The Fox's Mask
Page 21
“You could shift and ride with me,” Yuki offered, watching him with a worried face.
“I’m fine.” It was a tempting idea to shift fox and crawl onto Yuki’s lap—maybe he’d get scratched behind the ears, too—but he certainly wasn’t going to be seen doing that in front of his peers.
They fell in with the group as it was starting out, bringing the total to a dozen men and women of whom only three could be considered able. The last rider, an older cousin named Ryota whose right arm currently hung limp, glared at them until Yuki’s dragon started hissing.
Had Sora still been alive, he would no doubt have been screeching what Ryota must be thinking: how could you murder those we sacrificed ourselves to save? How dare you allow yourself to wallow in vengeance when the rest of us had to swallow the pain of our own dead family and cling to our duty?
The group set out on the local dirt trail, setting the fastest pace the wounded in the carts could tolerate. They wouldn’t follow it for long: healing springs were often situated in hidden, hard-to-access locations. Only organized groups like theirs were able to keep records about them.
Akakiba hadn’t had a chance to look at the clan maps recently, but he suspected there would be even more springs stricken out.
They arrived at their first destination moments before night blanketed the world. The spring was tiny, hardly fit to hold more than two standing persons at a time, and hidden among several other equally tiny springs.
The man in charge of the tiny group was older, a hunter who’d been out on the road so often that Akakiba couldn’t quite recall what his name was or where he fit in the clan genealogy.
The man was peering at his map, relaying the information on it. “We have a record of strong activity at this spring a year ago. It should still be active.” He cleared his throat as if he were uncomfortable and said, “This one is an old man’s spring.”
The laughter that followed sounded forced, the sound painful to Akakiba’s ears.
“Old man’s spring?” Yuki repeated.
“You know spirits have varied tastes in what they’ll accept as offerings. There’s a variety of spirits we call old men because they don’t want sake, food, or jewelry; they want to see young, naked women. We’re unsure if they truly appreciate womanly beauty or if they merely desire to be offered something private and precious.”
“Interesting…”
Akakiba wasn’t surprised that half the party was now eyeing him in an expectant manner. His hurts were internal, so he didn’t look as battered as the women in the party. It was infuriating that, for the purpose of pleasing this spirit, he counted as a female. But since he did count, he couldn’t very well force an injured woman to do it instead.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Some of those idiots—his own cousins—had the nerve to look surprised. Did he look like someone who enjoyed letting women suffer needlessly?
He removed his sword and his clothes with slow, careful movements, and concentrated. He needed to focus and will himself to change. Focus…He hadn’t shifted female in years and yet it came easily. Too easily for his peace of mind. His sense of self changed, and there were suddenly curves where there hadn’t been any before. The scars remained and several marred the beauty of small breasts.
Hoping the spirit didn’t mind scars on his offerings, Akakiba gingerly stepped into the water. He waited, shivering, while his wet bandages seeped pink. This was no hot spring, but as long as he didn’t move, he didn’t hurt.
“Is it there?” someone asked.
Someone else grunted. “Maybe it’s gone. Wouldn’t be the first.”
Akakiba jumped and hissed in pain as his muscles protested the sudden motion. There wasn’t anything in the pool, not a single fish, but something had touched his behind.
He crossed his arms and scowled at the water. “If you’re done, old pervert, start working. Why would you let a poor wounded woman wait like this?”
His body went cold, so cold it burned. It lasted no longer than a breath. He twisted to look at the flesh wound on his hip—and found it gone. The pain in his muscles had gone too. “Thank you, spirit,” he said. “If I may request your help for my companions as well…” He warned them, “He’s a freezer.”
He stayed in the water as they proceeded with triage, the most severely wounded going in first. One by one, they slipped into the water and winced when they felt the strange cold-burn before the wound was healed. At last the spirit stopped responding, and Akakiba was able to climb out and escape the embarrassing situation.
Yuki handed him his clothes, not looking at him. “Here.”
“What are you blushing for? Sanae showed you the trick, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t parade naked in front of me as a woman.”
“Poor boy’s never seen a naked woman before, has he?” someone said. Certain rude suggestions were made to general laughter. It sounded less forced, as if life were reasserting itself.
“Shut up, all of you.” He’d shifted back and put his clothes on by then.
“Your poor mother,” another said. “She was so hopeful when you showed up with a man. She thought you’d finally found a husband!”
There was more laughter, the sound mocking rather than friendly.
Yuki’s dragon raised its head and hissed in the others’ general direction, prompting some to shy away. Not even the bravest man would relish an acid-shot to the face.
Akakiba stared until the laughing died, silently daring them to push him, daring them to take him on if they could. What was one more murder?
“Yuki, shall we go?” He mounted his horse and nudged it in a trot down the nearest path, caring not if he had little coin on him and no supplies. Even the yellow kosode he wore was borrowed, his left behind with Sanae’s corpse.
The spirit who had usurped Sanae’s shape leaped on top of the horse’s head. “Where are we going?”
He ignored it, staring straight ahead. Surely it would leave if it were given no attention.
“Oh, very well. I’ll return once your brain is functioning again. Really, Brother, I wonder about you sometimes.”
The spirit vanished like smoke.
Yuki caught up. Akakiba, his eyes acclimated to the moonlight, saw that the human’s brows were furrowed.
“I have to ask,” Yuki said. “What’s your birth gender?”
He gave a long, drawn-out sigh. He’d known it would happen sooner or later.
“You could have told me you’re a woman!”
“I was also born fox form,” he said bitterly. “Does that make me an animal?” Humans never understood.
He urged his mount onward.
No attempt to explain would prevent the inevitable shattering of their relationship. Sooner or later, Yuki would abandon him.
Epilogue
Sanae
DEATH WASN’T AS TERRIBLE as Sanae had expected. The fear and pain had been overwhelming in her last living moments as she paradoxically clung to life and sought escape from her broken body, but it had ended the moment she broke free of flesh.
It had taken time to define the boundaries of her new self and of her new world, to find the line between the physical world and the spirit realm. From there, she’d learned to cross over so she might speak to her brother—who was too deep in denial to consider her non-death in a rational way. She’d have to come back later.
She pulled the cloud-like shroud of her existence about her and floated through the spirit realm, attempting to understand it. Here, sight and hearing had no meaning, and the nature of touch was questionable. Was it touch when she felt other energies, other spirits, brush against her own? She perceived other spirits but communication was beyond her, so she could only turn her attention on herself.
Though she had no easy way to tell where her self ended—skin was useful for that, and she missed it—she noticed something tugging at the edge of her being. Focusing, she perceived flecks of her power trying to break away. Shocked, she pulled
herself in tighter. No matter how tiny the flecks were, if she allowed herself to fray at the edge, she would eventually be reduced to nothingness.
Just like the other spirits.
Was this it, then? The cause for the spirits’ slow death? Curiosity overtaking fear, she relaxed and watched—insofar as the word could apply to her sightless observation—the flecks break off and float away, drawn elsewhere.
If she followed, if she found out where her flecks of power were going, what else would she learn?
Only one way to know…
End
About the Author
Anna Frost is a Canadian girl who spends her winters writing and dreaming of summer. An overdose of Japanese culture and media inspired her to write fantasy novels based on Japanese myths and legends.
Website: http://annafrost.ca
Blog: http://frostanity.blogspot.ca/