Red Winter (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 1)
“But you get days off, like today,” Miyako protested. “You must do something.”
“I usually just practice …” She trailed off, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. In the past, her rejection of anything that might detract from her dedication as the kamigakari had been a point of pride. Now she just felt clueless and sheltered.
Miyako adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “I didn’t know being a miko was so …”
“It’s not usually,” Emi admitted. “But my family has strong connections with the shrines, so my upbringing was quite different.”
It wasn’t a total lie, but she was definitely manipulating the truth to hide certain dangerous facts from Shiro.
“Well, now’s your chance to expand your horizons,” Miyako said with a smile. “What are you interested in?”
“I don’t know.”
Miyako scrunched her face in thought. “How do you like to spend your time? Indoors or outdoors? Loud or quiet? Adventure or relaxation?”
“I … I’m not sure.” She would have said quietly relaxing indoors, but only because it was all she was familiar with. “I guess I like the outdoors.”
Shiro snorted quietly, clearly disagreeing.
“There’s lots you can do then!” Miyako said, sounding relieved to hear that Emi had at least one opinion on her possible interests. “Kiroibara has some beautiful parks with walking trails and bike trails, and I know a couple people who are part of a hiking group. A friend of mine does bird watching, and horseback riding is popular. Oh, and fishing too. Have you ever tried fishing? Not my thing, but my brother loves it.”
Emi struggled to control her expression as she said weakly, “Those all sound lovely.”
Walking trails and hiking clubs and biking—she didn’t even know how to ride a bike. She’d never tried fishing before. All these simple things she’d never experienced in her life. Pain speared her chest. How had she taken for granted for so long all the things she was missing as the kamigakari? So many simple pleasures she would never have the chance to enjoy. She didn’t even have the freedom to walk outside shrine grounds.
She turned away from Miyako, tugging the hem of her skirt over her knees. So much she’d never experienced, but more than that, Miyako’s questions had shone a light on her own inner disconnect. Emi had complained to herself that no one ever treated her as a person, only as a kamigakari, but she hadn’t realized she was just as guilty as them of the same oversight. She’d molded herself into the role of the kamigakari so deeply, so completely, that she was now discovering something horrifying: she didn’t know who she was.
Emi the Kamigakari was a person she knew well, but Emi the Girl was a total stranger. What did Emi the Girl like? What did Emi the Girl want to do? What were her interests and passions? What did she care about?
She had no idea. The most specific preference she could come up with was the outdoors. How pathetic was that? Maybe she wouldn’t lose that much when Amaterasu took her body; she’d long ago cast herself aside to become the kamigakari.
They got off the bus in downtown Kigiku, surrounded by tall office buildings and wide sidewalks. Though smaller, Kigiku reminded her of Shion, the city where she’d spent her first seven years as a kamigakari. Cities had an excess of energy that she was surprised to realize she’d missed. Traffic zoomed by, adding to the constant noise, and the bustle of people on the sidewalks created a collage of ever-moving colors against the backdrop of bright signs and storefronts.
Miyako led the way with confidence. After more gasping, cooing, and several concerned remarks from other pedestrians saying that Emi really should have her dog on a leash, she stuffed Shiro back into her bag and carried him. Emi’s eyes jumped from passerby to passerby—office workers, the men in slim suits and the women in sharp skirts and clacking heels; students, their matching uniforms in contrast to their sometimes wildly varying hairstyles and colors; mothers with small children, hurrying from one errand to the next. With each person, she wondered what their lives were like, what worried them, what delighted them. What was a world without kami and yokai and kamigakari like?
The music shop was nestled between a café and a shoe store. Miyako dragged Emi up and down rows of instruments before taking her to an extensive wall of guitars at the back. She pointed to a slim electric guitar with shiny silver hardware and a red body that darkened almost to black around the edges.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” the girl gushed. “If my aunt comes through on paying me for painting her living room next month and my mom gives me cash as my Christmas present, I’ll be able to buy it in January and finally replace my beginner model.”
Emi examined the instrument, admiring the wood grain beneath the rich, glossy red veneer. “It’s lovely.”
“Wait until you hear it! It’s amazing. The tones are just—ah, so good. Way better than the one I have now. It’s a great beginner guitar, but …”
As Miyako indulged in a technical comparison of the two instruments, Emi struggled to hold her smile in place. She would never get to hear Miyako’s new guitar because by January she would be gone, with a kami living in her flesh instead. Would Amaterasu use her ears to listen to beautiful music? Would she taste delicious food and feel the gentle warmth of the morning sun on her human skin? Would Amaterasu appreciate any of the small, special moments Emi would lose or the things she’d never had a chance to experience? Or would Amaterasu be too busy with her Amatsukami duties to think about silly mortal things like that?
When Miyako suggested they go to the café next door for an early dinner, Emi flushed bright red and admitted she didn’t have enough money. And yet somehow they ended up sitting at a small table with menus in front of them. Miyako had insisted on treating her, ignored her refusal, and dragged her inside. Emi’s protests that Miyako should save her money for her guitar fund had fallen on deaf ears and she’d eventually given up.
Emi tried her best to keep her face cheerful, not wanting Miyako to think she was ungrateful. Eating at a restaurant was something she hadn’t done since she was a child, since before Amaterasu had marked her. She hesitated a long time over the menu, considering the safe options that were similar to her kamigakari diet before choosing a Western-style hamburger. One meal outside her usual restrictions wouldn’t hurt her—she was pretty sure anyway—so why not try it, just to know what it was like?
When the food arrived, Emi took a minute to inspect her meal and inhale the scents. Picking it up in her hands was the strangest thing, and Miyako burst into a fit of giggles at the look on Emi’s face as she attempted to gracefully take her first bite. The other girl finished eating well before Emi, but Miyako filled the silence with happy chatter as she not so subtly snuck a few leftover bites from her plate under the table for Shiro.
Duty and honor demanded that Emi fulfill her destiny as the kamigakari, regardless of the personal cost to her, regardless of the lies and deceit. But as she slowly chewed each small bite, savoring every new flavor that touched her tongue, she hoped harder than she’d ever hoped before that whatever truth Izanami gave her would ease the crushing weight of loss from her soul.
Darkness had fallen over the city of Kigiku an hour ago. Emi walked down the street, Shiro trotting at her side in his fox form. The valley city had escaped the snow that was falling over Kiroibara and the Shirayuri Shrine, and autumn leaves liberally dusted the dry streets. In regular intervals, streetlamps lit the pavement with a warm, comforting glow.
She wondered anxiously if they were going the right way. She hadn’t asked Miyako for directions when they parted ways after dinner—too afraid the girl would decide to come with her—but the random pedestrians she’d queried had pointed her in the right direction.
“Shouldn’t we be there by now?” she muttered.
Shiro’s ears flicked back toward her but he didn’t slow. Nerves twisted in her belly, so unbearable that she was almost ready to scream from the tension. Despite her countless prayers to Amaterasu, she’d never actually spoken t
o a kami before. She’d never seen a kami in the flesh.
“Caw.”
Emi looked up. Swooping out of the darkness, a crow landed on the nearest streetlamp and cocked its head. She frowned at it. Was Yumei using his crows to watch their journey? She hurried her steps, leaving the crow behind—at least until it took off again and flew overhead. It landed a block away and waited.
Across from the streetlamp where the crow was perched, four enormous red torii, one behind the other, marked the shrine grounds. Beyond them, countless steps rose, climbing a hill through a densely treed park. Stone lanterns on carved posts illuminated the path.
Flickering light flashed brightly in her peripheral vision. Shiro completed his transformation and shrugged his shoulders as though his muscles were stiff.
“What are you doing?” she hissed. “Someone will see you!”
“Humans only see what they expect to see,” he said dismissively. “That’s why they saw a dog and not a fox on the bus. You see what I am because your eyes are open to the spiritual plane.”
“But …” She looked around warily but the quiet street was deserted. Either way, she saw no sense in lingering out in the open. She stepped up to the first torii and bowed deeply before walking beneath it. Warm power rose through her shoes and tingled up her legs. She glanced anxiously at her feet, wondering if that was normal. Maybe it was the difference between a shrine with the kami present instead of absent.
As the wash of power faded, another wave rose behind it—this time coming from within her. Hot power pulsed in her chest, ringing through her like an alarm bell. Urgency and warning clanged in her head. She pressed a hand to her forehead as her heart rate leaped. The sudden fear she felt … it wasn’t hers. It felt like the odd warning Amaterasu had given her when she’d prayed on her first night at the Shirayuri Shrine. Was Amaterasu trying to warn her about something?
Or was Amaterasu trying to frighten her into turning back? Maybe Amaterasu didn’t want her to know the truth. Grimly, she started up the steps. Shiro followed her, his feet silent on the stone.
“How do humans stand the smell?” he grumbled.
Glancing back, she saw him looking around with his nose wrinkled. “What smell?”
“The engine fumes and chemicals and garbage. I can smell it even in the trees. Human cities are foul.”
She raised an eyebrow as she continued up the steps. “I didn’t think yokai liked cities.”
“Generally not. Some of the larger parks aren’t that bad. Yokai who enjoy easy prey like to visit often.” He flashed a grin at her, more to show off his pointed teeth than to express amusement. “Humans don’t venture into the wild as often as they once did, so hungry yokai come to them instead.”
She didn’t let her disgust show, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of her. “Do you eat humans often?”
Before Shiro could reply, someone else answered.
“Only the lowliest of our kind consume human flesh.” The soft, inflectionless voice drifted out of the darkness.
She stopped dead and looked around. Yumei stepped out of the shadows onto the steps above her, his black kosode and hakama blending into the night.
“Those of us with power of our own,” he continued, “have no need to consume a human to bolster our ki with theirs.”
“Is that why yokai eat humans?” she asked, trying not to cringe away from the Tengu. Her healing neck throbbed at the sight of him. “You eat their ki too?”
“We don’t need to eat humans,” Shiro said from behind her. “But just about any yokai would make an exception for ki as pure as yours.”
Ignoring him, she asked Yumei, “Why are you here? I thought you weren’t coming.”
“He’s here to make sure I don’t take off on him without repaying my debt,” Shiro said as he walked past her to join Yumei. His eyes cut back to her, catching the light and glowing scarlet. “After you remove the onenju, that is.”
She suspected Yumei was actually here to ensure she removed the onenju, as promised. Despite what he’d said, Shiro likely knew the Tengu would be around. Another lie, though she saw no purpose in pointing it out. With any luck, she would be permanently done with both yokai within the hour.
“As soon as my meeting with Izanami is complete, I’ll remove the onenju,” she told Shiro. “So can we get this over with?”
He continued up the steps with Yumei at his side. From behind, she watched his ears twitch toward every little sound and suspected he was almost as tense as she was. Removing the beads from his arm would free his power and completely change his fate. Maybe she should ask Izanami for protection. She didn’t think Shiro would attack her once she took the onenju off him, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. She hadn’t forgotten that he’d tricked her, lied to her, and let Yumei hurt her. But she also couldn’t imagine that the yokai who had carried her home, who’d let her feed him before falling asleep in her bedroom, would kill her for holding up her end of their bargain.
Another grand torii stood at the top of the steps. Shiro and Yumei stopped before reaching it and moved apart, opening a path for her between them. The torii framed the shrine beyond—a massive complex of interconnected buildings with beautiful peaked roofs and curling eaves. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the Amaterasu shrine in Shion, but close.
She moved past the yokai to the torii and stopped, bowing deeply. With a deep breath, she stepped through the gate. Another tingle of power rose through her feet and up her legs, followed by another pulse of fear from her kamigakari mark. She ignored it and turned around.
Shiro and Yumei stood on the steps below the torii, red and silver eyes watching her.
“You two wait here.” She pulled her hat and scarf off and tossed them to Shiro. “I’ll be back as soon as I speak to Izanami.”
“Will you?” The words came out in a soft, dangerous croon.
“Yes,” she said, holding his challenging stare. “I will. I will keep my end of our bargain, Shiro.”
He studied her a moment longer, then nodded. She turned back to the courtyard.
“Emi?”
She glanced at him, surprised to hear the odd note in his voice.
His attention shifted to the hall of worship. “Be careful. Kami are far more practiced in the arts of deception than yokai.”
She blinked. “I—I’ll be careful. Thank you.”
Licking her lips nervously, she glanced at him and Yumei once more before heading across the courtyard. Stopping at the water fountain, she used a polished, bamboo-handled ladle to clean her hands and rinse her mouth. Her steps grew less certain as she approached the hall of worship. Lanterns hung from the eaves, casting glowing light upon the empty courtyard. Passing between the enormous koma-inu statues, she ascended the steps, worn by thousands of worshippers’ feet, and stared up at the painted wooden plaques depicting Izanami—a beautiful woman with long black hair, mountains rising all around her. Izanami of the Earth.
She walked past the donation box and bell cords where worshippers offered their prayers. Beyond, tall doors stood like sentries. The doors were never opened, except by the kannushi and miko of the shrine. She looked around, half expecting someone to stop her. Cracking the door open, she peered into the shadowy interior. With prickling nerves, she stepped inside unchallenged.
A dark room, as wide as the building and empty, stretched back into the shadows. Leaving the door open to let in some light, she walked hesitantly inside. Her shoes clicked on the glossy wooden floor. Izanami was here. Emi didn’t need Yumei to confirm it; the divine power of a kami emanated from every surface, radiating from the earth and trees, from the walls and floor.
Shadows engulfed the far end of the room, but as she approached, the light from the open door seemed to stretch out in front of her. A raised dais gradually became visible. Behind it, an elaborately carved shrine covered the back wall with a large oval mirror in its center—a shintai through which Izanami could channel her power when she was
n’t in the area.
As Emi lowered her gaze from the mirror, she saw what hadn’t been visible a moment before: a figure encased in shadows, sitting motionlessly on the dais in front of the inner shrine.
“Who trespasses in the shrine of Izanami, Amatsukami of the Earth?”
The commanding voice came from her left. She jerked to a stop as the shadows shifted, allowing her to see the man standing by the wall, just in front of the dais. Another man stood opposite the speaker, also dressed in the dark robes of a kannushi.
She snapped her gaze back to the figure on the dais, who was watching mutely, no more than a dark shape in the shadows. Lowering herself to her knees, she bent forward in a full bow.
“Please forgive my intrusion,” she said, her shaky words echoing through the huge room. “I come to beg an audience with Izanami.”
“Who are you to make such a demand?” the speaker barked.
“I—I am Kimura Emi, miko of Amaterasu. I come—”
“How dare a miko of Amaterasu enter the sanctity of Izanami’s inner shrine.”
Emi cringed, her face still to the floor.
“You have no right to be here,” the kannushi said sternly. “You—”
He broke off. Slowly, Emi brought her head up. The figure on the dais had lifted one hand, silencing the kannushi.
“Approach, Kimura Emi,” the figure whispered.
She rose from her bow and walked forward. The light shifted again, the shadows drawing away. Her steps faltered.
The person sitting cross-legged on a cushion, draped in formal kimono and watching her with dark, knowing eyes, couldn’t possibly be Izanami. Izanami was a woman, and this man was not.
Chapter 15
“You’re—you’re not Izanami,” she said. Her voice broke on the Amatsukami’s name, disappointment rushing through her with such force that her knees almost buckled.