Empress of All Seasons

by Emiko Jean

  Wind whistled and slipped through the shutters, bringing with it a cold chill. Mari pulled the covers farther up. “I am going to the East Lands. To Tokkaido, the Imperial City.”

  Akira nodded. “Your mother is making you.” He understood Mari’s sense of duty, but he couldn’t accept it. He gripped the back of his neck, frowning. “It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. I’ve spoken with my mother and father. We’re prepared—”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “There is always a choice,” he said, hands falling to his sides and fisting.

  “Not for me, there isn’t.” Mari shuddered, knowing that it was true. Even without her mother’s admissions and threats, Mari’s choice was clear. Her fate sealed.

  Akira paced the length of her room, perhaps seeking the right words in the cadence of his footsteps. “Why?” he finally ground out.

  Such a simple question. Such a complicated answer. She shook her head, looked away. “My mother—you don’t know what she’s capable of.”

  “I know exactly what she’s capable of.” He stepped forward, the floorboards creaking under his weight. “That’s why I’ve made plans to leave this forest. We can go together. Tonight.”

  Mari whipped her head back to Akira. How bright his eyes burned; how they glittered, so many promises within their depths. Mari licked her lips. Run away with him? The idea lit up like a firework inside her. But it quickly fizzled out. You could never go home. She would never again see Hissa, her mother, Tsuma. She had the chance to do something big, to make them proud. Duty and home. The whole before the self. It is an honor to serve your clan. Her mother had drilled it into her.

  And there was something else she only now saw. Love. From Akira. Akira loves you. The thought struck Mari as an arrow to the chest. I don’t love him, not like he does me. It would be cruel and unfair to marry someone she didn’t love. It would make her no better than her mother.

  At Mari’s silence, Akira ran his hands through his hair. “Nothing I can say or do will change your mind, will it?”

  Mari’s mouth tightened; she was unwilling to speak, unwilling to give Akira any splinter of hope. Space and time stretched between them, a chasm as wide as the Ma ni Sea.

  Akira glowered. But then he crossed to her, knelt, and gripped her hands. Akira’s fingertips were cold and callused, roughened from climbing so many trees.

  She looked at their joined hands, took a deep breath for bravery. “I cannot accept your offer. It means more to me than you will ever know, but it wouldn’t be fair. I don’t lov—”

  He unclasped his hands from hers. And just as quickly as the Son of Nightmares had come, he’d gone.

  * * *

  Long after Akira’s abrupt departure, Mari lay awake, counting the rises and falls of her chest. She blinked, memories resonating inside her like a bell. She was six, and it was the first day of her training. Tami had bid Mari to come to the courtyard.

  “Mama.” She’d bowed, eyeing the Animal Wives who had gathered. Why are they here?

  Tami thrust a naginata at Mari. Before her fingers could wrap around the weapon, her mother charged, a naginata in her own grip. The hit was swift and direct, and Mari’s legs gave out. She crouched in the dirt, liquid running from her eyes and nose. Tami moved to strike again, but Mari held up a small hand. “Mama, please.”

  By the mercy of the gods and goddesses, her mother halted. Tami’s fingers pressed under Mari’s chin, tilting her face up, forcing her to meet her steely eyes. She spoke low, so only Mari could hear. “You are not pretty. But you have all the skills of a lean tiger in winter. Do you understand?”

  Mari’s eyes shut tight; a chasm opened up in her chest. “No,” she moaned.

  Tami squeezed her chin, forcing Mari’s eyes to open. “You are a lean tiger in winter. Nothing matters but survival. Now, pick up the naginata and fight me. You must do what you think you cannot do.”

  Mari wiped her cheeks and blew her nose on her kimono. She stood, naginata in her shaking hands. The Animal Wives tittered. They’d come to witness her humiliation, her defeat. Mari spent the rest of the afternoon crouching, hands covering her head, enduring the hits. Between knocks, Tami imparted wisdom. “Through pain you will achieve greatness.” Strike. “Through suffering you will gain honor.” Strike. “Through sacrifice you will rise.” Strike.

  Two years passed, and Mari learned how to wield the naginata as an extension of her own arms. She advanced and withdrew, cross-stepped and sidestepped, swung the blade with the precision of a butcher.

  Still, defeating Tami remained out of her grasp. Until one fall day. The trees were changing colors, and the slope of the mountain looked like a perpetual sunrise. As usual, Mari met her mother in the courtyard. No Animal Wives had come to watch, having tired long ago of the spectacle. Plus it was raining. Gods and goddesses forbid the beautiful women should ruin their makeup. Heavy drops plastered Mari’s hair to her head.

  She bowed. Tami returned the gesture. They clashed, poles butting against each other, the sound echoing down the mountain.

  All the time spent in a protective crouch, Mari had been observing her mother, learning Tami’s favorite naginata position: the waki-gamae. It was performed by holding the reaping sword below your torso before swinging it out. In the rain, Tami moved to do this, and Mari saw her opening, her conquest. Her mother went low, so Mari went high. Crash. Mari landed a crippling blow to Tami’s shoulder.

  Her mother splayed on the ground, and Mari stood above her. She should have felt guilt, but all she felt was pride ballooning in her chest. Tami smiled; the flint in her eyes darkened. “You are ready for the shed.”

  Mari pulled her thoughts from the past to Akira. After they’d met, despite Mari’s best efforts to harden her heart, Akira had wormed his way in. In truth, he was a constant well from which she drew strength.

  In her short lifetime, she had played many parts: Obedient daughter. Compliant clan member. Aloof girl. But being Akira’s friend wasn’t just a role to be played. She wouldn’t survive the competition without something to live for. Love. Friendship. Freedom. Those were all worthy causes. In her mind, she made a banner out of them. “I am a lean tiger in winter.” A lump formed in her throat. She spoke past it, whispering into the dark. “I will survive. I will be free. And I will return to Tsuma.”

  Chapter 9

  Akira

  Just outside the gates of Tsuma, Akira felt himself being watched. It was in the darkest part of the night, when most creatures still slept, that he felt something stalking him. Heat crawled up the back of his neck.

  Slowly, he turned. Mari’s mother stood a few feet away, as still and silent as death. Her long hair was slicked back by the wind. Her skin glistened. By the light of the moon, Akira saw her eyes melt to black, then back to brown. Red haze clouded her shoulders. Her soul wasn’t quite crimson. It was darker than that, the color of a currant.

  Akira bent his head under the weight of her displeasure. As always, courage eluded him. If given the choice between fight or flight, he always chose flight. He readied himself to run.

  “I smell your fear,” Tami whispered. She stepped toward him, her bare feet crunching pine needles and dried leaves. “What does my daughter see in you?” Not much, it turns out. Akira swallowed. I don’t love you, Mari had almost said.

  Hot breath skimmed his neck, sending shivers down his back. At any moment, Mari’s mother could call her beast forward. He imagined what he would do if she attacked. He would not give her the pleasure of a struggle. What would dying feel like? Not very many people would miss you.

  “You are a strange boy,” Mari’s mother said. Her hand wrapped around his upper arm quicker than lightning, fingers squeezing his flesh. Sweat gathered along Akira’s brow. His vision blurred. Trapped. No way to run. “My daughter has always had a soft heart, a fierce need to love. And you are desperate in your need to be loved. But you are weak; you are not worthy.” Akira bit back a whimper as she released him. Then she whirled
away, disappearing into the forest.

  As soon as he regained his breath, Akira did what he did best. He ran.

  * * *

  Akira did not go home.

  He sought safety in a chestnut tree, leaping into the foliage as easily as a bird. He perched on a low branch, his location concealed by hand-sized leaves. When the tremors in his limbs subsided, he hooked the black mask over his face. His arm hurt where Mari’s mother had grasped it, although there was no mark. A bruise on my pride, that is all.

  He swung onto a higher branch and then another, until he was nearly at the top. From this vantage point, he could see all of Tsuma—the thatched roofs bathed silver in the starlight, the jagged mountain peaks ringed with snow, dark silhouettes against the night sky. He settled in, forced his breaths to even out, his body to still, his mind to empty.

  * * *

  As always, Akira’s dreams were haunted.

  He dreamed of before—before his family was chased out of town by armed villagers, before they were forced to scale a mountain and live as recluses, before he became the Son of Nightmares and met a beautiful animal girl.

  They had lived in Hana Machi, a Pleasure City, where rules and common decency were elastic, things to be thinly stretched. Every evening Akira accompanied his mother on a walk. In his dream, Akira strolled with her, their arms linked. Recently, he’d had an obscene growth spurt, topping his mother by a whole foot. His gangly body no longer fit his seven years of age.

  The dark cobblestone street shone with summer rain. Pink paper lanterns crisscrossed overhead and swayed in the breeze. The melancholy notes of a shamisen’s plucked strings coasted past on an errant breeze, and Akira wondered if it was his father playing the traditional three-stringed instrument, as he often did for tips.

  Drunken revelers stumbled out onto the street. “Look at this woman with her scars! It’s the Slash-Mouthed Girl!” one cried.

  “Please,” Mizuki said, her voice measured. “My son and I are just trying to enjoy our evening.”

  The man sneered, a gray tooth flashing. Its color matched his soul. “And look at her child—he’s got them too!” The man pointed a finger at Akira. “You are the son of a murderer! The Son of Nightmares.”

  Akira and his mother ran all the way home.

  Hours later, Akira awoke to a gang of armed villagers gathering below the window of their apartment, chanting: “Murderer, murderer, murderer!”

  At first light, they fled Hana Machi. The Pleasure City was no longer safe. As they disappeared into the wild of the Tsuko funo Mountains, his parents breathed free for the first time. They had found a true refuge. But Akira gazed at the trees, saw how their branches swayed, closing in on him, like bars of a cage.

  Until Mari.

  * * *

  Akira shook the dream from his head and righted himself, checked his hiding spot. Leaves obscured him. The Animal Wives will not take kindly to the Son of Nightmares so close to their village.

  The Son of Nightmares, again the moniker.

  He’d started using the name—as if taking ownership stripped it of its power. He leaned back against the giant tree trunk and picked at his teeth. The sun climbed higher. Birds woke and sang, their song bright and alive. Opposite of how Akira felt. Tami’s words sank into Akira’s chest. My daughter has always had a soft heart, a fierce need to love. And you are desperate in your need to be loved. There was truth there. The realization startled Akira. He had always been grasping for someone to tell him he was good, worthwhile.

  The gates of Tsuma squeaked open. He came to attention, watching through the branches as half a dozen samurai arrived with a black lacquered and pearl-inlaid palanquin. Four of the samurai carried the enclosed carriage, and on either side of them, two others rode horses, clearly the leaders. The shorter of the leaders held his side and sat stiffly. Was he injured? Each of the six men possessed two swords, one big and one small, strapped over his left hip, and all wore traditional gear. Akira frowned. The samurai seemed . . . askew.

  Their wide-leg hakama pants were stained and missing the traditional seven pleats, representing the seven virtues. Their tops were wrinkled and fraying. Their topknots were sloppy. In a lifetime, sam­urai could serve a dozen different masters, working their way up from daimyō, the great lords, to shōgun, military dictator, to emperor. They changed allegiance based on the amount of coin offered. These samurai clearly pledged no master. They were rogues, mercenaries for hire with no allegiance to the emperor. “Rōnin,” Akira whispered. Their souls were only ever shades of black. So dark that it was hard to see any blemishes.

  This band of misfits will escort Mari to the Imperial City? Gods and goddesses only knew where Tami had rustled them up. The tallest sam­urai dismounted and split from the group, a slight limp to his step.

  Akira studied him. There was something familiar in the curves of his face. Did he know him from somewhere? Probably Hana Machi. Samurai were supposed to eschew pleasures of the flesh. But plenty visited the pink city, usually in masks or elaborate costumes.

  An Animal Wife greeted the samurai. Yuka. Mari spoke of her often, the last Animal Wife to have a daughter. More Animal Wives filtered from their homes. A wayward breeze brought the stink of perfume to Akira’s nose. Dressed in their finest kimonos, the Animal Wives lingered, colorful peacocks with white-powdered faces. From behind fans and umbrellas, they surreptitiously eyed the samurai, a rare spectacle in their sleepy village of all women.

  The samurai kept his face impassive while Yuka chattered, then led him around a dusty bend in the road. Akira’s heart stuttered. He knew the direction they headed. Mari’s cottage. This was it.

  The samurai reappeared with Mari’s wooden trunk on his back. Mari and her mother trailed close behind. Akira would not have recognized her except for the color of her glacier-blue soul. Her face had been dusted white, her lips painted and eyes lined in red. Her black hair was pulled back in a rather painful-looking bun. Silk cherry blossoms adorned her hair. She glanced at the sky, not spying him through the branches. But he saw her. Despite her makeup and her heavy kimono, Mari was naked, exposed. Alone.

  Animal Wives fell in line behind Mari and Tami, waving fans and ribbons. A parade and death march all in one. Mari stumbled near the gates, pressing a hand to her throat. Akira shifted, ready to leap. But Mari lifted her chin, shaking off whatever plagued her, and even attempted a smile. Steady. Resolute. Unflinching. How he admired her courage. How he envied it.

  A shout rang out, and the processional parted. A girl dressed in a filthy, wrinkled yukata, with tangled hair and a soul the color of a bruise, pushed through, then skidded to a halt. Hissa.

  Hissa opened her palm, unaware or uncaring of the samurai and the glaring eyes of the Animal Wives. The item glinted in the sunlight—a piece of silver metal with five interlocking circles.

  Tentatively, Mari accepted the object. Hissa bowed low, the utmost sign of respect. Mari returned the gesture. Then she kissed her mother’s cheek. Tami placed a necklace over Mari’s head, a piece of twine strung with copper coins. A stocky samurai smiled and helped Mari into the jeweled palanquin. The samurai with the limp slung in her trunk and remounted his horse.

  Akira watched as they set off, became dots on the trail, and disappeared completely. The trees were closing in on him for the first time in years. Smothering him. You are not very good at being brave. But perhaps he could be. Perhaps he could be worthy of Mari.

  In that moment, Akira made a decision. He’d lived most of his life in the shadows and hated it, existing in the dark, on the fringes, but he was always too frightened to step into the light, to let people see his mangled face, his cowardly soul. He needed to be stronger. Isn’t that the foundation of bravery, resilience coupled with an iron will? He’d never grow past his fears if he stayed in the mountains. The trees provided too much cover, too much safety.

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry, Father,” Akira said as he dropped from the tree. “But I have to go. I have to see what I ca
n become.”

  He thought it was fate, the force of his love for Mari propelling him on an uncharted, treacherous path. He would follow Mari and the band of misfit samurai. He would go to the Imperial City. In his heart, he promised Mari that everything would be all right. He would make sure of it. One last look up at the canopy, at the whisper of green trees. You must take this leap. The jump always makes the fall worth it. At least he hoped.

  Chapter 10

  Mari

  The samurai was bleeding.

  Red liquid seeped through a cloth wrapped around his upper arm. In the palanquin, Mari had moved the curtain aside. She squinted against the bright day. Not a cloud was in the sky. She watched the stocky samurai waver in his saddle and grip his injured shoulder. The man didn’t look good. His face was pale, his brow moist. Mari recognized the symptoms of fever. If you weren’t careful, the infection would take root, ravage the body. It might be too late for this samurai.

  She sighed, brushing a wisp of loose hair from her face. Her backside ached. Only a few hours on the road, and her skin was layered in a thick coat of dust. First chance she got, Mari would wash her face, unbind her hair, and strip off this ridiculously ornamented kimono in favor of her more comfortable plain navy one. Her mind raced like wolves on a hunt. Every inch they traveled, they drew closer to the Imperial City, to the Palace of Illusions, the most dangerous place for a yōkai. Her opponents would all be human, and she wouldn’t be able to call upon the beast during the competition. Too many eyes would be watching. No one could ever know what she really was.

  The injured samurai pulled his horse away from the front to trot beside her. “We’re about four days out from Tokkaido. We’ll stop in a couple hours and camp at a temple.”