Red Winter (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 1)

  “You draw it on the floor, usually on paper,” Katsuo explained. “You don’t have to do the dance moves, but you do have to draw the circle in the precise order and directions of the dance, otherwise it won’t work. Part of the power of the marugata is in the ritual of creating it.”

  She nodded in understanding. Many of the dances that miko performed had power in them that was drawn from the earth by the precise ritual movements.

  “I wouldn’t be able to draw that very quickly,” she said doubtfully.

  “No, it’s not practical for immediate self-defense,” he admitted. “But you won’t need to defend yourself if you stay within the shrine grounds. Minoru and I will protect you.”

  Minoru wasn’t nearly as present as Katsuo was and seemed to have a talent for avoiding her, but she couldn’t fault him for it. As far as he knew, no yokai could enter the shrine grounds, and she wasn’t supposed to leave. He had nothing to do.

  Shiro, however, was perfectly capable of entering the shrine grounds; the torii barrier didn’t even slow him down. Theoretically, that meant he bore no ill will toward anyone in the shrine, but he could always change his mind about hurting someone once he was inside.

  “I still think I should have some sort of defense ready to go. What if I’m attacked and you aren’t standing right there?” She tapped her finger on a book cover. “This one here talks about ki-infused weapons and attacks, like the binding you cast with your sword, but I don’t know how to use any weapons. Marugata take too long, so that leaves an ofuda with a longer range or … something.”

  He frowned at her. “Don’t you know how to use a bow?”

  “A ceremonial bow. I only ever shoot wood blocks.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Emi, there’s very little difference between shooting a piece of wood and shooting a yokai. One is just more likely to move around than the other.”

  She blinked. “But it’s ceremonial.”

  “It’s a weapon. And you’re good with it. You can outshoot Nanako no problem.”

  She’d never thought of the ceremonial bow and arrows she used for festivals as a weapon. Weapons were sleek and efficient, like Katsuo’s sword, not ornate and covered in colored ribbons and folded paper ties. She practiced harder than most miko because, as the kamigakari, she’d always felt the pressure to be the best at everything miko-related, but she’d never considered it a practical skill.

  “I guess I do know how to shoot a bow, but regular arrows won’t hurt an oni much, assuming I could hit a moving target.”

  “An oni is a lot bigger than your usual targets. And to hurt an oni, all you need to do is wrap your arrows in purification ofuda. There are more sophisticated techniques, but an ofuda on an arrow would do it.”

  She absently scanned the book titles. Purification was a concept close to the heart of any kamigakari, and it played a major role in the life of every kannushi, miko, and sohei.

  Ki was the energy of the soul, and it was most powerful when born from a pure soul. Purity wasn’t necessarily based on morality or wholesomeness, though those played a part. Rather, purity was born from a well-balanced mind and soul. Anger, hate, lust, greed, selfishness—all these emotions corrupted ki. Though impure ki was powerful in some aspects, pure ki was inherently stronger.

  For kannushi and miko, their greatest goal was to achieve makoto no kokoro, which roughly meant “purity of the heart.” They sought to bring their ki into the same perfect balance as a kami, who possessed the ultimate pure spirit. It was also believed that a kannushi or miko who achieved makoto no kokoro could then commune in harmony with their kami and even share a touch of the kami’s power, becoming far more powerful themselves.

  Emi had spent the last ten years perfecting the purity of her mind, body, and soul so as to be in a flawless state of makoto no kokoro on the solstice. In theory, Amaterasu would gradually imbue Emi with her ki, allowing Emi to adjust to the kami’s power. On the night Amaterasu descended, Emi would already be in perfect harmony with her ki and prepared to bear the burden and strain of a kami’s power.

  She focused on Katsuo again. “You mentioned more sophisticated techniques?”

  “It’s possible to imbue a weapon with ki without an ofuda, but it’s more difficult and requires a lot of practice.”

  “Is it better?”

  “It’s faster.”

  She hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek. Fast sounded good. “Could you show me?”

  “I guess I could …” He grimaced. “I can show you, but it takes years of practice and, like ofuda, you can’t be sure you’ve mastered the skill until you use it against a yokai.”

  “I’d like to know how,” she said, rising to her feet. “I’m getting nowhere with these books.”

  He followed her out of the storehouse and into the offices, where she collected her ceremonial bow and half a dozen arrows. He led her into the snow-covered trees behind the storehouse, and after several minutes of walking, the vegetation opened up into a small glade that formed an almost perfect circle.

  “This is pretty,” she commented as they headed toward the center.

  “Yeah, I found it last week when—”

  Her foot caught on something under the snow and she stumbled. He briefly gripped her arm to steady her, then pulled his hand back anxiously.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said before he could apologize.

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I should have warned you. There’s an old circle made of stones under the snow.”

  “A circle?”

  “Yeah, for drawing marugata. The stone edge makes it more powerful. The old kannushi probably used it for purification ceremonies and stuff.” He flashed her a grin. “If you want to practice, I can clear it off for you.”

  “Let’s stick with the bow for now,” she said dryly as she selected an arrow and nocked it loosely on the bowstring. She looked at him expectantly.

  He cleared his throat. “First off, to channel ki, you need to be calm and centered.”

  Ceremonies, prayers, meditation—she practiced the very same all the time. Probably more than he did. Even with her inner turmoil, she could manage just fine for a short time.

  “Ki comes from your center,” he continued. “Your heart, soul, however you want to imagine it, ki comes from within you. You need to put your ki into your arrow the same way you would put it into an ofuda. But your weapon doesn’t have the incantation written on it to give it form, so you need to really concentrate on what you’re trying to do.”

  She nodded. She hadn’t had any trouble activating her ofuda, so maybe this wouldn’t be so hard.

  “The incantation for purification is ‘shukusei no tama.’ Speaking the incantation right before you fire will help give your ki form. Ready to try?”

  Inhaling deeply, she lifted the bow and drew the fletching back to her cheek. Her arms burned from the strain of holding the drawn bow, but she ignored it and focused on the knot in a tree trunk fifteen feet away. Purification. She narrowed her eyes.

  “Shukusei no tama!” she cried and released the arrow.

  It flew straight and struck just to the side of the knot. Not bad—but no way to know whether her ki had imbued it.

  “Should I feel anything?” she asked. “Some sign my ki did something?”

  He shrugged. “The most experienced sohei say they can feel their ki when they use it, but I’ve never felt anything special.”

  “Hmm.” She picked up another arrow. “Shukusei no tama!”

  The second one struck beside the first, a bit closer to the knot. She fired all six arrows, bending her concentration on infusing the weapons with her ki. Katsuo collected them and she fired them all again, but her aim got sloppier as her arms tired.

  She loosed the last arrow and lowered the bow. “I guess it will take more practice.”

  “Well, like ofuda, you won’t know for sure until you try it on a yokai.”

  “How do sohei ever learn if they’re doing it right then?”
br />   He looked surprised. “We go hunting.”

  “H-hunting?”

  “There are many areas with enough local yokai that you can find them if you know where to look.” His eyebrows drew together as he took in her aghast expression. “Purification doesn’t kill the average yokai; it just weakens them and drives them away. There’s no reason for yokai to hang around near human populations. It’s better to periodically clear them out before they can start causing problems.”

  She pursed her lips. Yokai like oni and kappa had no business living anywhere near humans. But what about the diminutive, glowing ayakashi? They were harmless.

  He tapped his fingers on the hilt of his sword. “I’ve been wondering whether that kitsune is still hanging around.”

  Her head snapped up. “What? Why?”

  “The torii ofuda show signs that they’ve been compromised.”

  She tried not to look panicked. “Compromised?”

  He walked to the tree and pulled the arrows out. “Nothing to worry about. It just means yokai have been hanging around—like the ayakashi, remember?” He smiled reassuringly. “The torii ofuda won’t allow them into the grounds if they have ill intent, and Minoru and I check the borders twice a day.”

  “You think the kitsune compromised the torii ofuda?” she asked as he handed her the arrows. “I don’t think he has impure ki, not like the oni.”

  “A yokai doesn’t need to be impure to compromise the ofuda. Yokai ki and kami ki are inherently incompatible. They can’t coexist in the same space.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense.” She hadn’t known that about kami versus yokai ki. She’d thought that yokai damaged pure kami ki because they were, well, evil. But she was pretty prejudiced.

  She thanked Katsuo for the lesson, and after stepping carefully over the hidden line of stones in the snow, she wandered back toward the house, lost in thought about the differences between kami and yokai. One born of the heavens, one born of the earth; both spiritual beings, both powerful in ki; opposites in nature and incompatible. She’d always thought of the kami as beings of good and yokai as beings of darkness and evil, but now …

  Opening her bedroom door, she juggled the bow and arrows in one hand while she shrugged her arm out of her haori. Halfway through the motion, she realized she’d forgotten to return the weapon to the shrine office on her way back.

  “I hope those arrows aren’t meant for me.”

  The bow and arrows tumbled out of her grip as she sprang backward like a startled rabbit, withholding a scream.

  Shiro leaned against the opposite wall, a half-eaten rice ball in one hand. Dirt liberally stained his clothes, and a dark green splotch covered one formerly white shoulder of his kosode. Brownish-red splatters that looked suspiciously like dried blood completed the tapestry of colors.

  “You’re filthy,” she blurted, cringing at having him in her nice clean room in that condition. Closing her door, she pulled off her haori and tossed it toward the closet. “What have you been doing? Rolling in the mud?”

  He shrugged and took another bite of the rice ball. “Yumei’s been keeping me busy.”

  She watched him chew, then looked from the rice ball to the small shrine beside him. The small plate for offerings, where she’d left a rice ball that morning, was empty.

  “Are you eating Amaterasu’s offering?” she gasped, appalled by his rudeness.

  He smirked and popped the last bite into his mouth. “She wasn’t going to eat it.”

  Grinding her teeth, she picked up the bow and arrows and stood them in the corner. “Why do you keep showing up in my bedroom?”

  “Where else would I meet you? Should I have joined you and your sohei in the storehouse?”

  She decided not to ask whether he’d been spying on her. She didn’t want to know. “This is my bedroom. It’s inappropriate.”

  A slow, lazy grin curved his lips as his gaze slid over her. “If that’s how you want to think of my visits, little miko, I’m happy to go along with whatever thoughts are in your pretty head.”

  Her cheeks heated. She clenched her jaw again. “Do you have a lead?”

  “Obviously.”

  “For real this time?”

  “Yes, for real. I told you I’d be back when I had a lead, didn’t I? Yumei found an active kami presence in an Izanami shrine in a place called Kigiku.”

  Kigiku was a city about forty miles southwest of Kiroibara—less than an hour’s drive. She wrung her hands, heart pounding in her ears. Izanami, the other female Amatsukami and Kami of the Earth.

  “So she’s definitely there?” she pressed.

  “Well, that’s the thing.” He brushed ineffectually at a splatter of mud on his black sleeve. “Yumei is certain there’s a kami in the shrine, but there’s no way to confirm it’s actually Izanami, short of talking to her, which he won’t do. That’s up to you.”

  “But it should be her, right? Why would a different kami be in her shrine?”

  “Our thoughts exactly. I think it’s a safe bet.” He dusted his hands together. “He’s going to snoop around a bit more—or, well, his crows will, I should say—to be as certain as possible. He recommended we go tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I’m telling you now so you’ll have time to figure out how we’ll get there.”

  “Me?” She squinted at him. “I thought our bargain was for you to take me to an Amatsukami, not the other way around.”

  “I could take you, but my way would involve walking through the mountains.” He smirked. “We’ve already seen how well you handle long walks.”

  It would take her all day to walk to Kigiku, and another day to walk back. She’d have to figure out something else.

  “You’re coming with me either way?” she asked.

  “That’s our bargain.”

  “And Yumei?”

  “Not likely. Doing anything for a human puts him in a bad mood.”

  She bobbed her head in an absent nod, her mind already spinning. There were trains and buses that went from Kiroibara, the town south of the shrine, to Kigiku, but public transportation required money. She’d never had spending money. The needs of a kamigakari were met entirely by the shrines. She considered her options. Stealing was pretty low on her list.

  She’d almost forgotten Shiro was there until his jaw cracked in a wide yawn. She focused on him, pushing aside everything else. “Why are you so dirty?”

  “I told you, Yumei’s been keeping me busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Managing a few hundred crows on the hunt for an Amatsukami requires a lot of focus, so he had me take over the oni issue.” He smiled, flashing his pointed canines. “I’ve been reeducating the tribe on their proper place in the world.”

  She glanced over his sorry state. “It looks like they might have taught you a lesson or two in the process.”

  He waved a hand. “I was outnumbered a few times, that’s all.”

  “You were outnumbered when I was with you.”

  “Really outnumbered.”

  “I see. And when’s the last time you ate?”

  “Just now?”

  “Before that.”

  He shrugged.

  “And the last time you slept?”

  Another shrug.

  Three days had passed since she’d last seen him, and she wondered whether he had eaten or slept at all in that time. Yokai might not have mortal bodies that needed diligent care like human ones did, but she was pretty sure they still required the basic necessities.

  “Don’t you know how to take care of yourself at all?” She didn’t wait for an answer and gestured for him to follow her. “Come with me.”

  His eyebrows shot up, but he pushed off the wall and crossed the room toward her as she slid the door open and peeked down the hall. With Ishida and other important kannushi visiting in a couple days, Fujimoto and Nanako were on an extreme cleaning spree at the shrine; the house was empty and would be for another couple hou
rs. She was supposed to be meditating and praying and reflecting on her poor behavior from earlier in the week—not that they had any idea just how disobedient she’d been.

  She led him down the hall and opened the door. Shiro looked over her shoulder into the bathroom.

  “Wash thoroughly before you get in the bath,” she instructed, pointing at the handheld showerhead on the wall beside the tub. “And give me your kosode. I can put it in the wash with my kimono. You’re stuck with your hakama since I don’t have anything black to wash with it and I don’t have time to do two loads.”

  He stared at her, speechless for once. She gave him an expectant look.

  “I can take care of myself without your help,” he said coldly. “I don’t need this.”

  She huffed, already considering how she would get the bloodstains out of the white fabric. “I’m not offering you a bath out of pity, Shiro. It’s just as much for me. I don’t want to spend all day tomorrow with you like that.”

  When he didn’t respond, she looked up. His hard expression sent surprise rippling through her. Anger glinted in his gaze—anger and … suspicion? She almost asked what he was suspicious about when she remembered his comment about not trusting the goodwill of humans. He was trying to figure out what the catch was—whether she was mocking him, tricking him, manipulating him ...

  “I know you don’t need my help,” she said quietly. “I didn’t need you to carry me home either, but I let you because it was easier. This, too, is easier. Please accept.”

  He stood in the hallway, jaw flexing and ears turned back as he searched her face. Sighing, he stepped past her into the bathroom and untucked his kosode from his hakama. As he shrugged it off, it slid down his back, revealing angry red gouges that marred the back of his left arm and shoulder, his skin streaked with old blood.

  “What happened?” she gasped, reaching for his shoulder.

  He stepped away from her hand. “It’s just a scratch.”