Year of the Boar, Seventh Month, Day 21.

Traders arrived from the Sixth Kingdom today; there was a time when I would have been delighted to peruse their silks and ornaments made from animal horns, when I would have cooed ecstatically over their sweets and hair sticks but I could not even bring myself to see what they had brought. I told Nanami and Atsuko that they could choose whatever they liked and buy something nice for Chiyo, too but I did not leave my chamber. I sat on my veranda instead, wishing the leaves would turn suddenly so there was something to see. Of course they did not for that is not how it happens; they turn so slowly one does not even notice until the day one realises that in fact, they are all golden red. The bird chirped occasionally, hopping between the perches in her cage, pecking at the seed we feed her and splashing from time to time in the tiny bath she has. She really does seem perkier since Nanami has come home but I feel as though I am sinking ever deeper into a pit of the blackest night... I slept last night for the first time in several days but I was haunted by nightmares the like of which I have not experienced in some weeks... Shigeru, of course... only... when I looked up at him, it was not Shigeru I saw. I shudder to recall it all now, dreams that seem crystal clear whilst one experiences them become fogged and hazy in the light of day and so I cannot be sure what I dreamt in any case; only that I awoke sweating and barely able to breathe. The Diplomats are still trying to convince me to take refuge in my Summer residence but Shigeru knows where it is and it is the first place he would look should he come here and find me gone. If I run, I must go somewhere he would never look and that would mean leaving Dying Crane until Shigeru was dead. I do not know if I can bring myself to do that... The Diplomats seem to think that if he came here and found me gone, he would return to Fallen Sakura but they do not know him. It is not they who have been pursued by him since childhood and it is not they who have suffered his violence... If only I had not burnt my bridges with Kenta... If only Broken Rampart had not gone... If only...