Chapter 22: Daylight

The whole valley waited in the square with snow on their shoulders and hot rice cakes in their fists.

The council elders stood on the steps of the grain hall.

The oldest of them, a bent man with a cane, cleared his throat.

"General," he said. "Scribe. The valley has voted."

Kaede went stiff.

Rin took her hand in front of everyone.

"What did they vote?"

"That the Demon General is dead," the elder said, "and has been dead since the day the deeds burned."

A murmur ran through the crowd.

"In her place we have Kaede Sorano, of the valley, who fed us, and who is not a thing to be afraid of."

Somebody cheered, and then somebody else.

"And we have Rin Tachibana, scribe of the valley, who read our names out loud."

The elder lifted his cane.

"We'd like to see you both stand in the daylight, together, so we know it's real."

Kaede looked at Rin.

There was no armor on her.

There was no flag, no horn, no ledger in the way.

She lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of Rin's with her scarred chin tipped up, in front of three thousand people.

The square exploded.

Children shrieked, old women wept into their sleeves, and Ume blew her nose.

Sora stood at the edge of the crowd with his hand over his mouth and his eyes wet.

Rin laughed and blushed and kissed Kaede on the mouth, quick and firm.

"Come on," she said under the noise. "I want you somewhere with a roof."

"The grain barn."

"What's in the grain barn?"

"A loft. With big doors. And the sun comes in at noon."

They slipped away through the crowd, hand in hand, and nobody stopped them.

The barn smelled of dust and sweet hay.

The loft doors stood open on the white fields.

The winter sun poured in across the floor in a gold square.

Rin stopped in the middle of it.

She had never made love in daylight.

In every cot and tent and field, there had been lamps or stars or dark.

She felt suddenly shy.

Kaede saw it.

"Rin."

"I'm fine."

"You're not. Look at me."

Rin looked.

Kaede stood in the light with her coat open, her cropped hair gold at the edges.

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