by Julie Kagawa
I trailed off, as if too embarrassed to continue. The servants relaxed, though I could sense one of them masking a sigh. “It is understandable,” she told me. “The customs of nobles must be strange to you. We will turn our backs while you disrobe—will that make it easier?”
I bobbed my head. “Arigatou gozaimasu.”
They nodded and turned their backs to me. Knowing that other eyes could still be watching, I quickly slipped my fingers into my obi and palmed one of the small leaves I’d stuck into the sash before we came to the castle. And I silently thanked Reika for warning me to come prepared.
I drew the furoshiki over my head, feeling the narrow length of the scroll case under my fingers through the cloth. As smoothly and quickly as I could, I slipped the leaf between the folds, brushing it against the lacquered case hidden inside.
A tapping came at the door, making us all jump. “Marisan? Akane-san? Have you started?” came a woman’s voice through the shoji. “Lady Hanshou will be ready for the girl soon.”
They spun around, wincing. “Hai, Harumi-san!” one called, while the other turned on me. “We will work as quickly as we can.”
“Hurry.” The second servant gave an anxious frown as she stalked up. “I am sorry, but we must do this quickly, now. Please.”
She reached for the furoshiki and took it from my hands. As she did, the cloth opened, and something long and thin dropped from the folds, clinking against the wooden floor.
Both servants looked down, as a long bamboo flute rolled slowly over the planks, stopping when it hit one’s toe. “What is this?” she asked, bending to pick it up. “A flute?”
I took a furtive breath as her fingers closed around the instrument, forcing myself to speak calmly. “Yes. It was my former master’s. He gave it to me the day I left the temple and said I should practice until I could return and play him a perfect song. I’ve been practicing when I can, but I’m not very good yet. Would you like to hear?”
“I am sure you are better than you think.” The servant gave a tight smile. “Perhaps some other time. I will put this with your other clothes.”
“If you don’t mind,” I began as she turned. “I would like to keep it on my person. It’s the only thing I have left of my master, you see. Sort of a good luck talisman. If I always carry it, he will always be with me.”
Her lips started to purse, before she stopped herself. “As you wish,” she said, barely hiding her impatience. “But you must allow us to attend you now. We cannot waste any more time.”
“I understand,” I told her, and she handed it back with a firm look. I gave a sigh of relief as my fingers closed around the disguised scroll, feeling the fox magic prickle my skin, and kept a tight grip on it as the servants stripped off my clothes. As cold air hit my exposed body, I flattened my ears and tucked my tail tight against my legs so the humans wouldn’t step on it as they circled me like wolves. They couldn’t see my kitsune self unless they had a mirror or other reflective surface, or were just adept at seeing the spirit world like Reika, but I didn’t want them to trip and fall over “nothing.” Not to mention my tail would hurt. Thankfully, after misting my skin with a heady, plum-scented perfume that made my eyes water, they draped a white under robe over my body before finally wrapping the elegant kimono around me. The obi was wide and stiff, spanning my waistline to right below my breasts; I carefully tucked the scroll into the fabric while the servants were busy adjusting the bow at my back.
One of the servants had successfully dragged a comb through my hair a few times, untangling the snarls and sparing me no discomfort whatsoever, when another tap came at the door. “Is the girl ready?” the female voice asked, as I blinked back tears of pain and waited for my scalp to stop screaming.
“Hai, Harumi-san!” called the servant, while the other quickly hurried to the door and slid it back. The older woman from earlier peered in, caught sight of me and nodded.
“Yes, good. She looks presentable. My lady.” The woman raised a bony hand, beckoning me forward. “Please, come with me. Lady Hanshou has called for you.”
I followed the woman down several corridors and up an impossible number of stairs, seeming to ascend to the very top of the castle. Peering through an arrow slit at the top of one staircase, I could see the night sky, blazing with stars, and below us, the tops of trees that stretched on to the distant horizon. It appeared that a great forest, vast and tangled, lay beyond the walls of Hakumei castle. I wondered what types of creatures roamed those woods, if it was anything like the forest outside the Silent Winds temple. A feeling of acute longing and homesickness washed through me, nearly bringing tears to my eyes. So much had happened since the night the demons burned down the temple and Master Isao had entrusted me with the scroll. I was keeping it safe, but just barely. Everywhere I turned, it seemed there was someone else who wanted the scroll, be it a demon, an emperor, a blood mage, or a daimyo. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it hidden, and one mistake or accident could cost everyone their lives. But I would keep trying. I had promised I would deliver this scroll to the Steel Feather temple, and I would keep that promise even if it killed me.
Two fully armed and armored samurai guarded a pair of painted doors at the end of a corridor. The image on the fusuma panels depicted a tranquil-looking forest, but the silhouettes between the trees and shadows were strange and somehow menacing.
A man also waited a few paces from the doors, watching us as we approached. I didn’t see him immediately; he had been standing quietly off to the side and appeared to have the Kage talent for blending with the shadows. But as we came to the doors, he stepped forward, like a ghost coming through the walls, and smiled at me.
I tensed. He was a noble like Lord Iesada, poised and elegant, with graceful features and a magnificent, twilightpurple robe scattered with golden petals. Unlike Lord Iesada, the smile he beamed down at me seemed genuine. Or at least, not mocking and cruel. He was also quite handsome, one could almost say beautiful, nearly rivaling Daisuke in how lovely he was to look at. Briefly, I wondered what would happen if you put the two of them in a room together.
“Thank you, Harumi-san,” he told the servant woman, who immediately bowed low with her gaze to the floor. “You may go. I will take the girl from here.”
“Of course, Masao-sama,” the woman almost whispered. She backed away, melting soundlessly into the darkness, and I was alone with the stranger.
I gazed at the noble, who continued to peer down at me with faint amusement. “Hello,” I said, making one of his slender brows arch. I was probably supposed to wait for him to address me, but I was tired, on edge and getting rather frustrated with continuously being looked at like I was some very interesting insect. “I’m guessing you’re here to warn me of all the things I should not do while speaking to Lady Hanshou?”
He chuckled. “How the lady sees fit to deal with visitors is her own matter,” he said easily. “If one does not know enough to be polite in the presence of the land’s daimyo, then there was little hope for them anyway.” He regarded me with sharp black eyes that seemed to pierce the fabric of my kimono, his smile never faltering. “But I suspect you are clever enough to know that,” he went on quietly. “After all, you convinced the Kage demonslayer to escort you to the Steel Feather temple. How does a simple peasant girl accomplish such a feat, I wonder? Had it been anyone else, Tatsumi might have killed them.”
Mention of Tatsumi brought a lump to my throat. At the same time, a flutter of alarm went through me. How much did Masao-san know? If he knew that I was a simple peasant and not an onmyoji, why was I here? I felt I was groping in the dark, and that one misstep would send me plunging down a hole I could never crawl out of.
No matter what, protect the scroll, Yumeko. Don’t let them know you have it.
“I needed to get to the temple,” I told the noble. “Tatsumi needed to find it, too. I promised I would take him there, and he would fight the demons on the way. It was a simple arrangement.”
“Nothing surrounding Tatsumi is simple,” Kage Masao said softly. “And you are neglecting to mention a very important piece of the story. Why Tatsumi was sent to the Silent Winds temple. Why it was destroyed. Why there are demons chasing you, because demons do not simply appear out of thin air to wreak havoc. Please do not insult me by pretending ignorance—we both know why Lady Hanshou has called for you.” His smile widened. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
My heart pounded. I could feel the scroll beneath my obi, pressing into my ribs, and deliberately thought about flowers and music and rivers and butterflies, anything but the scroll. I didn’t think Kage Masao could read minds, but I had seen Tatsumi create ghostly twins of himself, and Naganori had threatened to tear Okame’s shadow away from him, so you could never be too careful.
“Oh, but I’ve made you uncomfortable, haven’t I?” Masao’s smooth brow furrowed, and he looked genuinely concerned, before he offered a slight bow. “My apologies. You are an honored guest in Hakumei castle. Please forgive my rudeness—we cannot have anyone thinking the Kage are not polite, even to peasant girls who are more clever than they seem.”
His smile looked so sincere and heartfelt that it almost balanced the ominous tone of his previous statement. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Masao-san,” I told him. “I’m only a peasant who was raised in a temple of monks. Everything I know, all the skills I possess, I learned from them.”
“You needn’t worry, Yumeko-san,” Masao said, making me start. I didn’t remember telling him my name. He smiled again, wry and amused. “I have no grand aspirations to summon a god. I want only what my daimyo wants. Her wishes are my wishes. I exist to serve the Kage, and Lady Hanshou, as best I can.”
Again, he sounded completely genuine, but my suspicions prickled all the more. I thought of Tatsumi, remembered his flat, emotionless claim that he was only a weapon for the Kage, and my heart twisted a little. Tatsumi would throw himself off a cliff if his clan ordered it—he truly believed his life was not his own. Kage Masao seemed more like a noble who moved through the court like an eel through water. “Then why are you telling me this?”
His eyes glittered, though his tone remained the same. “Because, Yumeko-san, I wanted to remind you that you are in Shadow Clan territory. Secrets do not exist here. Darkness is our ally, and nothing can hide from us for long. Remember that, when you speak to Lady Hanshou. She has been alive a very, very long time. She knows things about the clans that would cause the emperor himself to never sleep again. So, consider this a friendly warning. Whatever Lady Hanshou asks, it is best to answer truthfully. She already knows everything about you.”
I swallowed, resisting the urge to pin back my ears. Not everything.
Masao smiled at me, as if he knew what I was thinking and was too polite to say I was wrong. With a quiet, “Please follow me,” he turned, swept past the samurai and opened the painted door between them. I stepped through the frame, and the panel snapped shut behind me.
Instantly, I was struck by the heat; the room beyond was dark, smoky and chokingly warm. Incense hung thick in the air, burning my nose and clogging my throat, but beneath the overpowering smell of sandalwood and cloves, the air reeked of alcohol. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I could see the walls were painted fusuma panels depicting more beautiful imagery—a pair of cranes at the edge of a pond, a tiger in a bamboo grove—but looking at them made my tail bristle. It seemed as if the paintings were staring back at me, or that shadowy presences lurked behind them, watching as I took in the chamber. The room had no windows; the only light came from a pair of cast-iron braziers, glowing red with heat, and a single lantern overhead, casting an orange circle of light in the middle of the tatami mats.
Just beyond that light, flanked by the two braziers, a figure waited for me, seated on a thick red cushion. At first, it was an indistinguishable lump, wrapped in layers of robes and hidden in shadow. I thought I could make out the silhouette of a head, and a single arm that held a long-handled pipe, the end trailing curls of smoke into the air. But the light was hazy, and the figure seemed almost hunched over, so it was impossible to see it clearly.
“Is this her?” came a low, feminine voice from the lump in the center of the room. The smoothness of the voice startled me; for some reason, it didn’t match the silhouette it was attached to. Masao stepped forward and bowed.
“Yes, Hanshou-sama. As requested, this is Yumeko of the Silent Winds temple. The one who accompanied the demonslayer until his…unfortunate incident.”
“Come forward, girl,” purred the voice. “Do not lurk at the edge of the shadows, step into the light.”
Beside me, Masao gestured at the circle of lantern light, and I edged forward until I was in the center of the soft orange glow. When he gave a nod, I knelt and bowed to the still shadowy form of Lady Hanshou, touching my forehead to the mats, as one did when facing the daimyo of a great clan.
A ripple of power washed over me, the same soft, cool touch of Tatsumi’s Shadow magic, coming from the figure in the center of the floor. I rose and squinted past the haze and the smoke, searching for the daimyo of the Kage family, and nearly gasped out loud in surprise.
A beautiful woman met my gaze, full red lips curved up in the faintest of smiles. Her skin was the color of the moon, almost glowing with its own inner light, and her midnight-black hair was so long that it curled around the hem of her robes like a silken tail. One pale, elegant hand held a pipe, tendrils of wispy smoke coiling around a slender arm, and somehow it made her even more beautiful and mysterious. Luminous dark eyes glimmered in the shadows, watching me over the folds of a magnificent, many-layered kimono, far fancier and more elegant than my own. For the first time ever, I was extremely aware of my station, an insignificant peasant in borrowed robes, facing what had to be the most beautiful woman in the empire.
And then, I felt the cold tickle of Shadow magic again, like the flutter of a moth’s wing against my ear, and shook my head to clear it. The image of the beautiful woman rippled like the reflection in a pond and for a moment, I saw the face of a hideous crone, wrinkled as rotten persimmons, toothless and half-blind, only a few strands of hair attached to her withered scalp. Only for an instant, and then the face of the beautiful woman solidified again, but though my feelings of awe and inadequacy had dissolved with the illusion, my tail bristled and my heart began a rapid thud against my chest. This version of Lady Hanshou was what she showed the outside world, like the skin on a peach infested with worms and decay. How old was she? How could she still be alive?
The illusion of the beautiful Kage daimyo smiled at me, cool and amused, making me tense. Shadow magic and fox magic appeared to share many traits; covering the truth, making people see things that weren’t there. I had to be cautious. If Lady Hanshou discovered I wasn’t fooled by her magic, she might become angry, much as I would get annoyed the few times Denga-san had seen through one of my pranks. If she became angry, I didn’t know what she would do, but it probably wouldn’t be pleasant.
I dropped my gaze to the floor. If she can’t see my eyes, she can’t see the truth in them. I hope. There was a soft chuckle, and then the daimyo’s voice drifted out of the shadows.
“Welcome, Yumeko of the Silent Winds temple,” Lady Hanshou said, the low, smooth tone not quite able to mask the harsh rasp I heard underneath. “Welcome to Hakumei castle. I hope the journey here was a pleasant one?”
“Thank you, Hanshou-sama,” I said, remembering the lessons from Reika about addressing daimyos. Tell them only what they wanted to hear; the truth was inconvenient, impolite and could get you killed. “It was quite pleasant, no trouble at all.” Well, except the part through the realm of the dead. “Your hospitality has been most generous.”
“Has it?” Lady Hanshou looked amused. “You are in the Kage lands now, girl,” she said in her rasp-purr. “There are no secrets that can hide from us, not from those who live in the shadows, who know the darkness better than any in the empire. I
might not look it, but I have lived a few years longer than you, and I have come to find the polite dribble of court wearisome. Say what you mean in my presence, or do not speak at all. I ordered Naganori-san to find you and bring you here. I know that he took you through the Path of Shadows, which runs alongside the realm of the dead. I cannot imagine that was ‘pleasant,’ in any way you might look at it. So, please…” She smiled, and for a half second I saw the face of the ancient hag, grinning menacingly in the dark. “Speak true when you address me in my own castle. I will know if you are lying, and I will not be pleased.”
A stab of fear went through me, and for a moment I was certain she knew everything, before I paused to think. No, that can’t be right. If that was true, she would already know I’m kitsune. And that I have the scroll. Why would she say something like that? I mulled it over for a split second, before the truth came to me. She’s trying to throw me off balance, let me think that she already knows everything about me, so I might as well tell her the truth. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t know me, and I can’t let her discover more than she already has.
“All right,” I said, facing the ancient daimyo again. “If you want the truth, then the Path of Shadows was grim and horrifying, we were all nearly dragged into Meido by jealous spirits and Naganori-san was a rude, unfriendly ogre that I wanted to push off a cliff. Also he smells of old mushrooms.”
Lady Hanshou laughed. On the surface, it sounded like delicate wind chimes blowing in a gentle breeze, but underneath I could hear the harsh, coughing wheezes of her real self. It went on for a goodly while, so long that Masao stepped forward and knelt by her side in concern. She waved at him dismissively and continued to chortle.
“Ah,” she finally gasped, sitting up. “It has been a long time since anyone has spoken so freely in my presence, even when I give them leave to speak their mind. They simper and continue on with pretty phrases and flowery words, and would have me believe nothing ever troubles them, that I am the most gracious of hosts and that my beauty is surpassed only by my generosity.” She sniffed. “The same poem, no matter how beautiful, grows stale the more lips you hear it from. Masao-san despairs every time I must interact with the nobles and their court.” She tittered daintily, or more accurately, the illusion tittered. The ancient crone cackled loudly. Masao winced.