“I thought as much,” she said. “That is why you want oil today, and not food.”
Again I nodded. Just give me the oil. Just give me the oil and let me jump into the fire; better that than live and continue hurting you.
“Was she hurt?” Ren asked. “The woman you wanted to buy food for.”
I was a waterskin, pierced by an arrow. Something within me just … just burst. And before I knew what was happening, I was on the floor of a singing girl’s home in tears.
“I did it,” I kept repeating. “I hurt her, I almost killed her and I couldn’t stop.…”
Clutching my knees, I was clutching my knees, rocking back and forth. Horrible, weepy moans left me. At times I’d tug at my hair or rake my cheeks. Ren sat in front of me, whispering words I did not quite understand in the haze of my depression. I remember her saying she was going to hold me, I remember that. I remember how she struggled to fit her arms around me because of our disparate sizes. I remember how much she looked like you: small, dark, delicate, like a porcelain doll I’d nearly shattered.
I let her hold me. I let her hold me because I knew I was never going to let you do it again. Not with what had happened.
I do not know how long I was weeping, only that by the time I was done, my voice was hoarse and my eyes ached. It was only then that I began to hear what Ren was saying.
“You must keep going, Barsalai,” she said. “For all those who cannot.”
“Why?” I snapped. “Why bother?”
At this she pursed her lips. “Because we need hope,” she said.
I hung my head. Hope. As if I could provide such a thing.
Ren stood, all at once, and reached for the shrine. “You are the only one who has ever helped us,” she said. “Really helped us. The guards sit on their haunches and complain of danger; the captains on the Wall don’t pay attention to commoners. Only you helped us. Only you have lived, where everyone else has died.”
I wished I were dead, too. I looked up at her and frowned.
“There will be other villages,” she said. “Other singing girls who need help. There will be soldiers, once afraid of the blackblood, who remember that you’ve conquered it. Barsalai, you must keep going.”
“I hurt her,” I said.
“Does she live?” asked Ren.
I nodded. Yes, I’d seen you get up. You were alive, thank the gods.
“Then you have to see her again,” she said, “if only to apologize.” Ren sat near me again. With shaking hands, she offered me her father’s mask. “Here,” she said. “Wear it and remember: You are a hero in Shiseiki.”
I stared at it, stared at her.
“Take it,” she said.
“It was your father’s,” I said.
She nodded slowly. She touched the fox’s muzzle one last time. “It was,” she said. “But he cannot wear it now. So I think it is right for you to have it.”
I stared at the mask.
Yes, it was a fine piece of craftsmanship. Every hair on the fox’s muzzle ached to be petted. Wrinkles around its eyes suggested mischievous mirth. Ren was being humble about her father. Only officers receive war masks of this quality. Such a thing could easily fetch five hundred ryo at market. More, if the buyer, like my brother, delighted in historical artifacts. That was more than enough to leave this village. It was enough to feed a village.
Yet here she was, offering it to a woman she’d known for all of a day.
I shook my head. “I cannot,” I said.
Ren pursed her lips. “Barsalai, please,” she said. “It is the only thing of value I can give you.”
“Why?” I asked, meeting her gaze. Why give me anything at all? I’d only asked for oil.
Yet she did not waver. There was so much about her that reminded me of you, Shizuka—a different version of you. For she, too, was small as a yearling, but coltish and stubborn. I saw in her eyes and the set of her dainty feet that she was not going to let me win.
“You know the story of Minami Shiori and the fox woman?” she asked. Of course I did. I’d only heard you tell it forty times.
One day, while walking through the woods, a distraught woman came running up to your ancestor. The woman, dressed in finery, claimed that she was part of the Son of Heaven’s caravan. Bandits had just attacked. The guard captain was among the slain. She needed someone to fight back, and Minami Shiori was the first person she saw holding a sword.
Instantly Shiori was suspicious. Fine though the woman’s robes were, they were also old—the sort of thing a grandmother might wear.
“My lady,” said Shiori, “you understand, the gods are at war—these are troubling times. Swear on the Eight that the Son of Heaven is truly in danger, and I will go.”
At this the woman faltered. She hemmed and hawed and tried to find a way out of it. Just as Shiori was about to draw her blade, the woman spoke.
“I swear to you on the Eight,” she said, “that the Son of Heaven is truly in danger, and I will truly take you to his side.”
It is well known no one can break an Eightfold Oath. So Shiori followed the woman without reservation. Sure enough, she did come upon the Son of Heaven tied to a tree. Sure enough, his entire coterie lay as corpses around him, with holes where their hearts should’ve been.
It was then that the woman rounded on Shiori. She’d kept her word, for she’d brought her back to an endangered Emperor. But that was where the oath ended. As she fixed Shiori with her heart-piercing glare, she was sure of her victory.
But Minami Shiori knew the instant she laid eyes on the Emperor what had happened. She drew her blade and sheath, then held her sheath before her face.
“Will you not put your weapons down?” cooed the fox woman. “I mean you no harm.”
“You mean to kill me,” she said, “and bewitch the Emperor besides. No, I shall not put my sword down.”
She crept closer, staring at the fox woman’s feet to judge distance. Fox paws peeked out from beneath the hem of her robes.
“But must you kill me, my darling?” said the fox woman. “For I have loved you long from afar, and I know all the secrets of your body. Come to me, lie with me, and I will make you strong enough to conquer Hokkaro.”
Shiori took another step forward, and another, and another. Eventually she did drop her sword and sheath—but she never looked directly at the creature. It wrapped its arms around her, pulled her in close—
And it was then that Shiori struck. She pulled a knife from inside her sleeve and slipped it between the fox woman’s ribs. After the creature crumpled to the ground, she cut off one of its nine tails, and dabbed the blood on the Emperor’s lips. This broke the fox woman’s spell.