No giant raven appeared in the sky. No crows called to her from the branches. She was utterly alone, and she could wait no longer or her inevitable pursuers would catch her. She bit her lip, unsure what to do. Did she forge deeper into the wilderness, alone and without supplies? The night wasn’t too cold, but cold enough that hypothermia was a risk. The risk of yokai attacking her before she could succumb to hypothermia, however, was even greater.
She rubbed her numb hands together and breathed on them for warmth. What should she do? Had she run into the forest for nothing? No, she wouldn’t turn back. She would keep going. She would keep her promise.
Sighing, she crossed the clearing, continuing north. As she pushed through the dense branches, twigs tangled in her hair. She jerked away in frustration and one of her blown-glass hairpins pulled free. It bounced off her shoulder and fell into the snow. She paused, glancing at the hole it had left. Her updo sagged, locks of hair tumbling free with each movement. She slid the other pin out and let it fall from her hand as she stepped forward again.
A horse nickered.
She whirled around. A black horse with one white sock stood in the middle of the clearing, watching her with his ears pricked forward.
“Tornado?” she gasped.
The horse nickered again and tossed his head. His halter and the lead rope she’d used for reins were gone. Mud and leaves stuck to his coat but he looked healthy and fit. Wary of startling him, she moved back into the clearing and extended a hand toward him. He pushed his muzzle into her palm.
“Tornado,” she whispered, stroking his head. Her gaze moved across him and stopped on his back. She needed to get away from the shrine before Minoru and the others caught up with her. A horse could cover a lot more ground than she could.
“Tornado, will you give me a ride?” she murmured. She glanced around and spotted a fallen tree at the edge of the clearing. Slinging the bow over her shoulder, she slid the arrows between the layers of her obi to hold them in place against the small of her back. Though her last riding experience hadn’t gone well at all, she was out of options.
She put her hand against Tornado’s neck and he willingly followed her to the log. Waiting patiently, he allowed her to climb onto him. She settled on his back with her kimono draped across his haunches. The fluttering silk didn’t bother him; he was a festival horse, trained to carry kannushi and miko in elaborate costumes. Seated on his back, she wound her hands into his mane, wondering if she’d lost her mind. She had no way to control the horse without reins.
Before she could decide to bail, Tornado turned and set off at an easy trot. She bounced uncomfortably, barely remaining seated as he forged ahead. He moved with purpose, trotting forward as though he knew exactly where to go. As he wove around trees and pushed through the underbrush, she clutched his mane, repeatedly shielding her face from low-hanging branches. Steadily, the ground grew steeper.
As night fell over them, the horse carried her deeper into the mountains. Snow drifted down, almost invisible in the gloom. She held on to Tornado, grateful for his warmth and companionship in the empty woods. Even as darkness enclosed them, he didn’t falter. The minutes slipped away, her attention consumed by staying in place. Her legs ached and her rear hurt from bouncing on his hard back. The air grew colder, numbing her face.
Gradually, she felt eyes upon her. That was when she spotted the first crow: it sat upon a low branch and watched as Tornado carried her past. Darker spots among the branches revealed more watchful birds. The crows were here, which meant Yumei was watching her too. He knew she was wandering in his territory.
The thought gave her pause. Were they “wandering”? Tornado’s head bobbed in front of her as he trotted through the trees. He moved decisively, his ears swiveling and his pace never faltering.
The Tengu could speak with beasts. Hadn’t Shiro told her that? To Yumei, humans and animals were the same. Her hands tightened on Tornado’s mane. The crows flew along with them, gliding from tree to tree, no more than fluttering wings or flashes of dark shadow in the night.
Tornado finally slowed to a stop. Emi sat straight and squinted into the darkness. This stretch of trees looked no different than the last several miles. Why had Tornado stopped? Was he taking a break or was this the end of her ride? As she turned her head one way then the other, something shimmered in her peripheral vision. She snapped her gaze toward the spot but saw nothing. When she looked away, light once again flickered at the edge of her vision. She jerked her head back around but it vanished once more.
Squinting at the spot, she concentrated.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, a shimmer of light took form. A barrier glowed faintly, red light veined with black—the color of the Tengu’s ki. Yumei had set a barrier. The light of his magic illuminated dozens of crows perched in the trees. They observed her curiously from both sides of the barrier.
She slid off Tornado’s back. Her aching legs threatened to buckle and she held his shoulder until her knees steadied.
“Thank you, Tornado,” she said, rubbing his neck.
With a bob of his head, he wandered away, nosing the snow for hidden grass. She cautiously approached the barrier and stretched out her hand. As her fingers neared the shimmering light, it glowed brighter and a strange chill emanated from it. A flare of red power as cold as liquid ice lashed at her. She snatched her hand back.
“Yumei?” she called. “Let me through.”
The crows watched her mutely. The barrier didn’t change.
She frowned. He’d known she was coming and had plenty of time to open his barrier to let her through. Was he taunting her? Her jaw clenched. Spinning on her heel, she stalked a dozen paces away and turned back. She pushed her hair off her shoulders, unslung her bow, and pulled an arrow out of her obi.
If he wouldn’t let her in, then she would take matters into her own hands.
She nocked the arrow and lifted the bow. Drawing the fletching back to her cheek, she summoned her concentration and focused on the barrier of yokai magic. A soft warmth spread through her chest.
“Shukusei no tama!”
She let the arrow fly. It raced through the air and struck the barrier in a blinding flash. Hot air blasted outward, blowing her hair back, and a rush of cold followed. The barrier crackled and spat, then dissolved, the Tengu’s magic eaten away by her purification spell.
Slinging the bow over her shoulder, she strode past the fallen barrier and into the forest beyond. Wings beat at the air as the crows glided after her, some following while others flew ahead, leading the way.
As she moved through the trees, her skin tingled. Strange, alien power thrummed along her nerves and spiked in her heels with every step. She shivered at the bizarre feeling of magic tasting her, the same sensation she’d felt from Yumei’s blood magic. The forest grew more silent and still but for her steps crunching in the snow and the beating wings of the crows. She glanced back. Tornado hadn’t followed her. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling painfully alone.
The trees thinned, and ahead, a single huge oak stood in solitary glory, its great branches reaching for the sky and merging with the darkness. In a flurry of wings, all the crows soared upward, vanishing amongst the tangled boughs until she stood alone. Swallowing hard, she approached the massive oak and looked up.
High in the branches, a figure stood upon a thick bough, one shoulder leaned against the trunk. Yumei’s silver eyes gleamed.
She stared up at him. After a moment, she realized how odd it was that she could see him at all. It should have been too dark. Somehow, the darkness had shifted, allowing her to see despite the lack of light.
Their eyes met across the distance, and she understood: just as he hadn’t let her through his barrier, he wouldn’t come down to her. She would have to go to him.
She stepped back from the colossal tree and examined it in dismay. It would have taken four or five people to circle the wide trunk and the lowest branches were above her head. She chewed her lower
lip, then paced ten precise steps back. Once again, she unslung her bow.
Drawing an arrow from her obi, she took aim and fired. It struck the trunk with a loud thwack. She pulled out a second arrow and fired again. For a third time, she drew an arrow and shot it. Returning to the tree, she studied her work. Her three arrows had pierced the thick bark in a diagonal line.
Leaving her bow and arrows leaning against the trunk, she placed her foot on the lowest arrow, testing it. When it seemed to support her weight, she hugged the tree and lunged up, grabbing for the second arrow, several feet higher than the first. Precariously balanced, she used the arrows as steps and climbed high enough to reach the lowest bough and pull herself onto it.
Heart beating hard, she resisted the urge to look down. Instead, she craned her neck back and squinted upward. She couldn’t see Yumei from her vantage point. Standing carefully on the thick bough, she reached for the next one. Foot by foot, branch by branch, she climbed. The ground fell away until snaking boughs and amber autumn leaves dusted with snow surrounded her.
She grabbed the last branch and hauled herself up, sitting on the bough. Breathing hard, she looked up at Yumei standing beside her. He returned her look, his face impassive. Then he extended his hand to her, his black talons gleaming at the ends of his fingers.
She stared at him, shocked by the gesture, then hesitantly placed her hand in his. He pulled her up easily. She wobbled on the bough, too far from the trunk to use it for balance. Despite that, she tugged her hand to free it from his, uncomfortable touching him. His grip tightened and he lifted his other hand, placing his palm on the bark as his silver eyes slid to her.
“It will not let you in without me.”
Beneath his hand, the tree blurred. Glowing red lines snaked out from his palm, tracing patterns into the bark. The light flashed outward, and then it was gone. In its place, a rough doorway had opened, filled with darkness.
She reflexively leaned away and almost fell off the branch. “What … what is …”
“So afraid to enter Tsuchi, human?”
Not giving her a chance to respond, he stepped into the darkness, pulling her with him. She resisted, terrified of that darkness. Terrified to step into Tsuchi, the earthly spirit realm—both part of earth and not, a world that existed within her world yet was also separate from it. The birthplace of yokai.
Had she come this far to turn back now?
Giving in, she stepped after him. The darkness washed over her like cold fingers across her skin. That alien magic she’d felt as she approached the oak tree sung along her nerves, both hot and cold. It pushed her back toward the mundane forest, but Yumei’s hand drew her onward.
She completed her single step and the darkness lifted. Illuminated by the dim flicker of candlelight, a room came into focus before her eyes: almost perfectly round with windowless walls of seamless wood. Nooks in the walls held wax candles that slowly melted under their flames. Odd objects—stones, paper scrolls, wooden boxes, a painted teacup, a broken sword—covered a low table in the corner with cushions scattered around it. The other end of the room was stacked with more random boxes and items with no rhyme or reason to them.
In the only real empty space, near the farthest curving wall, Shiro lay across a padding of blankets, covered by a woven wool one. His white hair shimmered in the dancing candlelight. Without thinking, she pulled away from Yumei and hurried to Shiro’s side. Kneeling, she searched his face. Small red designs still adorned his cheekbones. Hesitantly, she brushed his hair aside, revealing the symbol in the center of his forehead.
“He—will he be okay?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
Yumei lowered himself onto one of the cushions by the table. He put an elbow on the tabletop and propped his chin on his hand. “Obviously.”
Turning back to Shiro, she lifted the blanket and peeked underneath. His kosode had been removed and white bandages wrapped his chest and shoulder. She tucked the blanket around him again and sat back, relieved that he was alive and healing. After wandering for so long in the cold night, warmth finally infused her limbs, but the air was still cool and she rubbed her hands together.
“Master, did you bring us a treat?”
The voice croaked from somewhere near her left shoulder. She looked around—and choked back a scream.
A yokai was crouched beside her. It was the size of a small child, with dark, mottled skin and bony limbs partially covered by a tattered kosode. A black beak protruded from its face where its mouth and nose should have been, and a crest of black feathers covered the top of its otherwise bald head, emphasizing its long, pointed ears.
“It smells good,” the yokai croaked, leaning closer to her. She cringed away.
“Leave her be,” Yumei said without looking up from a scroll he’d picked up from the table. “She belongs to the kitsune.”
Emi stiffened. The yokai clacked its beak in disappointment and scuttled away to join three nearly identical yokai sitting amongst the crates and chests stacked along the wall. The creatures watched her with beady black eyes.
Dragging her stare away from them, she examined the room again, her attention lingering on the round walls of seamless woodgrain.
“Are we inside the oak tree?” she asked, disbelief and amazement competing in her voice. The interior of the room was several times the girth of the tree.
“Yes and no,” Yumei said, irritation permeating his smooth voice as he glanced up from his paper. “Tsuchi reflects your world but it is an imperfect reflection. Or perhaps your world imperfectly reflects ours.”
“So yokai live here?”
“Some of us do.”
“I thought yokai came here when they died.”
“Our spirits return to Tsuchi, yes, but it is not a world of the dead.” He set his scroll down. “Come here, miko.”
The command brokered no argument. She stood and crossed the room to him, sinking down in a pool of red silk on one of the cushions. Nerves shivered through her. She was in the world of the yokai. The only way back was through that doorway filled with impenetrable darkness. If she tried to leave by herself, would the magic of this place allow it? Or was she trapped here until Yumei chose to release her?
“Tell me of the attack by the rain yokai and inugami.”
She blinked, caught off guard. Haltingly, she described Ameonna’s appearance and the battle with the inugami. From the moment she began until she finished, Yumei’s expression remained emotionless and unreadable.
“Describe the kitsune after you awoke.”
“Shiro? He …” Her eyes went out of focus as she saw it again. “He had three tails of white fire, and orbs of blue and red fire floated behind him in a half circle.”
“Kitsunebi,” he informed her. “A kind of foxfire.”
“There were lines of fire on his arms that moved in different patterns. The markings on his face glowed red.” She glanced at Shiro, asleep across the room. “The markings are still there.”
“Is that all?”
She nodded as she studied Shiro. “I didn’t know he would be that powerful. Three tails …” And two more loops of the onenju were still left.
According to the myths and stories she’d read, kitsune gained another tail with every hundred years they lived, and with each tail, they gained exponentially more power. The greatest of all kitsune was the kyubi no kitsune, the nine-tailed fox, so powerful it ranked among dragons in deadly strength.
She turned back to Yumei and studied his indecipherable expression. “Why are you helping Shiro? You couldn’t have known he would end up being so strong. Why did you first help him?”
“The kitsune came to me because I speak the language of beasts.”
Shiro, trapped in his fox form, had gone to Yumei so he could ask for help from someone who could understand him, but … “That doesn’t explain why you helped him.”
Yumei silently returned her stare.
“Why do you always call him ‘the kitsune’ instead of Shir
o?”
“Because that is not his name.”
“What’s his name then?”
“I do not know.” His gaze sliced into her like silver steel. “Neither does he.”
Her stomach plunged toward the floor. “W-what?”
Yumei looked toward the cluster of small yokai at the other end of the room. “Leave.”
The yokai sprang up. With flashes of black power, they transformed into crows and swooped out the door, disappearing into the eerie curtain of darkness that filled the threshold.
The Tengu focused on her again and his eyes gleamed, pupils shrinking to tiny spots within the pools of silver.
“Before we discuss any further who, and what, the kitsune is,” he said, his voice dropping into a soft, dangerous croon, “let us first answer those questions about you, miko.”
His hand rose and he pressed a single taloned finger against her chest, directly over her heart.
“Or should I say … kamigakari.”
Chapter 21
She gasped, recoiling from his touch. Terror swept through her like a wintry river under her skin.
He leaned back, showing no signs of imminent attack. But those silver eyes watched her like a wolf studying its prey. She might have chanced giving Shiro the truth, but not Yumei. The Tengu would not spare her.
Her gaze darted to the doorway. Could she reach it before he could stop her? But once outside, what would she do? She was inside his territory, and there was nowhere she could run that his crows couldn’t follow.
“Speak, kamigakari,” Yumei intoned. “I grow impatient.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” she asked shrilly. “You already figured it out. If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”
“I am not inclined to end your life … yet.”
She swallowed hard, struggling to contain her panic. “What do you want to know?” she asked with a touch more composure.