Red Winter (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 1)

  He turned to the two sohei.

  “Katsuo—” He broke off, briefly scrutinizing Katsuo’s expression. “Minoru, escort the kamigakari to her room and ensure she remains there. Guji Ishida and the others are arriving in a few hours.” His gaze slashed to her. “Kimura, I expect you to present yourself accordingly and act with grace and humble gratitude for the great responsibility you bear. I will send Miko Nanako to dress you.”

  He turned away. “Katsuo, begin your patrol. I do not expect to see you again until dinner.”

  Emi stood rooted to the spot, her cheek throbbing under her hand as Katsuo cast her an agonized look before hurrying away. Across the courtyard, Nanako, Rina, and Yui stood silent and unmoving. Rina clutched her cleaning brush like a lifeline, her eyes wide, and Yui had both hands pressed to her mouth, her brush forgotten on the ground.

  After a long minute, Minoru cleared his throat. “My lady?”

  She lowered her hand from her face. With wooden steps, she headed for the house. Her rage was extinguished, leaving only hollow despair to fill the void within her.

  Chapter 19

  Sometimes, beauty and sadness went hand in hand.

  Emi stood in the center of her room, gazing blankly at the wall as Nanako carefully arranged the elaborate knot of her obi behind her back. The silk’s weight was nothing compared to the dragging despair weighing down her limbs.

  Nanako silently completed the final adjustments. For once, the woman had stilled her cutting tongue and only spoke to give quiet instructions as she dressed Emi. The older miko wore a crisp and clean white kimono and red hakama, with her hair smoothed and bound behind her neck. Emi, however, would not wear the miko uniform on this night. Instead, she dressed as a future kami.

  Her kimono was cherry-red silk and a subtle pattern of blossoms swirled across the bottom third. The train spread on the floor behind her, and the front parted at her ankles, revealing a glimpse of the pale pink layer beneath. Draping sleeves hung almost to the floor. The obi, in a deeper shade of red, wrapped snugly around her waist, from just below her bust to the tops of her hips. The elaborate knot filled the small of her back.

  Her kimono was stunning, but sadness saturated her. This beauty was just another layer to the disguise that the kannushi had woven around the kamigakari. They wrapped her in exquisite silk and pretended she would become their kami rather than be destroyed by their kami. A week ago, she would have worn the kimono with pride, caught up in the fantasy of divine power soon to be hers—shared with Amaterasu, of course.

  “There,” Nanako said, standing in front of Emi and looking her over. “You’re done. You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nanako pursed her lips at Emi’s despondent tone, appearing almost concerned. Then she brushed her hands together, awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

  “I’ll see if they’re ready for you. Wait here and I’ll fetch you in a few minutes.”

  Emi didn’t move as the woman walked out and closed the door behind her. Her hands hung at her sides and her neck ached from the weight of her hair piled elegantly on top of her head and held in place with two matching pins, the ends decorated with blown-glass spider lilies in the same red as the kimono. The wound on her head was no longer bleeding so Nanako had removed the bandage, but she had more than enough bandages elsewhere.

  Ishida and the other kannushi had arrived half an hour ago; she’d heard the rumble of male voices. She was relieved she hadn’t been able to pick out Ishida’s voice in the jumbled discourse. She wasn’t ready to face him. His stern presence had shadowed her childhood, steering her along this path toward her destruction. His approval had once filled her with delight and pride, and the thought of disappointing him had made her sick with worry.

  She stared at the wall. Somehow, between Koyane’s attack, her argument with Shiro, and Ameonna’s ambush, she’d completely forgotten that Ishida was visiting the shrine. She hadn’t thought about what would happen when Ishida found out about her disappearance and, on top of that, the attack on the shrine by powerful yokai.

  There was no question in her mind what would happen now. Ishida would never allow her to be in such danger. He would take her back to Shion and confine her within the grounds, surrounded by his most powerful sohei. The Shion Shrine was huge—the largest Amaterasu shrine in existence—and every kannushi, miko, and sohei who lived and worked there would earnestly ensure she never set foot into the dangers beyond her quarters. For her own protection, they would imprison her within the shrine until the solstice.

  Though the solstice had yet to arrive, her life ended tonight. Her freedom ended tonight. She would spend her final weeks confined to her room, waiting for the end.

  Maybe Fujimoto was right. Maybe she was selfish. Was it so terrible to lose her life so Amaterasu could gain the vessel she needed to bring her power to the earthly realm? She’d been ready to accept it, however reluctantly and regretfully, before her foolish bargain with Shiro tainted her with false hope. Lied to or not, Emi had been a dedicated kamigakari, preparing her mind, body, and soul with perfect makoto no kokoro to ensure a smooth descension for Amaterasu. After a hundred years of failure, the Amatsukami would finally take her place among her fellow rulers. Emi could make that happen. She could make a difference in the world, even if her role would be so much less than she’d imagined.

  Before the solstice, Emi would pray to Amaterasu to tell her about the missing Kunitsukami. If Amaterasu found them, then Shiro could ask Inari to remove the last two loops of the onenju.

  A shudder ran through her and her hands clenched into tight fists. Why did it hurt so much to realize she wouldn’t be able to remove the onenju as she’d agreed? Why did it hurt so much to know she’d never see him again? Why did her chest ache? She couldn’t get her last glimpse of him out of her head: unconscious, drenched in blood, her handprint splayed on his chest. He had to be alive. She couldn’t bear it if he’d died because of her.

  She’d never get to thank him for his help, for saving her life—again. She’d never get to tell him the truth. He would probably kill her the moment he discovered she was the kamigakari, but part of her wondered if he really would. He was so difficult to predict.

  Because you are lonely and scared and I don’t understand why.

  Why was he the only one who’d ever seen that? Even before she’d read the kannushi manual and learned the truth of her fate, fear and loneliness had been her constant companions. Beneath the miko uniform and poised kamigakari exterior, she’d always been afraid, but no one else had seen it—or if they had, they hadn’t cared.

  Do you promise?

  She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting tears. Yes, she would remember him until her last day. She wouldn’t have time to forget him; her last day would come far too soon.

  Footsteps scuffed outside her room and her heart sank. It was time. As soon as she left this room to meet with Ishida, her fate would be sealed in stone.

  “Katsuo.” Minoru’s voice rumbled from the other side of the door. “Kannushi Fujimoto sent you on patrol for the evening.”

  “I need to speak to Emi,” Katsuo replied tersely. “Just for a minute, Minoru. Please.”

  “Katsuo …”

  “I just need to talk to her. You know I won’t get another chance.”

  Minoru sighed. “I’m going to get a drink of water. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  Her door slid open and she turned toward it as Katsuo stepped into the room. He froze, his wide eyes shooting down her outfit and back up to her face.

  “E-Emi,” he stuttered. “You … you look amazing.”

  “Like a kami?” she mumbled.

  “I didn’t mean—” He gave his head a small shake and closed the door. “Emi, is it true? What you said in the courtyard? Kannushi Fujimoto keeps brushing me off when I ask.”

  Her shoulders drooped. “I found the information in a book from the storehouse … a kannushi instruction manual that explained what really happens to the
kamigakari when the kami descends.”

  His face paled. “So you … you’ll just …”

  “Disappear,” she said, almost smiling with bitter humor that she’d unintentionally repeated his response from when she’d asked about the yokai bodies. She wrung her hands together in front of her, wincing as the movement pulled on her bandages. “I wanted to tell you, Katsuo, but I just …”

  “I understand.” He pressed two fingers hard to his temple. “What will you do? Guji Ishida is going to take you to Shion tonight; I heard them talking just now. He’s really angry. He was demanding Fujimoto tell him how you found out.”

  She had a good idea how angry Ishida was. She’d seen him that angry once before—the day Hana had died—and it had been a terrifying sight.

  “What will you do?” Katsuo repeated urgently, stepping closer. “Once you’re in Shion, that’ll be it. You’ll be stuck there until the ceremony, and then it’ll be too late.”

  “It’s already too late,” she whispered, unable to hold his desperate stare. “I can’t stop being the kamigakari just because I don’t want to anymore. Even though it isn’t what I thought I was committing to, I can’t turn my back on my responsibility.”

  “What?” Katsuo demanded. “That’s it? You’re just accepting it? You’re letting them kill you? Your life has worth too, Emi! You didn’t volunteer for this. How can you give up?”

  An image of Shiro filled her mind: blood running down his chest as he struggled to his feet and stepped in front of her to keep fighting, knowing he couldn’t win.

  She couldn’t win either. She didn’t know how to fight this, her fate. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  “We’ll run,” he said fiercely. “We’ll hide you somewhere until the solstice passes.”

  “We? But Katsuo, your career—”

  “I don’t give a damn about my career! Your life is more important than anything else!”

  Emotion swelled in her chest, crushing her lungs. “It won’t work. Amaterasu will find me on the solstice no matter where I go. The ceremony is just a formality.”

  “We’ll figure out something.” He grabbed her upper arms, pulling her spine straight; she hadn’t realized she’d slumped in defeat. “Don’t give up, Emi. Not yet.”

  The same ferocity and determination burned in his eyes as she’d seen in Shiro’s. Like the kitsune, Katsuo would keep fighting no matter how terrible the odds. If Shiro could get up again after Ameonna had cut him down, then Emi could fight back too … but how? What did she want? She wasn’t sure, but she knew it wasn’t this—the kannushi bundling her off to Shion and locking her in a room for her last two months, her final days and weeks wasted. Even if she couldn’t change her fate, she wanted something else, something more. What did she want?

  Again, the image of Shiro rose in her mind, this time with his distant ruby eyes turned to the stars, one hand gripping the cursed beads around his arm. She’d made a bargain with him. No, not just a bargain—a promise. And her promise to remove the cursed onenju meant more than just returning his power to him; it meant returning his life, his self. The curse had locked away so much of who he was, and she couldn’t leave him trapped like that.

  Because I believe you when you say you will keep your word to me.

  She wanted—needed—to do this, this one thing, before she left this world. She needed to give him his life back.

  “You’re right,” she said, trembling in the face of what she was about to do. “I can’t go with Guji Ishida.”

  Katsuo’s face lit up. “Let’s get out of here, then we can—”

  “Wait,” she said, her mind spinning. Where she was going, Katsuo couldn’t follow; she couldn’t put him in that kind of danger. “There’s—I want to ask you something first. A favor.”

  His hands were still gripping her arms, the rule about touching kamigakari either forgotten or abandoned. “What?”

  “Katsuo …” Her heart beat even faster. “Will you … will you kiss me?”

  For a second, he didn’t react. Then his jaw dropped. “W-what?”

  “Will you kiss me? I … I don’t know what will happen and I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll never …” She managed a wavering smile. “You promised to help me with whatever new experiences I wanted, right?”

  “But—but it’s not allowed to …” He trailed off. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He swallowed, his cheeks flushing. She tipped her face up, her hands shaking. His gaze searched her face once more, then he gingerly leaned down. She closed her eyes.

  His lips touched hers so lightly it almost tickled. He drew back, then closed the gap until his mouth was pressed against hers. His hands gentled on her arms, almost caressing her, and her nerves jumped in time with her pulse. She felt no rushing heat, no surge of hungry longing, no dizziness or breathless desire. But gradually, gathering from deep within, a soft warmth rose, a slow caress of unfamiliar feelings. Instead of fire and passion, she felt the enticing pull of everything that drew her to Katsuo—his kindness and compassion, his loyalty and integrity. They enveloped her, chasing away all the shadows and doubt and pain that had lingered in her soul.

  He pulled back, his face tinted with pink. She smiled weakly, a little stunned.

  “Thank you, Katsuo,” she murmured as she slipped her hands into the opposite sleeves of her kimono. Her fingers brushed across the edges of thin sheets of paper. “Thank you for caring about me as more than the kamigakari. Thank you for protecting me and for being my friend. Thank you for everything.”

  “Emi …”

  She laid her hand on his chest. “I can never repay your kindness, but I can’t let you throw away your life for mine. I’m not worth that. I’m sorry, Katsuo.”

  His brow furrowed. “Emi—”

  With aching regret, she whispered, “Sotei no shinketsu.”

  The ofuda beneath her hand flashed with heat. A blue shimmer shot out from the paper and rushed over Katsuo, encasing his entire body in the glowing binding. She blinked her tears away. A human couldn’t bind another human with an ofuda, but as Koyane had demonstrated on her, a kami was capable of greater magic. Her kami-infused ki could do what even the strongest sohei or kannushi could not.

  “I’m sorry,” she choked out and stepped back from his frozen form.

  The ofuda wouldn’t hurt him, nor would it last long. If she was going to do this, she needed to do it before he was freed and tried to follow her—and before Minoru or Nanako returned.

  She had no time to grab a change of clothes. With urgency pounding in her head, she darted around Katsuo for the door. As she reached it, a glint of metal caught her eye. Leaning in the corner was the bow and six arrows she’d forgotten to return to the storeroom. She snatched them up and flung the door open. Her sock-clad feet slid on the wooden floor as she ran to the entryway. Shoving her feet into her sandals, she burst through the door and down the steps.

  A rush of snowflakes washed over her. The sun was visible on the western horizon only as an orange glow across the clouds. She turned onto the path and ran toward the looming northern mountains, fleeing into the teeth of the yokai wilds, once the most dangerous place for her to enter and now her only possible refuge.

  Chapter 20

  As the snow drifted gently from the heavens, she ran.

  The pasture and the torii gate were far behind her. The path wound up the mountainside, beckoning her onward. The snow absorbed her steps and the train of her kimono dragged behind her. She clutched her bow and arrows. Her feet were numb from the cold, her white socks and sandals suitable for a warm room, not a frozen mountain trek.

  When the ground somewhat leveled out, she slowed to a walk and glanced back. How long until the binding on Katsuo ran out? How long until Minoru returned and found her gone? Her tracks in the snow would lead them to her, and Minoru could run far faster and far longer than she could.

  With no other choice, she turned off the trail and jogged into the for
est. Trees surrounded her, needle-coated spruce and gnarled oak branches closing over the sky. She kept running, weaving around shrubs and fallen trees. Branches snatched at her, tugging at her hair and the long sleeves of her kimono. A narrow bough snagged the decorative knot of her obi and yanked it apart. The ends came free, flying out behind her like red banners. She ran on.

  Every time she stumbled and almost fell, every time a stitch cut into her lungs, she thought of Shiro standing again to fight. She ran until her throat burned and her legs ached. Gasping, she slowed to a walk, one hand pressed to her chest. Ahead, a small clearing opened in the trees. Dark shadows and golden light from the final rays of the sun formed stripes across the smooth snow. She strode into the opening and stopped in the center.

  “Yumei!” Her call rang through the silent woods. “Yumei, where are you?”

  She waited a minute. “Yumei!”

  Would he respond, or would he leave her to her own devices in the forest?

  She waited as the sunlight faded. Her plan went no further than escaping the shrine and finding Shiro. Before anything else, she needed to get safely away from the shrine before Ishida could whisk her away to Shion; just running into the woods wasn’t enough. As she stood alone in the forest, she wished she could have brought Katsuo with her, but she couldn’t condemn him to almost certain death. Shiro and Yumei had a reason to keep her alive, but nothing protected Katsuo from them.

  She looked up at the darkening sky, hoping to see the silhouette of black wings approaching. Would Yumei come? Was he watching her through the eyes of one of his crows? She wondered what she looked like from the sky. Alone in the white snow, she stood with her crimson kimono splayed around her like a puddle of blood. How much blood had been spilled in the snow this past week? This winter had been nothing but pain and blood, nothing but red.