Dark Tempest (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 2)

by Annette Marie

  Her hand tightened around the arrow shaft. “That’s why Amaterasu put the onenju on Inari—not to hurt him but to control him. Only afterward did Amaterasu realize Izanami had tricked her. As soon as she tried to take the onenju off, Izanami killed them both.”

  Shiro rubbed his chest as though remembering the root bursting through his ribs.

  “So that is what happened.” Susano looked at Shiro. “While searching for you, I heard a rumor that you had killed Amaterasu and gone into hiding before the other Amatsukami could take revenge on you. For years, we assumed you had not been seen because you were avoiding the Amatsukami. By the time Uzume first suggested you were not hiding but missing, the trail was so old we didn’t know where to begin searching for you.”

  Koyane, Izanami’s vassal, had also told Emi that Inari had killed Amaterasu, and since she’d been dying at that point, he’d had no reason to lie; he must have believed the rumor as much as Susano had.

  “I bet Izanami told everyone that,” she said. “And since she was preventing Amaterasu from descending, there was no one to contradict it.”

  Susano thought for a moment. “How far back in time can you remember, Inari?”

  Shiro rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in thought. “Hmm. Fifteen years? Twenty, maybe? I wasn’t counting.”

  “Twenty years. I doubt it took you eighty years to revive.” Susano tapped one claw on the table. “I also doubt your memories have faded and distorted so thoroughly from a single demise and revival.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Even with severely limited ki, your memories should have returned to some degree, but I suspect you have died more than once since Izanami killed you a hundred years ago. Bound by the onenju, you would have been easy to slay. With each revival, your memories and sense of self became more scattered … until you remembered nothing.”

  Shiro stared at the table, his face pale, and anguish for him twisted inside Emi.

  “When Yumei first told me you had no memories,” Susano continued, “I did not believe him. How could such a fate befall one of us? But I can see it is more than true, and I can see the damage runs deep. You are broken, Inari. I did not think a Kunitsukami could break, but you have. And I do not know if your memories will be enough to make you whole again.”

  Shiro and Susano weighed each other, unspoken words passing between them.

  “Well,” Shiro said dryly, “if I turn out to be crazy once the onenju is off, I’m sure you’ll have fun killing me every few decades for the rest of eternity.”

  Susano’s expression was indecipherable, but his sapphire eyes unexpectedly lightened to a shade of soft cobalt. “No, I do not think I would enjoy that.”

  Emi wrapped her final arrow in an ofuda and sternly ordered herself to remain calm. You are broken, Inari. She wouldn’t panic. She wouldn’t cry in front of them. Shiro—Inari—would be fine. Once the onenju was removed, his memories would be restored and he would return to his usual self.

  She turned to Shiro, but he was still avoiding her gaze. Was he afraid if he looked at her, he would see fear in her again? Or was he distancing himself for some other reason? She didn’t dare ask him with Susano in the room.

  She looked down at the last arrow. Assuming they all survived the coming battle, she would do whatever it took to make Shiro whole again.

  Chapter 22

  The surf thundered against distant cliffs as Emi followed Susano and Yumei through the dark forest. Shiro and Byakko trailed behind her. Above, stars peeked through the gathering clouds; sunrise was still several hours away. Orochi’s island was farther south than Shion and crisp autumn leaves still carpeted the snowless forest floor.

  Her skin prickled as she clutched her bow. The woods were eerily silent but for the muffled crash of waves on rock. Her bow felt pathetically flimsy. Would the wind come to her aid again or would she have to fight with nothing but her human strength?

  “I do not sense Orochi’s presence,” Yumei murmured. “Is this the correct place?”

  “Yes,” Susano replied, equally quiet. “Orochi might not be here, but Murakumo calls to me. It is near.”

  “You can sense it already?” Yumei’s head swiveled. “Be cautious. It is unlikely Orochi would leave it unguarded.”

  Susano led the way deeper into the trees, leaves crunching beneath his feet. The forest stretched on and on, the ground rising and falling in rough dips and hills with an ever-increasing grade. Her legs burned from the exertion. Of course, none of the yokai showed any signs of fatigue.

  As she traipsed after them, she looked from Susano to Yumei, then to Shiro and Byakko behind her. Four powerful yokai—among the most powerful to walk the land. Yumei knew few challengers, and Susano and Shiro were Kunitsukami. Even weakened, they were formidable.

  What was she doing here? What was she, a human, doing with these powerful creatures of another world?

  She tried to hide her labored breathing as she struggled to keep up. The yokai were moving quickly, forcing her to trot every few steps. As the ground grew steeper, the gap between her and Yumei grew. She pushed harder, leaves flying beneath her sandals and her wholly unsuitable kimono dragging behind her. She should have insisted on something else to wear, or at least more appropriate footwear.

  What was she doing, trudging through a strange forest with four yokai who could change forms and fly and hurl lethal magic with a flick of their hands? She didn’t belong with them. She should have stayed behind, where she wouldn’t get in the way.

  With a rustle of leaves, Byakko overtook her. She stumbled as the yokai moved ahead to take the spot behind Yumei. Gritting her teeth, she lurched forward, hurrying even as a stitch constricted her ribcage. In her haste, her foot caught on a hidden root and she stumbled on tired legs.

  A hand caught her elbow, pulling her upright. Shiro met her eyes for the first time since he’d left the Amaterasu shrine.

  “I’m fine,” she said breathlessly before he could comment. “I can keep up.”

  He considered her, then glanced ahead, where Susano, Yumei, and Byakko were mere shadows in the darkness. “You once told me that even when you don’t need help, you should accept it anyway because it’s easier that way.”

  “When did I say that?”

  “When you practically threw me into the bath because I was too filthy to look at.”

  “Oh.” She remembered now. Covered in mud and gore, he had shown up in her bedroom to tell her about Yumei’s lead on an Amatsukami. She had said something about accepting help because it was easier, hadn’t she? He’d been so stubborn about not needing anything from her. “I guess I did.”

  He cast her a sideways glance. “Then you fell all over yourself and dumped a bowl of food in my lap because you couldn’t keep your eyes on my face. Do you remember that part?”

  “I did not!” she gasped, even though it was an accurate description of her reaction to his shirtless state. Warmth flared in her cheeks.

  His mouth curved up in a grin, one pointed canine gleaming in the faint starlight. Her eyes widened and her stomach dropped. Tears threatened to spill down her face, and without thinking, she threw herself against his chest, clutching his kosode.

  “E-Emi?” he stuttered, staggering back half a step. “What—?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, clutching him. She hadn’t seen him smile like that since she’d come out of the caverns with Susano. She’d been so afraid she’d never again see that expression, never again see her teasing, mischievous Shiro. She’d feared he was already gone forever. “I missed you.”

  “Missed me?” His fingers caught her chin and he pried her head up so he could squint at her face. “What are you talking about?”

  “I just—you haven’t been—” She managed a wobbly smile. “I just missed you teasing me.”

  He scowled. “You’re not supposed to like it. The idea is to annoy you.”

  Her feelings of affection dimmed and she returned his scowl. “I knew you were anno
ying me on purpose all this time. Why do you do that?”

  His grin reappeared. “Because when you’re annoyed, your eyes flash and your cheeks turn pink and you pout at me.” He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Just like that.”

  “I do not—you—I don’t—” Her cheeks burned hotter. “You’re horrible!”

  “Obviously not, since you just said you missed me. You’re also still squeezing the air out of my lungs.”

  “I am not!” she exclaimed, flinging her arms out as if she hadn’t just been holding him in a death grip.

  His arms closed around her and he swept her off her feet.

  “Shiro!” she complained, trying to squirm free.

  He held her tighter as he strode forward, his long steps eating up the ground with ease. “Don’t whine.”

  “I’m not whining!”

  “Why exhaust yourself if you don’t need to? Carrying you costs me nothing. Save your strength for the fight.”

  Frowning, she adjusted her bow and quiver on her shoulder. “I’m already the weakest one here. If I can’t even walk fast enough to keep up, what’s the point in me coming?”

  “Did anyone suggest you stay behind?”

  She blinked, surprised to realize no one had. “No …”

  “If Yumei hadn’t wanted you here, you know he would have told you as much. None of us think you’re weak, Emi.”

  A strange heat constricted her chest as she looked up at him. There was no hint of deception in his eyes, no lies or exaggeration, no teasing or humor.

  “But …”

  “You proved yourself. You proved your strength to all of us. You went into the caverns alone. You walked into the depths of the mountain through clouds of poison, and you carried Susano out. You did what none of us could do.”

  “Only because the poison didn’t affect me the same way—”

  “Does that matter? We couldn’t do it. You did. We saw what you looked like when you got out. How many times did you fall in order to batter your knees like that? But you kept going.”

  “That makes me stubborn, not strong,” she mumbled.

  “Strength comes in many forms. Susano knows that. Can’t you tell he respects you? If he didn’t, he would have killed you the moment you stepped between us. He treats you like a yokai, not a human. He listens to you, talks to you. Remember how Yumei hardly spoke to you when you first met him?”

  She hid her face against his shoulder. She hadn’t noticed that Susano treated her no differently from Yumei and Byakko, but now that Shiro had pointed it out, she realized how surprising that was. She was just a human, but a Kunitsukami spoke to her like she was one of his own.

  “I still don’t think I’ll be of any use against Orochi.”

  “I doubt I’ll be much use either,” Shiro confessed. “We’ll just stay out of the way and let Susano and Yumei do the work.”

  “Have you seen Yumei do his shadow thing?” she asked. “When he fought Jorogumo, he made the forest go dark and he turned the shadows into raven soldiers.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I also heard you jumped out of a tree and stabbed her in the back with an arrow before she could put another hole in him.”

  “He—he told you that?”

  “Grudgingly,” he said with obvious amusement. “He’s none too pleased that a human saved him.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, catching her breath while he trailed behind the other three yokai. The ground grew steeper and steeper until Shiro was climbing more than walking, and she was even more grateful she didn’t have to keep up. Her weight didn’t seem to bother him.

  It was foolish, especially considering they were invading the lair of a fearsome enemy, but she couldn’t help enjoying his closeness, his warmth, his woodsy scent. She cherished the memory of his teasing grin, relieved that he’d recovered a bit more of his usual self. And, beneath that, the memory of kissing him in Ajisai kept threatening to surface. She steadfastly refused to revisit that one … though she’d already returned to it in her dreams.

  Her stomach turned over. She had kissed a Kunitsukami. But he wasn’t really Inari, not yet. He was just Shiro, her teasing kitsune who annoyed her because he liked to make her pout.

  The ground rose until they reached the top of a rocky ridge. On the other side, the earth dropped away, revealing a massive, ancient crater that had once been the mouth of a volcano. It was now a forest of young trees laden with autumn foliage, their color leeched away by the starlight.

  “Murakumo is somewhere in the center,” Susano said.

  “Do you sense Orochi?” Yumei asked.

  “No.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Perhaps luck is with us,” Byakko murmured, “and the beast is not present.”

  They started down the crater’s steep edge. The four yokai alternated between leaping and sliding down the rocky slope until the trees thickened too much for them to move quickly. Emi switched to clinging to Shiro’s back, freeing his arms so he could push through the low branches. She quickly found herself longing for the old-growth forests with their huge trees and sparse underbrush. Their pace slowed to a crawl and even Shiro, who normally moved so quietly as to never betray a footfall, had to work to move with minimal noise through the brush.

  Eventually, the ground leveled off again. When they entered a small clearing with the bed of a long-dried slough, Susano gestured for them to stop.

  “Murakumo is close,” he murmured. “Wait here.”

  He slipped soundlessly into the woods. Emi slid from Shiro’s back and stretched her spine, wrestling with her erratic nerves. Her skin prickled incessantly with the feeling of watching eyes.

  “Why isn’t Orochi here?” Shiro asked quietly. “Why isn’t he guarding the sword?”

  “A hundred years have passed since he stole it,” Yumei replied. “Perhaps he grew lax in protecting his trophy.”

  Hovering beside Shiro, Emi slipped her bow off her shoulder, just in case, and rubbed a hand over the back of her neck to sooth the shivery sensation in her skin. She huffed in a vain attempt to release some tension.

  They waited in silence as the minutes ticked by. The air was unpleasantly cool but lacked the icy bite from farther north. She found herself shivering anyway as her attention darted over the clearing from shadow to shadow.

  “Yumei?” she whispered when she couldn’t stand it anymore. “You don’t see anything, do you?” She was fairly certain he could see in the dark better than she could see in full daylight.

  “Would I say nothing if I did?” he replied irritably.

  “What’s wrong?” Shiro asked her.

  “Nothing,” she mumbled. “Just feeling paranoid.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”

  “I just … I just feel like we’re being watched.” She shook her head quickly, embarrassed to have even admitted it. “It’s nothing. I’m imagining things.”

  “Are you?” he murmured, giving Yumei a meaningful look. The Tengu melted into motion, prowling toward one end of the clearing. Byakko glided toward the other end and the two yokai began a slow, methodic circle around the perimeter, inspecting the darkness beyond the trees.

  Shiro stood beside her, his ears swiveling to take in every sound. “How long?”

  She blinked in confusion, dragging her attention away from Yumei. “How long what?”

  “How long have you felt like we’re being watched?”

  “Um, ten minutes, maybe?”

  “From which direction?”

  She closed her eyes, concentrating on the prickling sensation of unseen watchers, then pointed. “That way.”

  She opened her eyes as Yumei, Byakko, and Shiro pivoted to face the direction she’d indicated. Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t think—”

  With a faint rustle, Susano stepped out of the shadows from the opposite direction. “I can sense Murakumo, but I cannot find it. It seems—“ He broke off, frowning. “What is it?”

  “Emi feels like we�
��re being watched,” Shiro said.

  “I—I’m probably just imagining things,” she said desperately, unable to believe they were all taking her case of nerves so seriously. “If none of you can sense anything, then—”

  “Then perhaps our adversary knows how to hide from yokai senses,” Susano cut in. “A kami can perceive things we cannot.”

  “I’m not a kami.”

  “No, but you are more than human.”

  Before she could respond, Shiro plucked an arrow from the quiver on her shoulder and held it out to her. “Fire this.”

  “At what?”

  He nodded toward the trees where she’d pointed. “In that direction.”

  “But …” When he just looked at her expectantly, she nocked the arrow on the string and reluctantly raised the bow. “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  Pressing her lips together, she drew the string back to her cheek and focused her will. The only thing worse than four ultra-powerful yokai thinking her human paranoia was real would be messing up her purification spell too.

  “Shukusei no tama,” she whispered.

  She released the arrow and it shot across the clearing into the trees. She expected the thwack of an impact with a trunk or the skittering sound of it falling to the ground. She wasn’t expecting the strangely dull thud that sounded instead—or the bright flash of light through the trees.

  “Ah,” Shiro said with a satisfied smile. “There goes their barrier.”

  A tingle of warm ki slid over her skin—but it wasn’t yokai ki.

  It was kami ki.

  Something rustled in the darkness. Yumei lifted his hands and red light rippled in strange ribbons over his palms. The light twisted together and solidified into the long black spear he’d used to slay Jorogumo. Byakko drew Kogarashi, the sword with power over the wind that he’d lent her.

  Shiro merely put one hand on his hip, making no move to summon his twin blades.