Deadly Flowers

Why wouldn’t he just go?

  I still had my sword. But this was a man, bigger than I was, older and stronger, too. Most probably a soldier who had survived many a battlefield. Which meant that he was used to killing enemies.

  And I was not.

  Still, if I leaped down, I’d surprise him. That might allow me to kill him. It would not, however, allow me to kill his companions if they heard the two of us fighting for our lives.

  If he looked up, I’d have to do it.

  Should I do it before he looked up?

  It would make noise. I couldn’t risk it.

  If he looked up and saw me, then he’d make noise.

  No reason he should look up. No reason he should stand there, either. But he was doing it.

  Go away, I thought fiercely. Go away, go away, go away.

  He didn’t seem to be listening.

  I’d count to one hundred. If he didn’t move before then, I’d do it. I’d jump.

  But, oh, how I wished for something—a rustle in the undergrowth, an owl’s ghostly call, a glimmer of moonlight on a shaking leaf—to catch his attention before I was done counting.

  Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety …

  Something snorted and scrambled in a thicket, not twenty yards off. My soldier’s head came up.

  Would he really go? Yes, he would. Whatever had moved in the bushes—badger, bear, mole?—had been enough to keep his attention. He followed the sound, sword out, and then he was lost in the darkness.

  A shiver took hold of me from the inside, shaking me as a dog does a rat. How had it gotten so cold? I commanded my muscles into stillness. I wasn’t safe yet.

  The noise of the searching men gradually died away. I did not move. The smaller sounds of the night came back, the sweet rasping of the crickets, the dashes and scurryings of little hunted things.

  Then, finally, I slid down, stiff and sore and clumsy from lying so long without moving. I made my way to the hole I’d dug and pulled off the branches and brush.

  “Time to go,” I said to the two filthy faces looking up at me.

  I hauled them out of their burrow and dragged them as far as I dared, cutting off every attempt at talk. At all costs, we must be as far away from the castle as possible before daybreak. Briefly I even risked the dark, deserted main road, and the risk paid off; we met no one.

  But they were both clumsy and slow, caked with mud (which at least made them harder to spot in the darkness), and stupid with tiredness. The night had worn me down as well. My first mission, my very first, and it had turned into this.

  After the boy had fallen twice, and needed my help to get up the second time, I led them both off the road and up into the trees. A little clearing gave us a stretch of flat grass. We all sank down, panting.

  A ninja out of legend would have stayed awake for what was left of the night to watch for pursuit. A ninja out of legend could go for days without rest or food.

  There were no legends here. If I didn’t give myself a few hours of sleep, I’d never get us all home.

  Home?

  That was a strange word to drift into my head as I stretched out on the hard ground next to Saiko and her little brother, feeling my tense muscles ease one by one. I had scraps and tatters of memory connected with the word home, and they were not of the school. A dark farmhouse with a single room. Sleeping snug between a brother and a sister, on the floor beside the hearth. The smells of sweat and dirt, wood smoke and warmth.

  But that had been long ago.

  Now I had the school, and Madame—no. That was wrong.

  Cold fear drenched me like water from a bucket, sending shivers from my scalp to my toes.

  I didn’t have the school any longer. Madame had trusted me with my first mission, and I’d failed. More than that—I’d failed and survived.

  That was not supposed to happen.

  No girl came back to the school after her first mission. If she lived, she was sold. If she died, she was dead.

  But where else could I go?

  I had no family, no village, no lord. No one to take me in. I could not simply … run. No one ever did.

  The school was harsh, the training difficult, but no student ever tried to escape. We all knew that the world around us held no place for orphan girls who were not pretty enough to be courtesans, humble enough to be nuns, or rich enough to be wives.

  Running away would mean being not just alone but adrift. Forever.

  I had been both of those things once, when home had vanished, washed from the earth like ink from a wet stone. Not again. Never again. The school was a hard place, but I had made it into my place. Somewhere to belong.

  I would have to return. I’d have to take Saiko with me.

  And the boy, still inconveniently alive? Perhaps there was something that could be done about that …

  I laid my sword beside me, the blade bare on the grass, where I could snatch it up in an instant if I needed it. Then I curled up and slept alongside Saiko and the boy, dreamless as usual, until someone giggled very close to my ear.

  My hand was reaching for my sword before my eyes had opened, but then I paused.

  Something else was interested in my sword as well.

  I lay on my side with my face half in the grass, and the little creature was just tall enough to look me in the eye. In the cool gray light before dawn, I could see that it was black and feathered, with a sharp, curved beak. But its eyes, peering craftily at me over the hilt of my blade—its eyes were human.

  Clearly I was dreaming.

  Ghosts riding the night air, monsters lurking in mountain passes, demons huddled in the darkest shadows—any sensible person understood where they might be and wore a charm or knew a mantra to keep them at bay. But no one ever expected to see one.

  A tengu, looking in my eye? A tengu studying my sword? A tengu making a very rude gesture with the clawed finger on the end of one feathered wing?

  It couldn’t be. My eyes were muddled by sleep. I blinked and, with a hoarse caw of laughter and a flash of dark wings, the little creature, half-crow, half-man, had flitted into the branches overhead.

  I sat up and reached out quickly for my sword. The smooth weight of the hilt was a comfort. Then I shook the boy awake, and Saiko, too. She opened her eyes, moaned, and shivered. “Oh. It’s cold. Is it—it’s morning? Do we have any food?”

  I was tempted to slap her. “This isn’t a picnic,” I growled.

  “I know.” Saiko dropped her gaze modestly. “Please forgive my rudeness.”

  I had a lot more than rudeness to forgive her for, and I didn’t plan to do it. She sat there, eyes meekly downcast, gingerly rubbing one foot. I stripped off my sandals and thrust them at her. To her credit (and I was willing to count very little to her credit, just then), she hesitated to take them.

  “Put them on,” I snapped. “I can walk barefoot. You can’t. And the sandals won’t fit him.” I waved a hand at the boy, who was sitting up nearby, rubbing his face and eyeing the trees and brush around us nervously. “You.” I frowned at him. “What’s your name?”

  “Ichiro,” he said hesitantly, as if he were afraid it might be the wrong answer.

  “Your other name,” I insisted.

  Now he sounded even more apologetic. “Kashihara.”

  I groaned. “You’re a Kashihara?” But of course he was. Because that was the only thing that could make this mission any worse.

  The Kashihara brothers had divided the province between them like a sweet rice cake. Their feuds and alliances had kept samurai and soldiers and ninjas, too, employed for years.

  Quickly, my brain sorted through everything I’d learned about the family. There had been three brothers, until recently. One had died not many months ago. And he had been the only one of the three to produce any children.

  One girl. And one boy, who would inherit all that the Kashihara family had to leave.

  I was stranded in the wilderness with the sole heir of the most powerful family for a hundred miles. An
d I could think of only one thing to do with him.

  “Well, Kashihara Ichiro,” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “Now we’re—”

  Then Ichiro did something that startled me so much I stopped talking. He turned toward me, got on his knees, and bowed, bringing his forehead down completely to the ground.

  Most samurai’s sons or little lordlings would have swallowed a razor rather than kneel to a ninja. Particularly one who happened to be a girl. And this one was a Kashihara. Bending his neck for me?

  “Your name is Kata?” he said, courteously, as he rose again. “My sister told me.”

  I glanced at Saiko, who was now slipping on my second sandal. She was a Kashihara, too. Which I supposed was the reason I was in this predicament. Saiko must have known, or suspected, that it was her little brother who was not supposed to wake up in the morning, and she had decided to do something about it.

  “You saved my life,” Ichiro said. “My thanks to you.”

  I looked blankly at him for a heartbeat or two, while something hot and uncomfortable writhed and coiled in my gut.

  It was shame.

  Well, I should’ve felt ashamed, certainly. I’d failed in my very first mission. The living proof of that—yes, that was the point, living—stood before me.

  The boy’s face was open, and pleasant, and a little puzzled about why I was staring at him. He was truly grateful. He was grateful to me.

  “I haven’t saved anyone yet,” I said shortly, and reached down a hand to pull Saiko to her feet. “No more resting. Time to go.”

  As we moved under the trees once more, something bounced off the top of my head and hit the ground in front of me. A pinecone.

  I looked up, and the second one hit my nose.

  A faint snicker drifted down from the tree above me, but nothing stirred the dusky green needles.

  I broke into a jog, dodging between trunks. Saiko followed. The boy brought up the rear.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d just been kidnapped.

  EIGHT

  I kept us to back roads and hunters’ trails, judging our direction by the angle of the sun and the shadows when I found myself in unfamiliar territory. It took longer, but it kept us out of sight. Mounted men might be pursuing us on the roads, but they were unlikely to track us on winding paths so narrow that we walked in single file.

  Kiku was on watch when we arrived, at last, at the school. She was there to pull the gate open and let us stumble in, our shadows stretching out long before us in the late afternoon light.

  “What are you doing here?” she gasped, wide-eyed as she took in the sight of us. The gate clanged shut and Saiko slid into a graceful heap on the ground.

  We’d been so slow. I could have covered the distance in half the time, and even Ichiro could probably have moved quicker. But the best pace Saiko could manage seemed like a crawl to me. So many times I’d been tempted to leave her by the path, but the truth was, I needed her. This daughter of the Kashiharas could help explain to Madame how my assassination had turned into a kidnapping.

  Girls who had been sparring all over the yard turned to stare at the three of us. Fuku aimed one last blow at Masako’s head that could have knocked her senseless, but Masako parried it without a glance—frankly, a better move than I had thought her capable of. She left Fuku standing and scowling as she ran across the yard to us.

  “Where’s Madame?” I demanded, swaying a little on my feet. I wanted to face her now. To learn my fate this instant would be better than to wait, and wonder, and dread.

  Besides, as Madame decided what to do to me, she could also decide what to do about Ichiro and Saiko. I felt like I’d been dragging my two boulders uphill for miles. At last I was going to heave the burden onto someone else’s shoulders.

  “She’s not here,” Masako answered.

  “Not here?”

  I could not believe it. All this long day, I’d been rehearsing my explanation to Madame, picturing her face, anticipating her wrath. And now she wasn’t here?

  “A samurai came at the hour of the hare. He wore the dragonfly.” Masako’s gaze was shifting from me to Ichiro to Saiko. “She left with him.”

  Of course. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Madame had left with a warrior bearing the Kashihara dragonfly. Her client’s midnight peace had been broken by explosions in his garden, and where he’d been expecting a corpse, he’d found an empty futon and an open window. Naturally he’d come seeking an explanation. Madame must have gone with him to the castle to see what she could discover.

  “She took one of the instructors with her,” Masako went on.

  “Willow or The Boulder?” I asked.

  Quick amusement flickered in Masako’s eyes. “Willow. That’s what I call her too. But I call him—”

  The main door of the house slid open.

  “Huge,” Masako whispered, and all the girls fell silent as The Boulder stepped down into the yard, slid on his sandals, and walked toward us.

  I could almost feel his gaze as it landed on me, the way a hot puff of wind pushes against your face. Then he looked briefly at Saiko, sitting on the ground, and Ichiro bending solicitously over her. And back again at me.

  “Who’s the boy?” he asked.

  I stepped away from the brother and sister, keeping my eyes on The Boulder, and lowered my voice.

  “He’s ransom,” I said.

  I’d been supposed to kill Ichiro. I’d failed. Still, he might be of use to Madame another way. Someone wanted him dead. But he was a Kashihara, so surely he had allies or protectors who would be glad to have him back.

  Glad and generous.

  I hoped so, anyway. Madame would be receiving no fee for an assassination that had not happened, but a ransom might make up for that.

  If I were very, very lucky.

  Do not rely on luck. Rely on training and strength. Rely on skill.

  My skill had failed me. I’d failed my training. Luck was all I had left.

  “Then get him inside and keep him there,” was all The Boulder said, before he turned his back on us and headed for the house.

  Masako let out her breath. I raised my voice.

  “Inside,” I said to Ichiro, who looked up from his sister. “Saiko, go with him. Oh, somebody help her, then, if she’s so weak,” I spat furiously, as Saiko moaned at the thought of getting to her feet. “Or sit in the yard. I don’t care. But you,” I growled at Ichiro. “In!”

  “Fuku, Tomiko, get the chamber under the stairs ready,” Masako said briskly. “Okiko, take Saiko inside as well. No, Ozu, don’t you know better than to ask Kata questions about a mission? Anyway, she’s exhausted. Kata, do you want a meal or a bath or a bed first?”

  Oh, a bath. Hot water and steam. I’d forgotten there was anything so marvelous in the world, and I was so grateful to Masako for suggesting it that I could have kissed her, or burst into tears.

  I didn’t, of course. Either one would have been ridiculous. But for that moment, despite everything, I did feel that I’d come home.

  I scrubbed my skin clean with handfuls of rice bran, sloshed water over myself to rinse mud and sweat down the drain, and climbed into the wooden tub. We were lucky to have a hot spring near the school; steaming water dripped through bamboo pipes, and I could feel the aches of the last day and night starting to melt away.

  I was up to my chin in hot water when Saiko came into the bathhouse, shutting the door behind her.

  In the gloom and the steam, with just a white under-robe around her shoulders, she looked like a ghost. She slipped off her sandals before stepping up from the bare earth onto the wooden floor. Then she knelt by the tub where I was soaking, so that her face was on a level with mine.

  “Please, Kata. I would like to explain.”

  Her voice was as perfect as the rest of her, every word as delicate as a chime from a silver bell.

  “You don’t need to explain to me,” I answered, and in my own ears my words sounded as harsh as a crow’s s
pring call. I hadn’t half finished my soak, but I got out of the tub and snatched up a cotton cloth to rub myself dry.

  “It’s Madame you will have to explain to,” I said coldly, twisting my hair to wring the water out of it. “You nearly got me killed. You ruined my mission.” And it had been my first. My first.

  There was a stinging, hot pressure behind my eyes, and that made me angrier than ever. Was I going to cry now? Because of her?

  No. I was not.

  Saiko did not get up. She knelt at my feet, and her face, elegant and beautiful and hauntingly sad, looked up pleadingly at me through wisps of steam.

  “When Madame comes back, you can talk to her,” I said as viciously as I could. “Until then, don’t speak a word to me.”

  I threw on my jacket and trousers. They were filthy and I was clean, but I was too angry to care. Snatching up my sandals, I stalked outside, leaving the bathhouse to Saiko. I paused in the yard before heading for the main house. The Boulder had the rest of the girls drilling with wooden swords. He glanced at me and looked away.

  Should I find a practice blade? But I wasn’t a student any longer.

  I wasn’t a ninja either.

  And clearly The Boulder wasn’t going to tell me what to do. He didn’t even turn his head to look at me a second time. He was going to leave me to Madame. Me and the boy I’d brought with me.

  It felt as if I stood there for hours, though it could only have been a few heartbeats, before I stirred myself into motion again and walked into the house. No one stopped me. No one spoke to me. I made my way upstairs, took a mat from a cupboard, unrolled it, and lay down. All at once I was too tired even to undress. I kicked off my sandals and closed my eyes. Catching up on some of the rest I’d been denied the night before was all I could think of to do.

  But for the first time in years, my sleep was not restful. In my dreams, I was alone, and I was running.

  Slow. I was so slow! It was a huge effort of will to lift each of my feet. And now I had to turn and fight, but my sword was gone.

  I threw kicks and punches in vain. The thing chasing me was never there to be hit. It was behind me, hissing in my ear. It was far away, howling. It vanished under my feet like a snake in tall grass.