The boy was lying facedown in the packed earth, mud oozing around him. His body was a mess of blood and carefully flayed flesh. All but unrecognizable. Even the feeble sound that came from his lips seemed subhuman.
Raiden knew there was no way to gain answers or insight from this broken shell of a creature. A part of him wished to learn if his younger brother had thought to properly question the boy before devolving to this madness. As he studied Roku’s gleaming eyes and serene smile, Raiden knew the answer without asking.
“Demand that this traitor confess who ordered him to conceal the bow and arrow,” Roku said to the soldier holding the boy down. “A boy this size could not have fired a weapon like that from such a distance. He must have been helping someone. If he tells us who it was, I will let him live.”
Live? In his current condition, the boy would last until daybreak, at best.
Raiden watched the emperor attempt to lace his hands behind his back as though he were on an evening stroll. The motion pulled at his sling, causing him to cringe. Unmistakable wrath flickered across his features.
“Proceed,” Roku said to his soldiers. “Show the traitor the mercy of the imperial city.”
The boy no longer had the strength to scream. The faces of the soldiers nearby—save for the one pinning the prisoner to the ground—begged for reprieve. Soldiers well versed in the sight of warfare could no longer stomach these atrocities.
There was no honor in this.
The uncertainty that had taken root in Raiden continued to flourish amid the darkness. His mother had told him once. Only once. Not long after she learned of his father’s death, she’d looked into Raiden’s eyes, her gaze searching. He always found it difficult to read his mother’s emotions. She refused to show them to anyone. Never fought publicly with a soul. Never said an unkind word, save for the warnings she would offer him about maintaining a close relationship with his younger brother.
But his mother had said something clear and unmistakable to Raiden, in the chaotic morning following his father’s death.
“Roku is not fit to rule,” she’d said softly. “He is the tail of a snake.”
Raiden had recoiled at her words. “He is our emperor. Your words are treasonous, Mother. Never say such things to me again, if you value your life.”
She had bowed, both hands held wide as though to convey humility.
“If you are worried he will remove you from court, I know he will not,” Raiden had offered as a source of comfort.
“I am not worried for my sake, my son. But I thank you for your concern. You are a true prince among men. I shall try not to trouble you with such matters again.” Then his mother had left. When she’d gone, it felt like she’d taken the warmth with her.
She always did that, whenever hatred spewed her way from all corners of the court. His mother would bow. Turn the other cheek. And leach all the warmth from the room. Raiden had never before understood how she could disregard the injurious sentiments hurled her way, but he thought he could see why now. His mother had done it to set an example for him. To urge him to be better than the spiders at court. And what had Raiden done in response?
He’d cast her aside to serve his emperor.
“My sovereign,” Raiden said now. “Please allow me to take charge of questioning this prisoner. You have been wounded, and I worry for your health. As the key to our empire—its beating heart—your safety is paramount. Please permit us to protect you from the traitors in your midst.”
Roku considered him for a moment, his head inclined to one side. “How generous of you to make such an offer, brother. After all, it is your wedding night. You have more pleasurable things to attend to.”
“I live to serve my sovereign. And no one else.” As he bowed again, Raiden let a small object sheathed within the sleeve of his kosode fall into his waiting palm.
A moment passed in utter stillness. The only sounds that could be heard were the staggered breaths of those present. The broken rasps of the tortured boy.
“Very well.” Roku finally nodded, his eyes flashing. “Report to me if there are any new developments.”
Raiden bowed again. Then watched as his younger brother strolled from the room, his soiled finery slithering behind him.
Like the tail of a snake.
“Tighten the bonds on his feet,” Raiden ordered the soldier who appeared to enjoy the sight of such savagery.
“Yes, my lord.” The soldier stood, jerking the chains tauter.
Raiden knelt beside the broken boy. Leaned forward, until the scent of his singed flesh cloyed in Raiden’s throat. He crouched closer. The tang of the boy’s metal shackles mixed with the pool of blood and vomit around him, nearly causing Raiden to retch as well.
“You think you can lie to your emperor?” he began, though he felt sickened by the sight. By his participation in it. “You will not lie to me, you filth.” Raiden grabbed the back of the boy’s hair, and his hand turned slick with sweat and blood. “I’ll tell you what happens to fools who betray their heavenly sovereign. Who think to stop the beating heart of our empire.” He edged in closer, dropping his voice to a whisper, filling his features with menace. As he moved, he clenched the small metal object tightly in his hand.
“Lunge for me,” he breathed beside the prisoner’s ear.
“Answer me, you traitor!” Raiden yanked again on the boy’s hair.
The boy’s eyes widened, until Raiden could see the veins of blood etching through them. Raiden nodded at the same time he loosened his hold. He let his menace rise into the air, as though he meant it. As though it were his truth.
The boy’s attempt to lunge for him was feeble. But it was enough.
With a shout, all the soldiers descended on them in a rush.
Raiden let the tiny blade sink between the boy’s ribs just beside his heart, then withdrew the knife back into his sleeve. The wound would not kill the boy immediately. But it would end his life sooner.
It was the best Raiden could do. If his brother discovered he had aided this boy by granting him a measure of mercy, Raiden did not know what Roku might do. The boy was strapped down once more. As Raiden stood again, angry shouts and the sounds of fists against broken flesh coiled into the air.
The boy stared up at him, bloody tears falling from his eyes.
Raiden could not breathe.
Roku is not fit to rule. His mother’s words circled through his mind, like a tortured song.
A Dark Garden
Mariko waited in the bridal bedchamber. She knelt in the corner of the vast space, shrouded in near darkness, until the sounds of pounding feet across wooden floors had died down to a trickle. Her eyes squeezed closed as she held fast to the one thought that kept her tethered to her body:
She’d not heard that the son of Takeda Shingen had been executed.
ōkami could be safe.
And if he was not?
She would not allow herself to consider anything beyond that. If terrible things were destined to come to pass, it did her no good to worry about it twice. She would worry about it when it came time to worry. There were some who would find this behavior unbecoming of a woman, this ability to detach. But Mariko held it as a strength. Through all the trials that had occurred in the last few weeks, her strengths had guided her. The things she’d considered struggles had offered her solutions. She would not turn her back on what defined her, even if others perceived it as a weakness.
The sliding doors flew open. Darkening the threshold stood the imposing form of Minamoto Raiden, Prince of Wa.
Her new husband.
Dread twisted through her throat at the thought of what was to come. She forced it down in the next breath. Mariko had made this choice. She had decided to wed a boy who represented everything she loathed: her past, the person she had been raised to be, the future dictated by her parents.
She had made this choice, and it was hers alone.