Bracing her hand on the low table nearby, Mariko stood in a soft rustle of silk. She cleared her voice, held her head high. And made her way toward Raiden. As she drew closer, she caught the scent of blood and seared flesh. The unmistakable odor of the castle’s cruel underbelly.
Her heart leapt from her chest. She froze mid-step.
Raiden had just come from killing ōkami.
Mariko saw what would happen next, clear in her mind’s eye. She would lunge for him. She would aim for his eyes and throat. She would do as she had done in the forest that first night and drive a hairpin through his eye if need be.
She would fail.
Her ears rang with silent fury. But she kept still. Cold. Detached. Her last remaining strength.
“My brother …” Raiden began, his voice hoarse.
Mariko inhaled carefully through her nose. In her desire to learn ōkami’s fate, she’d nearly forgotten that Minamoto Roku’s life had been threatened today. A loyal subject would think of nothing else. “The emperor is well?” Her words sounded like they were carved from ice.
I am not loyal. I am a traitor.
Raiden did not answer immediately. “He is … safe.”
It did not escape Mariko’s notice that he chose a different way to answer. Used different words to convey a similar sentiment.
“May I offer you something to drink, my lord?” Mariko said, trying to force her body to keep still and not betray her flurry of thoughts. “Something to lighten the burden of the day’s events?”
“No.” Raiden stepped from the shadows into the weak light filtering from the oil lantern hanging above. His features had aged a decade in the matter of a single evening. Her new husband did not pause as he doffed his chest armor. Mariko did not offer to help him. The mere idea of doing something so intimate slithered over her skin like an eel. She thought to call for a servant.
“Takeda Ranmaru escaped during our wedding.” Though he watched her sidelong, Raiden spoke as if it were an afterthought. Then proceeded to sigh while struggling with the gauntlet on his left arm.
After a long pause in which her heart lurched into her throat, Mariko moved to help him, some perverse sense of gratitude driving her to take action. She reached for the ties of his gauntlet, and her fingers brushed across his hand. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. When Mariko met Raiden’s gaze, she was surprised to find his expression had softened.
As though he appreciated her halfhearted attempt to offer comfort.
It felt odd, to be standing beside this boy she barely knew, playing the role of his dutiful wife. Mariko swallowed, quickly bringing to mind the reaction she should have to the news that her captor was once again free.
Raiden continued studying her. “You are unconcerned by the news?”
“My only concern is for your welfare, my lord.”
“You lie well, wife.”
Her fingers fumbled on the lacing at his shoulder. Since he knew her to be speaking in falsehoods, it was only appropriate for her to accept a measure of blame. “Of course I am concerned for my own well-being, too. It alarms me to know he managed to break free. But am I wrong to assume you would not let something happen to me, now that we have been joined in marriage?”
Raiden did not reply. He maintained his cool appraisal of her features, as though he were trying to focus on the sediments swirling in a muddy ravine.
One side of Mariko’s lips curled upward. “I know you do not trust me, my lord. But this is the life we have chosen for ourselves, inasmuch as we were given the right to choose. I do not wish to begin it amid strife. If you believe I helped Lord Ranmaru escape today—though I stood calmly beneath the same pavilion as you, at risk to my own life—then I am already dead in your eyes.” She dipped a cloth in a bowl of clean water and brought it to him. No matter how relieved she was to learn that ōkami was safe, she did not trust her features to remain steady while touching Raiden’s face.
He took the cloth and wiped his brow. Then he turned his back to clean his hands. Without a word, Raiden removed the rest of his armor. He stopped short when he saw the pallet as it had been laid out. For their wedding night. After an uncomfortable pause, he looked at her, his features drawn, as though he knew he were on the cusp of making a mistake.
“I’m tired,” he said simply.
“Yes.” Mariko nodded, relief unfurling through her body. “As am I.”
Careful to place his tantō beside him, Raiden lay down on the pallet, not bothering to use the silk-tufted blanket provided for them. Mariko waited for a time, then came to kneel at the edge of the pallet, still dressed in her wedding night finery.
She watched Raiden stare at the ceiling above them. At its intricate alcoves and painted silk screens. Every dark eave was interwoven with parts of a story; most were of the conquests made by his family.
Her family now. Though it was likely some of its ranks had tried to kill her, as she’d suspected from the begining. Strange how that seemed to be the least of her worries now. The very question that had driven her to defy her family and disguise her identity. Only to find the truths hidden within.
Mariko waited until Raiden’s eyes drifted closed. Beneath his jaw, she caught sight of a muscle twitching, even as he slept. Once he’d fallen asleep, she removed the jeweled pins the servants had placed in her hair and let her tresses tumble to her shoulders. She lay beside him, keeping her body as far away from his as the space would permit.
Mariko chewed on the inside of her cheek, the events of the day winding through her mind. Then Raiden rolled over. He threw an arm around her waist, his fingertips grazing the thin silk at her hip. Mariko froze, the pace of her heart doubling its rhythm. His breaths were long and drawn, as though he were in the throes of deepest sleep. But his body twitched like it was ready at a moment’s notice to rise from their pallet, sword in hand.
Mariko eased from beneath his arm, uncomfortable with this unexpected display of intimacy. She slept in a ball at the foot of the pallet, her dreams clouded by images of a dark garden filled with tiny mirrors.
No One’s Hero
The smoke curled from the funeral pyre into the twilit sky. ōkami studied the flames as they danced above Ren’s body—all that remained of his friend. The fire crackled and fizzed, filling the air with the scent of burning flesh.
ōkami leaned against a birch tree along the fringes, disdaining any offer of assistance. It was not that he was too proud. If anything, the misfortunes of his life had proven to him how pointless it was to let pride dictate his actions. No. He was not proud.
He simply wanted to be alone.
It was a strange emotion for him.
After he’d lost his mother as a small child, then witnessed the death of his father only a few years later, one of ōkami’s greatest fears was being left alone. The dreams that tore apart his sleep—that set his teeth on edge—were usually ones in which he was left to fend for himself in cold darkness or blearing sunlight, begging to no one for a cup of water or a bowl of rice.
ōkami shifted against the tree, and a wave of pain unfurled down his body. Though his demon had worked beneath the moonlight to repair the damage, he was still a shadow of his former self. And he’d left those responsible for it unscathed.
Worse, he’d left Mariko. Alone.
Grimacing, he returned his attention to Ren’s funeral pyre.
Under cover of night, the men of the Black Clan had taken them from the clearing to a bamboo forest known as the Ghost’s Gambit. ōkami could not remember how they’d brought him here. He only remembered that he had been unable to relinquish his hold on Ren. He would not leave his friend alone. Anywhere. Even in death. It still stole the breath from his body to know that Ren had died protecting him. Just like Yorishige, that boy who’d reminded him so much of Yoshi.
That child ōkami had left behind.
Uesama. It had been the last word Ren had spoken in this life.