“How unfortunate for you,” she murmured. “Because I want much more than that.”
He smiled. His lips pressed beneath her chin, and Mariko wrapped both arms around his neck, drawing him over her.
ōkami took hold of her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand. Then he dragged a fingertip along the edge of fabric at her chest, loosening it, pulling it away.
All too slowly.
She sighed in frustration.
“So impatient. You’ve always been so impatient.” With his teeth, he spread apart her underrobe. Every bit of unveiled skin, he kissed, his breath a whisper and a promise.
Mariko brought him back to her lips. “You’re trembling,” she teased.
“I’m cold.”
“Liar. Tell me something true.”
“You first.”
She swallowed carefully. “I am not a maid.”
“Neither am I.” He laughed as she shoved a hand in his face.
“ōkami?” She looked into his eyes. “To me, you are magic, too.” Mariko rested a palm against his chest. “My heart knows your heart. A heart doesn’t care about good or bad, right or wrong. A heart is always true.”
All trace of amusement vanished from his expression. “I may lie every day of my life, Hattori Mariko. But my heart will always be true.”
She could ask for nothing else. Mariko crushed her lips to his. He caught her against him, swallowing her sigh with a kiss. Causing her to catch flame as his tongue swept into her mouth. She let the fire burn through her until every thought in her mind was nothing but a wisp of smoke.
And Mariko felt it. The magic of a night sky filled with stars. Of a haunted forest with demons hidden in its folds.
Of a liar, cloaked in truth.
She felt it with every brush of his lips, every touch of his skin to hers.
The searing warmth of this new emotion. This hope she dared not name. A part of Mariko knew better than to touch this kind of flame. Knew better than to let anything deliberately burn her. But she returned ōkami’s embrace. Returned each of his kisses. Every touch. Until nothing at all existed between them.
But shared breaths.
And unspoken promises.
Lies.
And unshakable truth.
THE BLACK ORCHID
Kanako watched her son, Raiden, sit across from the son of her enemy. She watched him laugh. Watched him listen intently. Interject occasionally.
Her face was cool and calm. Though her blood boiled from within.
The emperor dreamed of a world in which both his sons held power. Roku as emperor. Raiden as shōgun.
For years, Kanako had smiled at this. Smiled and gifted the emperor tastes of her power. Tastes that had intoxicated him. Kept him in her thrall. It had not mattered to her that the emperor’s evil hag of a wife mistreated her daily. Spoke down to her. Belittled her at every turn. It was not unusual for an emperor to have several consorts. For an empress to abase them out of jealousy or spite.
But Kanako had watched for nineteen years as the hag had mistreated her son.
Openly mocked him. Openly called him a whoreson.
Kanako could stomach anything when it came to herself. But she would not stomach any more of the tiny she-devil’s contempt for Raiden.
The emperor was her lover. Her son was her beloved.
There was no contest when it came to Kanako’s loyalties.
She wandered away from the first enchanted maru. Wove through the next set of gates. Then another. And another. Kanako paused before a flowering orchid tree. When she raised her hand, the surface of its leaves shimmered. Distorted.
The tree had been bewitched years before, by an enchantress of great skill. Kanako waved her hand across the blossoms. Removed a purple flower at its base. She gently drifted past the vines along its bottom. Vines that snaked toward her feet, then curled back, as though they’d wandered too near a fire.
A mirrored surface shimmered to life before her. Kanako touched a finger in its center and watched eight concentric circles ripple from the point of contact.
She stepped through the mirrored surface, into a garden absent color. Everything around her was rendered in shades of grey and white. Of black and silver. Her skin was milky, her kimono a stark contrast. A layered arrangement of painted silk.
A man waited beneath a yuzu tree. Its citrus scent wafted toward her, sharp and fresh all at once.
The man stood, dressed in a formal hakama, his features solemn.
A dark grey fox with golden eyes ambled across a corner of the enclosed garden. Stopped. And waited.
“I’ve come with another task for you,” Kanako said to the solemn man.
“Then I am to reemerge from this place?”
“It is time.” She conjured a silk purse from nothingness. The silver pieces within clinked together as she passed it along to him. “You must tell my son to go into Jukai forest. The fox will show you the way.”
“How does the fox know?”
“The fox is a creature of the forest. It always watches. Always knows.” Kanako smiled warmly. “Tell Raiden to seek out the Dragon of Kai.”
The man’s gaze hardened. “Hattori Kenshin.”
“You were unsuccessful in the forest the first time. But here is another chance to remedy your mistake. Find the Dragon’s sister, and you will find the one we seek. The one who will set this course on its rightful path.”
“What am I to do with the Dragon once I am done?”
“It is immaterial to me what happens to Hattori Kenshin. Bring me a way to control the leader of the Black Clan. A way to exert influence over the son of Takeda Shingen. If he will not come to me of his own volition, then I will pull his strings from afar and wait.”
“This is what the emperor wishes of me?”
Kanako bowed. “I serve our emperor, in all ways. And you serve him in the greatest of ways.”
The man nodded and returned her bow.
Kanako passed him the flower in her hand. The orchid had turned black. She breathed deep of its perfume. Blood and heavy musk. “Take care not to damage our prize, Nobutada-sama.”
“Of course.” For an instant, his eyes glazed over. Distress washed across his face.
The distress of a man in conflict with his soul.
“The emperor will not look kindly on you should you fail,” Kanako reminded him, imbuing her words with steel.
Nobutada nodded, setting his spine straight. “If need be, I will die to bring an end to this conflict.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” She smiled. “You are the finest of samurai. A true tribute to your way.” Her eyes drifted across the sea of grey and silver before her. To the immense white oak tree in the distance. And the distortion in its center. “If Hattori Kenshin should cause you any trouble, do not hesitate to inform me.” Kanako wandered closer to the white oak. “I am caring for something he desperately wishes restored to him. Your lord will be grateful to us for our consideration.”
Nobutada bowed once more.
Kanako waved her hands across the thick trunk of the white oak. The mottled surface of the bark shifted to reveal a young woman, fast asleep in an enchanted slumber.
Half of her face was badly burned.
A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE