Midoko Komaru smoothed her hair, the silver-backed brush glinting in the lamplight. A maid stood by, but she preferred, this time, to attend to herself. The brush set had been a gift from her mother, when she'd been almost too small to use them properly. Engraved on the back was the emblem of Komaru, the country and the family. Long ago, the engraving had been traced with gold, but many years of use had worn the metal away. She refused to have them restored to their original glory; they were tools, not decorations. Her mother had always been practical.

After she finished brushing her hair, the maid moved forward to present her with a selection of combs. There was the steel comb, unornamented and plain. Sadashi, Alessandro's now-dead cousin and such a very Minamet Komaru, had given it to her when she turned seventeen, along with a knife she'd never had cause to use. The other comb was made of jade, with pearl decorations. That had belonged to Kahana.

The seal on her dressing table had belonged to Kahana, as well. Midoko picked up the steel comb and then shook her head. "Leave me."

The maid- she noticed it was Elise now- bowed and departed, leaving the tray of combs on the jewelry box. A line furrowing her brow, Midoko stared at the door Elise had left through for a moment. She'd thought it had been Mariel's day to attend to her. Or had that been yesterday?

She sighed and dropped her head on the dressing table, her shoulders tight as she curled her arms around herself. There was no time for grief in her world, there were only decisions and more decisions. There had been no question that she would accept Kahana's estates, but returning them to a duchy had been something only she and Kahana had discussed as a distant possibility. Mei, left as the reigning Komaru Marchessa at Kahana's death, had looked at her with wise eyes and complimented her on her move, and immediately asked if she'd met her fiance yet.

It always came back to that. The decision floated constantly in the back of her head, unfaced and unacceptable. Kahana had wanted her married, wanted her to have children, and even Midoko had found no grounds to fight that desire. But not now... The rumors coming from Arabelle and others were so nasty: a bastard, hidden away from his family for years for reasons too terrible to imagine. She wasn't sure she could handle such a thing in the wake of Kahana's death when there was so much else to do. She wasn't sure she'd ever really be ready to face what she'd danced around her entire adult life, even though she had thought she'd been prepared only a year ago.

Behind her, the door opened. She sniffled and raised her head. She was unsurprised to see her sister standing in the door.

Sana leaned on the doorframe. Her hair, recently cropped short, curled around her face, and she only looked at Midoko silently, one hand ghosting up to push a too-short tendril away from her mouth.

Midoko sniffed again and said, "Will you start acting like the lady you are when I'm gone? You always say I'm so much lovelier than you-" and stopped, because Sana had crossed the room and seized her shoulders.

"Stop it! You're not going anywhere!" Sana's golden eyes were fierce. "Don't act like you've been given a death sentence."

Midoko shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks now. "I'm so afraid. What if he wants me to go live on his farm with him? What if he hits me? I've heard so many stories..."

Sana folded her arms around her sister, much as Midoko had held her when they'd been children. "If he wants you to live on a farm with him, you'll thank him politely for his interest and invite him to visit you here sometime. If he hits you, we march an army down there to show the Sone what we think of their bastard sons. Midoko, you're a duchess now. If you really don't want to do this, we can arrange for Aimee to be married in your place. I think it'd be better for her to get out of the capital in any case."

Midoko couldn't seem to stop the tears now; she hadn't cried since her brother's funeral, when she was barely more than a child. She pressed her face against her sister's arm and sobbed. "Kahana was a marchessa and she was murdered by bandits, Sana! She wasn't on the front lines, she wasn't a warrior, she was what I've wanted to be all my life and she was cut down like gutter trash. And now I have to face this awful thing all alone."

Sana let her cry for a moment and then pulled back to find a cloth for Midoko. "Some arranged marriages work out very well."

Midoko narrowed her reddened eyes at her sister, "You'll do your best to avoid marriage when your time comes, too."

Sana easily avoided the subject. "Don't worry about the bandits who killed her, anyhow. I'm going to find them and I will see them dead. All of them. You should take care of yourself, and you shouldn't drive yourself insane anymore waiting for that Sone boy to introduce himself to you. If you don't want to send Aimee off to get married," she handed Midoko the soft white cloth, "don't face your future reaching back for your childhood. Your self-respect will suffer."

Midoko dabbed at her face gently with the cloth, and thought of Kahana's raised voice telling her she wasn't a child anymore, Kahana's gentle voice teaching her about responsibility and accountability. She knew exactly how to avoid the marriage if she wanted, with whom to talk and what to say to convince everybody that Aimee, so close to the throne, was a better choice for the Sone, if not that Sone boy. She knew that if she slid out of this marriage, they would tell stories for a year of her cunning, and her reputation as a social maven would blossom.

She leaned back in her chair, and felt Sana bend over to kiss her forehead and run her hand gently across Midoko's hair. "Good luck, sister," Sana said, and quietly left.

Midoko barely heard the door close as she mentally examined all the tangled skeins of Komaru social politics. Aimee was getting dangerously attached to Zoe's brother, it was true; it wasn't good for her. The Sone were happy when she was a viscountess, so the title wouldn't matter and could even, if the Sone were too obnoxious, be used as a reason...

But she remembered Kahana talking about responsibility, and it was true, many of those lessons had involved how to arrange where responsibility fell. But it also involved knowing the ultimate truth, and Midoko knew in her bones that she had a duty to her family to do what was best for the family and the nation... and what she was thinking of doing now, she was only doing for herself, out of fear.

She thought about this for a while, about how much her freedom was worth.

Then she blew her breath out, picked up Sadashi's comb and tucked it into her hair. Sitting at her writing desk, she carefully placed a sheet of paper on the writing board, unscrewed a jar of ink, and began to write.