The Black Blossom: A Young Adult Romantic Fantasy (The Healer Series Book 2)

by C. J. Anaya

  He failed to notice the soft glow of his sword each time it accidentally made contact with Edana’s skin.

  Someone shouted from the distance, and then Edana was wrenched from his arms.

  “What did you do?” Musubi yelled. He held her close to his chest and placed a hand to her head. Katsu ached for his friend as he watched his eyes roam over Edana’s form, frantically searching for a flicker of life, a spark of light within her.

  He knew what Musubi encountered when he attempted to connect to Edana.

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  When Musubi opened his eyes, Katsu, the great warrior kami, felt his heart break further. Not only had he lost a woman he hadn’t been aware he loved, but through his misguided desire to save his best friend he had just managed to lose him as well. He hadn’t a clue as to how to make amends for his enormous mistake, and no viable resource for bringing Edana back to life.

  Musubi’s voice shook. “Katsu, what did you do?”

  He knew he must own up to his part in all of this. He had to admit that Edana’s death was his fault, and he willingly did so, feeling the ache of that one truth.

  “I told her I never truly loved her. I was testing her to see if she loved you and intended to remain faithful to you. I...” He took a deep breath as Musubi pulled Edana closer, wiping away the blood from the side of her face as if that might somehow bring her back to them. ““I was trying to protect you, Musubi. If you had lost your immortality to a woman as fickle as the ones I’ve encountered I would have lost you forever.”

  Musubi’s anger hung heavy between them. “So you concocted this little plan of yours to save me from myself? After all of these years, I finally found someone who wasn’t fated for any other person, someone whose soul belonged to no one else. Untethered.” He whispered that last word to himself. “And I actually cared for her. I…” Musubi’’s voice caught on a sob and his shoulders shook.

  Katsu swallowed the guilt and grief his actions had caused, attempting to hold back his own devastation at the loss of Edana. This wasn’t about him or the realization of what he’d lost. This was about what Musubi had longed for since the beginning of his creation. A soul mate, someone to love, someone who could love him in return, and his friend now believed that love to be lost forever. It wasn’t something Musubi would soon recover from.

  Neither of them would.

  “I didn’t know she intended to take her own life when I told her the truth. Musubi, please, I didn’t realize she had actually——”

  “What? Fallen in love with you? Why not, when so many have before? When so many other human women have watched you walk away from them with their hearts broken and their own worst fears suddenly realized. To ruin countless women who will never be accepted by another man or even open to accepting one themselves.” Musubi broke a fist through a massive rock beside him, his anger a foreign emotion Katsu had never before witnessed. “What made you think Edana would be any less devastated by your deceit? These women have never been fickle of heart, Katsu. That role has always been played by you.”

  Katsu shut his eyes as the truth of Musubi’s words began to sink in and take root within his conscience. He was right, of course. His behavior with human women had been less than stellar, rebelling against the idea of being shackled to The Healer for the rest of his existence. He had taken his love life in his own hands and made of it what he would for as long as the fates might permit.

  He had the sure knowledge that for better or worse he would never be alone once he united himself with The Healer. The gift of a soul mate had not been something he fully appreciated until seated there, watching Musubi rock Edana back and forth in his arms, knowing that the god of love and marriage would have given up far more than his own immortality to experience, for even a brief moment, that overwhelming feeling of love.

  To love and be loved in return. It was all Musubi had ever wanted.

  And Katsu had stolen it from him. At least, he thought he had. But Musubi had never come right out and said that he loved the girl. Not even when Katsu had attempted to dissuade him from his foolhardy plans.

  “I didn’t know…I…I simply didn’’t believe her when she professed her love for me.”

  The words did little to comfort his old friend as he held Edana and glared daggers of hatred at Katsu. He felt a sudden jealousy take hold as he watched the woman he loved being held in the arms of another. He knew it was foolish to react that way, recognizing he was nowhere near worthy to claim her as his own. He still couldn’t fully comprehend the level of attachment he held for a woman who was now dead because of his duplicitous behavior, yet he wanted to prove a point in order to make his original intentions justifiable in some way.

  “Did you really love her, Musubi, or was she simply a woman without a soul mate?”

  Musubi’s eyes darkened. “How could you possibly suggest such a thing?” he spat out. “I never before dreamed I could care for a person the way I did for Edana. I loved her, Katsu.”

  As did I.

  The thought surprised Katsu due to its strength and intensity. As he sorrowfully watched his best friend cradle Edana’s limp form, all of his good intentions shriveled and died. Nothing could ever justify his actions, and no amount of excruciating regret would ever bring her back.

  * * *

  Amatsu Mikaboshi - The Day of The Healer’s Birth

  Amatsu paced back and forth amongst his several followers, seeking a way to punish one or possibly all of them for the now obvious mistake he had made three centuries ago. That the fault lay solely in his corner did little to dissuade him from abusing whomever he might choose.

  “Tell me again,” he said, his voice deceptively pleasant and calm. “Tell me exactly what transpired the moment The Healer was born.””

  Quaking on bended knee, the nekomata kept his head down and gazed upon the blackness of the stone floor.

  “The moment Empress Chinatsu delivered The Healer into the world of the living, pressure built within the room housing The Black Blossom. It compressed the air and space within the chamber, and then it exploded outward, shaking the entire room and knocking me to the floor. When I collected myself and checked for damages, I noticed its petals had whitened along the edges.””

  “And everything you have done to blacken it has failed?”

  The nekomata hesitated before answering. Admitting any type of failure invited repercussions of the worst kind.

  “The blossom refuses to welcome the darkness it lost. Even now, the white tips of the petals are gaining ground.” Amatsu stared at the top of his minion’s head, fuming at the only possible conclusion this new development signified.

  “The prophecy is flawed.” He let out a rueful chuckle, mentally berating himself for never once considering that the translated prophecy might hold grievous errors, the kind of errors capable of negating thousands of years worth of planning. But shouldn’’t he have foreseen such a possibility? Wasn’t it just like his Parents to have allowed the prophecy to be flawed in the first place? What better way to thwart the thwarter than dangle a distraction, a red herring, and watch him hang himself with it?

  He didn’t consciously remember taking hold of his minion’s head or realize the pain his hands inflicted until the nekomata’s shrill cries finally penetrated his embittered musings. It hardly encouraged him to let go of the vile creature. It wasn’t as if the nekomata could be killed with his bare hands, but the pain he inflicted certainly allowed him to channel the fury coiled within.

  Eventually, he let go, surveying the slumped nekomata in disgust and then promptly forgetting him. The blossom he stored within his keep stood as sentry, a type of barometer attached to Musubi’s heart and ki. Since his ability to keep tabs on the god of love and marriage remained virtually impossible, he had created his own fail-safe to ensure the darkness within Musubi’’s heart remained intact. He’d doubted the necessity of it, fully believing that nothing short of Musubi’s soul mate might be
capable of saving him once the darkness became firmly rooted within his ki. After all, only one kami in the history of creation had been allotted a soul mate, and anyone who understood the prophecy believed that kami to be Katsu.

  As had he.

  If the princess happened upon Musubi before her marriage to Katsu, the inevitability of their union was certain. Amatsu had no idea what a union with The Healer and the god of love and marriage might do for the veil, but he determined one thing: the princess and Musubi could never come to know one another.

  His anger spiked anew at this disturbing development. He had counted on Musubi’s part in all of this. Severing The Healer from her soul mate had been vital, the only thing capable of making the prophecy null and void. Afterward, the only other weapon he possessed, and a highly effective one at that, was time. Time used to sufficiently erode and weaken the veil’’s impermeable wall, and with The Healer his prisoner, and Musubi on the path to becoming a nekomata, he could begin his grand reentry into the world of the living with his arsenal fully loaded.

  Only one course of action made sense at this point, now that his meticulous planning had failed. He spoke to all of the nekomata assembled.

  “We must capture The Healer before her eighteenth birthday.” Eager eyes followed him as he moved across the floor. “My power to send any of you through the veil is extremely limited, and the longest you may remain in the world of the living in your current form is one year, possibly two, before you must return to the underworld or risk disintegrating within the world of the living. You all understand the risks involved? There is no guarantee I will have the power to bring you back.”

  In truth, Amatsu held no concern for their plight and loathed the idea of wasting an ounce of power returning them to the underworld before the laws that governed life and death eventually righted the wrongs of their presence in the land of the living. If they disintegrated within a year or two it mattered very little in the grand scheme of things.

  “She must be captured and brought back here where she will never be capable of joining with her true soul mate.”

  “Forgive me, sire, but why not kill her when the opportunity presents itself?” The nekomata groveling at his masters feet hunched his shoulders.

  Amatsu studied his grotesque follower with disdain. He longed for the moment when he might finally surround himself with beauty instead of death and the constant reminder of his own failures.

  “The Healer can be killed with our weapons, it is true, but I have recently made a few startling discoveries concerning the properties held within The Healer’s blood and the role The Grass Cutter Sword plays in all of this. If we kill her, the powers of The Grass Cutter Sword will ensure her eventual return. She will be reborn anywhere at any given time. No, it is better to keep her alive, for we know where she is, but more importantly, we know who she is. At this point she is more useful to me alive. We require an army of kami for the war we plan against Heaven and Earth, but we need a way for all of you to return to the land of the living with your original forms intact.”

  Without Musubi’s dark heart and connections, another kami’s participation was necessary to carry out this new twist to his plan. His thoughts immediately turned to that arrogant upstart, Fukurokuju.

  The kami had always thirsted for power and position, willingly aiding him in Heaven when war broke out and then changing sides last minute, abandoning Amatsu to this hellish existence. Amatsu intended to make him pay for that stinging betrayal by helping him build up an army. Fukurokuju would realize only too late that the kami army he built belonged to his former ally. Amatsu rubbed his smooth palms together in anticipation of the look on that simpering kami’’s face when he finally discovered the deceit. It would take great planning and several nekomata to pull something like this off. The veil’s walls needed to weaken considerably in order for them to get through, but he had plans for that as well.

  After all, if The Healer had the power to strengthen the veil, she must also possess the power to weaken it, cripple it even. He could use that to his advantage when the time came.

  “What about the dissenters?” the nekomata before him asked. “What if some of them cross over when we do and kill The Healer before we can capture her?””

  Amatsu nearly cursed at this, but held his anger in check. Several nekomata wanted The Healer to die as soon as possible. They believed it would somehow end their own miserable existence. A group of misguided zealots hiding within the ranks of his loyal subjects.

  “If they are located, kill them immediately. Your survival depends upon The Healer’s blood and her inability to form a union with her soul mate, and if her soul mate truly is Musubi, then we have more than just one kami to deal with.””

  He bade them all leave for now. Multiple variables needed to be thought through. Details that couldn’t be left out and possible contingencies to his planning that couldn’t be overlooked were at the forefront of his mind. He had eighteen years to get it right. He felt confident The Healer and a full kami army would be available to him long before the end of those eighteen years arrived.

  ***

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  Glossary of Characters and Japanese Terms

  Kami – a god, deity, divinity, or spirit. Kami are believed to be “hidden” from this world and inhabit a complementary existence that mirrors our own.

  Mikomi – The Healer and the Japanese word for Hope. Also known as Hope in the first book in The Healer Series.

  Musubi-no-kami – The Japanese god of love and marriage. He is also known as Tie Hart in the first book of The Healer Series.

  Masaru Katsu – a warrior god descended from Bishamonten, the god of war and warriors. He is also known as Victor in the first book of The Healer Series.

  Hachiman – Shinto god of war and divine protector of Japan.

  Fukurokuju – Japanese god of health and longevity. Also the emperor of Kagami and Mikomi’s father.

  Chinatsu Mori –Empress of Kagami and Mikomi’s Mother.

  Amatsu-Mikaboshi – Demon god and Lord of the underworld.

  Daiki – Innkeeper and Mikomi’s surrogate father.

  Hatsumi – Daiki’s wife and Mikomi’s surrogate mother.

  Akane – General of the samurai insurgents and leader of the rebellion.

  Saigo – Mikomi’s brother.

  Kenji – Mikomi’s tutor.

  Aiko – Mikomi’s maid.

  Kushi - Decorative combs used in traditional Japanese hairstyles.

  Kojai – Decorative hairsticks also used in traditional Japanese hairstyles.

  Furisode – A more formal, decorative kimono.

  Geta – Japanese shoes or platform sandals often worn with kimonos.

  Zango – Specific Japanese fighting style.

  Hachi Kata – a fixed pattern of fighting used to teach basic elements of swordsmanship.

  Katana – A traditionally made Japanese sword used in feudal Japan. Also known as a samurai sword.

  Nakago – Unpolished part of a blade concealed by the hilt; the actual hilt of a sword.

  Tsuba – A round or squarish hand guard at the end of the grip of bladed Japanese weapons.

  Obi – A sash worn for traditional Japanese martial arts.

  Saya – The scabbard for a sword or knife.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my beta readers, Jen Earl and Jennifer Griffith. You ladies are my extra pair of eyes, and let’s face it, brains! We all know I need as much brain power as I can get these days.

  Thanks to my parents for letting me visit them for a week so I could write like a mad women without any crazy interruptions.

  Thanks to my husband for fending off those crazy interruptions by allowing me to get away to said parents’ house. You are the best, sweet stuff.

  About the Author

  I began writing short stories for family and friends when I was thirteen years old. My vivid imagination and love of mysteries and romances eventually led me to
following my own dreams of becoming a published author. I also do some book review work for Skin Deep Exposures Magazine on the side.

  I’m a huge fan of The Mindy Project, Hugh Jackman, and binge eating any and all things chocolate.

  Who isn’t?

  As a mother of four awesome kids I’m usually playing beauty salon with my daughters—my four-year-old shaved my arm one time while I was helping another daughter with her homework. Yep. That happened—getting my fanny kicked in Mario Kart by my snarky little son, and making out with my deliciously handsome Latin lover, aka, my hubby.

  Follow me on Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/c-j-anaya

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