The dining hall was built to impress.
Glass chandeliers hung from iron chains, each one a cluster of blown globes in amber and white that caught the candlelight and scattered it across the vaulted ceiling. The walls were lined with panels of colored glass set into stone alcoves, and the long table at the center of the room could seat thirty. Tonight it held six. Yoshimasa and Tamayo on one side. Soran and Hina on the other. A seat for Shinsuke at the end, and an empty chair beside Tamayo where Ruri should have been.
Karura stood behind Soran's seat with her back to the wall. Inside the disguised puppet, the Byakugan swept the room every now and then. Every servant who entered carrying a tray, she checked their bodies, what they carried, and their chakra. The Transformation jutsu couldn't hide from the Byakugan.
All in all, she found nothing. Every servant was who they appeared to be. Every dish was carried by regular people. No signs of poison or anything.
The food was exceptional. Five courses. Glazed river fish on beds of saffron rice. Roasted lamb with glass-smoked salt, a local specialty that gave the meat a faintly sweet char. A soup made from desert tubers and cream. Fresh bread that reminded Karura of her father's bakery, but she doubted it would be able to replicate her father's superior baking. Even if she hadn't tasted it.
Yoshimasa was trying. Visibly, painfully trying. He poured Soran's watered wine himself, ignoring Shinsuke's attempt to do it for him. He spoke warmly about the Land of Dust's recovery. About the trade routes reopening. About how the glass artisans of Suishō had been crafting a set of ceremonial pieces for the engagement, a matched pair of vases that represented the union of two nations. He described them in detail, the colors, the patterns, the way the glass had been layered so that light passing through it cast images on the wall. He was eloquent. He was sincere.
He was a father trying to patch a wall his daughter had blown wide open.
Soran listened. He nodded at the appropriate moments. He complimented the food. He asked thoughtful questions about the glass-smoking technique and the artisan guild's history. His manners were impeccable. His posture was correct. His voice was at that half-octave-deeper register he used for professional occasions.
But the warmth that had been there when the caravan first arrived, the genuine excitement of a boy visiting a new place for the first time, was gone. What sat in its place was courtesy.
Everyone could feel and see it. They all remembered the smile on his face when he first arrived and looked upon the beautiful sights of the Land of Glass. However, that smile hadn't been seen since the incident. Now all that took its place was a much more subdued professional one.
"Soran-dono," Yoshimasa said during the fourth course. He set down his cup. The candlelight caught the glass beads on his collar and threw gold across his throat. "I want to speak openly, if you'll allow me."
Soran set down his spoon. "Of course."
"My daughter said something today that was inexcusable. Not merely rude. Inexcusable." Yoshimasa's voice was steady but the effort it took to keep it that way showed in the lines around his eyes. "She insulted your country. Your people. The nation you've given everything to rebuild. I know what the Land of Dust has been through. I've heard what you've been through. And for my daughter to stand on these steps and call it..." He stopped. Closed his eyes. "I am ashamed, Soran-dono. Deeply ashamed."
The table was quiet.
Soran looked at Yoshimasa for a long moment. Searching for something in the older man's face, testing whether the shame was real or performance.
It was real in Karura's opinion. Karura could see that much. Fear that this alliance, the one he'd spent months arranging, was slipping through his fingers because his daughter had been spoiled a bit too much.
"Yoshimasa-dono," Soran said. "I won't pretend what she said didn't offend me. It did. The Land of Dust is everything to me. My people have suffered more than most will ever know, and they don't deserve to be mocked and insulted for it."
Yoshimasa's face tightened.
"But," Soran continued, "I didn't come here to hold a grudge against a girl. I came here because this alliance matters. To my people and to yours. If we let one bad moment destroy something that could lift both our nations, then we've failed the people who are counting on us."
The relief that washed over Yoshimasa's face was so raw that Tamayo looked away.
"You are remarkable, Soran-dono," Yoshimasa said quietly. "A truly remarkable young man..."
The dinner continued. The fifth course came. The conversation eased, not quite warm, but no longer walking on glass. By the time the meal ended, Shinsuke escorted the Dust delegation to their quarters.
Morning came gold through the colored glass.
Sayo moved through the merchant district casually. People looked past her. A young woman in a Sand flak jacket browsing the stalls was unremarkable in a trade city that dealt with shinobi regularly.
She listened more than she watched. The market was where people talked freely, and people talked about everything.
The glass merchants talked about the engagement. Most of them were positive. A trade alliance with the Land of Dust meant new markets, new customers, new routes opening to the east. The Dust Lord was young but his country was growing fast. Good for business. Not to mention those famous cacti!
Others were less enthusiastic. A pair of silk traders near the south end of the boulevard muttered about the Land of Dust being a "charity case" that would drag Suishō's reputation down. They stopped muttering when Sayo walked past their stall and lingered just long enough for them to notice the forehead protector.
Nobody seemed hostile. Nobody seemed like a threat. But Sayo had been a shinobi long enough to see underneath the surface.
She paused beside a glass workshop and watched an artisan pull a glowing blob of molten glass from a furnace on the end of a long pipe. He blew into it slowly, cheeks puffing, and the glass expanded into a bubble that caught the light from the furnace and turned it orange. Then he rolled it against a stone surface, shaping it, stretching it, coaxing it into a long tapered form that would become a vase or a lamp or something she didn't have a name for. The heat from the furnace pressed against her face.
Beautiful work. Very pretty to look at.
She moved on.
Torune's post was the palace perimeter.
He stood on the roof of the servants' quarters, three stories up, with a clear line of sight to the main gate, the side entrances, and the garden wall that ran along the western edge of the compound. His puppet scroll sat at his hip. He hadn't needed it. He hoped he wouldn't.
The palace guards rotated every four hours. Six at the main gate. Two at each side entrance. Four patrolling the garden wall. They were professional and well-equipped. Glass country money bought good security.
But they weren't shinobi.
Torune watched a guard at the western gate yawn, stretch, and lean against the wall. The man's partner was talking to a servant who'd brought them water. Neither of them was watching the rooftops. Neither of them had checked the blind spot behind the ornamental glass spire that blocked the view from the eastern tower.
If a ninja wanted to get into this palace, they could.
Torune noted the gaps. The timing of the rotations. The blind spots. He'd already mapped three entry points that a competent shinobi could exploit and two more that even a skilled civilian could use if they were patient. He'd tell Karura at the evening briefing. She probably already knew. But it cost nothing to have a second pair of eyes confirm what the first pair saw.
He sat on the roof's edge and let the morning sun warm his face. Below him, the palace grounds were quiet. Servants moved between buildings. A gardener trimmed hedges along the main path.
May covered the outer ring.
She walked the main road that circled the city's edge, her fan folded across her back, her headband pulling double duty as a bandana against the morning sun. The road was wide, paved with flat stones, and busy with merchant caravans arriving and departing through Suishō's three gates.
She counted the caravans. Eight had entered since dawn. Five had left. Most were local traders, glass merchants hauling finished goods to the surrounding countries, returning with raw materials, food, textiles. Two of the incoming caravans were from further away. One flew flags she didn't recognize. She noted the direction it had come from, the number of guards, the cargo visible on the carts, and remembered it later for the briefing.
A chunin's job on a protection detail wasn't just standing next to the client. It was knowing everything that moved in and out of the area so that if something went wrong, you already knew where it came from.
She passed a group of children playing in the street near the south gate. Four of them, kicking a ball made of wrapped cloth, yelling at each other about rules that seemed to change every thirty seconds. One of the kids, a boy with messy brown hair and soot on his hands, stopped playing long enough to stare at the fan on her back.
"Are you a ninja?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Can you fly with that thing?"
"I can glide with it."
"Isn't that a lame way of flying?"
"You're a lame way of flying, kid."
The boy's eyes went aggressive. He wanted to argue about this lady. Unfortunately for him, his friends called him back to the game and he ran, sticking his tongue out at her before doing so of course.
May smiled. Brats were brats everywhere. Thankfully her captain had a bit more sense. Maybe ninja children just matured more quickly.
She completed her circuit and checked in with Sayo at the market. Sayo reported nothing unusual. Torune sent a mechanical wooden hawk from the palace roof with the message, all clear. Three chunin covering a city they'd been in for less than a day, and between them they'd already mapped every gate, every rotation, every merchant caravan, and every blind spot in the palace's security.
Karura was most likely more than enough for the Dust Lord himself. They all knew that. Her puppets could handle anything short of an army of shinobi. The girl was a walking fortress wrapped in a yellow scarf. Their job wasn't to protect Soran. Their job was to make sure nothing got close enough for Karura to need to.
The tour began after the morning meal.
Shinsuke appeared at the Dust delegation's quarters with his leather folio and his broad smile, both slightly more strained than yesterday but holding. He bowed to Soran, nodded respectfully to Karura, and gestured toward the palace's main hall.
"If it pleases Soran-sama, I thought a tour of the capital might be in order. Suishō has much to offer, and I'd love to show you the pride of our country."
Soran straightened his robes. "I'd like that, Shinsuke-san. Lead the way."
They walked through the palace gates and into the city. Shinsuke led them down the main boulevard, the same road the caravan had entered through yesterday but different in the morning light. The glass panels in the buildings caught the early sun at lower angles, casting long prismatic streaks across the street that shifted as they walked through them. Red became orange became gold, and then they'd pass a blue panel and the street would flood with cool light that made the sandstone walls look like they were underwater.
Soran noticed everything. He asked about the construction. How did they set the glass into stone without it cracking? How did they produce so many colors? Was the colored glass more expensive than clear? Shinsuke answered each question with genuine enthusiasm, happy to talk about something that wasn't yesterday.
The artisan quarter was the heart of the city. Workshops lined both sides of a narrow street, their doors open, their furnaces glowing. The heat hit them before they turned the corner. Glassblowers stood at their stations with long pipes, pulling molten glass from crucibles and shaping it with breath and gravity and tools that looked like oversized tweezers. Apprentices ran between stations carrying buckets of raw silica and bundles of coloring minerals, cobalt for blue, iron for green, gold chloride for red.
"Every piece is made by hand," Shinsuke explained, leading them past a workshop where a master was shaping a bowl with walls so thin that light passed through it like paper. "No two are identical. That's what makes our glass valuable. A merchant can buy a hundred cups from a potter, but a Suishō glass cup is the only one of its kind in the world."
"Cool…" Soran said. He was genuinely interested. The growing ruler in him was already thinking. Trade routes. Export potential. What the Land of Dust could offer in exchange. What this partnership could mean for both their economies.
Karura walked two steps behind them. Her Byakugan swept the streets in constant rotation. Every person within a hundred meters was searched. Every face checked. Every belt and sleeve and pocket scanned for the shape of a hidden kunai. She found nothing. The artisan quarter was exactly what it looked like, a neighborhood of craftsmen doing their work.
She let herself notice the beauty of it. The sound of glass singing as a blower spun his pipe. The colors everywhere, in the windows, in the walls, in the scraps of glass that littered the street like jewels dropped from a broken necklace.
It was nothing like Suna. Nothing like the brown and tan and endless sand she'd grown up in. This place was alive with color in a way that made her realize how much of her world was monochrome. She still loved her village but it could definitely use a bit more beauty and color.
They stopped at a tea house near the end of the artisan quarter. Shinsuke ordered for them, a local blend brewed with dried desert flowers that tasted like honey and something faintly bitter underneath. They sat at a table near the window where the colored glass painted the tea cups in shifting bands of blue and green.
Shinsuke set his folio on the table. His broad smile softened into something more honest.
"Soran-sama," he said. "I hope you'll forgive me for bringing this up, but I feel I owe you some context about Ruri-sama."
Soran set down his cup. "Go ahead."
Shinsuke chose his words carefully. "Ruri-sama is... she's not a bad child. I want you to know that first. She's spirited. Energetic. She has a good heart underneath all the..." He gestured vaguely. "She's grown up with a great deal of freedom. Lord Yoshimasa and Tamayo-sama love her very much, and perhaps because of that love, they've never been strict with her. She's never been told no. Not really. She's always done what she wanted, gone where she wanted, played with who she wanted."
He took a breath. "And then, quite suddenly, she was told she had to do the opposite of everything she'd ever known. Wear dresses she hates. Learn manners she's never needed. Sit still when she's never sat still in her life. And marry a boy she's never met." He paused. "She doesn't understand the politics. She doesn't see the big picture. She's a child, and from her eyes, you're the reason her freedom is being taken away."
Soran was quiet for a moment. He looked at his tea, at the colored light playing across its surface.
"That must be difficult for her." he said.
Shinsuke blinked. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't empathy.
"She didn't ask for any of this," Soran continued. "Neither did I, honestly. But I understand why it matters. I don't think she does yet." He looked up. "It's alright, Shinsuke-san. I'm not offended."
He glanced at Karura. Quick. Almost involuntary.
Karura smiled at him.
"That's very mature of you, Soran–sama." she said.
Something ignited behind his eyes. A spark that had nothing to do with politics or alliances or little girls in silk dresses. He sat up straighter. His chin lifted. His shoulders squared.
Mature. She said mature. She thinks I'm mature. MATURE IS WHAT SHE LIKES. Be mature. Be the most mature person in this entire country. Be so mature that maturity itself looks at you and takes notes.
"It's nothing," he said, his voice cracked. "A leader can't afford to hold grudges over words."
Shinsuke's smile spread until it nearly reached his ears. The relief was so strong it was almost physical.
"Soran-sama," Shinsuke said, "you are, without question, the finest young man I have ever had the privilege of meeting."
Soran nodded graciously. He did not look at Karura again because if he did, his face would have betrayed everything he was trying to hide.
Ruri hit the wall with her fist.
It hurt.
She didn't care.
She hit it again. The stone was cool against her knuckles. A crack ran through one of the glass panels set into the plaster and she pulled her hand back, surprised, then guilty, then angry that she felt guilty.
She hated this room. She hated the silk sheets and the painted walls and the glass butterflies that hung from the ceiling on wire threads, spinning slowly in the draft from the window. She hated the dress they'd laid out on the bed for tomorrow, another one, green this time, with gold trim and a sash that would dig into her ribs. She hated the powder and the pins and the way the attendants looked at her like a doll.
She hated Soran. She hated his stupid calm face and his stupid voice and his stupid country that was making her life miserable.
A knock at the window.
Ruri spun. A pebble bounced off the glass and clicked against the stone sill. She crossed the room and pushed the window open.
Three faces looked up at her from the garden below. Haru, crouched behind the hedge, his brown hair full of leaves. Natsuki beside him, grinning, her front teeth gap-toothed and her knees grass-stained. Ren at the back, holding a folded piece of paper and looking nervous.
"Ruri!" Natsuki whispered as loud as a whisper could get without becoming a shout. "Come down!"
Ruri looked over her shoulder. Her attendants were in the hall. She could hear them talking. The door was closed but not locked.
She climbed out the window.
The drop was only two meters. She'd made it a hundred times. Her bare feet hit the garden soil and she ducked behind the hedge where her friends were waiting.
"What are you doing here?" She asked. Her voice was thick from crying earlier.
"Rescuing you, duh." Natsuki said, like it was obvious.
Ren unfolded his paper. It was a hand-drawn map of the city, crude but surprisingly detailed for a kid's work. He'd marked the gates, the main roads, and a route through the back alleys that ended at the southern gate.
"There's a merchant caravan leaving at sundown." Ren said. He kept his voice low. "Heading south to the Land of Spice. They've got six carts loaded with crates. We can hide you in one of the carts near the back. The driver's an old man. He won't check."
"Once you're out of the city, you can go anywhere." Natsuki said. "We'll cover for you. Tell your parents you're sick or something."
Ruri looked at the map. At the route drawn in charcoal that wound through streets she knew by heart. Streets she'd run through every day of her life. Past the bakery where Haru's father bought flour. Past the alley where she and Natsuki had found that stray desert cat last summer. Past the south gate where the guards knew her face and would wave her through without a second thought.
Freedom. Right there on a piece of paper.
"What about you guys?" Ruri asked. She looked at Haru. He hadn't said anything yet.
Haru met her eyes. Something sat behind his expression that he'd carried for months without ever naming. He swallowed.
"We'll be fine." he said. "Just go."
She didn't understand the look on his face. She was too young to understand it. But she felt something in it that made her chest hurt in a way she couldn't explain.
"Okay," Ruri said. "Let's go."
They moved through the garden, through the gap in the hedge that Ruri had used since she was four, and into the back streets of Suishō. Ren led. He knew the route by memory, having walked it twice this morning to check for obstacles. Natsuki was next to Ruri, chattering quietly about how this was the most exciting thing they'd ever done and how Ruri was going to love living on the road and how she'd come visit her once things calmed down.
Haru walked behind them. He didn't talk.
They made it six blocks.
The southern gate was visible at the end of the street. The merchant caravan was there, six carts lined up, the drivers checking their loads. The old man Ren had described was sitting on the bench of the rearmost cart, dozing.
"See?" Ren whispered. "Easy. We just..."
A figure appeared in front of them.
One second the street was empty. The next, a young man stood in their path. Tall, dark-haired, face paint, wearing a Sand flak jacket with a forehead protector on his brow. His arms were folded across his chest. He looked at the four children with disapproval in his eyes.
Torune.
Ruri's blood went cold. She took a step back. Natsuki grabbed her arm.
"That's one of the ninja…" Natsuki hissed. "From the Dust guy's group."
"I know…" Ruri whispered.
Torune looked at them for a long moment. Then he unfolded his arms and sighed.
"Turn around." He said. His voice wasn't angry. It wasn't even stern. "All of you. Go home."
"You can't tell us what to do!" Natsuki stepped forward, chin raised, fists balled. "We're citizens of the Land of Glass! You're a foreign ninja!"
Torune looked at her. Then he looked at Ren, who was slowly folding his map and backing away. Then at Haru, who hadn't moved, whose eyes were on Ruri.
"You're right," Torune said. "I can't tell you what to do. But I can tell her." He looked at Ruri. "Your father is going to find out. You know that, right?"
Ruri's jaw tightened. Her hands were shaking. The southern gate was right there. Fifty meters. The cart. The road. Freedom.
"I don't care." she said.
"You will."
He didn't grab her. He didn't threaten her. He just stood there, arms at his sides now, looking at a girl who was about to make the worst decision of her short life and knew it.
Natsuki looked at Ruri. Ren had already vanished around a corner. Haru stood rooted, watching.
The moment stretched.
Ruri's eyes burned. Her throat closed. She looked at the gate one more time.
Then her shoulders dropped.
Natsuki's hand fell from her arm. Haru exhaled.
Torune walked them back to the palace. Natsuki peeled off at the market, running home before anyone noticed she was gone. Ren was long gone. Haru lingered at the palace gate, watching Ruri walk through it. He stood there until the gate closed, and then he stood there a little longer.
Yoshimasa found out within the hour.
A guard reported seeing Torune escorting the princess back through the side entrance. Shinsuke confirmed it. The timeline was reconstructed. Window. Garden. Six blocks through the city. Intercepted at the southern gate attempting to leave with a merchant caravan.
Yoshimasa stood in the center of his study. His hands were at his sides. His face was blank. Tamayo stood behind him, her lips pressed into a thin line. Ruri stood in front of his desk, still in the clothes she'd worn to climb out the window, her bare feet dirty, her hair tangled.
"Do you understand…" Yoshimasa said, and his voice was different. Ruri had heard her father speak a thousand times. Warmly. Proudly. Gently. Firmly. But never like this. Never with this sound underneath it, like something cracking at the base of a wall. "Do you understand what you almost did?"
Ruri's chin trembled. "I just wanted to..."
"You tried to run away." His volume hadn't changed. Somehow that was worse. "During the most important political event this country has held in a generation. You tried to flee the capital in a merchant's cart like a runaway. My daughter. The princess of the Land of Glass. Hiding in a crate."
"I didn't want to hide in a crate! Ren said..."
"I don't care what Ren said!" And there it was. The yell. The first one she'd ever heard from him toward her. It hit the room like a thunderclap and Ruri flinched so hard her teeth clicked together. "You could have been killed! Do you know what happens to a child alone on the desert roads?! Do you know what bandits do to travelers without guards?! Do you know what I would have had to tell your mother if we'd found you dead in the sand because you decided your comfort was more important than your country's future?!"
Ruri was crying. She stood in front of her father's desk with her dirty feet and her tangled hair and her face crumpling like wet paper.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered.
"Sorry doesn't begin to cover this." His voice dropped back to the terrible quiet. "You are confined to your rooms until I say otherwise. Your attendants will be with you at all times. Your window will be sealed. You will not see your friends. You will not leave the palace. You will not leave your wing. Am I understood?"
She nodded. She couldn't speak.
"Go."
Tamayo took her arm and led her out of the study. Ruri went without resistance. Her body was present but everything behind her eyes had gone somewhere else.
The door closed.
Yoshimasa stood alone in his study. He braced both hands on the desk and leaned forward. His shoulders shook once. He pressed his lips together until the shaking stopped.
Then he straightened. Adjusted his collar. Walked to the window and looked out at his city, the glass and the stone and the colored light, and thought about all the ways a man could love his daughter and still not know how to reach her.
The knock came late.
Ruri lay on her bed in the dark. The green dress still sat on the chair where the attendants had left it. The glass butterflies on the ceiling had stopped spinning. Her eyes were swollen and her throat was raw.
"Ruri. It's me."
The door opened. Tamayo stepped inside and closed it behind her. She crossed the room, sat on the edge of the bed, and smoothed her daughter's tangled hair with one hand.
"You've had a terrible day, I presume." Tamayo said softly.
Ruri didn't respond.
"I know you're scared. I know this feels unfair. I know you didn't ask for any of this." Her hand moved through Ruri's hair in slow strokes. "But I need you to listen to me, sweetheart. Really listen."
Ruri's eyes opened. Red-rimmed and glassy.
"There is no other option." Tamayo said. "This engagement isn't a punishment. It's a necessity. Our country needs this alliance. Your brother is four years old. He will inherit this country when your father is gone. But a boy on a glass throne with no allies will not survive what this world does to nations. You are the bridge, Ruri. You are how he stays safe. Your father needs it. Our people need it. And the sooner you accept that, the easier it will be. The happier you'll be."
"I don't want to be happy like this…" Ruri whispered.
"You'll learn to be. People do." Tamayo tilted her head. "And honestly, Ruri, I don't understand what you're so upset about. Have you looked at Soran? Truly looked at him?"
Ruri stared at the ceiling.
"He's the kindest young man I've ever met. You insulted his country, his people, everything he's fought to rebuild, and he sat at our table and forgave us. He didn't shout. He didn't threaten to leave. He didn't demand anything. He was gracious and gentle and more mature than men three times his age." Tamayo leaned closer. "You couldn't ask for a better match, Ruri. Do you understand that? Other girls your age are betrothed to lords far older than them. Men with grey hair. Men who see a wife as furniture. You should be thanking the heavens that we found someone close to your age who is actually, genuinely kind."
Ruri's face crumpled. The tears started again.
"Ruri..."
"I don't CARE if he's nice!" The words tore out of her in a sob. "I don't care if he's the nicest boy in the whole world! I don't want to marry ANYONE! I want to go outside! I want to play with Haru and Natsuki and Ren! I want to climb things and run and get dirty and I don't want to wear stupid dresses and I don't want to talk fancy and I don't want to be a PRINCESS I just want to be ME!"
The room was quiet except for her breathing.
Tamayo sat on the edge of the bed. Her hand had stopped moving through Ruri's hair. Her expression hadn't hardened, but something behind it had closed, the way a door closes when the person on the other side decides they've said everything they came to say.
"You are a princess, Ruri." Tamayo said. "Whether you want to be or not. That isn't something you get to choose. We all have to deal with decisions we don't like. It's called growing up. Everyone does it."
She stood. Smoothed her own dress. Adjusted a glass pin in her hair that had shifted.
"Get some sleep. Tomorrow will be better."
She left.
The door clicked shut.
Ruri lay in the dark. The glass butterflies hung above her, motionless, their wings frozen in positions that looked like flight but weren't. Pretty things on strings. Going nowhere.
She pulled the blanket over her head and cried until there was nothing left.