Smoke in the Sun

  “Yes, my lord.” The soldier stood, jerking the chains tauter.

  Raiden knelt beside the broken boy. Leaned forward, until the scent of his singed flesh cloyed in Raiden’s throat. He crouched closer. The tang of the boy’s metal shackles mixed with the pool of blood and vomit around him, nearly causing Raiden to retch as well.

  “You think you can lie to your emperor?” he began, though he felt sickened by the sight. By his participation in it. “You will not lie to me, you filth.” Raiden grabbed the back of the boy’s hair, and his hand turned slick with sweat and blood. “I’ll tell you what happens to fools who betray their heavenly sovereign. Who think to stop the beating heart of our empire.” He edged in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper, filling his features with menace. As he moved, he clenched the small metal object tightly in his hand.

  “Lunge for me,” he breathed beside the prisoner’s ear.

  “Answer me, you traitor!” Raiden yanked again on the boy’s hair.

  The boy’s eyes widened, until Raiden could see the veins of blood etching through them. Raiden nodded at the same time he loosened his hold. He let his menace rise into the air, as though he meant it. As though it were his truth.

  The boy’s attempt to lunge for him was feeble. But it was enough.

  With a shout, all the soldiers descended on them in a rush.

  Raiden let the tiny blade sink between the boy’s ribs just beside his heart, then withdrew the knife back into his sleeve. The wound would not kill the boy immediately. But it would end his life sooner.

  It was the best Raiden could do. If his brother discovered he had aided this boy by granting him a measure of mercy, Raiden did not know what Roku might do. The boy was strapped down once more. As Raiden stood again, angry shouts and the sounds of fists against broken flesh coiled into the air.

  The boy stared up at him, bloody tears falling from his eyes.

  Raiden could not breathe.

  Roku is not fit to rule. His mother’s words circled through his mind, like a tortured song.

  A Dark Garden

  Mariko waited in the bridal bedchamber. She knelt in the corner of the vast space, shrouded in near darkness, until the sounds of pounding feet across wooden floors had died down to a trickle. Her eyes squeezed closed as she held fast to the one thought that kept her tethered to her body:

  She’d not heard that the son of Takeda Shingen had been executed.

  Ōkami could be safe.

  And if he was not?

  She would not allow herself to consider anything beyond that. If terrible things were destined to come to pass, it did her no good to worry about it twice. She would worry about it when it came time to worry. There were some who would find this behavior unbecoming of a woman, this ability to detach. But Mariko held it as a strength. Through all the trials that had occurred in the last few weeks, her strengths had guided her. The things she’d considered struggles had offered her solutions. She would not turn her back on what defined her, even if others perceived it as a weakness.

  The sliding doors flew open. Darkening the threshold stood the imposing form of Minamoto Raiden, Prince of Wa.

  Her new husband.

  Dread twisted through her throat at the thought of what was to come. She forced it down in the next breath. Mariko had made this choice. She had decided to wed a boy who represented everything she loathed: her past, the person she had been raised to be, the future dictated by her parents.

  She had made this choice, and it was hers alone.

  Bracing her hand on the low table nearby, Mariko stood in a soft rustle of silk. She cleared her voice, held her head high. And made her way toward Raiden. As she drew closer, she caught the scent of blood and seared flesh. The unmistakable odor of the castle’s cruel underbelly.

  Her heart leapt from her chest. She froze mid-step.

  Raiden had just come from killing Ōkami.

  Mariko saw what would happen next, clear in her mind’s eye. She would lunge for him. She would aim for his eyes and throat. She would do as she had done in the forest that first night and drive a hairpin through his eye if need be.

  She would fail.

  Her ears rang with silent fury. But she kept still. Cold. Detached. Her last remaining strength.

  “My brother …” Raiden began, his voice hoarse.

  Mariko inhaled carefully through her nose. In her desire to learn Ōkami’s fate, she’d nearly forgotten that Minamoto Roku’s life had been threatened today. A loyal subject would think of nothing else. “The emperor is well?” Her words sounded like they were carved from ice.

  I am not loyal. I am a traitor.

  Raiden did not answer immediately. “He is … safe.”

  It did not escape Mariko’s notice that he chose a different way to answer. Used different words to convey a similar sentiment.

  “May I offer you something to drink, my lord?” Mariko said, trying to force her body to keep still and not betray her flurry of thoughts. “Something to lighten the burden of the day’s events?”

  “No.” Raiden stepped from the shadows into the weak light filtering from the oil lantern hanging above. His features had aged a decade in the matter of a single evening. Her new husband did not pause as he doffed his chest armor. Mariko did not offer to help him. The mere idea of doing something so intimate slithered over her skin like an eel. She thought to call for a servant.

  “Takeda Ranmaru escaped during our wedding.” Though he watched her sidelong, Raiden spoke as if it were an afterthought. Then proceeded to sigh while struggling with the gauntlet on his left arm.

  After a long pause in which her heart lurched into her throat, Mariko moved to help him, some perverse sense of gratitude driving her to take action. She reached for the ties of his gauntlet, and her fingers brushed across his hand. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. When Mariko met Raiden’s gaze, she was surprised to find his expression had softened.

  As though he appreciated her halfhearted attempt to offer comfort.

  It felt odd, to be standing beside this boy she barely knew, playing the role of his dutiful wife. Mariko swallowed, quickly bringing to mind the reaction she should have to the news that her captor was once again free.

  Raiden continued studying her. “You are unconcerned by the news?”

  “My only concern is for your welfare, my lord.”

  “You lie well, wife.”

  Her fingers fumbled on the lacing at his shoulder. Since he knew her to be speaking in falsehoods, it was only appropriate for her to accept a measure of blame. “Of course I am concerned for my own well-being, too. It alarms me to know he managed to break free. But am I wrong to assume you would not let something happen to me, now that we have been joined in marriage?”

  Raiden did not reply. He maintained his cool appraisal of her features, as though he were trying to focus on the sediments swirling in a muddy ravine.

  One side of Mariko’s lips curled upward. “I know you do not trust me, my lord. But this is the life we have chosen for ourselves, inasmuch as we were given the right to choose. I do not wish to begin it amid strife. If you believe I helped Lord Ranmaru escape today—though I stood calmly beneath the same pavilion as you, at risk to my own life—then I am already dead in your eyes.” She dipped a cloth in a bowl of clean water and brought it to him. No matter how relieved she was to learn that Ōkami was safe, she did not trust her features to remain steady while touching Raiden’s face.

  He took the cloth and wiped his brow. Then he turned his back to clean his hands. Without a word, Raiden removed the rest of his armor. He stopped short when he saw the pallet as it had been laid out. For their wedding night. After an uncomfortable pause, he looked at her, his features drawn, as though he knew he were on the cusp of making a mistake.

  “I’m tired,” he said simply.

  “Yes.” Mariko nodded, relief unfurling through her body. “As am I.”

  Careful to place his tantō beside him, Raiden lay down on the pallet, not bothe
ring to use the silk-tufted blanket provided for them. Mariko waited for a time, then came to kneel at the edge of the pallet, still dressed in her wedding night finery.

  She watched Raiden stare at the ceiling above them. At its intricate alcoves and painted silk screens. Every dark eave was interwoven with parts of a story; most were of the conquests made by his family.

  Her family now. Though it was likely some of its ranks had tried to kill her, as she’d suspected from the begining. Strange how that seemed to be the least of her worries now. The very question that had driven her to defy her family and disguise her identity. Only to find the truths hidden within.

  Mariko waited until Raiden’s eyes drifted closed. Beneath his jaw, she caught sight of a muscle twitching, even as he slept. Once he’d fallen asleep, she removed the jeweled pins the servants had placed in her hair and let her tresses tumble to her shoulders. She lay beside him, keeping her body as far away from his as the space would permit.

  Mariko chewed on the inside of her cheek, the events of the day winding through her mind. Then Raiden rolled over. He threw an arm around her waist, his fingertips grazing the thin silk at her hip. Mariko froze, the pace of her heart doubling its rhythm. His breaths were long and drawn, as though he were in the throes of deepest sleep. But his body twitched like it was ready at a moment’s notice to rise from their pallet, sword in hand.

  Mariko eased from beneath his arm, uncomfortable with this unexpected display of intimacy. She slept in a ball at the foot of the pallet, her dreams clouded by images of a dark garden filled with tiny mirrors.

  No One’s Hero

  The smoke curled from the funeral pyre into the twilit sky. Ōkami studied the flames as they danced above Ren’s body—all that remained of his friend. The fire crackled and fizzed, filling the air with the scent of burning flesh.

  Ōkami leaned against a birch tree along the fringes, disdaining any offer of assistance. It was not that he was too proud. If anything, the misfortunes of his life had proven to him how pointless it was to let pride dictate his actions. No. He was not proud.

  He simply wanted to be alone.

  It was a strange emotion for him.

  After he’d lost his mother as a small child, then witnessed the death of his father only a few years later, one of Ōkami’s greatest fears was being left alone. The dreams that tore apart his sleep—that set his teeth on edge—were usually ones in which he was left to fend for himself in cold darkness or blearing sunlight, begging to no one for a cup of water or a bowl of rice.

  Ōkami shifted against the tree, and a wave of pain unfurled down his body. Though his demon had worked beneath the moonlight to repair the damage, he was still a shadow of his former self. And he’d left those responsible for it unscathed.

  Worse, he’d left Mariko. Alone.

  Grimacing, he returned his attention to Ren’s funeral pyre.

  Under cover of night, the men of the Black Clan had taken them from the clearing to a bamboo forest known as the Ghost’s Gambit. Ōkami could not remember how they’d brought him here. He only remembered that he had been unable to relinquish his hold on Ren. He would not leave his friend alone. Anywhere. Even in death. It still stole the breath from his body to know that Ren had died protecting him. Just like Yorishige, that boy who’d reminded him so much of Yoshi.

  That child Ōkami had left behind.

  Uesama. It had been the last word Ren had spoken in this life.

  The smoke from the pyre twisted Ōkami’s way. It made his eyes burn, his throat close. He coughed, and moisture collected in his eyelashes. His first reaction was to fight it. Ōkami did not cry, not even when he was sure no one was there to bear witness. He would never allow such weakness to overcome him.

  Ren had not deserved to die at so young an age. So uselessly. Perhaps it meant something that he’d died in battle. Died honorably, protecting a friend.

  Honor.

  Ōkami glared at the fire until his eyes burned once more. Honor was a thing to hate. It drove people to act foolishly, as though they were heroes. As though they were invincible. Ōkami hated heroes more than anything else. As a boy, he’d concluded that heroes cared more about how the world perceived them than they did about those they’d left behind.

  Tsuneoki came to stand on the other side of the birch tree. He gave his friend space, though Ōkami knew the gesture to be unlike him. Save for the times he assumed the form of a nightbeast, Tsuneoki was not known for fading quietly into the shadows. Proof of this was in what he’d managed to accomplish in only ten days: the ranks of the Black Clan had swelled to nine times their previous number.

  “Would you like for me to send a healer to tend your wounds?” Tsuneoki asked gently.

  “Not now.”

  Tsuneoki waited again. “The loss of Ren—of a friend and brother—is not something that will be easy to forget.” His voice turned hoarse. “I’m not sure I ever want to forget it.”

  Anger sent another spasm of pain shooting through Ōkami’s chest. “You should have left me there.”

  Tsuneoki’s morose laughter filled the air. “You would have liked that. Then you could have died the tragic death you’d always hoped for. Like a hero.”

  “I am no one’s hero.” His fists curled at his sides, but Ōkami fought the urge to lash out at his friend. “You’re trying to provoke me.”

  “Is it working?”

  “No,” he all but snarled back.

  “Liar.”

  Wincing through the smoke, Ōkami looked away. “Why are you doing this?”

  “You must feel responsible for what happened.”

  “If you say so.” He raised his shoulders in glib fashion. Another flare of pain nearly caused him to cry out. Ōkami grunted in an effort to conceal it.

  “Of course you feel responsible,” Tsuneoki repeated.

  “I’m not going to humor you with—”

  “Stop it. Act like that in your next life.” Tsuneoki faced him straight on. “You are not the only one to have lost everything, Takeda Ranmaru. Some of us just choose to do something about it.”

  A white haze of fury clouded Ōkami’s mind. “What makes you think I—”

  “I don’t have anything more to say to you on the matter.” He paused. “I’ll send for the healer. And you will listen to what she says.” Tsuneoki began walking away, then halted only a few steps from where he’d stood. “I’m happy to see you again, Ōkami. I’m thankful you’re safe. When you’ve given your anger a chance to abate, let a sentry know. There’s something I would like to show you.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Tsuneoki grinned, his gaze sharp. “Save me the seat beside you.”

  A Measure of Solace

  Injustice was not a new form of nourishment for her. It had been served every day of Kanako’s life. Sometimes it was expected, others it arrived wearing the guise of something less sinister. But always it was there.

  Her anger at injustice had become a thing with teeth. Claws. An icy thing that raged between the bones of her chest, howling to be set free.

  All her plans had been ruined by Hattori Kenshin’s lingering convictions. He was no longer the boy with the pliant mind she’d first selected for this task. His suffering had not made him weaker; it had made him stronger. His fury at the sight of Muramasa Amaya’s entrapped form had not been enough for him to take revenge on the emperor. That must have been the reason his shot had gone wide. It could be the only explanation. Hattori Kenshin was known as the Dragon of Kai. A famed warrior—a samurai—of the highest order. It was not possible for him to have missed his mark, not when he’d been granted every opportunity.

  Kanako had set everything up perfectly. She’d put her scapegoat—that sniveling child—into position to hide the weapons afterward. Aligned the stars so that no one would see what happened in the shade of the nearby clouds.

  Still it had not been enough.

  And who had fired that second shot? The one that had nearly struck her son? It had come fro
m a different angle—higher than the first—which meant it had been an entirely different archer. Who would dare to threaten Raiden?

  Kanako seethed to herself as she wandered through the colorless world of the enchanted maru. Her plans had been torn asunder. The injustice of it all continued to writhe beneath her skin, ready to be unleashed.

  Then a coolness washed over her. An answer came to mind.

  Her failure had been in entrusting others with such important tasks.

  She would not fail like this again.

  Raiden made his way across the nightingale floors. They squeaked and whistled with every step. Though the sound was irritating, its rhythm was steady, soothing. Consistent. It offered him a strange kind of comfort.

  He’d woken in his bridal chamber to find his new wife asleep at the foot of their pallet, fully dressed. It should have annoyed him.

  Instead he’d experienced the strangest tremor by his heart. The girl—his new wife—was most definitely a nuisance. She said less than half of what she thought, and of that half, Raiden was certain only a fifth of it was true. Though she appeared to have been earnestly frightened when the first arrow had struck the emperor, Raiden was not entirely certain of her innocence.

  She was a liar. A manipulator.

  He should have killed her for it, the moment the doubt first entered his mind. But Raiden had had enough of bloodshed after last night. Enough of it to last a lifetime.

  Then—when he was most in need of it—Mariko had simply listened to him. She’d not asked for anything. Simply offered him quiet company. A measure of solace. When he’d been younger, his mother had done that for him. It was the reason Raiden did not feet the need to retaliate against those who shunned him for his birth.

  His mother’s silent encouragement. The simple fact that she had been there. Often that had been all Raiden had needed as a child. Someone who cared. For a blink of time, he’d seen the same quality in Hattori Mariko. The same quiet strength. Perhaps that was why Raiden had acquiesced to his brother’s demands and married her, despite his many reservations.