Eight years old. Playing in the bamboo every day, she and Satoru, their favorite game. He the brave hunter Masaru, she the Naga Queen, arrows of venom and snakes for hair. She would topple the imaginary forms of the squires Akihito and Kasumi, slay the Hunt Master Rikkimaru and stand poised over Shōgun Kaneda, ready to end him. And with a fearsome shout, Masaru, Rikkimaru’s brave apprentice, would snatch up his sensei’s spear and thrust it into her heart, and she would sink to the cool ground, cursing his prowess, vowing that her children would avenge her.
Serpent Empress. Mother to All Vipers.
Almost a year to the day after the Naga Queen’s death, their father had come home to stay at last. And though they didn’t really know him, they loved him fiercely.
It was their mother who raised them, who forced them to do their chores and eat their vegetables and punished them when they misbehaved. Masaru had always returned from his long treks with trinkets and stories and broad smiles. Sometimes Uncle Akihito or Aunt Kasumi would come too, bringing small mechanical marvels from Kigen: music prisms or glittering spring-loaded contraptions that mapped out the path of the hidden stars. Masaru would sit by the fire and tell hunting tales. Satoru’s eyes would fill with pride and he’d say, “One day I will be like you, father.”
Masaru would laugh and tell his son to work harder at his numbers. But when he had time, he would take the twins out into the bamboo to hunt the small game that grew more scarce every season, or to fish the stream that flowed like crystal down from the Iishi crags. He would love them for a day or two, then disappear for months on end.
They loved him back. It’s easy to lose yourself in the idea of a person and be blinded to their reality. It’s a simple thing, to love a stranger.
But now, for the first time in as long as they could remember, he was home for more than a handful of days. At night he would sometimes tell the story of the Renshi swamps, the hunt Shōgun Kaneda promised would be his last. Satoru asked why the village minstrels sang tales of Kaneda the nagaraja slayer, and barely mentioned the brave apprentice Masaru, who saved his Lord’s life. Their father said that it did not matter what the minstrels sang, that pride was the province of men who did not understand what was truly important.
Playing and fishing and breathing, a blessed handful of months beneath the scorching summer sun. Sometimes the twins would dance together in the dappled shade between the bamboo stalks, and he would simply sit and stare, motionless, his smile reaching all the way to his eyes. He was home. He was happy.
And then the letter arrived.
After fourteen months of agony, Shōgun Kaneda had succumbed to the nagaraja’s toxin and gone to his heavenly reward, succeeded by his thirteen-year-old son, Yoritomo. The new Shōgun commanded Masaru to move his family to Kigen and take up Sensei Rikkimaru’s old role: Hunt Master of the Shōgunate court.
Their mother refused to go. Naomi loathed the thought of leaving Kitsune land for Kigen’s polluted labyrinth and choking fumes.
“Besides,” she argued, “what is there left to hunt? The last of the Black Yōkai is dead. What need does the Shōgun have of hunters now, aside from indulging foolish pride?”
Masaru had been torn between love and duty; his wife and his honor. And so they fought, shouting matches that went on for hours, driving their children into the comforting veil of long emerald leaves and swaying stalks and cool dark earth. There they would play hunters, or chase the few remaining butterflies flapping on feeble, near-translucent wings. Even this close to the mountains, the lotus was beginning to leave its stain; the fields were encroaching further north every year, choking exhaust rolling among the morning mist. Every so often they would catch the scent of smoke on the air, and Satoru would decide they were hunting Kagé today, crashing off through the undergrowth. Yukiko would follow, whooping like a wild thing.
They ran through forest that day, Satoru swinging his stick of bamboo like a double-handed daikatana, hacking at imaginary foes. She raced along with him, flitting among the swaying green, eyes alight.
“Let’s play nagaraja,” Satoru said.
“Not today.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m always the Naga Queen.” She made a face. “I always get killed.”
“Well, that’s how it happened.” He was busy hacking at a thick tangle of akebi vines. “You slay Sensei Rikkimaru, though. You give Uncle Akihito his scars.”
“Why don’t you be the Naga Queen, then?”
“Because I’m a boy,” he laughed, stabbing at the vines again. “Boys can’t be queens. And you do the voice better than me.”
Yukiko smiled and crouched low, pawing at the air.
“My children will avenge meeeeeee,” she hissed.