Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3)

by Finlayson, Marina

  “As you wish, mistress. Shall I bring a meal?”

  “Yes.”

  He sat back, his eyes alight with a curiosity tradition dictated he could not express. “I am delighted to see you home safely. I trust everything is well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are we to expect the other members of your party too?”

  “No, they remain in Sydney. I shall not stay long.” That was the longest thing I’d had to say yet, and I stumbled a little over the words. He shot me a curious look.

  “Forgive me, Lady, you are tired. I will bring food.” He rose and bowed his way to the door.

  “Bring the kitsune leader too.” I waved him out before he could speak again. Reluctantly he left, taking the two serving girls with him, though one of them knelt just the other side of the closed door, ready to respond to any orders.

  I rose and paced the room while we waited, partly to keep warm, and partly because my legs would go to sleep if I stayed in that unnatural position much longer. Japanese people were used to sitting on the floor, but my Western muscles were complaining already.

  A commotion in the corridor announced Hakawa’s return. Two guards came behind him, one either side of a slight Japanese man in a black turtleneck sweater and black pants. Like Hakawa, his hair was greying at the temples, which meant he must be considerably older than the forty-odd that he looked.

  He bowed, as shallowly as he could without causing outright offence, and kept his dark eyes lowered, as if indifferent to the reason for my summons. His yellow kitsune aura was paler even than Kasumi’s, as if he were sick. Perhaps he was just depressed from his long incarceration. Or maybe it was the weather. I’d be miserable too if I had to put up with the freezing conditions in this house. The braziers had barely made a difference to the temperature in here. I swear I could see my breath fogging when I spoke.

  “You may go,” I said to Hakawa and the guards. I could tell from the way he hesitated that he would have liked to argue, but he pressed his lips together and bowed instead, and they all left the room. He must have learnt from bitter experience the futility of arguing with Daiyu. “You too,” I said to the serving girl who was sinking to her knees outside the door.

  “Sit,” I said to the kitsune once they were all gone, and that caused a flicker of surprise. He lowered himself to a cushion before resuming his contemplation of the floor.

  I leaned forward and dropped my voice so that even Luce had to strain to hear. “Do you speak English?” I asked in that language.

  For the first time he met my eyes, and his own held a wary look. He answered equally softly. “Yes.”

  I continued in English; it was easier than the mental back-and-forth between me and Luce.

  “What is your name?”

  His eyebrows shot up. He must be wondering what kind of trap Daiyu was laying for him now. At length he answered: “My lady knows it: I am Yamada Toko.”

  “What relation are you to Yamada Kasumi?”

  His voice grew frosty with distrust. “I am her father.”

  I glanced at Luce. The next part would be tricky.

  “You kitsune can take on the form of any other person.”

  “This is true.”

  “Are you aware that there are other ways of impersonating someone, through the use of goblin spells, for instance?”

  He inclined his head, suspicion bright in his eyes. “I have heard it is so.”

  “Do you know your daughter’s phone number?”

  “Yes.”

  Luce pulled out her mobile and offered it to him. He glanced from one to the other of us, but made no move to take it.

  “Ring her,” I said.

  “What am I to say to her?”

  “Ask her where Daiyu is.”

  He took the phone as if afraid it might bite and dialled, pressing each number with a slow deliberation that made me want to scream. My mental clock was counting down: eight and a half hours remaining till Blue’s potion wore off. We needed to move faster.

  Someone answered and he burst into a stream of incomprehensible Japanese.

  “Speak English,” I hissed.

  “And put it on loudspeaker,” Luce added.

  “– didn’t tell you to do anything,” Kasumi was saying.

  “Kasumi,” I broke in. “It’s me.”

  “You made it,” she breathed. “Father, I know what it looks like, but that isn’t Daiyu. She’s here in Sydney with me.”

  The phone trembled in his hand. He stared at me, eyes huge. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s Kate, queen of Oceania, the one I told you about. She’s wearing a seeming. She’s come to help you.”

  “No …”

  “Yes. Trust me, Father.” There were noises in the background, and Kasumi dropped her voice. “I have to go. Listen to her. Do whatever she says.”

  The line went dead. Toko handed the phone back to Luce with a sigh.

  “If this is a trap, it is too clever for me. I do not understand.”

  “It’s no trap,” Luce said. “Believe us. Believe your daughter. Daiyu already has you in her power. What would be the point of a trap?”

  He shook his head. “It seems so strange. You look exactly like her.”

  “Goblin seemings are every bit as good as kitsune ones. They just don’t last as long. In a few more hours this disguise will evaporate. We all need to be far away before that happens.”

  Hope dawned in his eyes. “You mean to free us?”

  “I do. But first we need to restore your hoshi no tama to you. Do you know where they are?”

  “Yes, but getting them back may prove difficult.”

  “Why?”

  The slightest noise in the corridor was the only warning we had. The door slid open and a young man entered, his dragon aura bright red with strength and virility. I leapt to my feet.

  *Akira,* Luce whispered into my mind. *Daiyu’s consort.*

  He stopped short on the threshold at the sight of the kitsune, but his eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair when he saw Luce.

  “Daiyu, my darling—back so soon? And what is the Chan woman doing here?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  We all froze. We must have looked guilty as hell—it was just as well he had no reason to suspect anything. Luckily for me Luce kept her wits, and she fed me my lines.

  “Lucinda Chan has sworn allegiance to me.”

  He frowned, his gaze lingering on Luce for a long moment. She stared back at him, her face giving nothing away.

  At length he turned back to me. “Why have you come back so soon? I thought you were to stay until the throne of Oceania was secured?”

  Luce told me what he’d said. *Answer him in English.*

  “Oceania is falling apart.” Obediently I spoke in English, hoping that the real Daiyu was fluent in that tongue. But I trusted Luce not to give me a bum steer. She’d never let me down before. “There are a host of new pretenders to the throne. I fear I must delay my plans until they have killed each other off and the dust settles. It is easier than becoming directly involved.”

  “Why are you speaking English?” His English was good, without trace of a Japanese accent. He sounded like a BBC announcer.

  “Our guest is not fluent in Japanese.” Hopefully he didn’t know Luce well enough to catch me in the lie.

  How was I going to get rid of him? The more we spoke the more opportunities I had to shoot myself in the foot. I didn’t know anything about him apart from his name. He might even be expecting a joyous physical reunion. I had to get him out of here.

  Sure enough he crossed the room to my side and bent closer for a kiss. At the last moment I turned my face so his lips grazed my cheek and not my mouth, but even so my pulse started hammering in my throat. The dragon scent of him was hard to resist. For a moment I entertained a wild thought of distracting him with sex. At least then we wouldn’t have to talk.

  I swallowed hard and focused on a pair of golden werewolf eyes instead.<
br />
  “Something wrong?” he murmured in tender Japanese.

  In answer I stepped close, wrapping my arms about him. Trying not to be obvious about it, I pressed my lips against his collar, leaving a perfect lipstick kiss. He was dressed in Western style, in an expensive-looking grey suit and white shirt. My lipstick stood out sharply against its crisp whiteness.

  “You smell of sake,” I said, drawing back from him and folding my arms across my chest in the universal symbol for now you’re in deep shit, mate.

  He drew himself up, surprised at my hostile tone. “I’ve been at a business dinner. You know what those are like.”

  “But they were not all businessmen, were they? You have lipstick on your collar.”

  He glanced at Luce and Toko and switched to Japanese again. “Why do you bring this up in front of these unworthy ones? Send them away and let me make it up to you.”

  Clearly he didn’t like having witnesses to our little domestic squabble, but I stuck resolutely to English, determined to rile him.

  “How long did you wait before you sought out other women? Was my plane even in the air?”

  “We have always had an open relationship,” he began in Japanese.

  “Speak English,” I commanded him. “And now you come to me, fresh from another woman’s bed, and expect to be welcomed.”

  He pressed his lips together and swallowed whatever heated answer was trying to force its way out. Arguing with one’s queen was always a risky proposition, even if you were her lover.

  “I was not expecting you back so soon.”

  “Obviously! You might have been here then, instead of drinking and sleeping your way around Tokyo.”

  “If my presence offends you I can always remove it,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  He bowed, a sharp, jerky affair, and left the room in angry strides. If he could have, I’m sure he would have slammed the door. That was the trouble with sliding screens—no dramatic potential.

  Luce crossed to the door and slid it shut, a gleam of amusement in her eyes. “Hopefully that’s the last we’ll be seeing of him for a while.”

  I nodded, feeling some of the tension in my shoulders ease. This was going to be hard enough to pull off without Akira poking his nose in.

  “You were speaking of the hoshi no tama,” I said to Kasumi’s father. He hadn’t moved from his cushion the whole time Akira was here. “Why will it be difficult to retrieve them? Where are they hidden?”

  “There is a cave on the grounds of the estate,” he said. “It is hidden behind a waterfall, and guarded by a jorogumo called Miyako.”

  “What’s a jorogumo?” The Japanese had a thousand thousand monsters in their various mythologies, many of whom were real shifters, but Leandra hadn’t heard of them all. Luce looked troubled, but she let Toko explain.

  “A spider-woman. She is old and strong and more than a little crazy. She takes the form of a giant spider at night and lurks in her waterfall, waiting for a victim to happen by, to be dragged to their death in the lake. Daiyu occasionally sends her a prisoner, or someone who has displeased her. But not even Daiyu herself dares come too close during the hours of darkness.”

  Curious. Surely even the most fearsome spider was no match for a dragon.

  “Isn’t she Daiyu’s servant? What does Daiyu have to fear from this Miyako?”

  Toko shook his head. “Jorogumo are free spirits. They are no one’s servants. She and Daiyu have an arrangement, that is all. She guards the hoshi no tama for Daiyu, and in return Daiyu provides her a place to live and the occasional snack. In spider form Miyako is fearsomely strong, and lightning fast. It is possible she could even dispatch a dragon in the right circumstances.”

  “Then how does Daiyu ever deal with her?”

  “She is much weaker in the daylight hours. She takes her human form then, and spends most of the day sleeping in her cave. It is only safe to approach her at dawn before she goes to sleep, or in the evening when she wakes, before it is full dark and she takes her spider form.”

  A sick feeling began to bubble in my stomach. “So you’re saying I can’t try to get the hoshi no tama back until dawn?” Bloody hell, that would be cutting it fine. I’d only have half an hour or so before my disguise dissolved. I turned to Luce. “We can’t wait that long. Is there anything else we can do?”

  Luce shrugged. “You could try wearing Daiyu’s perfume. Like most spiders, a jorogumo has very bad eyesight. She may not even realise who you are until after she has attacked. But if she can smell you …”

  “No, no.” Toko shook his head. “I beg you not to attempt it. It is not safe.”

  “It isn’t safe to be caught here wearing my own face, either,” I pointed out. “We could try burning her out, perhaps, but we don’t know where she’s hidden the hoshi no tama.”

  Toko drew back in horror. “If our hoshi no tama are destroyed, my people will die.”

  “Probably not worth risking, then,” Luce said dryly. “It would be a shame to come all this way to free the kitsune and end up killing them instead.”

  “Not an ideal rescue,” I agreed. “Where are your people held? Are they guarded?”

  “We are housed in the west wing. Guards prevent us from entering the other parts of the house, and there are guards on the gates, of course, but they are more to keep track of our movements than to keep us in. Several of us leave the compound every day for work, and the older children go to school, though the little ones are not allowed to leave. As long as Daiyu holds our hoshi no tama we dare not step out of line. That threat controls us better than a hundred guards could.”

  “Then we’d better hurry up and get them back. Lead us to this waterfall.”

  Luce stood, and checked her knives in their sheaths. Toko rose too, a look of distress on his face.

  “Please reconsider. There is nothing to be gained, and only death to be won, by meeting the jorogumo in the dark.”

  “We’ll think of something,” I said, with more confidence than the situation perhaps warranted. I’d been in some tough corners lately, but I’d never dealt with a rampaging spider-woman before, and no great ideas were presenting themselves. Better get it over with, though. Time was ticking away.

  Luce moved to a chest tucked in the corner and began rummaging through the kimonos and other belongings folded inside.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for Daiyu’s perfume.” She pulled out a small glass bottle and uncorked it. “This smells like it.” She passed it to me and I dabbed it on sparingly. It had a pleasant jasmine scent, but it was very strong.

  Toko pounced as Luce was repacking the chest.

  “Take that.” He indicated the shamisen inside, the Japanese three-stringed version of a guitar. “Perhaps we can soothe the jorogumo with music.”

  “Does she like music?” It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.

  Toko sighed. “Not as much as she likes killing people.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Toko led the way down smooth paths, past austere rock gardens where the sand was raked into decorative swirls and nothing stirred. I was glad I’d packed my thick jacket; our breath fogged in the night air. He carried the shamisen, a resigned slump to his shoulders, clearly unhappy with the whole idea. A guard on the wide verandah had watched us slip on sandals without comment. We saw no one else as we meandered through the dark garden.

  Luce and I hung back as we left the rock gardens and entered a section where mature rhododendrons towered overhead. We crossed an arched wooden bridge painted red and hung with lanterns, while beneath us fat carp slid lazily through the cool water of a small ornamental pond. The air was bitingly cold.

  “You know,” said Luce, “I’ve heard rumours about the secret component of du.”

  “Oh?”

  Du was the only poison that killed dragons apart from bane leaf, and the secret of its manufacture was known only to the Chinese queens. I’d always supposed that bane
leaf must be at least part of the lethal formula.

  “Yes—that the recipe involved milking the fangs of a venomous shifter.”

  “Oh, great.” I stopped and stared at her in the faint glow of the distant lanterns. Somewhere an owl hooted, while nearby something small rustled around beneath the rhododendrons, probably hoping not to become an owl’s dinner. “You think it’s from a jorogumo?”

  “How many venomous shifters do you know?”

  “Apart from wyverns, you mean?”

  She smiled, her teeth white in the dark. “We don’t have fangs. And I think I might have heard if our venom had such an … interesting … use. I know whatever it came from, the venom could only be gathered at night.”

  “And here we have a shifter who only takes her monstrous form at night.” I sighed. Nothing was ever easy. “It certainly looks possible—assuming they have jorogumo in China?”

  “Well, we don’t call them that, but we do have something similar. This one could be related.”

  “I guess it would explain why Daiyu is so careful around her.”

  That had been bothering me. A dragon had little to fear from any shifter, however fast or crazed they were.

  Toko noticed we’d stopped, and looked back hopefully. “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “No.” I waved him on. “Keep going.”

  The gardens were huge. Even at night they were lovely, filled with evergreens and artfully arranged shrubs. To our night-seeing eyes, a new vista opened up around every bend of the path. It must have been spectacular in the daylight. We passed through a less-manicured section, almost like a mini forest, and emerged on the top of a slight rise, with a beautiful lake laid out before us. A teahouse modelled after the famous Golden Pavilion of Kyoto jutted out over the water to our right, and on the other side of the lake a small waterfall emptied into the water below after splashing prettily over rocks. Each one looked carefully placed to give the most pleasing arrangement.