Ruthless Magic

by Megan Crewe

  What if he couldn’t think of me as more? Just imagining him telling me as much, struggling to let me down gently, made my stomach tie itself into knots.

  I pushed those thoughts aside. I had another goal tonight. Takeo was the only kami close to my age I knew, and he had been training in all the skills of the kami since he was much younger than me.

  “I was a little worried when I couldn’t find you in the palace,” Takeo said. “But then I remembered your favorite place to visit. You were in town?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Only that Ayame is looking for you. She’s fretting that she won’t have enough time to get you ready. You know how she is.”

  With a wisp of amusement, Midori cast an image into my head of Ayame calling in her usual frantic voice, “Where is that girl?” I wasn’t late, but unlike humans, who might be panicking one moment and easygoing a few minutes later, kami were much more strict in their natures. It was Ayame’s nature to fret over absolutely everything.

  “Hush,” I said to the dragonfly with a suppressed groan. She wasn’t the one Ayame would be fussing over when we got back. “I’m sorry,” I added to Takeo.

  “It’s no problem at all,” he said, his smile widening. “I’m pleased to escort you home.

  “Is everything all right with you?” he asked as we continued up the mountain. “On your birthday, I’d have thought you’d be too busy to leave the palace.”

  The question reminded me of the niggle of doubt that had drawn me to the Nagamotos’ house so I could steel myself to challenge Mother and Father’s judgment tonight. “I just needed to get away from the busy-ness for a bit,” I said, and bit my lip. “Takeo, do you think if I ask my parents to let me start learning the sacred practices, they’ll say yes?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They’ve avoided giving me any responsibility—haven’t you noticed? Last year Kaito offered to teach me the way of the rain, and the year before that Manami suggested I accompany her to her shrine, and both times Mother and Father said that I shouldn’t have that sort of pressure on me before I’m fully of age. But I’ve been able to best you with ki since I was twelve—I nearly beat you with a sword last week. I know every inch of this mountain. Isn’t it time I learned our actual duties?”

  “You should tell them that’s what you want,” Takeo said, ducking under a branch. “I’ve never known your parents to be anything less than understanding. They’ll find the right answer.”

  The worries I’d squashed down in Mr. Nagamoto’s house surged back up. What if the answer was that they had good reason not to trust me with responsibility? Grandfather always said, “The one truth I know is, we can’t help but be the way we are.” Which meant if I were capable, it should be as clear as Ayame’s fretting, as Mother’s cool collectedness, as Father’s indomitable compassion.

  So much of the time, nothing inside me felt clear at all. I could believe with every fiber of my being that I was ready, and a moment later be completely uncertain again. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe my parents had seen that strangeness in me and decided I was... inadequate. I’d never heard anyone else in the palace mention feeling so jumbled up, so I’d tried not to show it, but it had only gotten worse in the last few years.

  I glanced sideways at Takeo. “Did you ever...” I said, and hesitated. “Have you ever felt you needed to do something, but at the same time you weren’t sure you could do it, and—”

  My voice broke when he turned his head toward me. His handsome face was puzzled.

  “If there’s something I can’t do, I leave it to those who can,” he said. “None of us can do everything.” His smile returned, softer this time. “But I think you’re strong enough to accomplish just about anything you decide to attempt, Sora.”

  Even though he hadn’t understood what I’d been getting at, his smile steadied me. Was it really so unexpected that Mother and Father might want their only child to relish her youthful years before turning toward duty? “If you give enough to the Earth, it gives you joy in return,” Ayame liked to say. “You are the joy it gave your parents.” Every time my parents called me their “gift,” every time the other kami bowed to me, every time I stood on the mountainside with its power echoing through me, I remembered those words. The Earth itself had brought me into being to do its work. I was meant to be here, to fulfill that promise. I needed to keep my mind on that and not these ridiculous fears.

  For a few dazzling seconds, I let the full force of my ki rush through me in a hum of light. The landscape blurred around me. Midori’s grip on my hair tightened as she sent me a glimmering thrill of exhilaration.

  Then I reined myself back. At my fastest, I’d leave Takeo behind. I dodged the pale trunk of a birch—and nearly darted right through a ghost.

  “Oh!” I said, jerking to a halt. “Excuse me, Miss Sakai. I didn’t see you.”

  The filmy young woman bobbed her head to me. Wan and wide-eyed, Miss Sakai had been floating around this part of the mountain for several months. I’d gotten it out of a maple kami that her boyfriend had been walking with her along the paths and pushed her over one of the sharper inclines. She’d broken her neck. “I imagine she’s stuck around to give him a piece of her mind,” the maple had added, but Miss Sakai always seemed calm when I saw her.

  Not today, though. I schooled my gaze away from the space partway down her legs where, as with all ghosts, her translucent body dissolved completely, leaving no knees, calves, or feet beneath her. Her ki was jittering. She stretched her mouth into an over-wide grin.

  “I wasn’t watching either,” she said, too brightly. “So sorry.” Her eyes darted from me to Takeo and back. “I should be wishing you a happy birthday, shouldn’t I! The big party is about to start?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Yes.”

  I wondered if I should invite her to join us, but she spun around before I could say anything else. “Have a wonderful time!” she said, and shot off down the slope. In a few seconds, she’d disappeared amid the trees.

  “That was strange,” I said.

  “It’s unusual for the spirits of the dead to cling to this world at all,” Takeo pointed out. “I suppose that can’t help but affect their minds.”

  We crossed the spring that babbled just below the palace’s entrance and stepped through the grove of cherry trees to the shallow cave on the far side. Any human who happened upon this spot would see nothing more than a small hollow. But when we walked through the cool stone, which tingled over my skin as if I’d passed under a waterfall, we emerged into the main hall of the great palace that housed most of Mt. Fuji’s kami.

  Inside, I released the energy that had held me invisible and settled back into my more comfortable corporeal form. At once, my surroundings felt more solid too: the wooden floor smooth beneath my feet, the muted sunlight that gleamed through the ceiling panels warming my long black hair. On either side of us, sliding doors painted with images of flowers and sweeping branches broke the dark wood of the walls. The thrum of the mountain’s ki washed over me in welcome.

  Farther down the main hall, two palace attendants were leading a group of guests toward the large public rooms. The smell of the grand dinner being prepared filled the air—kami could take all our nourishment directly from the Earth when we needed to, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying good food. Frolicking music filtered through the walls. My mouth watered and my feet itched to dance, but as Midori flitted over to join the early merrymaking, I turned in the other direction, where the private apartments lay.

  I’d only taken one step around the corner toward my parents’ chambers when a high, nasal voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “Sora!” Ayame cried, tearing across the hall with her spindly arms waving and her hair billowing around her petite frame. “Look at you, child. Bare-faced, dirt on your clothes... Augh, I can’t have you seen like this, not on your birthday.”

 
“I need to speak to Mother and Father first,” I said as she tugged me toward my rooms.

  “You can go when you’re properly prepared.”

  Well, it might be wise to look my best when I made my appeal. I relented.

  When we reached my inner rooms, Takeo hung back. “Wait for me?” I said. Takeo’s protection was merely a formality at my age, but I’d feel more confident approaching my parents with his steady presence at my side.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Ayame shoved the sliding door shut between us. Her assistants—one human-shaped like Ayame and me and the other three kami in the forms of a robin, a crane, and a monkey—were waiting in the bathing room. I was scrubbed and rinsed with water scented with cherry blossoms, then powdered and combed and lotioned and powdered again. Finally I was allowed to get dressed, in a silky robe more flowing than any humans ever wore. The pale blue fabric danced with golden butterflies.

  “Ah!” Ayame said, clapping her hands together. “Magnificent.”

  “Am I done, then?” I asked as the monkey tied the sash around my waist.

  Ayame made a dismissive sound and launched into a tirade about my hair. I stared longingly at the door. If I didn’t distract myself, I was going to burst.

  As the robin started coiling my hair and Ayame brought out her make-up palette, I exhaled, sending out a stream of ki shaped into a kite. At my mental nudge, it drifted through the door. Takeo and I had played this game since I was first learning how to use the energy inside me, but these days I offered it as a challenge.

  The kite was caught by an impression that was purely Takeo, gallant as one of the mountain’s young pines. I drew it back. His ki resisted, dragging the kite toward him, and the corners of my mouth twitched upward.

  “Hold still!” Ayame said.

  Quieting my expression, I reeled the kite in against Takeo’s pull. At the last instant, Takeo whipped it away. It took all my self control not to lunge after it physically. I clung on with sharpened focus and yanked. The kite shot straight to me, Takeo’s connection snapping. In the room outside, he laughed at his defeat. Ayame shook her head.

  “So strong, my Sora,” she murmured. “All right, you’ll do. Walk carefully—and keep your hands away from your face!”

  I hurried with Takeo down the narrow hall that separated my rooms from my parents’. The lamps along the wall were starting to flare on with the fading of the sun. Around us, an anxious tremor rippled through the mountain’s ki. I glanced at Takeo, startled, but he showed no sign of concern. That must have been my anxiety, trembling out of me.

  My pulse beat faster as we came to a stop at the door to my parents’ private chambers. Takeo tapped on the frame and announced our presence, and Mother’s voice answered.

  “Come in.”

  She and Father were sitting on crimson cushions by their low ebony table. A light sandalwood scent wafted from the incense burner set in an alcove. Takeo eased the door shut, staying on the other side. I padded across the finely woven rush of the tatami mats to the other side of the table.

  Because kami age so slowly once they reach adulthood, Mother and Father both looked as young as humans of about twenty, but otherwise they were each other’s opposites. Mother was thin and lithe with ivory skin, while Father was broad and bulky and ruddy complexioned. The way they smiled at me matched their temperaments perfectly: Mother soft and bright, Father wide and warm.

  “We were about to send for you,” Mother said. “You look beautiful, Sora.”

  I blushed, lowering my eyes. Strong, I reminded myself. Strong and capable.

  “I can’t believe you’re already seventeen,” Father said in his rumbling voice. “Three more years and you’ll be all grown up.” He sounded strangely sad.

  “It isn’t so short a time,” Mother said gently, as if I might someday leave for college or other far away places like the Nagamotos’ children.

  A distant shout reached my ears. Mother frowned, glancing toward the hall. Kami usually got along, but occasionally there were disputes between the guests.

  The faint silhouette of Takeo’s form moved away from the door’s translucent panel. He must have gone to see what was the matter. I drew my mind back to my goal.

  “I’ve been doing everything I can to prepare,” I said.

  “Let’s not worry about that,” Mother said before I could go on. “Tonight is one of the few occasions we can think of celebration instead of duty. Your father and I wanted to give you your birthday present.”

  She nodded to Father, who lifted a long rectangular object from the floor behind him and set it on the table. It was a lacquered case with a leather strap and a gold clasp. “Open it,” he said, grinning.

  I leaned forward and pushed up the clasp. As I raised the lid, my breath caught. “Thank you!” I said, staring at the instrument inside. “It’s wonderful.”

  It was a flute made of polished bamboo, so carefully crafted I could feel how pure its sounds would be just by running my fingertips over the wood. I picked it up and brought it to my lips. The scale hummed through me as if I were as much an instrument as the flute. Each note expanded into the quiet like a flower bud unfurling. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard—and it was mine.

  I set the flute back in its case, closed the lid, and hugged it to me. “Thank you,” I said again. “I’ll play it tonight.” I’d meant to use my old flute, the one they’d given me when I’d started lessons years ago. But this was a true musician’s instrument. One for a woman, not a girl. Maybe they knew I was ready to finally find my place among the kami.

  I slid the case’s strap over my shoulder. As I opened my mouth, another shout carried through the wall, followed by a heavy crash that shocked the words from my throat. Footsteps thumped down the hall outside. Takeo pulled open the door, and one of his fellow guards stumbled to a halt on the threshold, his breath rasping.

  “Your Highnesses,” he said, “forgive my intrusion. We’re under attack.”

  What dangers await Sora and her loved ones? Click here to keep reading A Mortal Song now!

  Acknowledgments

  This book’s magic would not exist without the help of a whole lot of people along the way. I offer many thanks to:

  Deva Fagan, Amanda Coppedge, and the members of the Toronto Speculative Fiction Writers Group, who offered invaluable feedback on the early drafts.

  Linda Nieves Perez, Elsa Viviana Munoz, Sunshine McGillis, Felicia Thorn, and Rania Barazi for evaluating the book from a cultural perspective.

  My awesome editor, Marissa van Uden, who untangled my prose where I went astray.

  Jennifer Munswami, for designing a cover so gorgeous it makes people gasp.

  My husband, Chris, for being there for me from the original idea he encouraged me to pursue all the way through to celebrating the release day.

  And last but never least, all the amazing readers who’ve stuck with my books. It’s because of you I get to make a life out of making magic.

  About the Author

  USA Today bestselling author Megan Crewe lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and son. She's been making up stories about magic and supernatural conspiracies and other what ifs since before she knew how to write words on paper. These days the stories are just a lot longer. Her other YA novels include the paranormal Give Up the Ghost, post-apocalyptic the Fallen World series, the sci fi Earth & Sky trilogy, the contemporary fantasy A Mortal Song, and the supernatural thriller Beast.

  Connect with Megan online:

  www.megancrewe.com

 

 

 
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