First, there was darkness and the sensation of moving. And then she stood again, her body jolting from the disorientation of falling and then not. Before her sat a woman on a golden throne. She was cruel but beautiful, olive-skinned with her hair styled up and held in place with a golden comb. She wore a white, floor-length dress that left her arms bare. In some ways she felt like a spirit, but more broad in definition. She did not represent a street or a house, but instead every betrayal that had ever occurred. Every moment in which one person turned against another seemed to live within this goddess.

Kensei wore the golden kimono with red hakama again, and the lion stood at her side. She held her katana, which burned with a white light. But instead of some frigid rocky coastline,...

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