every day.”

“Outside the walls.”

Suguru’s silence became tense.

Satoru sat up.

“You said people should see me.”

“I said you deserve to see the world.”

“Then show me.”

“I can’t show you anything if we are caught before reaching the gate.”

“Who will stop us?”

“Every guard in the residence.”

“They obey me.”

“They obey the council.”

Satoru crossed his arms.

“They told me I cannot leave.”

“Correct.”

“You told me they treat me like an object.”

“I did.”

“And now you agree with them.”

“I agree that taking the most politically valuable person in the kingdom through a crowded festival without protection would be idiotic.”

“Then don’t take me to the festival.”

Suguru exhaled through his nose.

Satoru knew he was winning.

“There is a service gate behind the old kitchens,” he continued. “It opens onto the northern road.”

“How do you know?”

“I listen when people speak.”

“That road passes the guard barracks.”

“Not if we cross the herb garden and follow the irrigation channel.”

“You have planned this.”

“I became inspired moments ago.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

“And you are changing the subject.”

Suguru stood.

Satoru heard him pace toward the pond, then back.

“No,” he said.

Satoru lowered his chin.

“No?”

“No.”

“Fine.”

Suguru stopped pacing.

“That was easy.”

“I accept your decision.”

“You never accept anything.”

“Perhaps another Keeper will take me.”

Suguru’s robes snapped as he turned.

“There will be no other Keeper.”

Satoru smiled.

“Then I suppose I will never leave.”

“That is manipulation.”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

It worked.

Before dawn the next morning, Suguru shook Satoru awake.

Satoru opened his eyes beneath the veil.

“What?”

“Get dressed.”

“For what?”

“We are leaving before I regain my judgment.”

Satoru sat upright so quickly that their foreheads collided.

Suguru cursed.

Satoru laughed and caught his face between both hands.

“You mean it?”

“I mean that I am making the worst decision of my life.”

“You stole a horse.”

“The horse brought me home.”

“I’m excited.”

“That is exactly what concerns me.”

Satoru threw off the blankets.

Suguru had prepared plain clothes. No ceremonial white, no embroidered crest of the Six Eyes. A soft gray robe, narrow trousers and worn shoes borrowed from a servant of similar height.

He wrapped Satoru’s eyes in an ordinary dark cloth.

“White would be noticed,” he explained.

“Do I look common?”

“You look expensive while attempting not to.”

“Good.”

They crossed the residence while servants slept.

Suguru guided him through the old kitchens and over the herb garden wall. Satoru tore his sleeve and nearly landed in a patch of rosemary.

At the irrigation channel, they crouched behind a low stone wall while two guards passed.

Satoru’s heart beat so loudly he feared they would hear it.

Suguru held a hand over his mouth, though Satoru was not making a sound.

Satoru licked his palm.

Suguru recoiled.

“Disgusting,” he whispered.

“You were crushing my lips.”

“I was preventing you from speaking.”

“I wasn’t speaking.”

“You were going to.”

“You can’t punish me for the future. That is my profession.”

Suguru struggled not to laugh.

When the guards disappeared, they ran.

Satoru had never run without someone trying to stop him.

Suguru’s hand held his.

The ground changed beneath Satoru’s feet: stone, damp earth, grass, then packed road.

Wind struck his face.

The palace bells began ringing behind them.

Not in alarm.

The first call of morning.

For once, they did not summon him.

They kept running until Satoru’s lungs burned.

Suguru pulled him from the road and through a line of trees.

“Wait,” Satoru gasped. “I am dying.”

“You insisted.”

“I didn’t know freedom required this much effort.”

Suguru bent forward, breathing hard.

Then he laughed.

Satoru laughed with him.

They collapsed in the grass.

The earth was cool beneath Satoru’s back. Above him, birds shouted from branches. Wind moved without being broken by walls.

The air smelled enormous.

Soil, leaves, distant smoke, wildflowers and something wet.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“A meadow north of the city.”

“No walls?”

“None nearby.”

“No guards?”

“Not unless they have learned to hide inside sheep.”

Satoru listened.

A soft chorus of bleating drifted from somewhere to the east.

He began laughing again.

Suguru rolled onto his side.

“What?”

“There are sheep.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never heard one nearby.”

“They are not especially interesting.”

“You have no appreciation for wonder.”

Satoru rose to his knees.

“Take me to them.”

The sheep fled.

Satoru considered this an insult.

Suguru claimed it was common sense.

They continued north as the sun rose.

Suguru purchased food from a roadside stall, changing his voice slightly and calling Satoru his cousin when the old woman asked where they were traveling.

Satoru waited until they were far away before saying, “Your cousin?”

“What would you prefer?”

“Beloved royal oracle.”

“We were attempting not to attract attention.”

“You could have said friend.”

Suguru’s hand tightened around the paper packet he carried.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. “I could have.”

They ate beside a stream.

The fried dough was exactly as Suguru had described: crisp, soft, sweet and hot enough to burn Satoru’s tongue because he ate it too quickly.

Suguru laughed without sympathy.

Afterward, he showed Satoru how to skip stones.

Satoru failed six times.

On the seventh, the stone struck Suguru’s ankle.

“You aimed at me.”

“I cannot aim.”

“You turned toward my voice.”

“An unfortunate coincidence.”

By midday, they reached the forest.

Satoru had walked among carefully cultivated trees his entire life. The forest was nothing like the gardens.

It crowded him.

Branches caught his clothes. Roots rose unexpectedly beneath his feet. Insects hummed near his ears. The ground was layered with leaves, each step sinking softly into years of things that had lived and fallen.

Suguru narrated everything.

“Moss on the left.”

“What color?”

“Green.”

“Lazy.”

“Green like the roof tiles after rain.”

“Better.”

“White flowers near your feet.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

“You brought me into the wilderness without knowing flowers?”

“I did not realize I was responsible for naming every plant.”

“You are my Keeper.”

“You have expanded the role considerably.”

Satoru reached for him.

His fingers caught Suguru’s hair instead of his sleeve.

It had come loose from its tie.

He wrapped the length around his hand.

“Found you.”

“You could simply call my name.”

“This is more reliable.”

Suguru allowed Satoru to keep hold of his hair as they walked.

Eventually the trees opened.

Satoru heard water.

Not the narrow song of a fountain or stream.

A broad, gentle movement.

“A lake,” Suguru said.

Satoru released his hair.

“How large?”

“Large enough that you cannot throw a stone across it.”

“I could.”

“You could not throw a stone across the pond.”

“The pond and I have an understanding.”

Sunlight warmed Satoru’s face.

He walked forward until Suguru caught his waist.

“The ground drops.”

“How far?”

“Two steps. Then water.”

Satoru removed his shoes.

“Satoru.”

“We came to experience the world.”

“The world includes drowning.”

“You can swim.”

"But you cannot."

“I want to learn.”

Suguru’s hold tightened around his waist.

"It could be dangerous."

Satoru smiled.

“That sounded like fear.”

“It was disbelief.”

“You said I should be allowed to want more.”

“I did not imagine you would interpret that as an invitation to test every possible method of dying.”

“I won’t die.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I am the kingdom’s most powerful seer.”

“You just spent half an hour throwing stones at the ground.”

Satoru removed his outer robe.

Suguru stopped speaking.

The silence pleased him.

He folded the robe badly and dropped it beside his shoes. Beneath it, he wore only a thin summer layer, light enough that the wind pressed it against his legs.

“Are you watching me?” he asked.

“I am trying to decide whether I can carry you back to the palace by force.”

“You could try.”

Suguru muttered something unkind beneath his breath.

Satoru stepped forward.

Cold water closed over his feet.

He inhaled sharply.

The lakebed was soft beneath his soles, sand giving way to small stones. He took another step. Water climbed past his ankles, then his calves.

Suguru followed close behind, removing his own robe and entering the water.

Satoru could hear every careful movement.

“You’re hovering,” he said.

“I am preventing a national crisis.”

“You worry too much.”

“You worry too little.”

Water reached Satoru’s knees.

He continued.

The ground dipped gradually, and the lake rose around his thighs. Sunlight rested hot on his shoulders while cold water pressed against everything below.

It felt impossible.

Two worlds touching at his waist.

Satoru spread his arms.

“Suguru.”

“What?”

“It’s enormous.”

Suguru’s voice softened.

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing around me.”

“There is water around you.”

“You know what I mean.”

He did.

The palace gardens had always told Satoru where they ended. Walls returned every sound. Roofs interrupted the wind. Even silence came back to him shaped by stone.

The lake gave nothing back.

The water moved away from him and continued moving.

Wind crossed it without obstruction.

For the first time in his life, Satoru stood somewhere that did not immediately reveal its boundaries.

He laughed.

The sound traveled over the lake and disappeared.

Suguru came closer.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m happy.”

The confession left Satoru without warning.

Suguru stopped behind him.

Satoru lowered his arms.

He had said happy before.

He had been happy when the kitchens prepared sweet dumplings. Happy when Lady Yaga canceled ceremonies. Happy when Suguru fell into the bathing pool.

This felt too large for the word.

It filled his chest until breathing hurt.

“Satoru,” Suguru said quietly.

Satoru turned toward him.

“Take me farther.”

“The water deepens quickly.”

“You’ll hold me.”

It was not a question.

Suguru moved in front of him.

“Put your hands on my shoulders.”

Satoru obeyed.

Suguru’s wet clothing clung to him. The shape of his body was clearer beneath Satoru’s hands than it had ever been through dry robes.

Broad shoulders.

Warm skin beneath thin fabric.

Hair trailing damply over his back.

Suguru placed both hands at Satoru’s waist.

“Walk with me.”

They moved deeper.

The water rose over Satoru’s hips, then his stomach.

He sucked in a breath when it reached his ribs.

Suguru smiled.

“Still happy?”

“Be quiet.”

“Your delicate constitution appears troubled.”

“I will drown you.”

“You need me.”

Satoru dug his fingers into Suguru’s shoulders.

“Only until I learn.”

Something changed in Suguru’s breathing.

It happened often now.

A pause after Satoru touched him.

A careful breath when they woke too close.

A silence when Satoru said something Suguru seemed unable to answer.

Satoru had begun collecting those moments without understanding them.

The lake rose to his chest.

“Now,” Suguru said, “lean back.”

“No.”

“I thought you trusted me.”

“If I lean backward, water will enter my ears.”

“That is generally how water behaves.”

Satoru frowned beneath the dark cloth covering his eyes.

Suguru’s thumbs moved once against his waist.

“I won’t let you sink.”

“You cannot promise that.”

“I can.”

“How?”

“Because I’m holding you.”

It was a very Suguru answer.

Simple enough to be irritating.

Honest enough to work.

Satoru loosened his grip.

He leaned back.

For one terrible instant, there was no ground beneath his feet.

His body reacted before his mind could. He grabbed Suguru’s neck, kicked wildly and nearly struck him in the stomach.

Suguru held on.

“I have you.”

“Suguru.”

“I have you.”

Water covered Satoru’s ears.

The forest vanished.

The birds disappeared.

The world became the lake moving around him and Suguru’s voice traveling through it.

His body rose.

He floated.

Satoru stopped fighting.

Suguru’s hands supported his back.

“There,” he murmured. “You’re doing it.”

“I’m doing nothing.”

“That is the point.”

Satoru smiled.

Sunlight warmed his face. Water carried the rest of him.

He could not remember ever feeling so light.

Suguru slowly removed one hand.

Satoru tensed.

“I’m still here,” Suguru said.

The second hand remained beneath his back.

Then it moved too.

Satoru floated alone.

A laugh rose out of him, startled and breathless.

“Suguru.”

“I’m beside you.”

“I’m floating.”

“Yes.”

“You should sound more impressed.”

“I’m overwhelmed.”

Satoru reached toward his voice.

Suguru caught his hand.

Their fingers joined upon the surface of the water.

Satoru floated until the cold began entering his bones.

Afterward, Suguru taught him to swim.

Satoru understood the movements quickly and performed them badly.

He swallowed water twice.

He kicked Suguru three times.

He insisted both incidents were deliberate.

When they finally returned to the shallows, Suguru’s hair had come completely loose. Wet strands clung to Satoru’s arms each time they moved near one another.

Satoru caught a handful.

“You look terrible,” Suguru told him.

“You look like a drowned criminal.”

“That is remarkably specific for someone who cannot see me.”

“I have a strong imagination.”

Suguru wrung water from the ends of his hair.

Satoru listened.

“Is it shining?” he asked.

“My hair?”

“The lake.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Like someone broke the sun into thousands of pieces and scattered them across the water.”

Satoru stood very still.

“Thousands?”

“Perhaps more.”

“Does it hurt to look at?”

“A little.”

Satoru raised his face toward the warmth.

“Take off my veil.”

Suguru’s hands stopped.

“Satoru.”

“I want to see it.”

“You may receive a vision.”

“I may not.”

“The light will hurt you.”

“Only for a moment.”

Suguru came closer.

Water moved around his knees.

“We are far from help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“You collapsed during the last revelation.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I wasn’t happy.”

Suguru did not answer.

Satoru reached behind his head, but Suguru caught both his wrists.

“Wait.”

“I have waited eighteen years.”

“You cannot use your entire life to win every argument.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is extremely effective.”

Satoru smiled.

Suguru released one wrist and touched the knot of the dark cloth.

“If anything begins, you close your eyes immediately.”

“Yes.”

“You tell me what you feel.”

“Yes.”

“You do not try to hold the vision.”

“Yes.”

“Satoru.”

“I promise.”

Suguru untied the veil.

The damp cloth loosened and slid away.

Satoru kept his eyes shut.

The sun was brighter against his eyelids here than within the palace. It turned the darkness red and gold.

Suguru stood close enough that their wet sleeves touched.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

Satoru opened his eyes.

Light entered him.

It had no beginning.

No edge.

No mercy.

He gasped and reached blindly forward.

Suguru caught him.

Satoru saw brightness spread over everything, white and blue and gold collapsing into one another. The lake was not a shape. The forest was not a shape.

They were vast impressions.

Movement.

Heat.

Color too large for names.

In front of him, Suguru became a dark figure against the brilliance.

His hair moved in the wind.

His hands remained at Satoru’s waist.

Satoru stared.

Suguru had described himself as ordinary.

He had lied.

Not because Satoru could see his face. He could not.

But the world seemed to gather around him.

Darkness within light.

Something solid enough that Satoru’s confused eyes could find him when everything else dissolved.

“You,” Satoru whispered.

Suguru leaned nearer.

“What?”

“I can see you. You are majestic, Suguru.”

The dark figure stilled.

Satoru lifted both hands.

He found Suguru’s face.

Wet cheeks.

The line of his jaw.

A mouth parted in surprise.

“You’re there,” Satoru said.

“I’m here.”

The light trembled.

Pain began at the back of Satoru’s eyes.

He should have closed them.

Instead, he looked as long as he could.

Suguru’s shape blurred, then returned.

“Satoru,” he said softly. “That’s enough.”

“Not yet.”

“You’re crying.”

Satoru had not noticed.

Suguru wiped the tears with his thumbs.

Satoru closed his eyes.

Darkness folded around him again.

The pain remained, but nothing else came.

No blood.

No broken wheel.

No future forcing itself into the present.

Only Suguru.

Satoru breathed.

“Nothing happened.”

“No.”

“I looked, and nothing happened.”

Suguru’s forehead touched his.

“Nothing bad happened.”

The distinction mattered.

Satoru understood that.

He also understood that his hands were still holding Suguru’s face.

That Suguru’s hands had moved from his waist to the small of his back.

That they stood knee-deep in a lake beyond every wall Satoru had known, wet and shivering and alone.

He thought of waking beneath Suguru’s hair.

Of a kiss placed in his palm.

Of the steady heart under his hand at night.

Satoru did not know the name of what had grown between them.

He only knew he wanted to move closer.

So he did.

His mouth found the corner of Suguru’s first.

A mistake of distance.

Suguru inhaled.

Satoru adjusted by touch and kissed him properly.

It was gentle because Satoru did not know how else to begin.

Suguru’s lips were warm despite the lake.

Softer than Satoru’s fingers remembered.

For one suspended heartbeat, Suguru did nothing.

Then the hand at Satoru’s back pressed him nearer.

Suguru kissed him.

The lake moved against their legs.

Wind cooled the water on their faces.

Satoru had imagined kisses before in an abstract way. Stories were filled with them. Poems treated them as promises, catastrophes or cures for illnesses no physician could name.

None had explained the quiet.

The way Suguru’s breath caught against his mouth.

The way Satoru’s hands stopped searching because, for once, he had found exactly what he wanted.

The kiss ended slowly.

Neither moved away.

Suguru’s nose brushed his.

Satoru smiled.

Suguru began laughing.

A small, embarrassed sound.

Satoru laughed too.

“Why are you laughing?” he whispered.

“You surprised me.”

“You should be more prepared.”

“For you to kiss me in lakes?”

“For everything.”

Suguru kissed him again.

Briefly.

Enough to silence him.

Satoru felt heat rise through his face.

“That was unfair.”

“You were talking too much.”

“I always talk this much.”

“I know.”

Suguru tied the veil around his eyes again.

His fingers trembled at the knot.

Satoru pretended not to notice.

They spent the afternoon as though time had ceased belonging to anyone else.

They dried their clothes beneath the sun and lay in the grass wearing only their underlayers. Suguru described clouds drifting over the lake. Satoru decided what each one resembled without seeing them.

“A ship,” Suguru said.

“A dead dragon.”

“It looks nothing like a dragon.”

“You lack imagination.”

“Another cloud resembles a rabbit.”

“A larger dragon.”

“All clouds are dragons to you.”

“It is a very dangerous sky.”

They shared the remaining fried dough.

Satoru stretched across Suguru’s chest and listened to him breathe.

Suguru ran his fingers through Satoru’s drying hair.

No attendants waited nearby.

No bells called them.

No priest asked what tomorrow contained.

For several hours, Satoru belonged only to himself.

The knowledge made him almost unbearably tender.

“Suguru.”

“Hmm?”

“This is the best day of my life.”

Suguru’s fingers paused.

Satoru regretted saying it immediately.

It sounded too sincere beneath the open sky.

He tried to turn it into a joke.

“The competition was poor.”

Suguru’s hand moved again.

“Satoru.”

“What?”

“I’m glad.”

“That I have had an unfortunate life?”

“That you’re here.”

Satoru pressed his cheek against Suguru’s chest.

His heart beat beneath it.

“You brought me.”

“You manipulated me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Suguru laughed.

Satoru closed his covered eyes.

After a while, he said, “I thought something would happen.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Guards. A vision. A storm. You being eaten by one of the sheep.”

“The sheep were frightened of you.”

“They recognized my power.”

Suguru’s arm tightened around him.

Satoru listened to the lake.

“I always think something will happen after I am happy,” he confessed.

Suguru became quiet.

“Because of Riko?”

“Because happiness makes people careless.”

“That is something frightened people tell themselves.”

“I am frightened.”

“I know.”

“What if today asks for something in return?”

Suguru turned onto his side, shifting Satoru with him.

Their faces were close.

Satoru felt Suguru’s breath against his lips and remembered the kiss.

“Then it will have to ask me,” Suguru said.

“You cannot fight the future.”

“No.”

“Then what would you do?”

“Stand beside you when it arrives.”

Satoru swallowed.

That answer was worse than a promise.

Promises could be broken.

Suguru spoke as though remaining beside him was merely a fact.

Satoru found his face and kissed him once more.

This time there was no surprise.

Suguru’s fingers entered his hair.

Their mouths moved together with growing confidence, still soft, still interrupted by small smiles neither could contain.

When they separated, Satoru rested his forehead against Suguru’s.

“Tell me what I look like now.”

Suguru touched his cheek.

“Your hair is tangled.”

“Cruel.”

“Your face is red.”

“It is the sun.”

“Of course.”

“And?”

Suguru brushed his thumb over Satoru’s lower lip.

“You look happy.”

Satoru smiled.

“Then remember it.”

“I will.”

They returned after sunset.

The service gate remained unguarded.

No alarm had been raised. No soldiers waited in Satoru’s rooms. Lady Yaga had not summoned the council.

The palace had continued without him.

That offended Satoru slightly.

It also filled him with relief.

Suguru helped him exchange the plain clothes for a sleeping robe. They worked in silence broken by quiet laughter whenever their hands touched.

Neither mentioned the kiss directly.

It hovered around them anyway.

Satoru felt it when Suguru unwound his hair.

He felt it when Suguru’s knuckles grazed his neck.

He felt it when they lay down together and Suguru hesitated before placing an arm around him.

Satoru solved the hesitation by moving close enough that his face fit beneath Suguru’s chin.

“Nothing happened,” he murmured.

Suguru kissed the top of his head.

“Nothing happened.”

Satoru touched his own lips after Suguru fell asleep.

He smiled into the darkness.

The next morning, Satoru woke alone.

At first, he thought Suguru had risen early.

He washed his face, tied his robe and waited beside the open garden doors.

A servant brought breakfast.

Suguru did not follow.

“Where is my Keeper?” Satoru asked.

The servant placed the tray too carefully.

“Lord Geto has been called away for the morning.”

“Called where?”

“I was not informed.”

That was a lie.

Satoru heard it in the servant’s breath.

“By whom?”

“I truly do not know, my lord.”

“Bring Lady Yaga.”

“She is occupied.”

“Then interrupt her.”

The servant left.

Lady Yaga did not come.

Instead, a young attendant named Yuta entered and announced that he would remain with Satoru until Suguru returned.

Yuta possessed a calm voice and no patience for foolishness. Satoru had always liked him.

That morning, he hated everything about him.

“Read,” Satoru ordered.

Yuta opened the book Suguru had left near the brazier.

His voice was clear.

The words sounded wrong.

“Stop.”

Yuta stopped.

“Walk with me.”

They crossed the garden.

Yuta stayed half a step ahead, exactly as he had been trained.

His sleeve never touched Satoru’s.

“Where is Suguru?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do.”

“I know he was summoned after last night.”

Satoru stopped.

Yuta stopped with him.

“Who summoned him?”

“I was not present.”

“You know.”

Yuta exhaled.

“The council secretary delivered the order.”

Cold entered Satoru’s chest.

“They discovered we left.”

Yuta did not answer.

Satoru turned toward the palace.

“I am going to the council chamber.”

“You are not expected there.”

“I am rarely expected anywhere interesting.”

Yuta stepped into his path.

Satoru nearly collided with him.

“You cannot enter without being summoned.”

“Move.”

“My lord.”

“I said move.”

Yuta did not.

Satoru’s anger sharpened.

People had denied him things his entire life.

They usually did so with bowed heads and apologetic voices, as though courtesy transformed a locked door into kindness.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he hurt?”

“I have no reason to believe so.”

“Has he been dismissed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then find out.”

Yuta remained silent.

Satoru clenched his hands.

A headache began behind his eyes.

Not a vision.

Fear.

He had spent the entire journey home waiting for the future to punish him.

Perhaps it had merely waited until morning.

Suguru did not return that day.

Satoru refused lunch.

He refused the afternoon lesson, the physician and Lady Yaga when she finally entered his rooms shortly before sunset.

She sat across from him.

“You left the residence,” she said.

Satoru faced the garden.

“Yes.”

“You crossed the city boundary without guards.”

“Yes.”

“You could have been taken.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You could have been killed.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Geto endangered you.”

“No.”

“He ignored every rule of his position.”

“I ordered him.”

Lady Yaga’s silence was exhausted.

“Where is he?” Satoru asked.

“He has returned to his family’s rooms.”

“For how long?”

“That has not been decided.”

Satoru’s fingernails pressed into his palms.

“Bring him back.”

“The council is considering whether his service should continue.”

“I am not.”

“You do not decide alone.”

“I should.”

“You were born into a responsibility larger than your wishes.”

The words were familiar.

Priests had spoken them over him since childhood.

For the first time, Satoru heard what Suguru heard.

You are not a person large enough to own your life.

He stood.

Lady Yaga did not move.

“Bring him back,” he repeated.

“I cannot.”

“Then tell them I will provide no revelations until he returns.”

“Satoru.”

“They need me.”

“That is not something to use carelessly.”

“They use me carelessly.”

Lady Yaga’s breath changed.

Satoru knew he had struck something true.

He turned toward her.

“Did you tell them?”

“No.”

“Did you know?”

“I suspected you intended to leave.”

“And you did nothing.”

“I remembered being eighteen.”

Satoru had never imagined Lady Yaga at eighteen.

The idea was disturbing.

“Then help me.”

“I am trying.”

“By sending him away?”

“By preventing them from dismissing him permanently.”

Satoru’s anger faltered.

Lady Yaga rose.

“The council believes Geto has forgotten the nature of his position. They believe he encourages disobedience and attachment.”

“Attachment.”

“Yes.”

The word sounded ugly in her mouth only because it had come from someone else first.

Satoru thought of Suguru kissing his palm.

Of laughter in the bath.

Of lying beneath the sky.

“Is that forbidden?”

“For a Keeper, emotional involvement has always been discouraged.”

“Why?”

“Because Keepers leave. Because seers die young. Because affection complicates duty.”

“Duty is already complicated.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Lady Yaga came closer.

She did not touch him.

“I have watched six children born with sacred sight,” she said. “You are the only one who survived past infancy.”

Satoru went still.

Lady Yaga rarely spoke of the children before him.

Their names were written in temple records.

Small lives reduced to dates.

“The household has protected you with fear,” she continued. “Fear of losing you. Fear of what the kingdom becomes without you. Fear is not wise merely because it has kept someone alive.”

“Then tell them that.”

“I have.”

“And?”

“They are still frightened.”

Satoru’s jaw tightened.

“When will he return?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned away.

Lady Yaga remained for a moment.

Then she said, “Eat something.”

Satoru did not answer.

He listened until her footsteps disappeared.

That night, he slept alone.

The bed was too large.

Satoru had slept there alone for most of his life. He knew exactly how to arrange the pillows, how to find the water table and how many steps separated the mattress from the adjoining chamber.

Nothing had changed.

He lay on his side and told himself that.

Suguru had been absent before.

Every tenth morning.

Several afternoons for family visits.

Once for three days when winter fever spread through the lower city.

Satoru had survived each absence.

He would survive this one.

The problem was not the empty bed.

It was what might replace it.

A new Keeper.

A careful voice.

Announced touches.

Silence shaped like fear.

Satoru folded his arms around himself.

During the day, accepting distance had seemed possible.

People left.

Rules returned.

His life had possessed a shape before Suguru entered it. Satoru could fit himself inside that shape again.

In darkness, the lie became unbearable.

“I want him to hold me,” he whispered to the empty room.

No one came.

Suguru returned the following afternoon.

Satoru heard him before he entered.

The same unquiet breathing.

The same weight resting more heavily on his right foot.

Satoru stood so quickly that tea spilled across the table.

Suguru crossed the room.

Satoru waited for him to come close.

He stopped three paces away.

“My lord.”

The title struck harder than an insult.

Satoru lowered his hands.

“You’re back.”

“Yes.”

“Where were you?”

“With the council.”

“For an entire day?”

“With my family afterward.”

“Why?”

“I was told to remain there.”

Suguru’s voice was warm.

Careful.

Formal.

The same voice he had used during his first weeks.

Satoru hated it immediately.

“Come here.”

Suguru obeyed.

Three steps.

He stopped beyond reach.

“One more.”

A pause.

Then Suguru moved closer.

Satoru lifted his hand.

Suguru did not retreat, but he did not lean into the touch either.

Satoru found his wrist.

His pulse was fast.

“Are you frightened?” Satoru asked.

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

Suguru carefully removed his wrist from Satoru’s hand.

“I apologize.”

“For lying?”

“For being absent.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I’m well.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

“Did they threaten you?”

“No.”

Another lie.

Satoru knew it.

Suguru knew he knew.

Neither spoke of it.

The day continued almost normally.

Suguru read aloud.

He described the weather.

He accompanied Satoru through the garden and laughed when Satoru insulted a priest’s singing voice.

The difference lived in small spaces.

Suguru walked a full step ahead.

When Satoru reached for him, Suguru offered his sleeve rather than his hand.

At dinner, their knees did not touch beneath the table.

In the bathing chamber, Suguru remained outside the pool.

Satoru sat in the water listening to him pour soap into a basin.

“Are you not bathing?” he asked.

“Later.”

“You always bathe now.”

“I thought you preferred privacy.”

“I never said that.”

“You were uncomfortable the first time.”

“That was months ago.”

Suguru dipped a cloth into the basin.

“My responsibility is to assist you.”

“Then assist me.”

“I am.”

“No. You’re standing three steps away.”

Suguru came nearer.

He washed Satoru’s hair from the edge of the bath without removing his own robe.

His fingers were gentle.

They did not linger.

When Satoru rose, Suguru wrapped him in a towel and immediately turned away.

Satoru stood dripping on the stone.

Humiliation burned beneath his skin.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

Suguru’s back remained toward him.

“No.”

“Was it the kiss?”

The bathing chamber became completely silent.

Satoru gripped the towel around himself.

“You can tell me if you didn’t want it.”

Suguru turned.

His steps crossed the stone quickly.

He stopped close enough that Satoru could feel the heat of him.

“I wanted it.”

“Then why are you acting as though touching me will kill you?”

Suguru’s breath caught.

Satoru waited.

“Dry yourself,” Suguru said at last. “You’ll become cold.”

He left the chamber.

That night, Suguru returned to the adjoining room.

Satoru lay beneath the blankets and listened as the other door closed.

He waited.

Suguru did not come.

Satoru did not call his name.

He refused to beg for something that had once been given freely.

He slept badly and woke angry.

The distance continued.

Suguru did not become cruel.

Cruelty might have been easier.

He remained attentive.

Patient.

He made Satoru laugh despite everything. He argued with him over histories and stole sweets from his tray.

But the private softness was gone.

No hand at Satoru’s back unless guidance required it.

No head resting against his.

No shared bed.

No embraces in water.

Suguru behaved like a perfect Keeper.

Satoru began to understand why two of the previous five had requested reassignment.

A perfect Keeper was unbearable.

On the fourth night, Satoru crossed into the adjoining chamber.

Suguru was awake.

Satoru knew because his breathing changed as soon as the door opened.

“Go back to bed,” Suguru said.

“No.”

“It is late.”

“I’m blind, not confused.”

“Satoru.”

“Why did you leave me?”

Suguru sat up.

The mattress creaked beneath him.

“I was summoned.”

“Not that day.”

Satoru stepped farther into the room.

“Every night since.”

Silence.

“You said you wanted the kiss.”

“I did.”

“You said nothing bad happened.”

“Nothing did.”

“Then why?”

Suguru did not answer.

Satoru moved until his knees touched the edge of the bed.

He reached forward and found Suguru’s shoulder.

Suguru tensed.

The reaction wounded him more than Satoru expected.

He removed his hand.

“Do you no longer want me near you?”

Suguru stood.

Satoru heard the sudden movement and stepped back.

“No,” Suguru said.

The word came too loudly.

Then, more carefully, “No. That is not what this is.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“I cannot.”

“You can.”

“I promised.”

Satoru went still.

“To whom?”

Suguru turned away.

Satoru caught the back of his robe.

“To whom?”

“The council.”

“What did you promise?”

“That I would remember my position.”

The words were quiet.

Satoru’s fingers tightened in the fabric.

“What does that mean?”

“That I am your Keeper.”

“You have always been my Keeper.”

“Only your Keeper.”

The room seemed to tilt beneath Satoru.

He released the robe.

“They told you to stop touching me.”

“They told me I had encouraged inappropriate dependence.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know.”

“No. I want you to say it.”

Suguru drew a slow breath.

“They believe I am a corrupting influence. That I have allowed personal feelings to interfere with my duty. That taking you outside proved I no longer understand the boundary between serving you and…”

He stopped.

“And what?”

Suguru said nothing.

Satoru stepped closer.

“And what?”

“Loving you.”

The word entered him softly.

No revelation had ever felt so violent.

Satoru stood without breathing.

Suguru continued before he could respond.

“They intended to remove me. I argued that another change would harm you. That your health and your visions have improved since I became your Keeper. Lady Yaga supported me.”

“So they allowed you to return.”

“Yes.”

“After making you promise not to corrupt me.”

Suguru laughed once.

There was no humor in it.

“Yes.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That I would behave according to my position.”

“And that requires pretending you don’t want to touch me?”

“It requires not giving them another reason to send me away.”

Satoru’s anger arrived with such force that his hands shook.

“They cannot decide that.”

“They can.”

“No.”

“Satoru.”

“No.”

“They control the appointments. The residence. The guards. They could dismiss me tomorrow.”

“Then I will stop them.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Suguru’s voice softened painfully.

“That is why I did this.”

Satoru faced him.

“You decided without me.”

“I decided to remain near you.”

“You decided to make me believe you regretted me.”

“I never wanted you to believe that.”

“What else could I believe?”

Suguru moved toward him.

Then stopped himself.

That restraint was the final cruelty.

Satoru crossed the remaining distance and struck both hands against his chest.

Suguru caught him instinctively.

His arms closed around Satoru.

The familiar hold nearly broke him.

Satoru buried his face against Suguru’s shoulder.

“You promised me,” he said.

Suguru held him tighter.

“What?”

“That you would stand beside me when something happened.”

“I am here.”

“You are standing three steps away.”

Suguru’s breath shook.

“I was trying to protect what remained.”

“I don’t want what remained.”

“Satoru.”

“I want you.”

There.

The words left him before he had arranged them into something safer.

Suguru became completely still.

Satoru lifted his head.

“I don’t know what name you want me to use. I don’t know whether I understood before the lake. But I know the bed is wrong without you. I know food tastes worse when you’re gone. I know I would rather hear you describe one tree badly than listen to every poet in the kingdom.”

Suguru laughed wetly.

Satoru touched his face.

There were tears beneath his fingers.

“You’re crying.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because your confession was terrible.”

“I am expressing profound emotion.”

“You insulted my descriptions.”

“They are frequently useless.”

Suguru pressed his face into Satoru’s palm.

Satoru’s anger remained.

So did the tenderness beneath it.

“When?” Satoru asked.

“When what?”

“When did you fall in love with me?”

Suguru was quiet.

Satoru traced his cheek.

“Before the lake?”

“Yes.”

“Before you removed the veil?”

“Yes.”

“Before we began sleeping together?”

A longer pause.

“Yes.”

Satoru frowned.

“How much before?”

“The reports.”

Satoru pulled back.

“The wolves?”

“You laughed.”

“I laughed the first day we met.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I didn’t know you then.”

“You knew me during the reports?”

“No.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know.”

Satoru considered it.

Suguru waited.

“So you have loved me for months,” Satoru concluded.

“Immensely.”

Satoru smiled despite himself.

Then the anger returned.

“They called that corruption.”

Suguru’s arms remained around him.

“They are frightened.”

“I don’t care.”

“You will tomorrow.”

“No.”

“You might.”

Satoru lowered his head against Suguru’s shoulder.

Tomorrow.

The word pressed at the edge of his thoughts.

There was a ceremony in two days.

The Festival of Clear Sight.

Twice each year, the palace gates opened and the people gathered in the great courtyard. They brought flowers, food and strips of cloth bearing prayers. Children sang. Priests gave thanks for Satoru’s health.

At the end, Satoru offered a blessing.

Sometimes it came from a true vision.

Rain arriving before harvest.

A marriage producing a strong child.

Safe roads through winter.

When no revelation came, the priests provided words for him.

The people never knew the difference.

An entire kingdom would be listening.

Satoru lifted his face.

Suguru knew him too well.

“No,” he said immediately.

“I haven’t spoken.”

“You are planning something.”

“I am always planning something.”

Suguru sounded worried.

“Sleep with me,” Satoru said.

“Satoru.”

“Tonight.”

“If someone discovers—”

“Let them.”

“They may remove me before the ceremony.”

“Then be quiet.”

“That has never helped when you are involved.”

Satoru found his hand.

Suguru allowed their fingers to join.

They returned to Satoru’s bed.

Suguru held him through the night.

Nothing about the embrace was practical.

It was filled with longing and care.

Neither pretended otherwise.

The Festival of Clear Sight began beneath a cloudless sky.

Thousands gathered in the great courtyard.

Satoru heard them before he left his rooms.

The low movement of voices.

Children calling to one another.

Vendors near the outer wall.

Priests directing families into rows.

Every sound entered the sacred residence and filled its usually quiet halls.

Suguru dressed him in ceremonial white.

Layer after layer of silk.

The crest of the Six Eyes embroidered over his heart.

He tied Satoru’s hair with a silver cord and wrapped the veil around his eyes.

His hands remained steady.

Satoru caught them before he could step away.

“Are you frightened?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“That is not comforting.”

“I’m frightened too.”

Suguru turned Satoru’s hands and kissed his knuckles.

A secret touch.

The last permitted one before they entered the courtyard.

“You do not have to do this,” he said.

“I do.”

“You could wait.”

“I have waited eighteen years.”

“There it is again.”

“It remains effective.”

Suguru lowered their hands.

“What are you going to say?”

“The truth.”

“That has never been your preferred strategy.”

“I’m trying something new.”

“Satoru.”

He smiled.

“Stand beside me.”

“Always.”

The ceremony began.

Priests led Satoru through the Hall of Clouds and onto the raised pavilion overlooking the courtyard. Suguru remained behind the white-thread curtain, near enough that Satoru could hear him breathe.

Lady Yaga stood to the left.

The council sat to the right.

The High Priest recited the history of the Six Eyes.

Satoru knew every line.

A child born beneath a winter moon.

Eyes containing the mercy of heaven.

A life offered in service.

A bridge between the present and what waited beyond it.

The people knelt.

Satoru heard thousands of bodies lowering at once.

The sound had frightened him as a child.

Now it made him angry.

They did not know him.

That was not their fault.

They had been given a story instead of a person.

The High Priest finished the invocation.

“My lord,” he said, “what blessing has the future offered your people?”

A prepared answer waited in Satoru’s sleeve.

The northern harvest will be abundant.

The roads will remain safe until the first snow.

He had not seen either thing.

Satoru reached into his sleeve.

He removed the folded paper.

Suguru’s breathing stopped behind him.

Satoru tore it in half.

The sound carried through the silence.

The High Priest whispered, “My lord?”

“I have no blessing today.”

A murmur moved through the courtyard.

One of the councilors shifted sharply.

Lady Yaga remained still.

Satoru continued.

“No benign future arrived for me this morning. No field of grain. No healthy child. No victorious army.”

He raised his face toward the open sky.

“I saw nothing.”

The murmuring grew.

Satoru heard fear within it.

He understood that fear.

The people had been taught that silence from him meant disaster.

“I am not refusing because tragedy is coming,” he said. “I am refusing because I am angry.”

The courtyard quieted again.

Behind the curtain, Suguru breathed.

Satoru held on to the sound.

“You come here twice each year to thank the gods for my life. You pray for my health. You leave flowers outside my rooms. Some of you have traveled for days to see me.”

He paused.

The wind moved through his robes.

“Yet none of you see me.”

A councilor rose.

“My lord, this is not—”

“Sit down.”

The command cracked across the pavilion.

The councilor obeyed.

Satoru had never used that voice during a public ceremony.

It was not the voice the priests had taught him.

It belonged entirely to him.

“I was born with eyes that show me pieces of what may come. I did not ask for them. I cannot command them. I do not know everything, no matter what stories you tell your children.”

Somewhere in the crowd, a child began crying.

A parent soothed them.

Satoru continued more gently.

“I become frightened. I become ill. I am sometimes wrong. I dislike mushrooms, bells before sunrise and Lord Nishimi’s singing voice.”

A sound moved through the courtyard.

Not laughter at first.

Then one person failed to contain it.

Another followed.

Even Lady Yaga exhaled beside him.

Lord Nishimi made an offended noise.

Satoru smiled.

“I am told he also has the face of a carp.”

The laughter grew.

Brief.

Uncertain.

Human.

Satoru allowed it to fade.

“I love sweet food. I enjoy stories. I want to hear the sea. I have never walked through your markets. I have never purchased my own meal. Until this summer, I had never stood beyond the palace walls.”

The crowd remained silent.

“I left once. I felt grass beneath my feet. I heard sheep. I swam in a lake.”

Behind him, Suguru shifted.

Satoru’s heart beat hard.

“I kissed someone.”

The silence became astonished.

Satoru nearly laughed.

A kingdom could accept blood in a vision more easily than a kiss in a lake.

“The council called the person I kissed a corrupting influence. They threatened to take him from me because he taught me that my life might belong to me.”

One of the senior councilors stood.

“This is a private matter.”

“No,” Satoru said. “You made my entire life a public matter.”

The words struck the courtyard.

No one moved.

“You ask the future to guide your wars, your harvests and your children. You trust me with your fear. But you do not trust me with my own heart.”

His voice shook.

Satoru did not hide it.

“I am not a vessel you store inside beautiful rooms. I am not a pair of eyes. I am not more sacred when I am lonely.”

He reached behind his head.

Lady Yaga’s hand touched his wrist.

A warning.

Satoru turned toward her.

“I will keep them closed.”

Her hand remained for one moment.

Then she let go.

Satoru untied the ceremonial veil.

Gasps rose from the courtyard as the white cloth fell into his lap.

His eyes remained shut.

Sunlight warmed his bare eyelids.

“They tell you I cover my eyes because my power is too great for the world.”

He smiled faintly.

“The truth is that the world is too great for me. Light hurts. Visions hurt. Sometimes ordinary things are more than I can hold.”

He lifted his face.

“But I am still here.”

No one spoke.

Satoru opened his eyes.

Only for a heartbeat.

The courtyard became white.

Thousands of figures blurred into one enormous field of movement and color.

Pain entered him.

Then the future opened.

A child with flowers in her hair ran through the palace garden.

The old northern gate stood open.

Suguru walked through a crowded market carrying too many parcels.

A white-haired man sat beside a road, laughing while children climbed over his back.

The sea moved beneath a red evening sky.

Suguru stood at its edge.

Older.

Smiling at Satoru.

The vision was gentle.

So gentle Satoru almost failed to recognize it as the future.

He closed his eyes.

Tears slipped down his face.

Suguru stepped through the curtain.

The council shouted.

The priests moved.

Suguru ignored them all and reached Satoru’s side.

His hand settled at the center of Satoru’s back.

Not hiding.

Not apologizing.

“What did you see?” he whispered.

Satoru smiled.

“A possibility.”

He turned toward the courtyard.

“I saw the northern gate open. I saw children in my garden. I saw myself among you.”

He reached for Suguru’s hand.

Their fingers joined in full view of the kingdom.

“And I saw him with me.”

The courtyard held its breath.

Satoru stood.

“I will continue offering my sight when it comes. I will warn you of danger. I will speak what I see.”

His grip tightened around Suguru’s hand.

“But I will no longer surrender every part of my life in exchange.”

A woman near the front rose.

Satoru heard the movement.

Then an old man stood beside her.

A child.

Several farmers.

The sound spread outward.

Thousands rising.

Not in protest.

Simply standing to look at him.

For the first time, Satoru was grateful he could not see their faces.

He listened instead.

A voice called from the crowd.

“Let him visit the market!”

Laughter broke out.

Another voice shouted, “Lord Nishimi does sing badly!”

The courtyard erupted.

Lord Nishimi protested.

Someone began clapping.

Others joined.

The sound grew until it struck the palace walls and returned.

Satoru stood within it, trembling.

Suguru’s hand remained in his.

“Did you plan that?” Suguru asked near his ear.

“Every word.”

“You did not.”

“Most words.”

“You mentioned the carp.”

“It was important.”

Suguru laughed.

The applause continued.

The rules did not change that afternoon.

Satoru had hoped they might.

He had imagined delivering one magnificent speech and watching centuries of fear collapse before dinner.

Instead, the council argued for seven days.

The High Priest demanded apologies.

Lord Nishimi demanded his name be removed from future speeches.

Lady Yaga locked six officials in the western chamber until they agreed to discuss actual reforms rather than Satoru’s lack of decorum.

Suguru was suspended from service during the negotiations.

He remained in Satoru’s rooms anyway.

No one succeeded in removing him.

Public petitions arrived by the hundreds.

Some people asked that Satoru be allowed into the city.

Others worried for his safety.

Many had no opinion on palace regulations but strongly supported keeping Suguru because they had seen him catch Satoru when the vision ended.

Children sent drawings.

Suguru described each one.

Most featured Satoru with enormous blue eyes shooting lightning into the sky.

One depicted Suguru as a horse.

“I like that one,” Satoru said.

“The resemblance is poor.”

“You do have long hair.”

“I hate children.”

“You’re smiling.”

“No.”

“You are.”

On the eighth day, the council presented new statutes.

The Keeper of the Veil would no longer be appointed solely by the council. The bearer of the Six Eyes would choose or dismiss his own Keeper after reaching sixteen.

The sacred residence would remain protected, but its gates would no longer be closed to him.

He could travel within the kingdom with an escort of his choosing.

He could receive guests who were not priests, physicians or officials.

His private relationships would not be subject to council approval.

The final statute required three attempts at wording.

The first referred to the oracle’s right to form personal attachments.

Satoru rejected it.

The second permitted courtship under appropriate supervision.

Suguru laughed until the secretary became offended.

The third was simple.

The bearer of the Six Eyes possessed the same right to love and be loved as any person under the kingdom’s protection.

Satoru placed his seal beneath it.

Suguru stood beside him.

When the officials left, Satoru turned toward him.

“Appropriate supervision? That one was awful.”

Suguru covered his face with one hand.

“They were trying.”

“Were they?”

“Lady Yaga threatened them.”

“That explains it.”

Satoru reached for him.

Suguru came willingly.

For the first time in more than a week, he held Satoru without fear of listening footsteps.

Satoru wrapped both arms around his neck.

“You are no longer suspended.”

“I was never properly dismissed.”

“You’re my Keeper again.”

Suguru’s mouth brushed his temple.

“If you still want me.”

Satoru pulled back.

“That was an extremely foolish thing to say.”

“I wanted reassurance.”

“You are becoming needy.”

“I learned from you.”

Satoru found Suguru’s mouth and kissed him.

The kiss began with laughter and ended softly.

Suguru rested their foreheads together.

“I love you,” he said.

Satoru became still.

Suguru had said the word before, in the adjoining chamber.

Loving you.

A dangerous fact spoken inside an explanation.

This was different.

Satoru touched Suguru’s lips.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“Satoru.”

“Again.”

Suguru smiled against his fingers.

“I love you.”

Satoru’s chest ached with happiness.

He still did not entirely understand how a feeling could be so gentle and so difficult to contain.

“I love you too,” he said. “Please remain by my side, Suguru. Always.”

Suguru kissed him before he could become embarrassed.

The northern gate opened that spring.

Satoru walked through it with Suguru on one side and two discreet guards several paces behind.

The first visit to the city was a disaster.

Everyone recognized him.

Vendors attempted to give him food for free. Children followed him through three streets. An elderly woman touched his hair and wept.

Satoru purchased fried dough with his own coin.

It burned his tongue again.

Suguru showed no sympathy.

The visits became easier.

People grew accustomed to seeing him.

Satoru learned the market through sound and scent. The spice seller sang while arranging jars. The baker’s daughter dragged her left foot when tired. A potter near the river kept three dogs, all of whom adored Satoru and disliked Suguru.

Children were the least frightened.

They asked whether he could see what they would eat for dinner.

They asked whether he slept with the veil.

One asked whether his eyes could explode.

“Only when I’m angry,” Satoru said.

The child stared at him with horror.

Suguru apologized to the mother.

Satoru did not.

The palace changed slowly.

Not every door opened.

Not every fear vanished.

Guards continued following him beyond the city. Foreign visitors were still kept at a distance. His revelations remained painful, uncertain and necessary.

But children entered the gardens now.

Musicians performed near the pond.

Shoko visited and insulted both Satoru’s manners and Suguru’s medical knowledge.

Nanami declared the entire household inefficient.

Haibara joined the palace guard and proved exactly as enthusiastic as Suguru had predicted.

Satoru’s life grew larger.

Not free of walls.

Only no longer defined by them.

Years passed.

Satoru learned their shape through change.

Suguru’s voice deepened slightly.

Lady Yaga began using a cane, though she struck people with it more often than she leaned upon it.

Children who had once reached only Satoru’s waist became tall enough to guide him through the market.

The visions continued.

Some arrived with blood.

Some with rain.

Some with nothing more alarming than a councilor losing an important document beneath his own chair.

Satoru learned not every future required grief.

He learned happiness did not always demand payment.

At twenty-five, he finally heard the sea.

Suguru brought him at the end of summer.

They traveled for six days with four guards, two horses and an amount of luggage Suguru described as unreasonable.

Satoru blamed the council.

The council blamed Satoru.

The truth was that Suguru packed too many books.

They reached the coast near sunset.

Satoru heard the water before the carriage stopped.

Loud.

Much louder than he had expected.

It moved with a power unlike the lake, rushing forward and dragging itself back over stones.

Never finishing.

Suguru helped him from the carriage.

Satoru removed his shoes.

Sand shifted beneath his feet.

“Careful,” Suguru said.

“I am twenty-five.”

“You fell from a bench yesterday.”

They walked toward the water.

The guards remained behind.

Wind pulled at Satoru’s hair and robes. Salt touched his lips.

The first wave covered his feet.

Satoru laughed.

Suguru stood beside him.

Their hands joined.

“What color?” Satoru asked.

“The sea?”

“The sky.”

Suguru was silent for a moment.

“Red near the horizon. Gold above it. The clouds are violet at their edges.”

“Useless.”

“I have not finished.”

Satoru smiled.

Suguru continued.

“The light is spreading across the water. There is a path of gold leading from the shore to the horizon.”

“Can we walk on it?”

“No.”

“Have you tried?”

“I am not you.”

“A weakness.”

Suguru lifted their joined hands and kissed Satoru’s knuckles.

Satoru leaned against him.

“Remove the veil.”

“Satoru.”

“I want to look.”

“The sun is still bright.”

“It is setting.”

“That does not make it gentle.”

“Nothing beautiful has ever been particularly gentle with me.”

Suguru’s arm moved around his waist.

“I have.”

Satoru turned toward him.

“You pushed me into a bath.”

“You pushed me first.”

“You mocked my swimming.”

“You kicked me.”

“You abandoned me to sheep.”

“They fled from you.”

Satoru smiled.

“You are occasionally gentle.”

Suguru untied the veil.

The cloth came away.

Satoru kept his eyes closed and listened to the sea.

He had grown better at this.

Not controlling the future.

Never that.

He had grown better at knowing where the present ended and fear began.

Suguru stood solidly against his side.

Satoru opened his eyes.

The world became light.

Red.

Gold.

Dark water moving beneath it.

Suguru stood beside him, a familiar shadow with long hair blowing across the sky.

Satoru looked toward the horizon.

No revelation came.

He saw only the present in its broken, brilliant pieces.

It was enough.

He closed his eyes after several breaths.

Suguru retied the veil carefully.

“Well?” he asked.

Satoru rested his head on his shoulder.

“I saw the shape of you.”

“That was not the sea.”

“It was better.”

Suguru kissed his temple.

They remained there while the light faded.

Later, they lay beneath blankets near the shore. The guards had made camp farther up the beach, close enough for safety and distant enough to pretend privacy had not been deliberately arranged.

Satoru rested over Suguru’s chest.

Suguru’s hair spread beneath them.

The sea continued moving in the dark.

“Do you remember the first future you saw of me?” Suguru asked.

“You were old and hideous.”

“What was I smiling at?”

Satoru traced circles over his chest.

“I didn’t know then.”

“And now?”

Satoru lifted his head.

Suguru’s fingers touched the edge of his veil.

Now Satoru understood the summer tree.

The older face turned toward someone beyond the vision.

The happiness he had been too frightened to recognize.

“At me,” he said.

Suguru smiled.

“You were right.”

“I usually am.”

Suguru laughed.

Satoru listened to the sound mingle with the sea.

The future had never possessed one clear shape.

It arrived in fragments.

A hand beneath a leaf.

Water rising beneath bare feet.

A bridge.

A smile.

For years, Satoru had believed tomorrow was a beast waiting beyond his sight, showing him its teeth one piece at a time.

Now, when he thought of tomorrow, he heard Suguru breathing beneath him.

He felt long hair tangled around his fingers.

He knew the warmth of an arm across his back and the quiet place where his body fit against another.

Tomorrow was still uncertain.

It simply no longer waited for him alone.

“Suguru.”

“Hmm?”

“Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

Suguru’s arms tightened around him.

“I love you.”

Satoru smiled against his chest.

"I love you more."

Beyond them, the sea moved endlessly beneath the unseen stars.

For once, Satoru did not ask what came after.

He already knew enough.