The tenth year of Empress Suiko's reign, autumn. Asuka, Nara.
Soga no Umako's Estate stood beside the Asuka River. Autumn sunlight shattered across the garden pond, and the stones beneath the water glimmered faintly.
In the inner hall of the estate, more than ten officials sat in a row, discussing plans for the Twelve Cap Ranks and the Seventeen-Article Constitution that were about to be established. Some held brushes, some shuffled wooden tablets, and others exchanged arguments in low voices. Prince Umayado was among them.
Though the prince had reached the age of thirty, he sat a little apart from the whirlpool of debate. His brush skimmed smoothly across the wooden tablet on his lap.
—Harmony is to be held above all.
He gazed at the words he had written for a while. The pond's light wavered across the ceiling boards, and its shimmering sank even behind his eyelids.
The corner of his mouth curled into a faint smile.
Something welled up inside him. It was laughter. Laughter rising from the depths of his chest, impossible to stop.
Harmony. Harmony, was it?
Memories of that time came floating back. Memories of an adventure from his childhood—joyful, painful, and rich beyond measure.
“What has happened, Toyomimi?”
Soga no Umako addressed him with an exasperated look. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and turned to stare.
“Ah, my apologies. I must have eaten too many Amakashi nuts.”
Suppressing his laughter, he left the gathering, sent his attendant Chōshimaro home, and climbed Thunder Hill alone.
High in a tree he had climbed countless times before, he settled onto a branch that offered a sweeping view of Asuka Village and continued to laugh.
The wind blew. The leaves rustled, and far away a kite wheeled in the sky.
Harmony is to be held above all.
Those words had been born from that journey. Suiren. Amaori. Rōhina. Kana. Nagi. And—Sugaru.
When he closed his eyes, twenty-five years began to rewind.
Twenty-five years earlier. The fifth year of Emperor Bidatsu's reign, spring.
Oku-Izumo. Deep in the mountains of Mount Funatsu, at the headwaters of the Hii River, there lived a girl.
Her name was Sugaru. She was called Sugaru.
She belonged to the Kaku-kari, one of the Six Kowakuni Clans that had crossed over from the continent long before the descent of the Heavenly Descendants. They were descendants of dragons who wielded lightning.
On this day, she was practicing the Heavenly Water-Dragon Dance, passed down through generations, under the tutelage of the clan elder, Raiba. Sugaru danced clad in sky-layered silk woven with the dragon crest and scale crest. But her heart was not here.
Her footwork faltered. Raiba's staff struck the ground.
“Focus.”
“Sorry, Raiba.”
Sugaru looked up at the sky. Beyond the mountain ridge, black clouds hung low. Distant thunder reverberated in the pit of her stomach.
“The dragon aura is building. I've set a lightning trap in the waterfall pool.”
No sooner had she spoken than she hitched up the hem of her sky-layered silk and dashed away.
“That girl…”
Raiba's sigh reached her back, but Sugaru did not look back.
She tore across the settlement's central square. The children who had been playing called her name and came rushing after her.
“I'll bring back a big dragon for all of you!”
She waved, and the children cheered.
A boy was waiting in front of the Thunderproof Oil shed. His name was Enki. He was Sugaru's companion in the Kaku-kari settlement, and together they hunted dragons.
“I saw them. Two big ones. Hurry.”
The two of them stripped off their clothes and submerged themselves, heads and all, in the Thunderproof Oil. The oil was cold and smelled sharply of animal fat. It was a Kaku-kari technique for preventing lightning strikes. They dressed without even waiting to dry and plunged into the mountains as if they were flying.
They crossed streams, climbed over rocky ground, and followed animal trails. Each time the sky appeared between the trees, the black clouds had grown thicker.
At last, they saw the waterfall. Above the sheer cliffs, the water Sugaru had dammed had swollen until it was about to overflow.
A flash of lightning streaked across the sky. A thunderous boom followed a moment later.
They looked up. Two dragons frolicked inside the black clouds. One scarlet, the other green. Wrapped in lightning, they raced across the heavens, twisting around each other.
“Let's catch the scarlet dragon.”
Sugaru's eyes flashed.
The lightning trap. Break the dam and send the water plunging all at once. Drawn by the spray, the dragons would descend. Then guide the descending dragon with the golden thread tied to the spirit sword Toyokaku Muko, and seal it inside a quartz vial along with the lightning. That was the dragon-and-lightning capture art passed down through Kaku-kari generations.
Sugaru glared at the sky and gauged the dragon aura's distance. Just a little longer. Once the dragon descended a little lower—
“Sugaru.”
Enki's voice was tense. Two figures were approaching along the rocky ridge.
They wore the garb of the Tengu Clan. Their clothes were made of woven hawk feathers, and they moved with the light step characteristic of mountain people. They walked calmly through the intervals between lightning strikes.
“That's dangerous. The dragons will eat you!”
Sugaru leaped. Weaving between bolts that fell along the ridge, she landed in front of the two figures.
“The dragons will eat you. Take off anything metal. Wrap yourselves in this beneath that tree.”
She threw them the Thunderproof Net. But the two did not move. They remained perfectly calm.
Sugaru shouted.
“Look, Tengu!”
She picked up a metal-bearing stone at her feet and hurled it high into the air. Lightning crashed down toward the stone as if the two dragons themselves were biting into it. The boom shook the earth.
The two Tengu finally seemed to understand. They hurriedly threw away everything metal and ran beneath the tree.
From beneath that tree, they watched.
They watched the entire spectacle as the girl tamed the scarlet lightning.
Sugaru raised the spirit sword Toyokaku Muko and drew the golden thread tied to its hilt up toward the sky. A dragon touched the thread. Lightning traveled along it and flowed into the sword. Sugaru soothed the dragon, played with it, and guided it as if in a dance. The Heavenly Water-Dragon Dance. The footwork that had faltered during practice now held not a single step out of place.
Scarlet light was sealed inside the quartz vial.
The two Tengu could only stand there with their mouths hanging open, frozen in astonishment.
The two Tengu were envoys from Imibe.
The official summons contained only a single line: “Bring the princesses of the Six Kowakuni Clans to Tachibana Palace of Asuka.” That was all.
Night fell. Around the hearth, Raiba and the Tengu envoy talked together. Sugaru sat in a corner, gazing through the vial at the scarlet lightning they had captured earlier. A tiny spark flickered inside the bottle.
“If Lord Imibe has summoned them, he must have some purpose in mind.”
Raiba spoke while gazing into the fire.
“The princesses of the scattered Six Kowakuni Clans will gather in one place. That must carry great significance.”
The Tengu envoy excitedly recounted the dragon hunt from earlier. The gathering grew lively. They spoke with the long-separated Kowakuni companions they had not seen in years. Raiba narrowed her eyes as she remembered how things had always been in the old days.
The night deepened. The sake went around, and songs arose—the foreign melodies of a people who had crossed over from the distant western edge of the world.
For the first time in a long while, Raiba laughed from the bottom of her heart.
Sugaru stepped out onto the veranda and looked up at the night sky. The stars filled the heavens. The black clouds from earlier had vanished as if they had never existed, and the Milky Way stretched across the mountain ridge.
Asuka. A land she had never visited. The princesses of the Six Clans would gather there—girls of the same blood whom she had never met.
Something ached deep inside her chest. It was not fear. Nor was it anticipation. It was something deeper, something without a name.
The birthmark on her back seemed to grow faintly warm.