Chapter 13: Green Tea with the Envoy

Shiori did not look away from the scroll on the east wall.

Her hands stayed flat on her knees, and her knuckles were pale.

"Saint Kagami," Aizawa said gently.

"Do not call me that."

"Then Shiori. May I show the cook what you wrote?"

Shiori said nothing.

Aizawa took a flat lacquer case from her sleeve.

She opened it and drew out a single folded sheet, creased and soft from handling, and held it out across the brazier.

Tomoe did not take it.

She looked at Shiori, and Shiori kept her eyes on the wall.

"Read it," Shiori said hoarsely. "Please."

Tomoe took the sheet and unfolded it.

The handwriting was square and careful, every stroke as straight as a cut.

She knew it at once, because she had seen it on the grocery list taped inside the kitchen door.

"To the Council of Akitsu," she read under her breath.

"I ask to lay down the title of Sword Saint and the name that goes with it."

"The oath I took forbids the Saint a lover. I am thirty years old and have never been held by anyone."

"I ask to be released from the seat so that I may live as a private person on Mount Hakuun."

"I will answer any summons that does not require me to be the Saint."

Below it was a red seal, and a date.

The date was almost a year old.

Tomoe read it twice.

Then she folded it along its creases, very neatly, and put it down on the floor between them.

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