by Zoe Marriott
I stared at her in disbelief. “Understand what? That he is a murderer?”
“He is not a murderer!” Now temper flushed her cheeks. “He never meant for your father to die!”
“No, he only meant to ruin his name, destroy his life, and steal his wife. And he succeeded, with your help. If you think you could have persuaded me to keep silent about that then you are far more stupid than I ever believed you to be.”
She started back — I had never spoken to her so — but that only drove me on. “He had already tried to kill me once, and you didn’t even notice. He intended to kill me that night. He would have, if he had caught me. And you did nothing to stop him. Nothing.”
She unclenched her hands, making a beseeching gesture that I flinched away from. “I wanted to go after you. I had just given birth! I was too weak and exhausted to move.”
“What if he had threatened one of your babies, Mother? Would you have been able to move then?”
She hesitated, her face stricken.
I nodded, bitterly satisfied. “You could have defied him. But you were frightened. You knew that if you defended me then you would be at risk. You watched him go after me without a word, and somewhere deep inside, I think you were relieved. Relieved to see me go and take all your old memories and jealousies with me forever.”
“No. No. You are my daughter and I love you. I thought of you, mourned for you each day you were gone. When I recognized you here tonight, saw you dancing, I was overjoyed, but I had to be sure —”
“So you crept up onto the stage, alone, without telling your husband, without telling anyone? That is hardly the action of a woman with a clear conscience. It is hardly the action of a woman who does not fear her husband’s wrath. But what you tell him does not matter anymore,” I said triumphantly. “He cannot reach me now. In a few moments I will be safe from him forever.”
She gasped, her eyes widening. “Safe? What? . . . Is that why were you dancing, Suzume?” And now realization filled her eyes, and the very beginnings of fear. “Why did you come to the Kage no Iwai? Why did you dance like that? What are you going to do?”
“I am going to be the Shadow Bride,” I said proudly. “Most favored, most desired, most beautiful. And when I have spent the night in the prince’s bed, I shall use that power to finally claim justice for the House of Hoshima.”
“What do you mean?” she breathed. Again she reached out as if to touch me. Again I avoided her hands. “You cannot . . . You would not . . .”
I felt dizzy, unreal, as if everything had been turned upside down, back to front. For so long I had begged for her approval, for her affection. Now she pleaded for mercy from me. It was both disorienting and exhilarating, and filled me with a sense of power such as I had never known before.
“What would I not do, Mother? Would I not avenge my murdered father and cousin, and my home? Would I not destroy Terayama-san as he has destroyed everything I have ever loved?”
“What about me? What about your brothers? You have three brothers, Suzume. Shujin-sama and I have just come back from the country, where I had my confinement for the youngest. They are your family now, too. They are just babies, as innocent as you were once. If you destroy Shujin-sama you will destroy them, too, and leave them — us — with nothing.”
“Why should I care for them?” I asked, brushing aside the brief memory of the helpless, gurgling baby I had held in my arms for so short a time. “Why should I care for you? Your love has brought me nothing but sorrow. If you wish to avoid your husband’s ruin, take whatever money you can find, take your precious sons, and run. It does not matter to me, and by this time tomorrow he will have more important things to do than go after you. But no matter what you decide, you will not stop me from fulfilling my destiny. This is the only warning I will give you.”
There was a discreet throat clearing from the stairs, and I saw the servant from earlier standing there uneasily, holding the pile of clothes I had given him.
“The prince wishes to see you at your first convenience,” he said, bowing his head respectfully when he saw he had my attention.
“Of course,” I said. I brushed past my mother without another look, then took my uchikake robe from the servant and pulled it on over the moon dress. I could not do anything with my hair now, and with just the robe on, I was barely decent. . . . But then, I was to be the Shadow Bride. I was not bound by the rules laid down for respectable virgins any longer. I did not have to be decent. It was a thrilling realization.
“Suzume,” my mother whispered behind me, clearly constrained by the presence of the servant. “Please.”
Now I did look back at her. “Suzume is dead. I am Yue. And you are nothing to me.”
I walked down the stairs, past the servant, and out into the main room.
I was greeted by a spontaneous burst of applause from the guests. Everyone was looking at me, bowing and staring — their eyes filled with admiration, lust, anger, speculation. For a second I wanted to back away, but why should I hide? This was my moment of triumph, of victory: the culmination of everything I had worked for.
Akira stepped forward, her face alight with enthusiasm. That light waned as she took in my expression, though I do not know what she saw there. She shielded me from the crowd with her shoulder as she said, “Congratulations. You were magnificent, sister. I was so proud, I could not even be jealous.” And then, lower, more quickly: “What is wrong? What has happened?”
“Nothing,” I said, meeting her too perceptive eyes with all the bravado I could muster. “Nothing. Take me to him.”
She gave me a searching look, then glanced back over her shoulder. “Very well. We cannot keep him waiting.”
She took my icy cold fingers in her warm ones and led me into the crowd.
The prince caught sight of us and stood up, taking a step away from his throne. He raised his hands to silence his guests. His presence was surprisingly strong and commanding. Only the barely suppressed smile on his face hinted at the excitement of a young man about to choose between three beautiful women. The room fell quiet, the air singing with a deep expectancy, with anticipation.
“My subjects, I thank you all for your attendance tonight. I have been honored by the presence of so many very beautiful young women, and I would have been honored to choose any of them. Most especially I must thank Ito Natsuko-san and Sasaki Hinata-san and their families for providing us all with entertainment of such a superior nature. My choice has been difficult — but that is as it should be, for the decision is an important one. It is now made.”
We reached his side, and as Akira dropped my left hand, the prince caught hold of the right. His fingers squeezed mine too tightly and were slightly moist. I turned my head to look at Akira, seeking reassurance.
She was no longer by my side. She was nowhere in sight.
She had gone so quickly that I knew she had to have used a shadow-weaving to disappear. But why? Had something happened that I had not seen? Surely it had been too fast for that. The weaving must have been prepared before in order for her to wink out of existence so instantly.
Why would she desert me? Had her misgivings finally been too much for her? I forced the sudden swirl of anxiety away. I could not be distracted now. I turned my head to look at the prince again, my eyes riveted on his lips as they opened to speak the words I — and everyone in the room — had been waiting for all night.
“I have chosen,” the prince said. “Kano Yue-san will be my Shadow Bride.”
There was a hushed moment, and then the applause began again, loud enough to make my ears ring.
I was whisked out of the hall. Three black-armored soldiers — my guards from now on — followed as one of the servants led me up two flights of stairs and down a long corridor to the prince’s chambers. His rooms made up the entire top story of the central hall of the palace.
The soldiers took up their places along the corridor as the servant opened the door for me, bowing deeply.
“T
he prince will come to his rooms as soon as all of his guests have departed. Hot water is waiting for you in the bathing room, if you wish to wash, and there is a selection of clothing also — although of course you will choose new clothes for yourself, when you have time. Is there anything else you would like, Ohime-sama? Something to eat or drink?”
Ohime-sama. Princess. “No. I do not want anything, thank you.”
“If you should change your mind, simply inform one of the guards, and we will instantly do our best to comply with your request. Welcome to the Moon Palace, Ohime-sama.”
He bowed again and stepped out, closing the door behind him.
I turned in a circle, looking at the enormous room with its exotic red and gold furnishings, its high, sloping ceilings, its wall of screened round windows, and its towering Old Empire–style bedstead with draperies embroidered in yellow chrysanthemums and red dragons. This was the place where, ten years ago, Akira had sat by the fire and wept.
There, at last, my legs gave out and I fell to the floor, gasping for breath.
My mother was alive. Alive.
I was not a murderer.
Had Youta made a mistake? He was a man, after all, and might be confused about the potency of a woman’s drug like sangre root. But Youta had worked among drudges for a long time. He had known what sangre was when I spoke of it. Surely then he must have known enough to realize that what I had done was not fatal? Moon curse it, if I had not trusted Youta so much, had not been so filled with horror at my own actions, I would have questioned it myself.
No. There had been no mistake. He had lied to me.
In the darkness and fear of that night, as I confessed to him, he had seized the chance to get me out of Terayama-san’s house. Out and away, before I did something else — something worse. He might have thought that cutting all ties to my old life, to Mother and Terayamasan, even to himself, would finally allow me to leave the past behind.
He had tried to give me a gift. He had tried to set me free.
Only it had not worked. Believing I was responsible for Mother’s death had only confirmed something that, deep inside, I had already felt for a long time.
There was a roaring inside me, a screaming, a wailing, as all the hidden voices, all the denied emotions that I had closed off broke free. I crumpled, curling into a ball on the floor, pressing my face to the mats, sucking in deep breaths as I tried to stay conscious. Finally I was forced to see the truth.
I had thought it was my fault.
What had Youta said to me, all those months and years ago, when he first taught me to shadow-weave? That I had a right to be angry — but why was I so angry with myself? I had ignored him, brushed those words aside without answering because he was right. I had blamed myself. I had survived when they had not. The youngest, scrawniest, least clever. The least beautiful. Why me? I had no right to have lived. I ought to have saved them, or died with them.
I had buried those thoughts so deep that I never even acknowledged they existed, but they had informed every choice, every decision I had made since my father and cousin died. Beneath my mania to punish Terayama-san was an even deeper one: the need to punish myself. That was why I had leaped at Akira’s suggestion to attend the ball and win the promise. It was the only way I could destroy Terayama-san and myself at one stroke.
By the Moon — how could I have been so arrogantly, so monstrously, stupid? I had been just as powerless against the soldiers as Aimi had been powerless against the illness that had killed her family. To blame myself for not fighting that company of armed men was the same as blaming Aimi for not discovering some miraculous cure for red-water fever.
Feelings were surging back into me, filling the empty pit that had opened up when I sent Otieno away. What had I done? Oh, what had I done?
At that moment, the ending of my life would have seemed a blessing.
I, who prided herself on piercing illusions and seeing things as they truly were, had clung to this one illusion as a child will cling to its favorite toy. The illusion of control. The illusion that in this terrifying, chaotic world, I had some vestige of choice. I had not wanted to admit that nothing I did could have saved my father and Aimi. I had not even wanted to admit that poisoning my mother had been a moment of thoughtless stupidity, and that I had never really meant to hurt her.
It was easier to hate myself, hurt myself, slice open my own flesh and bleed, than to face the fact that I had been powerless.
Just as I was powerless right now.
“No.” The word echoed around the big, empty room.
I would not accept it. It was no good to come to terms with myself — to finally see my own folly, and the truth — if I simply lay there on the floor, whimpering, and let disaster take me anyway. I was not a killer. I had not damned myself forever. I had a right to life and happiness, just as Akira and Youta — and Otieno — had told me.
It might be too late to undo all I had done, to retrieve the love I had spurned. But it was not too late to escape being a Shadow Bride. My father and cousin would not have wanted this life for me. I did not want it for myself.
I must save myself.
I scrambled up, shrugging away the long, heavy uchikake. Clad only in the white kimono, I went to the long wall of windows and threw back the closest screen and the pierced-wood shutter and leaned out. This was the back of the palace, and there were no lanterns lit in the garden below. I could only just make out the shapes of the trees where they blocked out the stars, and a hint of the trellis below, covered in large white wisteria blossoms.
I gulped. I hated heights. My fingers were damp and trembling as I reached for the window frame and hauled myself up until I was astride the curved edge of the window, a leg dangling on either side. Another glance down made me clutch at the frame in panic; my legs kicked reflexively, and the sandal on my left foot slipped off and disappeared into the bottomless darkness.
That is all right, I told myself with false confidence. I am better off without shoes for this, anyway. I kicked the other one off, too, and watched it roll across the polished wooden floor. What would the prince think when he came here and found that a single shoe was all that was left of me?
Still holding on to the window frame, I began to feel below me with my toes for the top of the trellis. I am light and scrawny, I told myself. It will hold my weight easily.
But I could not find the trellis. My searching foot found nothing but the wall, which offered no holds for a climber. I pulled my foot back and leaned out again. I had not imagined it. The trellis was there. It was simply too far away for me to reach. My short legs had betrayed me.
My only way out of the room was down the corridor and past the guards.
“Halt!”
I jumped, almost falling out of the window. My hands latched on to the screen in a death grip and I caught my balance with a gasp, my eyes searching the room. There was no one there. I was still alone. The shout must have come from the guards outside.
The guards who are here to protect me.
Instinct raised the tiny hairs all over my body as I strained my ears, trying to filter out the muffled noises of revelry from the floor below. The silence in the room seemed like a pall now, suffocating me. My nerves told me to hide, to find some dark place and curl up inside. But the noise had come from the corridor that was my one escape from the room. If I wanted to leave, I must go out there.
Working quickly, I drew threads of darkness around myself, weaving an impenetrable cloak of shadows, as dark and dense as the night outside. I went to the door of the prince’s chamber and slid it open a little way, peeking out carefully. I expected to see at least one of the guards by the door — but there was no one there.
I slipped through the gap in the door and closed it silently behind me, drawing my cloak of shadows tighter around my body. My feet moved soundlessly as I turned the corner.
I screamed. I knew the noise would betray me and still I could not help myself. At the end of the corridor, three gu
ards lay dead, blood and vile-smelling fluids pooling around them on the rush mats.
Terayama-san stood over them, just lowering his katana. The blade was a dull black in the dimness. Black with blood.
My stepfather’s head snapped up at my hastily bitten-off cry, searching the darkness. Slowly, unbelievably, his eyes focused on me cowering under my cloak of shadows.
“Up to your little tricks again, Suzu-chan.” His eyes gleamed dully, like the blade. “I can see you, though. I could always see through you. It was never any good to run away from me. It only delayed the inevitable.”
His eyes narrowed and he shifted, moving his sword into a defensive position. “Come out from under there. It hurts my eyes to squint, and it will do you no good. Face me. Show a little of the spirit your father was always talking about.”
Terror had sucked the strength from me. I clung to the shadow-weaving with everything I had, but under his eyes, it had become heavy, unbearable. I watched my own arms swim into view, glowing white in the dim corridor.
Terayama-san’s eyes widened. Then he smiled. “How appropriate. White for a virgin bride — a Shadow Bride who will die untouched. It is your own fault. You should not have told Yukiko what you planned to do. You do know that it was your mother who gave you up to me?”
He paused, waiting for me to speak — to cry, or to deny his words. But I could not speak. I could not even breathe.
After a moment he continued: “She told me of your plan, begged me to find you; she knew that when I found you I would not use words to persuade you but my sword. She always knew it. I hope you did not believe that she would protect you over our sons? She is loyal to me. To our family. And it is for her sake that you must die. Take comfort in that, if you will.”
“I shall not die tonight,” I said slowly, forcing the words out into the air between us.