Read the Prologue of the Godmaker Chronicles
In forty-seven days, I would be gone. Not dead, but somewhere else the living couldn’t follow.
To a realm of gods, demons, and magic that defied the reality I knew on Earth.
I didn’t know it then, but the desperate need to live any life where I mattered would have always led me there—to that tomb, to that artifact, to that other world.
The tomb was a door. I was the lock. And the key had a name—the Miori.
The Miori, however, had made a terrible mistake.
I cleared away the final layer of dirt and stood, stepping back carefully from the ropes dividing the excavation site into tidy grids.
“Nick, come look at this,” I called out, shielding my eyes. It was barely noon, but the sun was already merciless, the humid air stifling.
The excavation at Tenchi Kofun was supposed to be a vacation during the Japanese national holiday week. A glorified field trip for international students who preferred to dig around in one of the hundreds of ancient keyhole-shaped kofun burial mounds in the rural Japanese countryside rather than fight the tourist crowds.
I’d signed up on a whim, a necessary distraction and escape from Dr. Honda’s endless emails about my overdue master’s thesis.
The logic was simple: a low-stakes academic environment focused on a topic separated by nearly two millennia from mine, where I could distract myself by practicing English with international students and sleep with men I’d never have to see again.
I’d targeted Dr. Miller—Nick, as he preferred to be called. He was the charming American co-leading the dig and a young, brilliant professor whose academic enthusiasm was energizing. I’d spent half the trip flirting with him.
Dr. Nishimura was his research partner and an expert on Japanese Yayoi-period archaeology. Married, but friendly and entertaining. I’d spent half the trip joking with him.
Nick and Dr. Nishimura had traced local folklore to a small, forgotten kofun belonging to a shaman named Lady Miyabi, whose legends connected her to the Four Gods of Heaven of Chinese mythology and promised a cache of pottery and jewelry.
Her kofun had been forgotten like most of history, though the people living near it kept telling her legends as cautionary tales. But in all the years, no jewelry had ever been found. Only pottery.
Toru, Dr. Nishimura’s research assistant, came over with a penlight and a shy smile. “What did you find, Ms. Yoshida?”
I hated being called “Ms. Yoshida”—Yoshida-san—when it was a name that reminded me of things best left forgotten—my father and mother, and the future I never had as “Nami Ichihara” with Saku.
When I met Toru at the start of the excavation, his smile reminded me of Saku’s so much that my throat tightened and my eyes burned.
I’d spent half the trip avoiding him.
Even six years after I watched Saku take his last breath, it was easier to turn away from his ghost than face the reminder that I was the only person who loved him and still hadn’t moved on.
I took a steadying exhale, turning my attention back to the earthenware pot.
Toru angled the beam through the narrow opening, the light catching something metallic glimmering through the dust motes. “Dr. Miller, Dr. Nishimura, there’s something inside this one. It could be jewelry.”
The soft swish of brushes against pottery and the scratching of tiny picks against dirt ceased as the students dropped their work.
Nick’s gray eyes widened. “Nishimura, this could be it!”
The other students gathered in a loose circle, releasing a collective gasp of excitement that turned into confusion when I gingerly lifted the artifact from the pot with a pair of padded tweezers and set it down on a tray.
This was not the simple beaded necklace or headdress of a shaman who had died two millennia before.
This was a masterpiece.
Too masterful. Too flawless. Too extraordinary.
A collar necklace crafted from metal resembling bronze yet iridescent, with strange branch-like spikes curving asymmetrically from its frame, grown rather than forged and gleaming untarnished despite two millennia underground. At its heart sat a massive, convex gemstone nearly the diameter of a golf ball, surrounded by an intricate gold bezel engraved with script I didn’t recognize. Not ancient Japanese or Chinese, not anything I’d seen.
“What the hell is this? Is that a diamond? It can’t be.” Nick poked the artifact with the eraser end of a pencil. “This metallurgy didn’t exist in Japan at this time. Look how smooth it is, no seams from casting.”
Toru scratched his head. “The pot’s context was secure. It’s the Yayoi period like the other artifacts.”
I leaned over the necklace. It was impossible.
It defied chemistry—there didn’t seem to be corrosion after two thousand years.
It defied physics—the central gemstone sparkled despite not having facets, as if it were lit from within.
I picked up my notebook to document the finding.
May 5, 2000
Site: Tenchi Kofun, Grid four
Item: Collar necklace (Yayoi strata?)
Material: Iridescent bronze/gold alloy? No corrosion.
Gemstone: Clear, convex, unfaceted. Diamond?
The discussion faded into the background as I wrote, a dull roar echoing in my mind, the urge to touch the artifact overwhelming. Not academic curiosity or impulsiveness. Something deeper, almost a recognition.
“It looks like a luxury watch face,” I heard myself say.
“Ms. Yoshida! You need gloves—”
I traced the bezel with my fingertip before Toru could stop me.
It was hot, pulsing with the distinct heartbeat of something alive but not living. A disembodied voice hissed in my mind in a language I didn’t recognize but somehow understood. “Wield me. Use me.”
Blinding white light fractured my vision.
A white tiger prowling through red-leafed maples, amber eyes flashing, lowering its head, bowing before me.
For a moment, I thought I saw Saku’s brown eyes staring down at me—but it was just Toru, his gasp yanking me back to reality.
I snatched my hand away from the necklace, heart racing, terrified I’d broken it.
It wasn’t broken.
It had awakened.
We gasped as the diamond rotated within the golden setting, the movement smooth despite two thousand years underground.
A depthless black jewel replaced the diamond.
“What the fuck?” Nick stared at the jewel before glancing at Dr. Nishimura. “Was that a clockwork mechanism?”
“A thousand years too early for karakuri. Besides, the rotation was too smooth. That was like Swiss watchmaking.”
“Are you okay, Ms. Yoshida?” Toru helped me sit and handed me a bottle of water.
“I’m fine. Low blood sugar,” I mumbled, avoiding his eyes while he fanned me with my notebook. “It’s hot today.”
The two professors ignored us, their brows furrowing deeper. Nick rubbed a gloved finger over the same spot on the bezel.
Another rotation, another soft mechanical click.
The black gem spun away, replaced by a flawless blue jewel the color of a cloudless spring sky.
“The Four Gods of Heaven,” Nick whispered. “Byakko, Genbu, and now Seiryuu…the gems match their colors.”
Nick and I were done flirting. The discovery was far more interesting than mingling and flirting with the charming professor and international students—that was just a temporary distraction. The artifact was potentially a world-changing discovery.
I’d always wanted to be part of history.
I sat up and took my notebook back from Toru’s hands.
“Toru, Nami, take measurements and documentation with the students,” Nick said, pulling Dr. Nishimura aside. “And use gloves this time.”
I needed to satisfy my curiosity, and the academic burden of proof.
Toru placed the artifact on the microscope stage, fiddling with the knobs as he lowered his head to the eyepiece. If the blue gem really was for Seiryuu the Azure Dragon, then the pattern was clear.
“The next one will be red for Suzaku the Vermilion Bird,” I said, leaning toward Toru and choosing not to mention that I might have seen a vision of Byakko the White Tiger when I touched the diamond.
I gently rubbed the bezel.
The sapphire spun with a gentle click to a ruby roaring with light, generating its own fire.
Evidence.
“Nick, Dr. Nishimura,” I called out. “There are four gems and they match the colors of the Four Gods of Heaven.”
I flipped my notebook to a clean page and drew a chart for the students. “The Four Gods mythology was brought to Japan by the ancient Chinese. Their astronomers divided the sky into four quadrants and assigned them a god, color, symbol, and more.”
The students diligently copied my chart while Toru went into an exhaustive explanation about ancient Chinese astronomy in the way only an archaeoastronomer could.
“…and it’s appropriate that we found an artifact matching Suzaku’s imagery. It’s the traditional first day of summer in Japan. We call it Rikka—” he was saying when a student interrupted him.
“There’s kanji on the back of this,” she said. “Can you read this for me, Dr. Nishimura?”
Dr. Nishimura looked up from his huddle with Nick and waved his hand, laughing. “I don’t need to look to know I can’t read it. That’s what Dr. Miura in the Linguistics Department is for—to read ancient kanji for us.”
This is my time to shine.
“I might be able to read it.” I attempted humility but failed miserably. “I’m working on Level 1 of the Kanji Kentei exam. I passed Level 2 last year.”
Dr. Nishimura chuckled. “Why would you put yourself through the kanji aptitude test?”
“I want to prove I can,” I said casually, as if memorizing four thousand extra kanji for a certification exam was something I did for fun. “I like taking tests. They’re achievable goals.”
“Nami might be able to read this for us because kanji is logographic,” Toru explained to the international students. “We don’t need to know how it’s pronounced to know the meaning. We can be given a six-hundred-year-old Ming Dynasty imperial tax record written in Classical Chinese and likely get the gist.”
I glanced into the eyepiece while he continued to explain the transmission of writing from China to Japan. I’d been expecting the angular etchings of ancient Chinese oracle bone script—something obscure, something I would struggle to read, something I’d have fun trying to decipher and maybe write papers about even if it wasn’t my field of study.
They were two common characters I’d learned in school, written in beautiful calligraphy.
I sighed, unable to keep the disappointment out of my voice as I jotted the characters into my notebook. “It just says ‘vision’ and ‘weave’ in calligraphy.”
Calligraphy?
I paused, taking another look. Staring back in the eyepiece was beautiful script, balanced and curved. A master calligrapher’s hand somehow engraved in the chemistry-defying metal.
“The style looks to be from the Heian era. Emperor Ichijo? Maybe Choho era.”
“You can read thousands of extra kanji, date calligraphy, and you’ve memorized individual eras within a period when it’s a thousand years before your area of study?” Dr. Nishimura lightly nudged Toru. “Maybe I should bring Ms. Yoshida on as a research assistant too, eh?”
“This is a special case. I love the gossip and scandal of Heian-era women’s court diaries. I wanted to read the originals.” I paused, rolling my eyes lightly and teasing, “Besides, you know memorizing Japanese eras isn’t hard, Dr. Nishimura. It’s a fun party trick for historians. It impressed you, didn’t it?”
“Everyone,” Dr. Nishimura announced in English to the students. “Ms. Yoshida says the calligraphy matches styles from millennia after the Yayoi period. That can only mean this necklace is a votive offering, a hoto. Someone put their own treasure in the pot as an offering centuries after Tenchi Kofun was built.”
Interesting misdirection.
Dr. Nishimura looked through the microscope. “This calligraphy is very fine,” he said, switching to Japanese and lowering his voice. He turned to Nick. “I don’t know how this is possible without a laser.”
“Lasers? Good, it’s a hoax then.” Nick sounded relieved for a moment before rubbing his hands over his face. “But then our site was compromised. How can we trust our own findings? How can anyone? We’re already on the academic fringe.”
Dr. Nishimura laughed. “And now we know it’s authentic. A true anachronism! It changes the timeline of communication with the mainland and the entire evolution of writing in China! Who would make such a bad hoax?”
A hoax that somehow also defies physics and chemistry.
“Why are you laughing?” Nick asked incredulously, glancing at Toru. “If the site was compromised, people will think we’re incompetent, but we have tenure. What about Toru? He’ll be blacklisted. This is going to kill his career before it starts.”
Dr. Nishimura’s smile died.
The two professors retreated to the large white tent serving as their makeshift office, whispering amongst themselves. Toru quietly stepped into the leadership void until Nick called him into the tent. I organized the paperwork alone with bored international students, nodding mindlessly as they talked and flirted with me as they had all week, but it was meaningless noise.
I understood why Nick was afraid. Their reputations and careers were about to be ruined. Either they were incompetent, or they’d be accused of academic fraud.
I also understood Dr. Nishimura’s laughter. Sometimes making light of a situation was the only way to process it.
After an hour of being abandoned to my thoughts and bored students, I poked my head into the tent. “Should I prepare the paperwork to submit to the Okayama Prefectural authorities?”
The three jumped as if I’d scared them, knocking the relief map of the kofun off the table.
Nick waved his hand with performative dismissiveness. “No. Even if it wasn’t Golden Week, it’s Saturday. Best not to bother for now.”
I raised an eyebrow. The protocol was to immediately submit the discovery to the Prefectural authorities and the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs, national holiday or not.
But extraordinary discoveries required extraordinary evidence, and I completely agreed “fuck protocol” was an appropriate extraordinary response to the impossible.
As soon as I left the tent, I tore my observations out of my notebook and shredded them. It wasn’t real evidence anyway. Just notes.
I spent the rest of the day reviewing Nick’s research while sitting on a grassy slope, watching life in the valley below—tiny cars along narrow farm roads, the cooler mountain air descending with the sunset, the twilight reflecting off the tidy grid of freshly flooded rice paddies, the steady chorus of frogs enjoying the water.
Quiet nostalgia for the rural life I’d purposely fled.
That night in bed, I pretended to sleep while the other girls gossiped among themselves. I would have normally joined them, but I was too distracted by the discovery. Even discounting the vision as a heat-induced hallucination, the necklace still defied chemistry and physics. Dr. Nishimura’s comment was glib, but the artifact was so absurd, no one would fabricate such a bad hoax. It had to be authentic because if it were real, then it was supernatural, and none of us believed in the supernatural.
I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but I found myself dreaming, aware that I wasn’t in the waking world.
Though it wasn’t like the lucid dreams I’d had all my life. I was suspended, cradled, in the fabric of the dream instead of floating in a void. The darkness pressed against my skin like cold silk, alive and listening, more real than reality.
“It’s been a thousand eternities, beloved. How I’ve missed you.” A voice, omnipresent and sonorous, rippled through the dream-fabric with each seductive word, as if it were woven from the dream itself.
It was clearer than any sound I’d ever heard in my waking life.
“‘Beloved?’ Who are you?”
“Now you hear me. Tell me what you dream of, and one day you shall see me, know me.”
“I want to matter. I want to be part of history.”
The Voice laughed. “Such a simple desire—”
A sudden bright dot of light appeared as the tip of a gleaming sword tore into the dream-fabric. The blade ripped downward, silencing the Voice.
A swordsman stepped through the tear, hazy and shrouded. The sword in his hand was straight with a black jewel embedded in the blade near the hilt, held in a reverse grip.
“Who are you?” the swordsman demanded in archaic Japanese. “Leave this realm immediately.”
He raised his sword, slashing forward in a wide arc and shredding the dream-fabric into fragments imprinted with fleeting images and scents I couldn’t name. They fluttered around me, each one vivid and more real than reality.
Osmanthus flowers tinged with metal. The familiar summer scent of tachibana citrus blossoms mixed with kuromitsu black sugar syrup. Candy and the smell of ozone after a lightning strike. Plum blossoms mingling with the sea.
Through the torn fragments, I glimpsed four male figures dressed in what looked like traditional Japanese clothing and seated around a large table carved from gleaming black stone. The two men in the center had vibrant eyes—one like blood on snow, the other glowing blue. Two dim silhouettes sat at opposite ends.
Glowing blue eyes in a dark room. A drop of blood on snow. Brown-faded-to-amber eyes. The scent of flowers and candy.
The corpse of a woman, her eyes and mouth sewn shut with golden thread, a jeweled collar locked around her throat. The scent of decay.
“You killed me.”
I tore myself from the nightmare, jolting upward and nearly retching as the stench of rot lingered in my nose. I shuddered and brushed my arms frantically, still feeling her cold hands on my skin.
I glanced at my roommates to make sure I was awake. Despite the humid stuffiness of the room, I pulled the covers higher, protecting myself like I used to when I was still a child afraid of the night.
It was just a dream. The Four Gods. That samurai movie. Thesis stress. Tangled memories.
I was quiet the next morning through breakfast, pouring my thoughts into my notebook and skimming Nick’s old research, unable to chat or flirt like I’d been doing all week.
I approached Nick and Dr. Nishimura, who were guarding the necklace in a locked silver case. “The villages around here all have different versions of the Miyabi legend, but they all mention jewels. I’d like to re-interview your primary sources to update your research before we leave.”
“Let’s call Mrs. Sato in Kisuki Village,” Dr. Nishimura suggested.
Nick's gaze lingered on my tiny skirt before snapping to my face. “Fair warning, she’s over a hundred years old, very grumpy, and has a thick mountain accent.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “This Osaka-Kansai dialect isn’t my native one. My family is from Kyoto, and I was born in this region.” I switched to my native Izumo dialect. It wasn’t identical to the Okayama dialect of the region, but close enough. “I can play the part of good small-village girl. She’ll love me. All rural grandmas love me.”
Mrs. Sato did not love me.
It was obvious from the moment her granddaughter, a woman old enough to be my mother, introduced us. Mrs. Sato sat in a patch of sunlight in a worn leather armchair, tiny and hunchbacked, her gray hair in a conservative bun, and dressed in a fuchsia tracksuit.
Her gaze traveled from my dyed hair to my heavy gyaru-style makeup to my bejeweled nails. “You’re a graduate student at Osaka University?” Her eyes darted from my face to my business card. “What do you study there, Ms. Nami Yoshida?”
The implication was clear. She’d judged me too unserious for a top university. I was used to it. It was worth it to forget who small-village Nami Yoshida had been.
I straightened my posture, stretching a practiced smile across my face. “Mrs. Sato, my master’s thesis examines the socio-economic consequences of foreign intervention during the mid-nineteenth century.”
That did not impress Mrs. Sato.
“The what?” She snorted. “Shogun Tokugawa This and Emperor Meiji Whoever? Why doesn’t anyone write books about the simple farmers who starved paying for that Meiji Restoration you care so much about?”
I ducked my head, playing the humbled academic. “Mrs. Sato, my thesis is actually about how peasant farmers were impacted by foreign intervention.”
“This is a rice-farming town, and my grandparents nearly starved to death one winter because their food went to rich people.”
The interview was going poorly.
I began again, slowing my speech to match her drawn-out, rhythmic syllables. “Mrs. Sato, I grew up in a tiny mountain village in this region too. Mitoya, over in Shimane Prefecture.”
Her posture softened, but not her words.
“Hmph! What more do you want from me?” Mrs. Sato grumbled, settling into her chair. “Like I told that American, my grandparents used to warn me if they thought I was running around with boys too much” —her eyes raked over my appearance pointedly— “that Lady Miyabi’s demon husband would want me for a concubine.”
I cross-referenced Nick’s notes, underlining as she spoke. Demons. Concubines.
“These were stories meant to keep village girls safe,” I said. “Your grandparents were young when feudal Japan collapsed after the Americans came. It was a dangerous time. Girls were being kidnapped and sold to brothels.”
She grunted. “Said Lady Miyabi would kidnap me and take me back to her realm.”
“The Demon Realm?”
“I told you she was the wife of a demon lord,” Mrs. Sato corrected me dismissively. “She came from a realm full of demons, not the Makai. Lady Miyabi wasn’t a demon.”
I tapped my pen. “The legends in Yakumo Village say Miyabi helped one of the Four Gods of Heaven, usually Genbu, ascend as God-Emperor through a ritualized marriage—”
“Bah! Is that what you academics call a perverted sex cult these days?”
I bit back a smirk. A “perverted sex cult” was certainly less academically neutral than a ritualized marriage but sounded far more interesting.
“My grandparents told me Lady Miyabi would disguise herself as a rich man offering jewelry to greedy girls.” She leaned forward. “Or it’d be those Yakumo perverts using jewels to tempt me for their sex cult. Never trust either of them.”
“Your village believed Miyabi was looking for concubines, but Yakumo Village believed she was helping the Four Gods. What about her jewels?”
She huffed. “Those perverts had the same legends. Rubies that made you fly, sapphires that brought rain, a diamond that let you cut windows into anything, and a black onyx that killed demons.”
“Why would the wife of a demon have a gem that killed demons?”
Mrs. Sato ignored me, snatching the pen from my hand. “Why have you been writing Miyabi like that? I thought you were smart because you go to Osaka University, but you don’t even know your kanji!” She scrawled three characters, then shoved the notebook back. “This is how you write Miyabi.”
I stared down. A eureka moment. The thrill of discovery.
There wasn’t a single person in Japan, past or present, who wrote Miyabi the way she had, but the first character was the same “vision” engraved on the necklace.
Mi (観, “vision”)
Ya (夜, “night”)
Bi (妃, “consort of a god”)
If Mrs. Sato hadn’t been so grumpy, I might not have seen it.
I breathed out slowly. “That’s an unusual way to write Miyabi.”
She poked my business card. “Your name is unusual! Who writes Nami like you do? ‘Calm’ and ‘sea’? Dozens of normal ways to write it!”
“Grandmother, Ms. Yoshida didn’t choose how to write her name. Her parents did.” Her granddaughter leaned over, whispering. “We’ll need to end the interview soon.”
“One last question. Where did the jewels come from? Miyabi’s realm?”
“How should I know? It was a story they told me to stop me from running off!” She paused, a mischievous look crossing her face. She waved her ringed fingers to her granddaughter. “Good thing I didn’t listen, or I wouldn’t have married your grandfather!”
With that, Mrs. Sato declared the interview over.
I was energized as her granddaughter drove me back to the excavation site. She shared details about her rural country life, and I dodged her questions. That night, I laughed with the other girls over intercultural dating woes before nodding off to sleep.
The Dream Voice found me again.
“You have returned, beloved. Shall I show you what you’re searching for?”
Before I answered, the swordsman’s blade tore through the fabric of the dream, shredding the sonorous Voice into scattered fragments. He didn’t speak this time, just turned.
Through the fluttering fragments, I glimpsed the same four male figures from the night before seated around a large table.
Oh look, the “Four Gods” are having a meeting about perverted sex cults.
One of the hazy figures turned his head as if he’d heard my thought, staring through me before returning to his dream-meeting.
The vision dissolved, leaving me adrift in the fabric until a pinpoint of light caught my attention. I drifted toward it, peeking through the tear into a dark-paneled room lit by flickering inlaid glass lamps.
Curious, I grabbed the fabric and pulled, ripping the tear wider, dragging myself through it like I’d seen the swordsman do.
I fell into the room.
The scent of tachibana blossoms and the sea hung in the humid air. Sounds drifted through a lattice window—the roar of waves crashing against rocks, the ambient bustle of horses and carts, a chorus of frogs. I looked down, surprised to see a sheer white silk sleeve slide across my skin as I walked to the window. Outside were more stars than I’d ever seen, a tiny sliver of the crescent moon illuminating the sea.
Somehow it was more real than reality.
“Who are you?” asked a male voice. Not the Voice or the swordsman, but someone distant, muddled, as if speaking through glass.
I turned, startled by a pair of blue eyes glowing in the darkness from the adjoining room. They were striking, a color I didn’t have a name for. Not quite cerulean or turquoise, more like an incandescent blue like bioluminescence.
I moved toward him, the scent sharpening as his form became more beautiful and vibrant, materializing piece by piece.
There he was—my literal embodiment of perfection.
A fair-skinned man with black hair that fell over his forehead. Glowing blue eyes. Lips that would be perfect when curled into an arrogant smirk. Exactly the type of man I wished I could fall recklessly in lust with in real life, crafted for my favorite kind of lucid dream: sex in a fun fantasy setting.
I thanked my brain for the gift.
“You’re perfect. Which one of the Four Gods are you? Did I interrupt your meeting?” I teased. My gaze traveled down his body until it stopped on a vibrant, glowing red cord wound around his torso and wrists, presenting himself to me like a divine offering.
Excitement coursed through me, transcending sleep and affecting my physical body in the waking world. His presence already felt more real than any man I’d touched since Saku.
“Why are you all tied up? Is this supposed to be the red thread of fate?” I reached for the end of the glowing cord, tugging on it playfully. “I hope it’s not the akai-ito. I don’t believe in fate and this looks like a rope.”
If this wasn’t already a lucid sex dream, it would be soon.
I pulled harder, and the cord responded, dragging me toward him as if it had a life of its own, tightening around us both until his mouth was on mine. Demanding, possessive, tasting like kuromitsu, and so real I knew my waking body tasted it.
Time fractured.
His hands stripping the dream-silk from my body. “This is beautiful.” His hand tracing the artifact, his weight pinning me down.
This was the best kind of dream.
When he pushed inside me, my waking body gasped at how real it felt. The stretch, the fullness, the cold marble against my back, his groan against my throat. Far more real than any man I’d slept with. I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him deeper, wanting more.
Time dissolved.
His burning blue eyes staring down at me. Whispers in a language I didn’t understand. The cord wrapping around us.
A red light flickered in his blue eyes.
Something warm dripped onto my cheek.
A blink and suddenly the blue-eyed man was gone.
I wiped my face.
Blood.
I bumped into something frozen floating next to me. The corpse of a woman, her eyes and mouth sewn shut with golden thread, a jeweled collar locked around her throat.
Breathing murky water. “You killed me.” The taste of blood. Blue light fading.
I tore myself from the nightmare, jolting upward and nearly retching. I shuddered, rubbing my arms, the corpse’s dead hands still cold on my skin. My heart was pounding, my thighs slick, my body still clenching around nothing, but the scent of rot lingered in my nose.
What the fuck?
But even as the nightmare faded, the memory of the blue-eyed man stayed vivid. The taste of kuromitsu. The way he groaned when I pulled the cord. The nightmare had been terrifying, but more lucid dreams with my perfect embodiment of lust would be worth the risk.
“Say goodbye to the ‘Vision Weave Jewel,’“ Dr. Nishimura said the next morning, standing by the silver case.
I waved goodbye playfully as Dr. Nishimura snapped the case shut.
Two simple, mundane clicks of a lock that splintered time.
My voice screaming again. “Please don’t leave me.”
Two clicks—the nurse removing his IV line.
Smoke curling again.
Two metallic taps—metal striking metal. The long kotsuhashi funeral chopsticks brushing over white ash, the air still rippling with the last of the furnace’s heat.
Ash on my skin again.
The final click—sealing his urn.
Silence.
The artifact was gone. Taken from me before I was ready to let go. Something that had called out to me, shown me visions, drawn me through the most vivid dreams of my life.
Two snaps—the sounds of finality. The end of an old life.
It took a bus and two train transfers to reach the Shinkansen, but I welcomed every delay that kept me from my reality in Osaka for just one minute. Dread increased with each kilometer as the landscape transformed from green rural countryside to gray urban sprawl.
As we neared the city, the train filled with the chimes of phones receiving reception. My inbox was filled with concerned emails from Dr. Honda and twenty-one unlistened-to voicemails all from the same number.
I snapped my phone shut.
I clutched the worn plush heart charm on my phone, the birthday gift Saku couldn’t give me himself. Just two weeks before my birthday, his mother had pressed it into my hand at his funeral. My fingers lingered on the faded sticker photo, Saku and me in high school flashing peace signs.
“Have you considered changing your thesis?” Dr. Nishimura asked, yanking me back to the present. He nudged me playfully. “Thousands of grad students write about late-Tokugawa, early-Meiji politics. What about linguistics on ancient pottery? Help me convince her, Toru.”
Toru flushed and looked down, smiling shyly. “It’s after the deadline for thesis submission, Dr. Nishimura. Ms. Yoshida’s already submitted hers.”
I was trapped between the lie about my overdue thesis and the ghost of Saku haunting Toru’s face.
I jumped up. “Here’s my stop,” I said before the recorded voice finished its announcement of a train station I’d never heard of.
Dr. Nishimura frowned. “But we’re over an hour away from Osaka.”
I ignored him, bowing politely before holding my hand out to Nick. “Have a safe flight back to America.”
I stepped off at the unknown station.
The next train was in thirty minutes.
Two hours later, I pushed open my apartment door, scraping it over piles of unopened mail. I ignored all of it, changed into pajamas, and went to sleep.
For the next forty-four days, I threw myself into anything that wasn’t my thesis or being awake.
I didn’t write a single page, barely ate, only showered when I had to. Spent hours staring blankly at romantic dramas. Studied obscure kanji for an exam I was only taking to prove a point to no one who cared. Accepted drinks from random men at bars. Compensated dates with rich executives who were all faceless, nameless distractions. They were all just passing time until I could have my blue-eyed lover, the one my brain had crafted perfectly just for me. No one in reality could compare. All I had to do was imagine the red cord before I slept, and I’d pull myself to the dark-paneled room with flickering electricity again.
I wanted to be asleep more than I wanted to be alive. I didn’t want to die—I just didn’t want to be awake.
The dreams became more vivid, more insistent. Sometimes I saw him sitting around a table with the three other men I’d facetiously nicknamed the “Four Gods.” Other times he wasn’t there at all, and instead I saw visions of a white tiger prowling in front of a black Japanese castle.
The dreams began to feel less and less like lucid dreams and more like the vibrant life I was supposed to be living.
When I looked out the window from the dark-paneled room, the night sky was so clear I could name constellations. When the blue-eyed man’s hands forced my thighs apart with bruising intensity, my body responded with eagerness in the waking world. The taste of tachibana and kuromitsu was always still on my tongue when I woke up. Even the swordsman’s rain of shredded dream fragments was more real than my reality in Osaka.
After forty-six days of living in the dream world to avoid the inevitable, I got the phone call I knew was coming. It came every year on June 20.
I stared at my phone as it blared my favorite song.
I’ll answer on the second verse.
My ringtone didn’t have a second verse. It never had one.
A voicemail notification appeared, the twenty-one missed calls becoming twenty-two.
I curled under the covers, trying to will myself to sleep to forget that at twenty-three, I had sixty or more empty years without Saku.
I’m the only person who thinks of his birthday like this.
I was pulled from the threshold of the dream world by my phone buzzing against my ear. It was Shoko reminding me of the gokon group date.
Shoko: Don’t forget the gokon tonight! Karaoke Mansion near Namba Station at 8 p.m. All the guys are excited to meet the Queen of Karaoke.
I didn’t want to go, but I’d promised I wouldn’t be alone on Saku’s birthday anymore. Last year I’d spent it alone and blacked out. Olivia found me the next day. Her last words to me echoed. “Please get real help, Nami. I’m done watching you die.”
I lost my best friend that day, but she still texted every June 20th with the same two sentences: “Call Saku’s mother. You’re all she has left of him.”
I could at least listen to the voicemail. I picked at my cuticles while the message played.
“Hello, Nami. Are you well?” Ichihara Mama’s voice was cheerful, hopeful. “We’re thinking of you on Saku’s birthday.” A pause. “I don’t know if your parents told you since they’ve always been…” Another pause. “Your parents sold their house and moved back to Kyoto to take care of your grandfather. You never have to see your father again.”
I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding for twenty-three years.
Papa’s finally gone, but Mama went with him. Again.
“We hope you come home for Obon Festival in August to clean Saku’s grave. Motoki can’t wait to introduce little Sakuya to Aunt Nami.”
Sakuya. Aunt Nami. Motoki had named his son after his dead younger brother. Maybe in another life, Sakuya would have had his own name. A cousin to play with.
I drank two shots of tequila, writing marginalia in my notebook until the alcohol dulled the edges of my grief.
I returned her call, clutching my pen.
It rang. And rang. I held my breath, releasing the tension with a slow exhale when her friendly voicemail message played.
“Hello, Ichihara Mama. Please forgive me for not calling sooner. My thesis takes up so much time.”
It was sad how easy it was for me to lie to her now.
“I’m planning to come home for Obon.”
Not a lie, but an impulsive comment I hoped wouldn’t turn into one.
“I’ll give you the details later. I miss you. I’m thinking of everyone today.”
I exhaled slowly, wiping guilty tears from my face, jolting when my phone buzzed again. This time it was a message from Nick.
I sat up. He was still in Japan? Given how anxious he was acting during the excavation, I’d practically assumed he’d fled the country.
Nick: I’m going back to New York tomorrow morning. Are you free? Let’s discuss the excavation.
I smirked. “Discuss the excavation” meant “continue with the shameless excavation flirtation.” Sleeping with the handsome American professor had been the one goal I didn’t achieve because of the artifact discovery.
I waited exactly one hour before sending a practiced reply: I’m free tonight. I’d invite you to my place for a farewell drink, but I don’t want to clean.
Nick: Then let’s have the farewell drink in my hotel room.
The ideal response for the ideal distraction.
I pulled out the black minidress with pink ribbons for the cute and sexy look I’d already planned. The silver-white eyeshadow was the final touch that transformed me into my favorite, trendy gyaru pop idol.
I tottered in the rain on towering heels, careful not to slip on the wet pavement, until I reached the neon-lit six-story karaoke building.
I threw open the door to the private room. “I’m here, the Queen of Karaoke!”
Shoko rushed over, flinging her arms around my neck. “I thought you’d cancel. Our women-to-men ratio is off.”
I laughed, extracting myself. “How can I say no to free drinks?”
I scanned the room, assessing Shoko’s usual menagerie of cute academics, lost international students, fake bad boys…and Toru.
Fuck. I should have asked who was coming.
I turned away before he smiled, and considered how best to avoid talking to him at a group date when I caught a familiar unfriendly face.
“I don’t know why Shoko keeps inviting that slut,” Keiko whispered, barely, to an international student. “Annie, that’s Nami. You know that word I was teaching you? Enjo-kosai? ‘Compensated dating’? What a bullshit euphemism for being a whore. I bet she fucked an old guy for that purse. Watch her target the richest guy here.”
She wasn’t wrong, but fuck her.
Compensated dating wasn’t prostitution. I never quoted prices, no explicit transactions. Just generous gifts from wealthy men who enjoyed my company. It was different.
I glared at her. To my petty delight, Keiko just happened to be sitting next to the Richest Guy Here. Giant watch. Burberry sweater. Italian-leather loafers.
I slid beside him. “You have excellent taste in watches. Omega?” I leaned over, touching his wrist with a fingernail. “Astronauts wore them to the moon. What other brand can say that?”
Keiko rolled her eyes and moved away.
Rich Watch Man grinned, extending his wrist. His eyes traveled over my tiny dress, the thigh-high stockings with pink ribbons, assessing me every bit as much as I had assessed him. “And you have great taste in purses. A limited-edition Louis Vuitton? Very cute. It matches your gyaru style.”
I clutched the bag to my chest, giggling. “Thank you. It was a gift from an uncle.”
“An uncle?” His eyes darkened. “Very generous uncle. You must be a very good niece.”
Shoko flopped next to me, shoving a cocktail into my hand. “Nami, you need to catch up. I’m picking your first song. Sing Namie Amuro’s Can You Celebrate?”
“That song’s too depressing,” I said quickly. “‘A Walk in the Park’ instead.”
Rich Watch Man chuckled. “Nami, Namie…you look just like Amuro-chan too. It’s the dyed hair and tan skin.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear before pausing. “I think I know you. Have we met?”
I grabbed the microphone. “Of course you know me. I’m Namie Amuro!”
The next few hours dissolved into my usual routine. Cocktails that vanished, songs perfected for applause, charming men with practiced lines and a timed rotation.
Except Toru. I’d purposely rotated so I’d have to speak to him last, but I intended to leave before that.
I pulled out my phone. Are you free? Let’s have that farewell drink now.
Nick: Come over. Room 3210.
I stood to leave before the Red Jacket Man I’d been talking to asked me another annoying question about my thesis.
Rich Watch Man appeared in the hallway, cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes. “So, Amuro-chan, what kind of gifts do you like?” He pulled out his business card.
I took it, fluttering my eyelashes. “It depends on what we’re doing, Mr. Ryuji Sakamoto.”
My words died. I read the name again, my eyes darting from his face to the business card.
Motoki’s friend? Ryuji Sakamoto from the classical music club?
It couldn’t be. This Ryuji Sakamoto had lost weight and dyed his hair light brown. This Ryuji Sakamoto wore expensive watches to attract girls who wore tiny minidresses and went on compensated dates. This couldn’t be the Ryuji Sakamoto who played violin because he would never have tried to proposition me for sex.
“How do you know Saku Ichihara and Nami Yoshida?” He stared at the sticker on the back of my phone. His eyes darted to my face. “Nami! I knew I recognized you! It’s me, Ryuji Sakamoto. You were always studying on the train while Saku was playing video games. You were always cute in that otaku way, but—”
“Fuck you, Ryuji. It’s Sakkun’s birthday today.”
“His birthday? But it’s been six years since he…” His face shifted to something that looked like pity. “You were just kidding about the gift thing…right? If you need help, the Ichiharas would…”
What if he tells Saku’s family?
“Ms. Yoshida, are you okay?” Toru peeked out of the karaoke room and glanced at Ryuji warily. “Why don’t I walk you home?”
For once, I was thankful for Toru. I couldn’t stand Ryuji looking at me as if I were broken. It was better when he thought I was a whore.
“I’m fine,” I muttered. “I’m seeing Nick now.”
Fuck. I said that out loud.
“Dr. Miller?” Toru looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “Why don’t I walk you to his hotel then?”
I stumbled on my heels, sending Nick provocative messages while Toru steadied me, holding an umbrella over us.
My phone flew out when I tripped, sending Saku’s heart into a pool of rainwater and grime.
I screamed loud enough to draw attention.
Toru bent down to fish it out. “Don’t worry. It’s not broken.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the phone,” I snapped, snatching it away. Tears streamed as I rubbed the plush fabric charm with the hem of my dress.
“Oi, gyaru, why’re you with this loser? Come have fun with us. We’re more your type.” It was a man with spiky dyed hair and a stupid Tokyo “gangster” accent, standing with his friends.
“Leave us the fuck alone, you fake yakuza asshole!” I screamed.
The men howled with laughter, adjusting their suits to reveal hints of actual yakuza tattoos.
“Control your woman, you scrawny piece of shit,” the man snarled, raising an arm.
Stale alcohol. Angry tone. Raised hand.
“Please don’t hit me,” I whimpered, bracing myself into Saku’s—Toru’s—chest. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’ll never do it again,” I heard myself say, the words pouring instinctively from somewhere I’d buried. Toru rubbed circles on my back and made humble apologies to the men.
“Your girl’s a fucked-up bitch,” the man said as he adjusted his suit, staring down at me. The men laughed with each other, but left us without another word.
What was I doing with my life when even yakuza felt sorry for me?
“It’s only a few more blocks,” Toru said gently. “Maybe you can get soup with Dr. Miller.”
I walked in silence, clutching my phone.
“I’m sorry for everything,” I murmured once we reached the hotel.
He bowed politely, hesitating. “Goodnight, Nami. Be safe.”
After Toru left me in the lobby, I fled to the bathroom, texting Nick a lie that I was still on my way. I took a deep, steadying breath, pulled my makeup kit from my purse, and stared at the pop idol in the mirror methodically reapplying makeup.
She looked distant, hollow. Too skinny, hair with two inches of grown-out roots, nails needing a fresh set. Needed more gifts to resell.
Saku would be so disappointed in her.
It was a good thing he wouldn’t recognize her.
I shoved the spiral down and summoned my confidence as I took the elevator to the thirtieth floor. Nick will help me forget everything. That’s why I’m here.
“This is quite an outfit.” Nick’s gaze dragged down my body, lingering on the stylish thigh-high stockings before snapping back to my face. “So many…ribbons and bows.”
I glanced downward. “What’s wrong with it? It’s trendy right now.”
“It was supposed to be a compliment,” he said, flushing. “I just meant that you don’t usually see serious academics dressed like this. You look so cute and sexy.”
“Just say I look cute, Nick.” I rolled my eyes lightly but flashed a rehearsed smile. “It’s just clothes. Serious academics can be sexy too. Aren’t you a serious academic?”
I pushed past him into the hotel room, the unusual beige elegance of an international chain hotel. Dark furniture, crisp white sheets. Osaka stretched below the window, neon glow refracting off the raindrops on the window.
“Look, Nami! It’s like a sea of stars!”
I closed the curtains. I didn’t need the reminder. This was supposed to be a distraction from that.
Nick cleared his throat. “I hope you don’t mind scotch for our farewell drink.”
I hated whiskey, but Nick seemed to need it more than I hated it. “I love scotch.”
I sipped, hiding my grimace at the peat and smoke by turning away from him, feigning interest in the room. My eyes caught on a gleaming artifact, sitting in a bed of black foam with an azure sapphire at its heart, bending poor hotel room lighting as if it were generating its own light. It was still untarnished despite over a month in the open air.
Why the fuck does he have this? Taking nineteenth-century sword scabbards from sites was a crime in Japan. But smuggling a piece of jewelry that could rewrite history out of the country?
“You’re taking this back to America?” I asked innocently, reaching out to touch the black foam.
The room dulled, a piercing light blinding me. Fragments of dreams. Blue eyes. Blood on snow. An angel that smells of flowers. Saku’s brown eyes faded to amber.
The engraved bezel shifted, the gem rotating from sapphire to ruby as if it knew it was being watched. A voice hissed in a language I didn’t know but somehow understood.
“Wield me. Use me.”
I gripped the back of the chair to steady myself.
“It rotated, didn’t it?” Nick glanced over warily. “I have a friend in materials science back in the US who owes me a favor. It’s summer vacation, so we can be discreet about using the lab. We’ll know it’s a hoax soon enough.”
And then what, falsify records to the Japanese government authorities?
“And if it’s real?”
“We’ll be dismissed as lunatics by historians, chemists, and physicists until they can all verify it themselves. And even then…” He sighed. “Nishimura and I will be the ‘ancient aliens’ guys for the rest of our careers, and Toru’s best hope will be television conspiracy theorist.”
“And if you can somehow prove it defies physics and chemistry?”
He downed the whiskey, then poured himself another. “Then we have a different problem on our hands. We’ll figure out how to deal with the impossible later.”
“At the very least, this will make a good movie,” I teased, trying for levity. What was I supposed to do about the ethics of stealing necklaces at the moment? “A hot Ivy League professor discovers a magic necklace in the grave of a shaman. It has everything: human sacrifice, portals to a demon realm. It’s like Indiana Jones with perverted sex cults.”
“Are you calling me a hot Ivy League professor?” Nick chuckled nervously.
This was supposed to be a simple transaction, but his anxiety was ruining it. I didn’t know what he was more nervous about: the professional consequences of finding a world-shattering artifact and committing fraud to hide it, or the reality of having me alone in his hotel room. He’d spent half the night texting me flirtatious messages, and now he was drowning his nerves in a bottle of whiskey.
I guess I’ll have to take the initiative.
I fell back onto the beige armchair. “We’re having our farewell drink, we’re talking about the excavation…what’s next?”
Nick finished his whiskey in one gulp before setting the glass down with a clink of ice. His gaze shifted from the artifact to me, lingering on my neck.
“This is going to sound crazy, but can you put the artifact on? I’ve been dreaming about you wearing it.”
I raised an eyebrow. The thought of wearing an ancient artifact would normally have been antithetical, but if it was still defying the laws of optics and chemistry by throwing off light and being non-corrosive, then what was the harm in wearing it for a few minutes?
“Are you Lady Miyabi in disguise?” I lifted my hair off my neck, laughing. “Mrs. Sato warned me about accepting jewels from rich men.”
“You’re safe. Professors don’t make money,” he chuckled as he lifted the necklace over me. The artifact had felt light in my hand during the excavation, but it was surprisingly heavy and tight, the branch-like spikes digging slightly into my skin.
I shifted the necklace, trying to find a comfortable way to wear it. “Is asking women to wear priceless artifacts your archaeologist sex fetish?”
I smiled to myself at his sharp breath. His fingers brushed against the back of my neck as he locked the clasp with a loud, final click.
A painful flash. Blood roared in my ears. A white tiger and a black castle. A tatami room lit with lanterns. Osmanthus blossoms.
“It looks beautiful,” Nick breathed, his voice cutting through the disorientation and bringing back mental clarity. “Like it was made for you.”
He still hadn’t made a move, and this was taking too long.
I sank into the bed. “Nick, if you want to fuck me, you don’t need to give me drinks or put a necklace on me.” I pulled my minidress off, then decided to take everything else off.
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me as I stood in front of him, naked, the impossible artifact resting at my throat.
Nick stared between my thighs. “Jesus Christ, you’re completely smooth,” he exhaled in English. “Fuck, I’ve never touched bare pussy.”
Olivia’s introduction to Brazilian bikini waxes never failed to get reactions from men. That had been the point of making it permanent. An investment that paid for itself with one generous gift.
“I can’t wait to fuck you with that necklace on.” He fumbled with his zipper as he reached for a condom.
I love when men talk dirty in other languages.
Nick moved frantically, driven by lust and whiskey, while I struggled to stay present.
The necklace thrummed, almost soothing me, pulling my mind somewhere else, feeding me visions of my perfect blue-eyed lover wrapped in a red cord, a presence more real than Nick’s reality.
I felt the man’s breath on my skin, smelled tachibana blossoms and kuromitsu. For one disorienting moment, I thought I was riding him, not Nick, staring down at his fair skin, the flecks of gold in his blue eyes. The red cord wrapped around Nick’s—the man’s—wrists. I pulled. Nick’s tasteful beige hotel room melted into the dark-paneled room with flickering electricity.
“You are mine now.” The blue-eyed man’s voice, but not his.
Nick’s hand tangled in my hair, but it wasn’t the right angle, the right force. I tilted my head for a man who wasn’t there. “Harder, Nick.”
He tried, but Nick was a drunk, real-world man, and my blue-eyed lover was my brain’s perfect creation.
Nick groaned through his release, dragging me back to the hotel room.
It couldn’t have been more than two minutes.
I didn’t expect an orgasm, but it would have been nice if it had been a slightly longer distraction.
“God…that was amazing.” He stared at the artifact, tracing the jewel. “Did you come?”
“Yeah, it was incredible.” A practiced lie. It’d be easier to take care of myself later.
Satisfied with his own skills as a lover, he curled up beside me, pulling me close. I resisted the urge to tense, letting him give tender kisses on my back. I hated the cuddling, the soft afterglow, the pretense that this might mean something.
Maybe that’s what he sincerely wanted, but I wanted to leave. Or for him to go away.
I closed my eyes, my body primed to listen for the heavy breathing of sleep, counting down the minutes until I could return home to the privacy of my own bedroom.
Two hours or so later, I woke up. I glanced at my black dress on the floor, my phone slightly out of reach on the bedside table. I tried to untangle myself from his arms, but Nick stirred, mumbling something in English.
A conversation with Nick was the last thing I wanted, though it was inevitable. I’d been so excited to be truly part of the discovery team and sleep with Nick that I hadn’t fully considered that a one-night stand was professionally impossible.
I angled away from him as much as possible, resigned to being trapped in his arms until he moved in his sleep, desperate to return to the dark-paneled room in the privacy of my own home. Sex with Nick had been so disappointing that the fantasies of the blue-eyed man were more fulfilling.
Depressing.
The dream came faster than ever before. No floating in the void, no Voice greeting me.
I was there—an unfamiliar room with the scent of cypress, fine kyara agarwood incense, and the grassy smell of tatami in the humid summer air. A shoji door, lit from behind the translucent paper with blue light. The weight of the necklace pressing down on my collarbone as white silk brushed against my skin. Always more real than reality.
I slid open the door, expecting my blue-eyed lover.
He wasn’t alone. The three other “Four Gods” sat with him around their meeting table, clearer than they’d ever been. The one who sat at the end suddenly whipped his head in my direction. His face had always been a vague silhouette, but now it was just clear enough to see his brow furrowing. His eyes slowly materialized, filling with color to a faded amber-brown. Almond-shaped and crinkling in the corner.
Saku.
The dream world dissolved into a black void, leaving me alone in the darkness.
“Was this what you dreamed of, beloved?”
“Bring him back. Please let me have this dream with him.” I pleaded with the Voice. “I would do anything, give anything, just to be with Saku again. Even if he’s not real.”
“And what would you offer me for the impossible?”
“I don’t have anything worth offering now, but I’ll give you anything you want in the future.”
“Anything?” The Voice laughed, a dark, savoring, endless sound that rippled through the fabric of the dream.
The swordsman’s blade tore through the void, but this time the laughter didn’t stop. It echoed through the shredded fragments as the Miori flared hot enough to sear my skin in the waking world. “You are mine now.” Saku’s shy, dying smile.
The hazy swordsman stepped forward, a long-haired silhouette colorless except for eyes, red like blood on snow. I knew what he was going to say—he always said it. “Why do you return to this realm every night?”
“What have you done, you wretched Lock?” he demanded instead, his voice sharper than before.
I pleaded, knowing he never seemed to hear me or answer me, only shouted at me. “Please take me to Saku.”
A door slammed nearby, shattering the dream and throwing me back to the waking world.
“Housekeeping!” announced a cheery voice next door.
The jewel at my collarbone thrummed, irritated. I balled my fists, kicking around in mild frustration before the realization hit me. I’m still in Nick’s hotel room.
I glanced over my shoulder expecting to see him, but a note lay on the empty side of the bed. I exhaled in relief.
I’d gotten what I wanted: to manage through Saku’s birthday, drunk but not too drunk, distracted, and not having an awkward morning coffee with someone.
Early flight, I didn’t want to wake you. Order room service. They have my card on file. Wear the necklace a little longer. It looks beautiful on you. Toru will pick it up and bring it to New York in a few weeks.
Nick
He wanted me to wear a priceless artifact they had hidden from the government and then give Toru the responsibility for smuggling it out of Japan?
I rose, eager for free room service and a shower before housekeeping kicked me out when I caught a reflection in the bathroom mirror. A disheveled pop idol, wearing a priceless artifact like costume jewelry after sleeping with a professor to avoid thinking about her dead almost-fiancé.
What the fuck am I doing with my life?
Compensated dating, blackout drinking, avoiding my studies, and now I was fully complicit in Nick and Dr. Nishimura’s fraud.
I’d tainted the one thing Saku could be proud of—my future as a historian.
I couldn’t look at myself. All frivolous thoughts of showers and room service were shoved aside as I returned to the bedroom, pulling on my minidress and grabbing my phone.
The artifact had to come off. It was profane. Disrespecting history.
I threw my hair over my shoulder, reaching behind my neck.
No clasp. Gone. Nothing but smooth, seamless metal seeming to tighten with each heartbeat.
I yanked at the necklace, but it fought back. The asymmetric spikes cut into my fingers as I clawed at it, metal melding with my skin, thrumming like a sentient thing with its own heartbeat, alive but not living.
A disembodied voice whispered in an unknown language I somehow understood.
“We are one now.”
The room lurched. I clutched Saku’s heart to my chest as I stumbled for water, but the jewel’s weight dragged me down.
White-hot pain tore through me as the gem spun wildly, each rotation feeding me a new vision. A red cord. A murky abyss tasting of blood. Brown eyes faded to amber.
My knees hit the tile, the gem’s erratic clicking echoing off the marble as my cheek pressed against the cold surface.
Was this how I died? A body found by hotel staff on the bathroom floor, wearing a stolen artifact? Maybe it was better this way.
“Please promise me you’ll try, Nami…please try to have a happy life even if it can’t be with me. I’ll always love you wherever I am, so please let me see you smiling while I watch over you. Please don’t cry anymore…”
I should have stopped crying. I should have smiled back one last time before he closed his eyes. I squeezed his heart to my chest. If I was going to die, I wanted to be holding him in my arms again.
“I’m sorry, Sakkun, but I couldn’t do it without you. It was too hard.”
Saku’s birthday was yesterday. He would have been twenty-four.
The jewel clicked four times. Finality.
A suffocating darkness pulled me under.
