Page 74 of Shadow of the Fox

Okame looked dubious, but I turned away and faced Morimasa again. “Please forgive the interruption, Taiyo-san,” I told the frowning noble. “As I said before, it will be an honor to perform for His Highness tonight.”

“Wonderful!” He beamed. “His Excellence will be delighted. If you would please follow me.”

With a last encouraging smile at the concerned ronin and shrine maiden, I stepped forward and followed Morimasa across the yard.

Nobles stared at me, watching with amusement, curiosity and suspicion as I passed. A few sneered or smirked behind their fans, their scorn plain to see. Perhaps they saw through my onmyoji disguise, or perhaps I was not dressed fancily enough. I tried to ignore them and think of what I was going to say to the emperor, though the pounding of my heart and the frantic swirling in my stomach made it hard to concentrate.

“Wait here a moment,” Morimasa said, pausing in the shadow of a cluster of trees a distance from the emperor’s dais. “When the time is right, I will announce you. As you hear your name, come forward and present yourself to His Highness, but stay at least twenty feet from the edge of the platform. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and turned away, walking toward the platform and the men and women clustered around it. I couldn’t see Lady Satomi, as she was on the emperor’s other side, but thankfully, she couldn’t see me, either.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, just as a hand clamped over my mouth from behind and yanked me back into the trees.

“It’s me,” said a low, familiar voice, stopping the surge of kitsune-bi to my fingertips. “I’m letting you go, so don’t alert everyone here by screaming.”

“Tatsumi!” I whispered, whirling on him as he released me. “You scared me! Why are you...?”

I blinked and trailed off. For the Tatsumi before me was not the Kage samurai I had traveled with from the Silent Winds temple. He was clad completely in black, except for a ragged crimson scarf that seemed to float behind him in the breeze. Instead of sandals, he wore split-toed boots that stopped just below the knee, bracers on his forearms and a sleeveless, unmarked jacket that was a much tighter fit than his regular haori. A mask covered his mouth and jaw, obstructing half his face, though the eyes above the cloth were the same, a cold, piercing violet.

“What are you doing, Yumeko?” Tatsumi asked, his voice soft but intense. His gaze seemed to burn in the darkness.

“Um...” I glanced around to make sure no one could see us. The air shimmered as I turned my head, and I could suddenly feel the dark, cool touch of Tatsumi’s Shadow magic, surrounding us. “Performing for the emperor of Iwagoto?”

“You’renotan onmyoji.” Tatsumi’s eyes narrowed. “You have no magic. Talking to the kami is not the same as telling fortunes and divining the future, which is what the emperor will expect. If you’re exposed as a charlatan, you’ll be executed.”

“I know, but what else can I do, Tatsumi?” I whispered. “I can’t refuse the emperor.”

“I can take you out of here.” Tatsumi stepped closer. “Right now. No one will see us—we’ll use the same spell we did in the gaki village. When it’s safe, I’ll come back to look for Master Jiro. We don’t need to talk to the Satomi woman. I can get into places most people cannot.”

“What about the others?”

“I don’t care about the others.” Tatsumi’s voice was flat. “My mission is to get us to the Steel Feather temple. Nothing else matters. If you are caught and executed, the mission ends here.”

His hand rose, the back of his knuckles coming very close to my cheek. I looked into his eyes and saw conflict burning within.

“Tatsumi...”

“You cannot die, Yumeko.” His hand didn’t move any closer, but he didn’t pull back, either, and his voice was very soft. “We both made a promise, to find the Steel Feather temple together. I need you to show me the way. The mission isn’t over yet.”

“I’ll be all right.” Carefully I reached up and took his hand. He flinched as our skin touched and then, almost tentatively, his fingers curled around mine. I met his gaze and smiled. “I know what to do, Tatsumi. Trust me.”

He held my gaze a moment longer, brow furrowed and eyes shadowed, then nodded once. I backed out of the trees, feeling the delicate strands of magic fray apart as I moved, and turned toward the emperor’s platform.

Taiyo Morimasa met my gaze, his eyes widening in relief, as if he had been looking for me and hadn’t been able to see me until now. Gesturing impatiently, he waved me forward. Resisting the urge to look back at the trees, I took a deep breath, lifted my chin and walked toward the platform and the emperor of Iwagoto.

29

The Emperor’s Fortune

Iwatched the girl walk away, her stride confident, toward the emperor in gold who waited on his platform, surrounded by nobles and samurai. The eyes of the court followed, all gazes on the slight figure in billowing red and white, her long braid swaying behind her. She did not look frightened or even tense, but there was an unfamiliar sensation in the pit of my stomach that compelled me to make her vanish. To drop down, cover us both in darkness and spirit her away. Or, if that wasn’t possible, to draw Kamigoroshi and slaughter everyone who was a threat, nobles, samurai and emperor alike, to save the girl striding so boldly toward the person who could order her death.

I could still feel her hand, her soft fingers curled around my palm, and clenched my fist against my leg. Yumeko could not die tonight. Letting her walk away was foolish. I didn’t know what she was planning, if she even had a plan, but I’d said I would trust her. A peasant girl with no magic, who had grown up in a temple sheltered from the rest of the world, who was brave and unassuming and clever but ultimately no onmyoji—I was letting her face the most powerful man in Iwagoto with nothing but the assurance that she would be fine. I saw the ronin, the shrine maiden and the noble press forward with the rest of the crowd, forming a semicircle behind the girl, and my chest tightened. For the first time, I wished I could be there, in the crowd, instead of lurking at the edge of the light, hiding in the shadows.

Great Kami, I found myself thinking,watch over her. Tamafuku, God of Luck, if you can lend your aid to one person tonight, let it be her.

Yumeko stopped her approach about fifteen feet from the emperor’s dais, sank to her knees and bowed low with her hands and forehead touching the ground. It was clumsy; her posture wasn’t quite rigid enough and her fingers weren’t at the right position, but at least she had the general idea of how to behave when facing the ruler of the country. And it appeared to satisfy the emperor, for he smiled and held out a billowing golden sleeve.

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