by Renee Ahdieh
After sliding down a sturdy rope, Haruki, the Black Clan’s metalsmith, crouched near the stream to wash the sweat from his shining face. “Is it true, then?”
Tsuneoki nodded. “My riders tell me the domains of the Yoshida clan and the Sugiura clan and the Yokokawa clan have fallen the same way as the Akechi. Not a single soldier is anywhere to be found; they’ve all fled or disappeared. It appears their minds have been swallowed by a dark magic.”
“All of the clans you named are fiercely loyal to the emperor,” Haruki mused further.
Yorishige nodded as he cracked his knuckles. “For at least three generations, they’ve reaped the rewards of serving the Minamoto family.”
Ren cleared his throat, tugging on the sling still wrapped around his injured arm. “It would be too fitting to think they are finally getting their just rewards. Someone—or thing—is out to control them. What do you think the wielder of this evil magic means to accomplish by doing so?”
“Perhaps it intends to cut the supply lines and dismantle support for the new emperor,” Tsuneoki said with a wry grin.
Ren spat in the misted earth by his feet. “A fine idea. It’s a shame we had it first.”
“The facts would indicate otherwise,” Haruki said with a peaceful smile.
Yorishige laughed softly, and the sound reminded Tsuneoki so much of Yoshi that it cut through his chest.
Ren glared at the boy and the good-natured metalsmith. “These cursed demons are stealing our ideas, and you two have the nerve to be droll about it?” he grumbled as he stooped near the creek bed, sneering through a grimace of pain. “It must be Raiden’s witch mother.”
Tsuneoki frowned. “Perhaps.” Uncertainty lingered in his voice as he recalled the figure of the samurai that night within the walls of the Akechi fortress. The Hattori crest had been emblazoned on his armor. But—as he had for several days—Tsuneoki continued to hold that information close. At least until he learned more about it.
Any fool could wear a crest if it served his purpose.
“What could the witch want or hope to achieve by attacking these domains?” Haruki asked, ignoring Ren’s mockery. Though he appeared serene—as though his mind floated among the clouds—Haruki’s attention remained firmly rooted to the earth. As always, the metalsmith possessed an uncanny ability to notice anything and everything. Not just the things any man could see, but the things concealed from sight and buried deep. “Her own family holds the seat of power right now,” the metalsmith continued. “Why would she lay siege to those who are loyal to the Minamoto clan?”
“It’s not her family.” Yorishige cracked his knuckles once more.
His left eye twitching, Ren glanced sidelong at the boy. “Just her son.” His features gathered with distaste. “That witch probably wants what any mother in her situation would want—her son to be emperor, rather than the little ingrate currently sitting on the Chrysanthemum Throne.”
Haruki sighed. “She’s mad if she thinks the people of Wa will depose their rightful ruler and put a bastard in his stead.”
“Stranger things have happened.” Tsuneoki watched the flowing stream as it tripped around a nearby bend.
With another sigh, Haruki swiped the dripping water from his brow. “Since our plan to overtake strongholds loyal to the emperor has been enacted by others, what is the next course of action, my lord?”
“As you learned only a few days ago, I am not your lord, Haruki, nor did I ever wish to be,” Tsuneoki said. “There is no need between any of us for those kinds of formalities. What we need to do instead is continue gathering our forces in secret and start expanding on these efforts. It is more important now than ever that we take advantage of the shift in power within the imperial city. And the chaos accompanying it.”
Haruki nodded. “You intend to mount a rescue for Ōkami and Mariko, then?”
“No. Not yet.”
Surprise rippled across the metalsmith’s face, then vanished in the next breath. Yorishige opened his mouth to reply before reconsidering, one fist wrapped by the other.
Tsuneoki inhaled through his nose, trying his best to quash his uncertainty on this matter. A true leader revealed weakness from a place of strength, when the tides were on his side. “I worry what might happen if this dark magic spreads to other domains and takes hold of the people there. If the Minamoto clan does not intend to protect even those loyal to it, we cannot expect them to do anything for anyone else.”
“Good riddance to all those idiots anyway,” Ren said with a burst of cold laughter. “Good riddance to any fool daft enough to swear allegiance to that sickly pretender. The Takeda clan should be the one protecting the people, as it did before, for a thousand years. I say we storm Heian Castle and reinstall Ōkami to his rightful place as shōgun. Anyone who disagrees can be swallowed by this plague of dark magic.”
At this, Haruki turned toward Ren to face the shorter, stockier boy head-on. “You should not wish harm on those unable to defend themselves.” Creases of concern marred the glistening skin of his forehead.
Yorishige offered a sage nod while gnawing on his lower lip.
“May the spirits forgive me for daring to wish ill on those who tried to kill us,” Ren retorted without missing a beat. “I think you of all people should be in agreement with me, Haruki, especially after what they did to you as a—”
“Ren,” Tsuneoki said in a warning tone.
Irritation flared across Ren’s face as his eyes shot to skies. “Forgive me for being unfair to your new favorite, my lord Ranma—, I mean, Tsuneoki.” He sneered.
Despite the pointedness of Ren’s gibe, Tsuneoki did not respond immediately. He resumed his earlier train of thought, his attention drifting toward the swaying bamboo, as though he sought answers in its ghostly song. “It might not be a bad idea to capitalize on the undercurrent of fear flowing through the villages near the seized domains. I think now is the time to rally the people there. As much as I am loath to admit it, fear can be a strong motivation for action. If the emperor cannot protect his people, why should his people continue to serve him?” Wincing through the motions, he crouched near the stream, using a twig to draw in the earth.
The Empire of Wa had been formed from a chain of islands. The legend said that a mystical sword dipped into the sea, dragging fire and earth from its depths. The isles rose to the surface in the wake of its blade. Tsuneoki outlined the largest one. Then he scored four marks on it, for the four corners of the mainland. He connected them at the center to form a cross, then turned toward Haruki. “We should begin spreading the word that we are mounting an opposition against the Minamoto clan.”
Ren snorted. “How will we go about doing that? Ravens or starlings? Perhaps sea serpents?”
“No. I thought to use the golden crane of your dearly departed soul,” Tsuneoki gibed back. “Tell our riders to use arrows and mulberry paper.”
Again Ren laughed, the sound coarse in its amusement. “I can write the letters. We can seal it with that hideous symbol—the one that combined the crests of the Takeda and the Asano clans. No one will suspect who might be behind it. Come one and all! Join our band of traitorous brothers here in this godforsaken part of the Ghost’s Gambit.” He shrugged. “Hope you can find your way here without dying.”
“Brother, you are too much.” Yorishige smothered a grin.
Ren harrumphed. “I’m not your brother, you grain of rice.”
Haruki glanced away to conceal a grin at the same time Tsuneoki laughed outright. “Ren, you should be sure to clench your teeth,” Tsuneoki said.
Ren turned in their direction, a suspicious light catching in his gaze. “Why?”
“So they don’t rattle in your skull when I hit you.” As he spoke, Tsuneoki lobbed a small rock at Ren’s bound arm. In his attempt to avoid being struck, Ren fell headfirst into the muddy embankment. He swore as the sling around his arm caught, tripping him farther. A litany of curses flew from his mud-covered mouth. When Yorishige moved to help
him, Ren hurled a fistful of muck in the boy’s direction.
Laughing to himself, Haruki shifted beside Tsuneoki, who continued studying the drawings etched into the fragrant loam. “Then we are not even going to attempt to rescue him?” He did not need to say whom. The name was always present, on the edge of every conversation they shared.
“If I know Mariko, she is halfway done composing a plan far better than any I could devise,” Tsuneoki said.
A thoughtful expression settled on Haruki’s features. “There was a time when you would have been concerned with nothing else, save sparing Ōkami. It would have consumed you. Driven you mad in a way that makes it difficult to see the dangers lying in your path.”
Surprise flashed over Tsuneoki’s face at Haruki’s frankness.
Haruki continued. “I did not mean it as a criticism. Your devotion to those you love is the reason why so many of us have followed you for so long without question.” He selected a twig from several collecting at the edge of the creek bed. “I only meant that it is sometimes difficult to see the future when you are so focused on the past.”
“It would be suicide to try to storm the castle. It’s enclosed on all sides by seven enchanted maru.” Tsuneoki cleared his throat. “I won’t ask that of anyone.”
“But the Black Clan would follow you if you asked. I would follow you.” Haruki reached for another twig and ran it through the mud to fashion a phoenix, with feathers of fire flowing from its wings and tail. Then he scribbled through them with a line of curving mountains, from which he began to shape the image of a sea serpent.
As he watched Haruki work, Tsuneoki studied the metalsmith’s tranquil features. Features that—as always—hid a mind in constant turmoil. It was a trait they all shared, these warriors of the Black Clan: this roving, unceasing mind. It was something Tsuneoki had noticed in Mariko, the day he’d first encountered her, when he’d followed her in the form of a nightbeast. A trait that had especially bonded them all. Each member of the Black Clan had a past shaped by turbulence and haunted by specters, both dark and light. Haruki’s past was not one he often shared, but they’d all seen the vicious scars coiling up his shoulders. They’d all heard his screams in the middle of the night, when sleep had been more of a curse than a blessing. Both Ōkami and Tsuneoki had long held Haruki’s counsel close. Despite a childhood colored by violence, the metalsmith possessed an excellent mind and a carefree demeanor, unshackled by so many of the demons young men like Ren carried with them wherever they went.
But Haruki had never spoken so frankly about Tsuneoki’s devotion to Ōkami before. As though the metalsmith could see the truth at its core. Had always seen it.
Discomfort coiling through his stomach, Tsuneoki glanced at the four corners he’d drawn in the earth nearby, joined at the center. At the sea serpent Haruki had fashioned beside it. A childhood memory began to form in his mind. Not of the Takeda lands nor of the lands Tsuneoki’s father had controlled. They weren’t an option anyway, as the emperor had seized them many years ago. But a different idea began to take shape, as though it were being conjured from the ashes of the past.
Ōkami’s mother was the daughter of a powerful warlord. Her family’s crest had been a sea serpent, guarding a trove of diamonds.
Her land had been along the coast, not far from the imperial city.
If Tsuneoki remembered correctly, the lands in question had been deserted for years. Ōkami’s mother had disappeared in a summer storm during his third year. A lover of the sea and all its secrets, she’d scorned the advice of the fishermen, and ridden out beyond the bay, only to be taken by a giant wave. Not long after her death, her parents had perished of a mysterious illness, born of the briny air. Following this wealth of misfortune, their lands had been abandoned, branded as cursed.
Tsuneoki drew four diamonds to represent the four corners of the empire. He encircled them with the tail of a watchful serpent. Then he stood, ready to take action. Ready to do whatever it took to spare the son of Takeda Shingen any more strife and give his dearest friend back the legacy that had been stolen from him.
To restore the Takeda family’s good name.
All for the boy Tsuneoki loved most of his life, in secret. In his own whispered song.
“Tsuneoki,” Haruki said.
Pausing mid-step, Tsuneoki turned back to look at the metalsmith, still crouched near the stream.
“Even if you didn’t ask me,” Haruki said without looking his way. “I would follow you anywhere.”
The Song of the Nightingale
Sleep continued to evade Mariko, as it had for each of the three nights she’d been in Inako. Each time her mind would settle, another thought would wind through it, spiraling downward, taking hold of her heart. Her emotions roiled within her. Fury, pain, bitterness, uncertainty, each of them churning in a ceaseless cycle.
When the scars inked into Ōkami’s skin first came into view, she’d wanted to strike out at something and inflict wounds to match on her betrothed’s face. But the words of her brother had stopped her—had chided her silent—for though Kenshin had failed to be a source of comfort in the last few days, his earlier warnings continued to echo through her mind. A semblance of direction, in a world gone horribly awry.
Say nothing. Do nothing. Do not react.
Mariko had coaxed her expression into one of dismay. As she’d taken on the mantle of a victim in need of comfort, she channeled her rage. Molded it into something she could control. Moved it with the newest current. Even a mild-mannered young woman would react to the sight of brutality. It had been a stroke of luck that her tears and her trembling had caused Prince Raiden to spare her from any more of the emperor’s mind games. Once Raiden left her outside her chamber doors, she stood there in stunned silence, her eyes wide, like a rabbit caught in a darkening brush, uncertain how to proceed. As soon as she granted herself a moment’s peace, Mariko’s chest began to hollow with pain and regret.
Not once had she looked upon Ōkami with any sympathy or offered him anything of value—no information, no key to unlock his bindings, no reassurances of solidarity. None of the things her mind and heart would starve to possess, were she to share in his predicament.
Mariko had offered him nothing. Not even the smallest gesture of comfort or encouragement. Not even a single smile.
Her pain grew sharper when she recalled the glint of his warmth, hidden beneath his mocking exterior. Even though Ōkami had undoubtedly spent the last few hours in tortuous agony, he’d grinned up at her, a sly look that—at first glance—appeared taunting.
But it had given Mariko strength.
The useless girl.
It had given her the drive she needed to take action.
Hours later—beneath a glossy coverlet—Mariko waited until the sounds of motion outside her door steadied to a trickle. She made certain to note how often the guards patrolled past her chamber. Then Mariko knocked back the ridiculous blanket of padded silk and rose to her feet in a single motion. She slipped her toes in a new pair of soft tabi, then crept her way toward a tansu chest of fragrant pine, positioned against the far wall of her chamber.
There—folded in a neat stack—lay the clothes she’d worn when she first arrived in Inako. A loose kosode and a pair of faded trousers. They’d been washed and put aside, as she’d directed her servants to do earlier.
Her heart pounding in her chest and her ears on alert for any sounds of movement, she changed into the roughspun linen, its color a drab grey. It had once been black, but time and wear had lightened it. It was one of several that had been begrudgingly passed down to Mariko from Ren. Once she finished dressing, she gathered the items she’d hidden earlier and tucked them in a bundle within her kosode, strapping them securely to her side.
Ever vigilant, Mariko slid open the silk-screened entrance to her chamber and made her way into the corridors, careful to stay to the shadows. The dark edges along each hallway provided a place of safety, and she moved between the flickering lanterns, c
ounting each of her steps, all while holding her breath tight in her chest. With great care, she followed the same path she’d taken earlier, out into the courtyard, across the tiny white pebbled walkways, her stockinged feet soundless as she glided through the night.
For a beat, she waited in the shade of a flowering orange tree, its scent soothing her rampaging nerves, until the patrolling guards on the outside of the gabled structure passed just in front of her. Then—in watchful silence—she made her way through one of the unlatched sliding doors and into Heian Castle itself.
Now was the true test.
The nightingale floors.
Mariko crouched on the wide sill just inside the main corridor, knowing full well that any misstep would alert all those on patrol outside to the presence of an intruder. She tested one foot on the wooden surface. The suggestion of a creak sighed beneath her toes the instant she put her weight on it.
I could crawl.
But that would be foolish. The more places her body made contact with the polished wooden beams, the more likely they would be to make noise, and crawling on her hands and knees created four points of pressure, rather than the two of her feet.
How do I make myself smaller?
Mariko paused in consideration. She thought back to a winter several years ago, when she and Kenshin had been children playing on the outskirts of their family’s domain. Kenshin wondered how far he could travel across the surface of the frozen lake before it gave way. The ice began to crack around Kenshin’s feet, and her brother responded by immediately lying flat against it, so that his weight was spread evenly on the frozen surface.
She wondered if she could do something similar here. Mariko bent and placed her wrist on the floor until her hand was spread flat across it.
Only the slightest hint of a complaint could be heard beneath the floorboards. Her pulse flowing with the steady rhythm of a drum, Mariko moved her other hand alongside the first.
