No. Tsuneoki bared his own fangs, giving his wordless reply teeth.
Run or stay and watch as I turn your men into creatures of my bidding. As I steal from you all your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams. Until you are nothing but a husk drifting about at my whim.
Tsuneoki widened his stance, driving his heavy paws into the ground, anchoring himself to the earth. Preparing for combat. The fox stopped gliding toward him. Glittering white smoke—a preternatural mist—began swirling around its feet.
Don’t be a fool, it said.
Tsuneoki threw back his head and let loose a mournful bay. A howl meant to drive his men back to the forest. A howl demanding them to flee. Demanding Ren to listen and obey, for once.
The fox’s grin broadened as it quirked its head. We are both creatures possessed by wind and sky. Honor me, and I shall honor you. Defy me, and I shall drive you—and yours—to utter ruin.
In the shadows, the samurai on horseback continued watching. Waiting. Tsuneoki began his charge, his claws spreading into a dark fog. The fox responded in kind, the wisps of shimmering white haze spinning in lazy eddies.
Two billowing clouds of smoke—one light and one dark—clashed together in the middle of the winding dirt lane, their figures trailing mists of magic, their bodies slamming into one another with a force that cracked through the night air. The fox was smaller, but faster. Its first gash was just below Tsuneoki’s snout, clearly aimed for his neck—a wound meant to kill rather than incapacitate. In response, Tsuneoki feigned a yelp, limping back, luring the grinning fox closer. Then he pounced, slashing into the creature with a sideswipe of his front paw, catching just below one of its front legs. The fox cried out, then locked its yellow eyes upon him. The color in their centers caught flame. A sinister sneer curled the edges of its black lips. It twisted, the smoke around it dark now instead of light.
Before Tsuneoki could devise a plan, something ripped through his side. A flash of heat tore beneath his ribs, clamoring for his heart, its nails sharp, its bite remorseless. The clawing heat grasped for his mind, twisting and unraveling whatever it managed to uncover. It sank its fangs, trying to force him under its control, but Tsuneoki fought back. Pressed the demon’s magic away from the brink, the effort causing his sight to blur.
With a snarl, the fox wreaked a new kind of havoc as its retribution, stealing from Tsuneoki his most treasured memories, his most secret desires.
What began as a bear’s roar of pain faded to the cry of a young man.
Tsuneoki landed against the damp earth with a thud, no longer a creature of magic. The wound across his torso—a slash of bleeding fire—flowed into the ground. The fiery touch of the fox burned through his skull.
Foolish, foolish boy. The fox tsked as it floated in a circle around him. It stopped to inspect its own wound. Licked the blood from it with complete leisure.
Yumi is her name? It smiled serenely. When I find her, your sister will pay for this.
Marked for Life
The emperor and his elder brother moved through the bowels of the imperial palace—a place where only the lowliest of servants trudged alongside scuttling creatures and reeking refuse. Deep in the shadows beneath a trifling excuse for a window were two single cells barred by iron doors, braced by wooden rafters. Each cell possessed a grate for waste and a floor covered in rotting straw. Nothing more.
It was a small and spare space, but the Golden Castle did not have need of a prison beyond this. Those with the gall to offer insult to the emperor or any of his liege lords were faced with one of two punishments: death or banishment, with death culminating in any number of colorful ways: being dragged through the streets by the throat, hung upside down and drowned, stretched from the ramparts, thrown into a venomous snake pit, or—if luck was at all on the offender’s side—being simply beheaded.
And those who were banished?
They were marked for life.
Roku and Raiden made their way to the cell in the far corner, with four imperial guards at their flank, and the scarred man dressed in shadowy robes still in tow, bearing the iron trunk stained with dried blood.
Crouched against the stone wall sat an unassuming figure. A tangle of dark hair shrouded his features. His black kosode was coated in ash and blood and grime. The shifting moonlight above threw the maze of rafters into sharp relief, cutting angles across the floor beside his feet.
“Takeda Ranmaru,” Roku began in a soft voice. “It is a great honor to finally meet you.”
ōkami did not move. Failed to acknowledge the greeting with even a glance.
“On your knees, you filth,” Raiden said, his fingers twitching above the white snakeskin samegawa of his katana. “Bow before your emperor.”
Save for a small smile, ōkami remained seated amid the filthy straw, stretching his legs before him as though he were blissfully unaffected by Raiden’s threat.
Roku grinned slowly. “A rather pitiful show of defiance.”
Still no sign of a response.
At that, Raiden nodded, silently ordering one of the imperial guards to unlock the cell.
The emperor raised a hand to stop them, his head canted to one side. “Words of kindness do not seem to move you,” Roku mused. “And my brother has already opted for intimidation. I’ve lowered myself to base insults, all in the span of only a few moments. What is left?”
ōkami glanced at the hooded figure hovering to one side. Studied the dark trunk clasped between the man’s bony hands, and the hungry sneer of his cracked lips. “Threats.” His response was pronounced in a cool, unhurried fashion. Though appearing at ease, his body remained carved from stone, like a somnolent mountain.
“This is true,” Roku agreed. “Would threats work?”
“Pain,” ōkami continued, his gaze never once falling from the trunk.
Roku’s smile was fierce, almost as though he relished the prospect. “Would that work? If I threatened you with pain, would you cooperate?”
ōkami remained unconcerned. Raiden nodded again toward the imperial guards, and the lock on the cell door unlatched with an ominous series of clicks.
Roku sighed. “It troubles me that we cannot share a meeting of minds even on this very simple matter, Lord Ranmaru.”
A grin coiled up one side of ōkami’s face, accentuating a diagonal scar through his lips. “My mind exists on a mountain. Yours exists in a field. Should the mountain kneel before the field?” He bared his white teeth in a dark smile, then nodded to the straw before him. “Or will the field crawl to me?”
“You traitorous swine.” Stepping into the cell, Raiden freed his blade from its saya with a rasp. “You will address your heavenly sovereign with respect.” His words were as sharp as a reaping scythe, his weapon raised with murderous intent.
At that, ōkami looked up. The moonlight sifting through the slatted window above bent as though it were reaching for him. But he remained just beyond its grasp, the scar through his lips turning silver.
“So soon,” he murmured.
Raiden blinked. “What?”
“I’ve learned your weakness so soon, Prince Raiden.”
His eyes narrowing, Raiden drew back his blade and struck the stone wall a hairsbreadth from ōkami’s head, and a shower of golden sparks descended around them.
“Brother …” Roku said quietly. “Patience.”
“You yearn for respect, even in a world designed to offer it to you, without question,” ōkami continued, his black stare unflinching. “But maybe it was withheld by someone as a child. Or perhaps you predictably despise your fate?” He lowered his voice. “Firstborn, yet destined for nothing.”
Just as Raiden drew back his sword a second time, Roku raised his hand to silence them both. “And what is your weakness, Lord Ranmaru?” the emperor asked his prisoner.
As expected, ōkami did not answer.