I would rather be as I am. Because this boy lacks any evidence of a soul.
Her nails dug into her palm even farther. She swallowed in an attempt to look unnerved. “But I am gratified to see my future family best our enemy,” Mariko finished in a clear tone.
At this, the chains binding ōkami jangled. Her eyes going wide, Mariko watched him struggle to sit upright, strangely grateful to know he still retained some of his faculties. To know that a part of him still lived. As his face shifted into a pool of torchlight, her nails nearly drew blood.
Please let my sorrow be masked by my pain.
The beating had been worse than she first thought. Now Mariko could make out a terrible, glistening wound on his neck, just below the right side of his jaw.
ōkami stared straight at her, even through an eye swollen shut.
Then—to the surprise of all present, save Mariko—he began laughing. He coughed around the sound as he leaned closer to the torchlight. The flickering flames rendered his broken face into a mass of moving shadows. “You brought the useless girl with you. I hope it was worth getting her dressed like an empress to see this,” he rasped with amusement.
ōkami had said something similar to Mariko before. Called her useless when she’d felt most vulnerable. It had stung then, laden as it was with truth. But Mariko knew he said it now for a reason. She could see the glint of something in his gaze—a strength of will the sons of Minamoto Masaru had not even begun to break. And Mariko knew ōkami was trying—even as he lay broken and bleeding against a filthy mound of straw—to offer her comfort by hearkening back to their time together.
To spare her from his suffering, even in the smallest of measures.
Mariko swallowed slowly, letting her vision blur. Shoring up her reserve.
At Raiden’s behest, the lock of the cell was unlatched by a waiting soldier. ōkami raised himself on an elbow, and the emperor’s brother stepped inside to level a vicious kick at his midsection. Mariko bit her tongue to keep from crying out at the muffled thud.
“You dare to address a lady in such a manner?” Raiden spat on ōkami before kicking him again.
Mariko’s teeth ground together. It took every bit of her remaining willpower to stay motionless. Down to the marrow of her bones, she despised Raiden. Briefly she considered the satisfaction she would feel at shoving a blade through his stomach.
One day, I will make sure he pays for every wound he inflicts.
But she could not contemplate these thoughts now. The darkness needed to invade her. A cool wash of ice needed to flow through her veins. She needed this detachment. Needed to make sure she felt everything in a single instant and then nothing at all in the next breath.
As he watched her inhale, Roku stepped closer. Close enough to touch. The smell of fine silk and the hint of camellia oil radiated from his skin as he placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, startling her. Roku smiled. “Don’t worry, Hattori Mariko. We’ve made certain the son of Takeda Shingen won’t forget his place, not even for an instant. For the remainder of his short life, he will not be able to escape the tarnish of his treachery.” With a wave of his hand, he beckoned toward his brother.
Raiden moved the torch closer to ōkami’s face.
In the dim reaches of the firelight, Mariko saw the wound below his jaw, etched into his skin in jagged strokes.
At first glance, something about it looked amiss. But when Mariko tilted her head, she realized what they’d done. The two characters meaning “loyalty” had been inked into ōkami’s neck, but they’d been placed backward. A mark of mockery and shame. One undoubtedly meant to burn the memory of Takeda Shingen’s treachery into his son’s flesh.
As though it had not been there already.
Mariko’s first desire was to react with rage. She wanted to knock the emperor’s hand off her shoulder and sear the smile off his face.
It was a child’s desire. An exercise in futility.
Roku was a cruel boy playing a cruel game. It was clear the empire’s newest sovereign was a shrewd young man, but it was also evident that his cruelty rivaled his intelligence. The Emperor of Wa enjoyed toying with people to see how they would react. And Mariko refused to be any man’s toy.
It was time to show she had a spine. There was a possibility doing so would prove foolish; it was a gamble to allow anyone to see past her armor. But Mariko had assembled her own suspicions in the short time she’d stood calmly beside Roku. As he’d searched for what lay buried behind her heart, Mariko had done the same with him.
If Roku still watched over his prisoner’s cell long after his punishment had been doled out—if the emperor had chosen to keep ōkami alive past the point when wisdom would have dictated otherwise—Mariko wagered it was not merely for the sport of it.
Something about ōkami had wriggled beneath Roku’s smiles. The Emperor of Wa was not done causing the son of Takeda Shingen pain. Which meant he relished lording his power over others.
Mariko began with a low bow. She let the blood collect in her head so that when she stood once more, her face appeared flushed in what she hoped was a becoming fashion. “I beg your forgiveness, my sovereign. I do not mean to be impertinent, but I am still uncertain as to why I have been brought here.” Her nails continued digging into her palms. “It’s true this boy took me prisoner. He and his men forced me to work for them until my hands bled. But I am not gladdened to be reminded of this, nor am I the kind of woman who would enjoy seeing cruelty befall any living creature.” Mariko’s voice dropped to a hush. “Have I been brought here as a test of loyalty?” she asked outright, not caring that indignation seeped into her tone.
Roku peered at her, his gaze taking in her every move. “And if you were?”
She nodded once, biding her time. “I would understand why, my sovereign. But it would still cause me pain to hear it.”
“Why is that?”
“Because my loyalty—the loyalty of the Hattori clan—was never once put to question until I was stolen from my family against my will.” Mariko focused her attention on the floor, feigning humility as her speech turned tremulous. “Again I beg pardon for my frankness, but I have had a trying time recently.” She swallowed hard, as though she were warding away tears, her breath wobbling past her lips. “Is it wrong for me to believe I have suffered enough, my sovereign?”
Roku linked his hands behind him. “Then you do not wish Takeda Ranmaru to perish for his crimes?”
It was a delicate balance—the two sides of this game—for it was evident the emperor did not see the truth as she did. As Kenshin had warned, this was a test. If Mariko were simply to say she wished ōkami dead, the emperor would continue toying with them. An easy answer would not lead to an easy outcome, not with a boy like Minamoto Roku.
Be water.
Warmth pooled in one of Mariko’s palms. Her nails had drawn blood. She let the pain radiate to her eyes and imbued grief into her expression. “Please do not think me ungrateful, my sovereign, but I would never wish to bring about a man’s death, no matter how deserved it might be.” A single tear welled in her left eye as she lied without so much as a care to the Emperor of Wa. Her heavenly sovereign.
It was an artful attempt at persuasion, especially when contrasted with her pitiable efforts earlier. Alas, Mariko’s attempt to convey sorrow did not appear to move Roku in the slightest. He said nothing as his eyes constricted, suspicion tugging at his lips.
Like the pounding of an approaching stampede, Mariko’s heartbeat rose in her ears.