Deadly Wish: A Ninja’s Journey

  The pearl would be safe.

  I would have been faithful to my mission.

  Instead, I was a prisoner. My friends were still prisoners. I’d accomplished nothing. In fact, I’d made things worse.

  Ahead of me, Madame slid open another screen. She led us into a short corridor. There, while Oichi kept her bow drawn, Kazuko searched me quickly and expertly. Soon the garrote from around my waist, the blade inside my hair ornament, lockpicks and pry bars were in a pile on the matting.

  Jinnai was treated the same way. His array of sharp, useful, and deadly objects was even more impressive than mine. Masako and the other girls, of course, had nothing but their clothing.

  I expected Madame to confiscate the pearl as well, but she did not. Well, that made sense. She knew that I had it; she would leave it to Saiko to take it from me.

  Or from my corpse.

  As one of the girls I did not know slid open a screen, I slipped a hand inside my pocket to touch the pearl, perhaps for the last time. Before I’d even tied the pocket shut, Madame stepped through the door and we all followed her into the mansion’s large, central chamber. A third question billowed up in my mind, taking up all the space there.

  How exactly would Saiko kill me?

  She was standing before a painted screen that stretched from floor to ceiling and showed a slim tree in snowy bloom against a golden background. The precious metal seemed to multiply the light of the two paper lanterns on the floor beside her, and against that background, Saiko, in her kimono of ivory silk with an obi of pale pink, her soft hair loose over her shoulders, looked very much like a branch of flowering cherry herself.

  She held out one soft hand to me. What did Kashihara Saiko’s hands tell me about her soul?

  Smooth and pale, every nail polished until it gleamed, every finger curled in graceful anticipation that what she wanted would be given to her, Saiko’s hands were as perfect as the rest of her. And as deceitful. They showed no flaw.

  Then I saw that her hand, ever so slightly, was trembling.

  Her face, expressionless as a seashell, told me nothing. With her eyebrows plucked and repainted in graceful arcs, her lips reddened with safflower, her skin lightened with rice powder, she looked nothing but elegant. It was hard to believe I’d ever seen her dressed like a peasant, dusty from the road, bedraggled from days of struggling through mountains. It was even harder to believe I’d ever protected her or fought demons by her side. Or thought, however briefly, of trusting her.

  Still, as perfect as she was, she couldn’t stop her hand from shaking. Jinnai might be a liar, but he’d been right about this. Saiko’s greed, her ambition, her hunger for revenge, all showed in her trembling hand.

  “You have something that belongs to me,” she said.

  As if to bring into my mind everyone I’d ever trusted foolishly, Jinnai, entering the room last, tripped on the edge of a mat and stumbled, grabbing at me to keep himself upright. He practically climbed up me as if I were a tree. Impatiently, I thrust him off, keeping my eyes warily on Saiko.

  I shook my head.

  Saiko’s hand sank slowly to her side.

  “How much choice do you think you have, Kata?” Jinnai and the other girls might as well have been invisible to Saiko; she didn’t look away from my face. “You can choose to give me the pearl before your death, or after.”

  “If you kill me, you can’t take it from me,” I pointed out, letting a taunt slip into my voice, as if her stupidity amused me. “Anyone else could take it from my body. They could pick it up from the dust of the road, if they found it, and wish on it. But you never could.”

  “You know I know that.” The faintest flicker of impatience crossed her face, which meant a bubbling volcano of rage was concealed within. “It’s mine. It has belonged to my family for generations. I know the rules that govern it far better than you do. And there are plenty of hands here to wield a knife.”

  True enough …

  I let my gaze move away from Saiko to scan my surroundings. The screen we had used to enter the room was behind me. I knew without looking that exit would be guarded. There were four more doors to the room, and one armed girl stood in front of each.

  “If you kill me here, it will be messy. And loud,” I countered. One side of the room had a wall of windows, each covered now by its wooden shutter. I wouldn’t have time to open one before there would be a knife or an arrow in my back. “The Takeda family might be disturbed,” I went on. “How will you explain a corpse in their mansion? Blood all over their clean floor mats?”

  I had no weapons. But there were those two lanterns burning on the floor. And straw mats catch a blaze quickly.

  Saiko smiled gently. “The only one of the Takeda family here tonight is my new husband. And he’s sleeping very soundly. I made sure of that.”

  Husband? I had been talking idly, using my words as if they were smoke I could blow in Saiko’s eyes while my own eyes and mind were busy trying to find an escape. But this word snapped my attention back to her.

  Her slight smile stayed in place as if carved on her lips. “Didn’t you hear? I married Takeda Narikazu less than a month ago. He has two older brothers, of course, but that shouldn’t be … permanent.”

  How would she assassinate her new brothers-in-law, I wondered. Poison? Accident? A fall down a well? An attack by bandits? There were so many ways she could ensure her husband would end up the sole heir of his powerful family. Would he even know what his charming new wife was doing?

  “I think we’ve spent enough time on pleasantries now.” She held out her hand once more, the sleeve of her kimono swaying to reveal the under robes beneath—pale green, blood crimson, soft blue.

  “I agree.” Okiko’s voice, sudden and firm, startled everyone. As I jerked my head around to look at her, she whirled and launched a perfect kick that connected with the back of her sister’s head.

  Aki fell to the floor mats and lay motionless. Masako cried out and stepped forward, only to freeze as arrows swiveled to point at her.

  I kept my feet still, but shock clamped down on my lungs and forced all the air out. For a moment I was back in the practice yard at the school, feeling packed dirt beneath my feet, the smell of dust and sweat in my nostrils.

  Madame’s rule had been that every student of an age to fight must face every other. No exceptions were made for size or skill or years of training. We all fought each other every day.

  Except for Aki and Okiko.

  It was the only time in twelve years that I’d seen Madame’s methods fail. No punishment she could come up with—and Madame was inventive in her punishments—could force either twin to attack the other.

  And now, Okiko had struck her sister down? I felt as if I’d seen someone’s hand attack her own arm.

  “You told me we could go free,” Okiko said to Saiko, firmly ignoring everyone else in the room. “Once you had Kata, you’d let us go. She’s here. I want what you promised.”

  “Okiko,” Masako whispered, her face stricken. “You told them?”

  Saiko waved a pale, smooth hand at Okiko, without a flicker of interest on her face. Okiko knelt down by Aki’s body.

  “You told her where to find us?” Masako went on, as if her words could create belief in her own mind. “I couldn’t understand how easily they captured all of us. It was you?”

  Okiko shrugged without looking up. “How long do you think you would have stayed free, Masako?” she asked impatiently. “Four girls against Madame Chiyome, and the Takeda family, and the Kashiharas? It was madness all along. I was willing to pay off my debt, but not to commit suicide for Kata. Or to let my sister do the same.”

  She spoke only to Masako. She didn’t look at me. But I had something to say to her.

  “You betrayed the mission,” I said flatly, and she flinched as if a bamboo rod had landed across her back. Still, she didn’t turn her eyes my way.

  “I saved my sister,” she answered, and bent to heave Aki’s limp body up over
her shoulders.

  “And what will she think when she wakes up?” Masako asked. “Okiko, she’ll never forgive you.”

  Okiko straightened with a grunt.

  “But she’ll be alive to hate me,” she answered, and she carried Aki out of the room. Oichi stood aside, letting her open a screen, then closing it behind her.

  “Now,” Saiko said, as if the interlude with Okiko had been nothing more than a minor nuisance. “Give the pearl to me, or I’ll take it from your body.”

  I didn’t have time. Didn’t have time to absorb the knowledge that Okiko had chosen to repay her debt with betrayal.

  “Kazuko?” Masako said softly. “Oichi?”

  Kazuko’s gaze did not falter when Masako said her name. Neither did her hand on her bowstring. Oichi’s arrow was aimed straight at my head. Masako was a fool to think, even for a moment, that an appeal to their hearts might have been effective when they had a mission to perform.

  I’d been a worse fool to think anyone but myself could serve my mission. That had gotten me into this mess. But I could still get myself out of it.

  I could wish.

  At the thought, a soft, gleeful, malicious chuckle echoed inside my head.

  There might be two wishes left for the pearl. There might be only one. Could it truly be that Saiko had not thought of this? Did she think she was watching me so carefully that I’d die before a wish had passed my lips? Didn’t she know a desire could simply form inside my mind?

  If I wished now, I could get the pearl away from here. I could get myself and Masako and Yuki to safety—at the cost, perhaps, of my own soul.

  “Take it. Here it is.”

  When Okiko had spoken up, it had surprised me. But when Jinnai did the same, it seemed to stop my heart for a beat.

  Lazily, as if it were of no great consequence, Jinnai tossed the pearl through the air to Saiko.

  It spun like a tiny moon, white and gold. But just as the real moon is marked by blotches of shadow, so the pearl was marked by stains of dull, rust red.

  I’d nicked my thumb on the blade of Jinnai’s saw. I’d reached inside my jacket to touch the pearl. My blood was on it—so now it only needed my word to transfer the pearl and its demon to a new master.

  Saiko’s hand snaked out to snatch the pearl. Mine slapped against my flat and empty pocket. Jinnai had been right—there was no pocket he couldn’t pick.

  “It’s not worth your life, Kata,” Jinnai said. “No matter what it is. Don’t look at me like that. There’s always more treasure to steal.”

  My heartbeat thundered back at full force, and my hands tightened into fists that felt as if they would never unclench. Okiko’s treachery had only shocked me, but for some reason I could not identify, Jinnai’s filled me with instant, murderous rage.

  Emotions had no place on a mission. I would certainly deal with the thief later, but for now, my full attention had to be on Saiko and her slowly widening smile.

  “I wish …,” she said aloud, softly, tightening her fingers around the pearl.

  Nothing happened. Not a thing in the room changed.

  “It can’t be stolen,” I said. All the others in the room—Masako, Jinnai, Madame, the rest of the girls—felt as remote as those distant lands and coasts on Master Ishikawa’s map.

  The pearl burned in Saiko’s hand, and its power bound the two of us as tightly together as muscle is bound to bone.

  “As long as I’m alive, it must be given,” I continued. “He doesn’t know the rules.” I flicked a contemptuous glance at Jinnai. “But I thought you did.”

  And I wished. Better to spend my soul than leave the pearl to Saiko.

  Take me far from here. Masako and Yuki, too. Now that Jinnai had proved himself a traitor, I would happily leave him to his fate. Over the mountains, across the sea—I don’t care. Now.

  Again that evil laugh made the hairs on the back of my neck stir. Only I could hear it. Or did it echo inside Saiko’s head as well as mine?

  Ah, little one, you’re too far away. Why not speak the words and give me to this other? Her soul is not quite as entertaining as yours, but it’s been so long … and I am so hungry …

  I couldn’t wish, either. The pearl would not serve either of us.

  Saiko’s smile faded.

  “This changes nothing,” she said, and flicked her fingers at Kazuko. “Once you’re dead, anyone can take it—and I’m the one who has it.”

  “Not if I give it away before I die,” I countered, suddenly seeing my next move in our game. I could name a new owner of the pearl even while it was in Saiko’s hand. All that was needed was my blood, already on its surface, and my will. I knew it would work, because it was what Saiko’s father had done, years ago, to leave the pearl to his son.

  I’d been meant to kill that son, Saiko’s little brother, and I had ended up saving him. Panicked for his life, Ichiro had pressed the bloodied pearl into my hand and told me it was mine.

  I could reverse that process now. I could give the pearl back. Safe in his monastery over the mountains, guarded by warrior monks who could face down samurai, Ichiro could become the jewel’s guardian once again, and Saiko would still be powerless.

  I drew a breath, ready to speak the words, and Saiko’s eyes widened with alarm. She pointed, and the tip of Kazuko’s arrow swung away from my head toward Jinnai’s heart. “Say it and watch him die,” she snapped.

  Like a fool, I hesitated.

  “Ah.” Jinnai looked from the tip of Kazuko’s arrow to Saiko’s face to me. “Kata, perhaps you’re not entirely happy with what I just did, but—”

  “Not in the heart,” Saiko said to Kazuko. “Somewhere … less quiet. More painful.”

  “—really, I wanted to help. I did. Kata?”

  “You could shoot him in the knee first,” I suggested to Kazuko. “That might be a good start.”

  Jinnai winced. But Saiko lifted her hand once more, and Kazuko lowered her bow again.

  “So you don’t care about this boy,” Saiko said. “Such a pity. He likes you so much. But maybe there’s another way.” There was no smile on her face now. “Say it’s mine, Kata. It always has been rightfully so. And there is someone I know you care about.” Her gaze went to Masako, but she shook her head. “If you don’t give me the pearl, I’ll make sure Ichiro dies.”

  Ichiro? My plan began to crumble like cracked pottery, and Saiko’s entire face softened with pleasure.

  “He came to celebrate my marriage, of course,” she went on. “He’s sleeping in the room next door. Fuku is there with him. Just as you were, two years ago. But Fuku doesn’t have your tender heart.”

  She laughed delicately at the look I could feel sliding across my face.

  “I don’t have your tender heart, either, Kata,” she told me. “Do you know what happened in your old province since you stole the pearl from my family? My uncle could not defend his borders without its power. He lost land, and taxes, and influence, until the best marriage bargain he could make for me was a drunken weakling. You here on the coast, Ichiro safe in his monastery—did either of you even know what was happening to the Kashiharas? How weak we’ve become? How helpless? How poor?” Disgust made the last word snap like a lash.

  “Say the pearl is mine, or she’ll kill him. Don’t stop to think. I won’t give you time. You can’t win now, not against me, not against all I can do to you. Say it now, or he dies.”

  She’d told me not to think, but I could not stop thoughts from stampeding through my mind.

  The girl I’d known two years ago had been clever, ruthless, devious, and eager for power. But she’d disrupted my first mission to save her brother’s life.

  Would she truly have him killed now?

  She would.

  She would do so happily, I realized, with a chill as great as if I’d stepped on ice and it had given way beneath me, dumping me over my head into the freezing water beneath. She’d kill her own brother to become the owner of the pearl. In fact, she would sooner
kill him than me, because then I’d still be here to know that a boy I’d kept alive at considerable trouble—a boy who’d come to be my friend—was dead.

  I’d tricked Saiko two years ago, leaving her holding a polished white pebble while I escaped with her family heirloom, and she could not stand that. She’d kill Jinnai—Masako—Ichiro—anyone but me. She needed to keep me alive, to let me know she’d won.

  All those thoughts spun through my head in the time it took to draw a breath. I opened my mouth to speak.

  But before the first word could leave my lips, Fuku came flying through a screen, shredding paper and splintering wood. She hit the ground hard, rolled once, and lay sprawled at Saiko’s feet.

  Someone stepped through the shattered screen after her. He glanced around the room, tucked his staff under one arm, put his hands together, and bowed.

  “Kata,” he said politely. “Masako. Elder sister.”

  THIRTEEN

  Ichiro was wearing the loose white under robe of a monk. His hair was in a novice’s topknot. And that was not the only change. He was taller and heavier, and all of the additional weight looked like muscle. He gazed at the sister who’d been planning his death with no shock, no grief, no rage on his face.

  “You said Kata could not win,” he said. “But it’s you, elder sister. You can’t hope to win.”

  “You could kill Kata,” Masako said, stepping to my side. “Perhaps. You might kill all of us. But we have friends outside this room. And one of them will find you. Any servant, any merchant, any singer or dancer, any cook or washer-woman who steps into this house might actually be one of us. You would never be safe. You can let us all go now, or you can live your life alone and afraid of every footfall, every shadow on a screen.”

  Saiko whirled to Madame, who all this time had been standing silent with her back against a wall, listening and observing.

  I felt my heart tighten.

  All the time I’d been feinting and sparring and struggling with Saiko for the upper hand, Madame had been at my back. I might be a match for Saiko; I’d bested her before, if only barely. But Madame?

  Madame’s gaze went coolly from Saiko to me. Then it flickered over the others—Masako, Yuki, even Jinnai—before she returned her attention to me. She looked as if she were adding up numbers in her head.