Someone was following her.
Panic caught in her throat. She dropped into a crouch, stealing a moment to collect herself. If this person had not called for the guards or accosted her outright, then he—or she—was trying to obtain information on Mariko’s whereabouts. Perhaps they did not yet know her identity.
But that seemed unlikely.
Mariko knew if she dallied, the intruder would only become more emboldened. It was possible this person did not have much experience tracking or remaining beyond notice. Failing to conceal the sound of movement was a very basic error.
From her crouched position, Mariko tied a mask around the lower portion of her face, then tucked her body into a roll. She reoriented herself behind a row of manicured hedges near a grove of yuzu trees, their sweet citrus scent wafting through the cool night air. She waited once more. Closed her eyes. Let her ears catch any signs of motion.
Nothing.
Mariko scuttled in the shadow of the hedgerow framing the grove. The muscles in her stomach knitted together from the strain of staying low to the ground. When the hedgerow came to an end, she paused once more. Still she could hear nothing in her wake.
Her chest began to relax.
Then the faintest smell of sake curled into her nostrils.
Crunch.
She tore from the bushes toward a ceremonial gatepost bordering a stream. Like a whip through the darkness, Mariko raced into the deepest shadow she could find. Behind her, she heard someone—a man—grunt and stumble, striking the soft earth.
A shout rang out, followed by several more. Lanterns flashed in Mariko’s periphery. Without thought, she slid down the bank of the small stream and tucked into a hollow beneath a small arched bridge.
She waited there, trembling uncontrollably as soldiers apprehended the man trailing her. As their shouts melted into muffled conversation. Words she could not discern from the babbling water.
Mariko waited nearly an hour, until the eastern sky began to lighten along its edges, her eyes wide, her fingers in fists. Then she crawled from her hiding place and back toward her room to vomit in an empty chamber pot.
A Pliant Mind
There were many layers to life. Especially a life like her own.
It was trite to say that not everything was as it seemed. But that fundamental understanding had become a necessary part of life. Time had taught Kanako that even the silliest thought—the most insignificant revelation—often held a deeper meaning.
One that could be used to her advantage, if she was given the opportunity.
She’d learned it first as a child. Rare was it for a poor village to raise a young girl with threads of magic running through her veins. The elders had said it happened once in a generation. Usually magic like this only manifested among the nobility—in those whose bloodlines had remained untainted. Kanako’s magic had not been very strong at first. It had been so slight that her parents had not even thought to send her away to the imperial city to study with a true illusionist. It had begun with an ability to talk to animals and glean their thoughts.
When Kanako had grown older, she’d followed a yellow-eyed fox into the forest on a misty spring morning. Beneath a tree with blackened branches, the fox had revealed to her that it was a demon of the wood. It had told her how serving this demon would make her magic stronger. How it would enable Kanako to do not just one small thing, but many larger, greater things. Perhaps something large enough to catch the attention of those in power. With this stronger magic, maybe she could find her way to the school in Inako after all.
No matter that magic had a price. That great magic had an ever greater price.
The things Kanako had lost to the fox demon had gained her far more. It had been a small price to pay, to know that any pain she endured, she endured for a purpose. Any secrets she kept, she kept with this in mind. After all, her magic was of a finite nature. It would weaken with Kanako the more she used it.
This was the mantra by which she lived: the greater the magic, the greater the price.
Recently she’d found herself losing time. Her mind would turn blank for the space of several breaths. Thankfully no one around her had noticed. Nor had they noticed how much longer it took for her to heal from any wounds. The injury inflicted upon her by Asano Tsuneoki that night at the Akechi stronghold still pained her greatly.
But it was a trifling consideration. These costs had gained her a place in the imperial castle. The heart of sovereign. The son she held so dear.
And it was for this son that she did everything.
Channeling the shape of her fox demon, Kanako concealed herself behind a thorny rosebush, biding her time. She waited in the shadows of the enchanted maru—the place she’d conjured to conceal the evidence of her darkest deeds. A place she went to for a breath of calm. Her pulse was slow and steady, her breaths carefully metered, her paws anchored to the earth. Her eyes glowed through the darkness as they sought her mark. She knew he would be returning from Hanami soon, for she’d watched and listened for this precise opportunity.
Hattori Kenshin had disappeared to a teahouse in Hanami for the past several nights. As luck would have it, not once had he elected to take an escort or ask for the company of others.
He would be alone.
Kanako had set her sights on him weeks ago, as she’d worked to ensure her son’s ascension to emperor. In this instance, she felt it only fitting; Lord Kenshin was the elder brother of Raiden’s future wife. Of course he would have a reason to assassinate the current ruler. If he did, his sister would be the wife of the next emperor. His family would rise in station.
In the aftermath, this would make sense to those searching for it. The Dragon of Kai had murdered Minamoto Roku for being an obstacle to his sister becoming empress.
And a silly empress she would be. Kanako sneered to herself as she recalled Hattori Mariko and her pitiable attempts to deceive those in power. Kanako had watched for signs of a threat. When she saw the young woman with the doe eyes round the corner that first day, she’d observed nothing but an earnest child with a desperate wish: to be more. It was this earnestness that had caused Kanako to dismiss her outright. The main difference between Lady Mariko and her twin brother was that the latter had a pliant mind. The former possessed one locked tight under her control.
Useless to Kanako.
Months ago, she’d put this plan into motion. She’d thought to have Mariko murdered on the way to marry her son. With great care, Kanako had planted the seeds of this desire into the mind of her lover, the emperor, until he, too, believed it to be the best course of action. They would blame the Black Clan for the girl’s murder. It would unite the nobles against the last vestiges of insurrection. After Mariko’s death—the murder of an innocent young daughter of an esteemed daimyō—there would be no objections about sending soldiers into the forest to root out the sons of Takeda Shingen and Asano Naganori. To give her warrior son the chance he needed to prove how much more suited he was to the role of emperor, rather than his infantile younger brother. All the while Kanako had concealed a darker plan beneath this simple one. The plan to secretly blame the girl’s murder on the empress and the crown prince. To once and for all sever any ties of loyalty between her son and his younger brother.
And then Hattori Mariko had survived.
Inconvenient, to say the least. But Kanako had been quick to formulate a new way to ensure Raiden’s path as the next emperor of Wa. It was not as simple as using magic to orchestrate a death, for it could not seem in any way as though Kanako had shaped these outcomes.
She needed to appear untouchable, at all times.