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January 14 - January 19, 2024
“A promise is not a kiss in the wind, to be thrown about without care,” I murmured to myself. “It is a piece of yourself that is given away and will not return until your pledge is fulfilled.”
“Yet you act as though he’s the one who gave you a piece of his heart. As if he saved you from drowning in the Sacred Lake.”
“So,” Seryu spoke, more quietly than I’d ever heard him before. “Do you think you could try…to carve a place in your heart for me?”
“I didn’t want mine to be that way,” he confessed. “I was hoping, if it turned out to be you, that you would want to be here. Because you cared for me.” “I do care for you.”
“Would it be so bad, staying with me?” he said quietly. “I’d make sure you were safe. I could do that for you. I’ve always done that for you. I deserve a fair chance, don’t I?”
Fear is just a game; you win by playing. Think this through.
“You’d do well to remember this: your heart is your home. Until you understand that, you belong nowhere.”
“If not for him, did I ever have a chance?” A lump swelled in my throat. I didn’t want to hurt him. “Takkan and I are connected by the strands of fate.” I expected him to be jealous, but the corners of his mouth lifted. “Then I’ll have to find you when you’re reborn—before your strands have time to knot with his again.”
“Even still. With all the trouble you get into, Shiori…all the trouble you’re going to get into…you need whatever help you can get. Make sure he knows that.” After a pause, he said, “Make sure he deserves you.”
“Then laugh,” he said in all seriousness. “I’ve missed the sound of you.”
“A promise is not a kiss in the wind, to be thrown about without care.”
“We can’t always protect those we love by shutting them out. That was Raikama’s mistake.”
“I promise,” he said, serious now. “But it’s rather selfish, don’t you think, to make me swear when you will not? I need you too, Shiori.” I need you. A sea of heat came over me, scorching away any retort I might have mustered. Gods, he was going to be the doom of me. “All right, I promise.”
“Your brothers warned me that a lifetime with you would mean plenty of jabs to my pride. But my love for you is far greater than pride, Shiori. Far greater than anything.”
“Surround yourself with those who’ll love you always,” I began, “through your mistakes and your faults. Make a family that will find you more beautiful every day, even when your hair is white with age. Be the light that makes someone’s lantern shine.”
“I bind you to me, Bushi’an Takkan. Not because my father or my stepmother or my country asks me to do so, but because I wish to do so. I would always choose you. You are the light that makes my lantern shine.” I tied a knot. Then Takkan took up the thread, knotting the other end around my wrist. “I bind you to me, Shiori’anma,” he said. “Let our strands be ever knotted as we weather joy and sorrow, fortune and misfortune, and pass our years from youth to old age. We are of one heart, honor-bound, and one spirit, whether on earth or in heaven. From now until ten thousand years forth.”
“Together,” he echoed firmly. “Always.”
‘If you wanted to be told you were beautiful, you would hide your scar. But you don’t. It tells your story, a story that’s meant only for those worthy of hearing it.’ ”
For what was chaos but a knife slashing across the fabric of destiny?
“You’ll never lose me, Bushi’an Takkan,” I replied. “Be it bright or dark, you are the light that makes my lantern shine.”
