“Izanami? What do you know about Izanami?”
“Tell me what you know first.”
“An envoy of her vassals showed up a few hours after you ran away. They were dressed like sohei but I—I’d never seen a kami in the flesh before, but I knew right away they weren’t human. They told Guji Ishida and Kannushi Fujimoto that they’d heard about the yokai attack and they’d come to take you to safety. When they found out you’d run away into the woods, they said they would find you and that Izanami herself would arrive shortly to make sure you were safe.”
She grimaced. “Safe” and “dead” weren’t usually synonyms.
“The kami ordered us all to leave because the torii barrier was too damaged to protect us. Guji Ishida argued but …” He shrugged unhappily. “The kami weren’t allowing any compromise and when they started to get angry, Guji Ishida gave in. We left.”
Guilt weighed on his features. “Obviously we shouldn’t have, since you’ve been in the mountains alone this whole time—alone with yokai. Guji Ishida tried to find out what was happening with the search for you, but Izanami’s Guji wouldn’t say anything. After three days without any word, we came back only to find the shrine damaged by the earthquake and all Izanami’s vassals gone.”
He searched her face. “Tell me what happened, Emi. Why did you leave without me? Why did you go back to the Tengu? Why have you returned now?”
She winced under a wave of her own guilt. “I’m so sorry for what I did, Katsuo. I couldn’t let you come with me. It was too dangerous.”
“It’s my job to protect you.”
“You couldn’t have protected me there. The Tengu hates humans and he only tolerates me because I’m useful to him.” She shook her head. “That’s not important. What I need now is to speak to Guji Ishida.”
“He’s not here. He went back to Shion yesterday to find out what’s going on from the Izanami shrines. We had no idea if Izanami’s vassals had found you and taken you somewhere safer, or if you were still lost in the mountains.”
“Back to Shion,” she muttered. That complicated things. “I need to speak with him.”
“As soon as Ishida lays eyes on you, he’ll lock you in the shrine until the solstice to make sure you don’t run away again.”
“No, he won’t. I have orders directly from Amaterasu, and he needs to help me fulfill them.”
His mouth popped open in surprise. “Directly from Amaterasu?”
“Yes. We need to leave for Shion immediately—and you all need to come with me. It’s not safe here.”
“The torii barrier—”
“Not the torii. You aren’t safe from Izanami and her vassals.”
His eyes widened.
“I’ll explain everything,” she said. “Is Kannushi Fujimoto here? I should—”
A shriek from the direction of the house interrupted her. Nanako came sprinting up the path toward Emi and Katsuo as a group of men poured around the corner of the house after her. The miko ran, her red hakama flapping and the wide sleeves of her white kimono billowing. Flinching in anticipation of Nanako’s acid tones, Emi took half a step back as the woman swooped down on her.
Instead, Nanako slid to a stop and grabbed Emi’s hands, clutching them in hers as she drew in a shuddering breath.
“Emi!” she exclaimed—the first time she’d ever used Emi’s name in her hearing. “You’re safe! Oh, thank the kami! What happened? You’re so pale and—and your hair. What happened to your hair? It’s a disaster.”
The men rushed onto the footbridge—a dozen sohei including Minoru—with Fujimoto in the lead. He grabbed his tall hat as it tipped halfway off his head, his shocked stare sweeping over her from head to toe. Then his disbelief hardened into anger.
“Kamigakari Kimura, where—” he began sternly.
“Don’t even start!” Nanako spun on the kannushi so aggressively that he stumbled backward into the sohei behind him. “Can’t you see she’s frozen to the bone? Your questions can wait. The kamigakari is here and safe. That’s all you need to know for now.”
She put an arm around Emi and pulled her forward. “Out of the way! You can speak to her when I’m done with her.”
Without argument, all the men, including Fujimoto, retreated from Nanako’s steely glare and barked orders. Dumbfounded, Emi mutely allowed Nanako to lead her toward the house, sparing only one glance back at Katsuo, who looked just as confused as she felt. Nanako kept her arm around Emi and talked about warm baths, hot meals, and clean clothes without a single question except to ask what she wanted to eat.
Thirty minutes later, Emi found herself reclining in a steaming tub. A thick, fluffy towel waited beside her and another was already wrapped around her hair. Nanako had helped her brush it out, spending almost ten minutes meticulously picking out tangles and a surprising amount of debris. The miko had left her to bathe, promising to have breakfast ready when Emi finished. She had no idea why Nanako was being so nice to her all of a sudden, but there was no denying the miko’s genuine, almost maternal concern.
Emi slumped lower until water lapped at her chin. The heat soaked down to her bones and melted the tension from her muscles. She might have felt guilty about the delay, but she didn’t think an hour more would make much difference—though Shiro, wherever he was, would probably disagree. In a way, she felt like she was washing away the casual yokai lifestyle that had rubbed off on her over the last few days. It had been nice to laze around, eating and sleeping whenever she wanted, with no duties to fulfill or expectations to meet.
She closed her eyes, taking another couple minutes to work herself up to facing Fujimoto. That conversation wouldn’t be pleasant, but she would take a confrontation with the kannushi over one with the Tengu any day.
Emi opened her closet doors.
Behind her, Fujimoto, Nanako, Katsuo, and Minoru waited silently. She slipped her hand between layers of folded bedding and extracted the kannushi manual. Turning to the others, she opened the book to the page that described her fate as the kamigakari and held it out to Fujimoto. He frowned as he accepted it and skimmed the text.
She reached back into the closet and unearthed her journal from its hiding spot. From between the pages, she slipped out the black crow feather.
“That book is what started everything,” she murmured, sliding her fingers over the glossy feather. “It’s how I found out the truth about being the kamigakari and the reason I ended up in the forest that night.”
She told them how she met the injured white fox in the woods and, with Katsuo’s help, brought him back to the shrine. When she described his shift from fox to man, Fujimoto dropped the kannushi manual and spluttered incoherently. Snatching the book from the floor, Nanako shushed him.
Emi described her bargain with Shiro and her subsequent meeting with the Tengu. She kept the details as brief as possible, skipping straight to sneaking out of the shrine and meeting Koyane, Izanami’s vassal. No one tried to interrupt her after she explained how the kami had attempted to kill her.
Gesturing for them to follow, she led them out of the house and across the footbridge. Standing in the ruined courtyard, she pointed to the blackened stones. “Koyane sent two yokai to ambush us when we returned to the shrine. Shiro fought them. His foxfire is what scorched the stones.”
Fujimoto’s mouth flattened in a thin, angry line when she told them how she’d fled the shrine to reunite with Shiro and remove the rest of the onenju curse, but his anger faded when she got to the part where the kami had captured them. Feeling sick, she walked to the main hall and stepped over the debris in the demolished entryway. Lifting a wooden plank, she pulled it away from the center of the room and looked down. Faint white lines still marked the circle that had bound her. Her nausea worsened.
Swallowing hard, she pointed to the dark stain on the floor. “After admitting to killing all of Amaterasu’s past kamigakari, Izanami stabbed me in the stomach.”
Nanako gasped and Katsuo’s face went white. As she explained what had happen
ed next, she led them out of the shrine and around the offices. The ground grew rougher, marred by fissures and fallen trees. She stopped at the edge of the stone-lined circle, where Izanami had tried to rebind Shiro with the onenju, and finished her tale with the terrible battle between kami and yokai—and Amaterasu’s final instructions.
Turning back to the others, she lifted the black feather still in her hand. “For the last few days, I’ve been with the Tengu and Shiro, recovering from Amaterasu’s possession. But now I must fulfill the task she gave me.”
She looked from Katsuo’s grim expression to Fujimoto. The kannushi’s jaw worked as he looked from the circle to the split ground and twisted tree roots that, after being commanded by Izanami, were still tangled in bizarre shapes above the earth. Finally, his gaze stopped on the black feather in her hand and his bushy eyebrows pinched together.
She took a deep breath and prepared to defend her story.
Fujimoto rubbed a hand over his jaw. “The ways of the kami are a mystery to mortals such as ourselves. To think an Amatsukami would turn against her sister … to think a yokai would ally with a human or fight alongside a kami … Preposterous, I would say! And yet the evidence I see …” He pressed his hands to his thighs and bent into a bow. “Kamigakari Kimura, I apologize for doubting you.”
“I—I can only thank you for believing me, Kannushi Fujimoto,” she stuttered in surprise. “Please do not apologize.”
He straightened too quickly and his hat tumbled off. He snatched it up and crammed it back onto his head. “We must get you to Shion without delay. And evacuate everyone from the shrine in case we have any more treacherous, divine visitors.”
Tears unexpectedly threatened at his easy acceptance of the truth—an utterly preposterous truth, as he’d said—and his immediate willingness to help. She had underestimated him.
She leaned forward in her own bow. “You are a true and loyal servant of Amaterasu, Kannushi Fujimoto.”
“Oh, come now,” he said gruffly. “None of that. We have no time to waste. Nanako, would you gather the lady’s belongings? Minoru, fetch the sohei.”
As Nanako and Minoru hurried away, Fujimoto turned to Emi. “My lady …” He adjusted his hat again. “I can see your story is true, and I will support your word, but Guji Ishida …”
She nodded. Fujimoto didn’t need to complete his thought because she already understood perfectly. Convincing Ishida of the truth would not be nearly as easy—and she didn’t want to consider the consequences of failure.
Chapter 4
The car rolled to an easy stop. Emi didn’t move as Nanako, sitting beside her, unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. A cool breeze fluttered in, carrying the scents of fresh snow, spruce needles, and car exhaust. Emi stared at her hands folded neatly in her lap, pale against her red hakama.
They’d left the shrine in a flurry of activity, and she hadn’t had a chance to slip away to find Shiro before Nanako and Fujimoto had ushered her into the car. She was confident Shiro would figure out where she’d gone, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from looking out the car’s back window as they drove away, squinting at the empty road for a flash of white fur.
Voices carried past her ears, the quiet talk of worshippers going to and from the shrine. Some spoke with hushed respect, some with cheerful admiration, others with awed exclamations. Inside the shrine grounds would be even more worshippers, plus countless kannushi, miko, and sohei who trained or worked at Shion. When she’d last walked those grounds, she’d been a celebrity, akin to a princess.
But that was before she’d learned the truth. Since she was a little girl, she’d thought that to be the kamigakari was to become a kami. When she’d found out the dark truth that was hidden from all but a select few kannushi, her perception of the days she’d spent training here had changed. How would she face Ishida now, knowing he had guided her toward her destruction for so many years without guilt for the lies, without remorse for the inevitable end of her life?
The door beside her opened. “Emi?”
With no choice, she forced herself to look up at Katsuo.
Concern softened his face. “Are you ready?”
Was she? She didn’t know. She took another long breath. She had battled a murderous Amatsukami. Surely she could face her return to the Shion Shrine with a modicum of courage.
As she slid out of the car, her attention automatically turned to the opposite side of the street—toward the sound of water.
Stretching over a hundred yards, a wide, wooden bridge arched over the sparkling river. The far bank was swathed in green and white: hundreds of mature spruce and beech trees, their branches laden with snow. At the end of the bridge, a red torii was the only other color.
Fujimoto cleared his throat. “This way, this way,” he said, starting across the street. “Hurry along.”
Emi pushed herself into motion, grateful for Katsuo’s steady presence on her right. Nanako flanked her on the left, and the remaining sohei trailed behind them. As they approached the bridge, the small groups of worshippers stood respectfully aside. Businessmen, schoolgirls, mothers with children—all kinds of people came here to offer their prayers to Amaterasu. Did any of them realize just how real the kami was? Could they even imagine that the simple miko walking past them would soon become Amaterasu, an immortal living within human flesh?
The quiet river flowed beneath the bridge, and Emi was relieved her phobia of water stayed silent. The bridge was wide and the water far below, insulating her from her fears. As they neared the far bank, the huge torii towered over them, spanning the full width of the bridge and dwarfing all who passed beneath it. She stopped and bowed deeply.
When she placed her foot on the gravel path directly beneath the torii, warmth rushed up her ankle and filled her torso with welcoming heat. She couldn’t help her smile as the sacred land welcomed her. Straightening her shoulders, she strode down the path, forcing the others to hurry to keep pace. The wide trail cut through the trees, guiding visitors toward the shrine.
A second torii arched over the pathway, then the trees retreated to create an open, almost park-like space. Several dozen worshippers surrounded the long, roofed structure that housed the water fountain where they would symbolically purify their bodies by rinsing their hands and mouths. Emi scarcely noticed them watching as she turned left, away from the water station. Had she continued onward, she would have eventually arrived at the hall of worship where one could pray to Amaterasu. But she wasn’t here to pray.
Peeking through the trees, a white wall stretched left and right, interrupted in the center by an open gate, the threshold covered with its own small, tiled roof. She strode through the opening and into the sprawling courtyard beyond. Large square stones formed a smooth surface across the entire space, unbroken except for eight cherry trees planted to form a perfect circle in the center. Golden leaves still clung to the branches, though the cherries were long gone.
A dozen buildings filled the space inside the walls, but the structure across from her overshadowed them all. Three stories tall with elaborate, curling eaves, carved wooden embellishments, and two massive koma-inu statues guarding the front steps, the building was as imposing as it was beautiful. The hall of purification was the seat of the Guji, a retreat for kannushi, and the training grounds for future servants of Amaterasu. When Amaterasu’s kami vassals took human hosts on Earth, they too would live within the hall.
The courtyard was bustling with activity—miko with brooms waging war against the snow and leaves, sohei carrying weapons, kannushi attending to various tasks. As the first eyes turned to her, Emi fought the urge to stop. Instead, she lifted her chin and strode forward. Three years ago, she had been sent away after Hana’s death, feeling as though she had been banished from her home for her recklessness, but she would not cringe on her return like a guilty criminal. She was the kamigakari, Amaterasu’s vessel, and she would not falter.
All other movement in the courtyard came to a stand
still as everyone stopped to watch the kamigakari approach the hall of purification. Of course they recognized her. Everyone at this shrine knew her name and face. She knew most of them too.
When she was halfway across the courtyard, almost directly in the center of the circle of cherry trees, the wide doors of the hall opened. Two kannushi walked out and moved aside. A man stepped out after them, halting just before the stairs to watch her approach.
Guji Ishida was as daunting as the hall behind him. Standing taller than average, he exuded power and authority in a way that Fujimoto could never hope to imitate. His tall black hat added to his distinguished air, and his uniform was the finest purple silk, with a darker lining inside the wide sleeves that hung nearly to the floor.
His attention weighed on her as she crossed the remainder of the courtyard. Only when she reached the steps did she dare look up. His dark eyes watched her from a lined face with sharp cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and a square jaw. He wasn’t a handsome man but his stark and objectively harsh countenance was impossible to forget.
She bent into a low, respectful bow. The rustling behind her told her the others had copied her. After a moment, she straightened, staring at the ground. Until Ishida acknowledged her, she could do no more than stand and wait. Everyone in the courtyard watched them mutely.
“Kamigakari Kimura,” Ishida finally said, his gravelly voice neither cold nor warm. “Welcome home.”
Her gaze shot up to his, but she couldn’t read his expression in the slightest. He tipped his chin toward the doors and turned, sweeping back into the hall without another word. She glanced back at Katsuo and Fujimoto. The former looked worried but the latter gave her an encouraging nod.
Swallowing her nerves, Emi ascended the steps and entered the hall for the first time in three years.
After setting the tray of tea in front of Emi and bowing, the young miko scuffled backward on her knees, rose, and swiftly exited the room, closing the door behind her. Emi touched the edge of a cup, the china so fine it looked like the slightest pressure would surely shatter it. She hadn’t held china so fine since she’d left Shion.