Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 5.

The child moved inside me today. I had thought myself indifferent, uninterested in anything that went on around me; unfeeling. I was not concerned about the pregnancy or about the child and its future, I simply did not care. I could not care. I have been going about House business much as usual, and indeed Silent Thunder appears to be flourishing, the people seem happy and there seems to be little of the backbiting and scheming that assails other Houses among the Nobles and Officials. I have remained removed from my former Ladies in Waiting though, confiding nothing, not even in Tomoe; Azusa constantly urges me to speak to someone about my feelings, about my pain. But until this morning, I had none. I was not even particularly interested in the ongoing sagas of the relative troubles of Yuika or Seira which have reached me from time to time.

I had not slept much during the night and there seemed little point in lying in bed when there were things about the Castle to be done so I rose and dressed myself not wanting to disturb anyone else at that hour and at sunrise, I went to my temple to offer sutras to the Goddess. I proffered the customary lotus and knelt before her, chanting softly, my eyes closed as I concentrated on the sound of the prayer floating up to the Heavens and the faint scent of the cones that the priests had already lit, even at that early hour. As I paused between stanzas, I felt a twinge in my abdomen. At first I thought I had imagined it but after a short while, it came again and as I lay my hand on my belly I realised that it could only be the child.

The child. Lord Kenta's child.

Born of a love so great I could hardly articulate it, yet I do not love his child. How can I, when it is a devastating reminder that my love is gone? A reminder that I shall never again be held in his arms as he smiles down at me. That I shall never again feel the touch of his fingertips against my cheek. That I shall never again hear him say my name in a muted sonant caress. And when the child moved, all of these thoughts and more, came flooding back from where ever they had lain hidden; I felt as though a huge damn had burst within me and I began to weep. Great gulping sobs of pain and rage poured from within me and I lay on the floor of my temple, my fingernails raking at the matting as I felt the humiliation of Lady Yuki's attack on me and the pain I should have felt at not being permitted at his funeral when even White Lake's enemies had paid their respects. And in the midst of my outpouring of grief and pain, I felt a surging white hot anger that I should not be able to visit his grave. That he is forever lost to me and yet every day I shall see his face in that of his child. I came to realise that I do not want his child, not when he is gone. And the disgust I felt at myself for having such thoughts only served only to make me weep harder.

I do not know how long I lay there, ruining the matting of the floor, but when Azusa came with Tomoe and two other ladies of the Court - (Shizuyo and Hanako,girls from a minor branch of my Mother's family, I think) - the sun had begun to sink a little lower in the sky and the bells were ringing to bring the farmers in from the fields. Azusa knelt next to me and stroked my face and my hair as I continued to weep asking me what ailed me, but I could not tell her. When my sobs had quietened, she told me that when the priests had finally come to offer morning prayers to the Goddess, they had found me but been afraid to approach. They had thought that once I had purged myself of tears that I would right myself but that when I had not, they had sent a boy to fetch her. Azusa too, had thought that when I was ready, I would return to the Castle but after three sticks when there had still been no sign of me, she had become worried. She begged my forgiveness for not coming sooner and I told her there was no need but she asked for it again anyway. She signalled to Tomoe and together they helped me sit up and then to stand, but as I stood, the child moved again and I burst into a fresh bout of weeping. Tomoe looked stricken and on the verge of tears herself, as she implored me to tell her what disturbed me so.

But how could I tell her? I could not tell anyone that I weep so much because I miss him. That every day I do not see him, I miss him a little more than the day before when I did not see him. And that all I wish to do is have him near me and talk to him again; that I cannot bear the emptiness I feel at knowing he is gone. I could not tell anyone that Lord Kenta is the first person I think of when I wake and the last I think of before I sleep and that I would give my own life for the opportunity to at least have said goodbye... I could tell no one that I blame myself for all of this - it was not my intention to fall in love with him but when I did, it was I who pursued him, and if only I had not... I could have saved both of us so much heartache. I loved him with all of my being and now he is gone and it is my fault. All of these things I buried, deep inside, but now that his child moves within me, they are awakened and I do not think I can bear to have the child. His child.