Page 27 of Shadow of the Fox

I hesitated, feeling my heart beat faster under my robes. He was so close. The scroll was safely tucked away in the furoshiki over my shoulder, but would he see it? Would he get close enough to feel it?

Tatsumi didn’t move, eyes flat and expression blank as he waited. I paused a moment longer, then carefully pulled up the hem of my robe, showing the long, straight gash on my thigh. It was red and angry-looking, and it throbbed like a dozen hornet stings, but it still wasn’t bleeding. And somehow, seeing it clearly made it hurt all the more.

Tatsumi didn’t blink. In one smooth motion, he scooped up the green paste in two fingers, reached down and smeared it firmly onto the cut.

“Ite!”I yelped, jerking my leg back, startled by both the sudden, dizzying pain of my wound, and the casual treatment from the human in front of me. He gave me a puzzled look, as if he didn’t understand my reaction.

“It’s a healing salve,” he explained. “It will numb the injury and keep it from becoming infected.” He reached for my leg again, and I flinched away, making him frown. “Do you not want aid? We have to take care of the wound now or it will start to bleed soon. Let me see it.”

“It hurts,” I gritted out, pulling back my hem to expose the gash again. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been cut by a sickle weasel, Tatsumi, but this is my first time, and it hurts quite a lot. Please, be more gentle.”

“Gentle.” He gave me another puzzled look, as if the concept was completely foreign to him.

“Yes. Kind? Tender? Not making it feel like my leg is going to fall off?” He still looked baffled, and I frowned. “Haven’t you had injuries treated before?”

“Of course. But the intent was always to treat the wounds as quickly and efficiently as possible. Showing pain is a weakness—it exposes you and lets your enemies know you are vulnerable.”

“Oh.” I was starting to understand my cold, dangerous travel companion a little better. “We were raised very differently, I think.”

He tilted his head, regarding me with appraising violet eyes. “You weren’t punished for showing weakness while injured?”

“No. Denga-san once said that I didn’t need to be punished when I injured myself doing something stupid, because the injury was all I needed to learn not to do it again.”

Tatsumi frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, I learned that you really shouldn’t climb onto the temple roof at midnight during a rainstorm. And that if you’re going to pop out of a closet to scare a martial arts master, be ready to duck. And if you have to flee an angry bear in the forest by climbing a tree, you should first check that there aren’t any hornets’ nests hiding under the branches.”

Tatsumi only stared at me, looking faintly bewildered. I sighed. “Master Isao taught kindness and patience in all things, especially when one was injured,” I went on. “He said that caring for the spirit was just as important as caring for the body.” Looking into Tatsumi’s blank, emotionless face, I had a sudden, heartbreaking insight. “No one has ever showed you any kindness before, have they?”

“Your wound is bleeding,” Tatsumi stated, making me start and glance down at my leg, where a trickle of red was starting to crawl down my skin. Before it could drip to the floor, Tatsumi swiftly pressed a cloth to the cut, making me grit my teeth, and all conversation stopped as he cleaned and bandaged the gash. He might have been a little less rough, but he wasnotgentle.

Thankfully, food arrived soon after: bowls of rice, trays of pickled cabbage and a deep black pot that, when the top was removed, revealed a steaming array of vegetables, meat and bubbling broth that made my stomach leap in excitement. Tatsumi called it a nabe—a hot pot—and I gorged myself until I couldn’t eat another mushroom. But the night’s danger wasn’t yet over. When the meal was finished and the tray removed, my face stared back at me from the table’s lacquered surface: yellow eyes and pointed ears reflected in the dark wood. Fortunately at that moment, Tatsumi had been watching the maid depart, and didn’t see the flash of kitsune in the room with him. I retreated to a corner, claiming my wound was throbbing, and stayed far away from the table and its treacherous shiny surface.

Not long after, the maid arrived to pull the futons from the closet and lay them out on the floor, and I crawled beneath the blankets as Tatsumi put out the light. After secretly making sure the lacquered case was safe and secured in my furoshiki, I lay in the darkness for a long time, thinking about kamaitachi, wind witches and various demons who wanted the scroll.

And Tatsumi. Kage Tatsumi, the demonslayer of the Shadow Clan. A boy who didn’t know the first thing about kindness, compassion or mercy. Who was ruthless, dangerous and would kill anyone—human, demon or yokai—that got in our way. Who didn’t realize that the exact thing he wanted, the entire reason for his mission, was sitting not ten feet from him. If he ever discovered I had the scroll...

I shivered and clutched the wrap a little tighter to my chest, feeling the hard length of the scroll case within. I knew I should be afraid of him; there was no doubt that he would kill me if he found out I’d been lying to him. Not only about the scroll, but about my true nature, as well. Even if I was only half yokai, I doubted the demonslayer of the Shadow Clan would take kindly to a kitsune who had been pretending to be human this whole time.

Tatsumi was dangerous, I understood that. But, at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel...sorry for him. He didn’t know how to laugh, or smile, or have any fun. He didn’t know the pleasures of the simple things—laughing, dancing, finding beauty in the world. It seemed like a very boring existence. The brief bout of dancing tonight had certainly lifted my spirits, and I knew Master Isao and the others wouldn’t want me to be miserable. I wondered if I could show Tatsumi that there was more to life. Then maybe he wouldn’t be so cold and scary. It certainly wouldn’t hurt for him to smile a little. I would just have to be careful about it.

Tatsumi, I noticed, did not lie down on the futon but chose to sit in the corner, facing the door, with his sword propped on one leg. And when I awoke early the next morning, he was still there.

12

The Demon Bear of Suimin Mori

The next morning, the fabricated magic of Chochin Machi had faded with the night.

Yumeko and I left at dawn, departing the ryokan before the sun rose over the distant hills. In the gray pre-morning light, the streets were nearly deserted, the floating red lanterns dark and lifeless. The shops, too, were closed and dark; I had slipped out of the inn the night before to buy supplies for the journey, refilling my rice pouch and purchasing enough nonperishable food to last several days. My supply of coin was dwindling, however, especially with the unexpected stop at the inn. If I’d been alone, I wouldn’t have bothered with the ryokan. Yumeko was proving to be an unexpected drain on both my time and my supplies.

Then kill her.

Instinctively, I cut off my emotions and shut my mind to the sword, giving it nothing to latch on to. The bloodlust faded and the faint hostility toward Yumeko disappeared, leaving me frozen inside.

Yumeko yawned, covering her mouth as she trailed beside me, barely favoring her leg. The healing salve, a secret mix of numbing agents created by the best poison-makers in Iwagoto, was doing its work. “The town certainly looks different now,” she remarked, gazing around the empty street. “I guess it only comes to life after dark. Shame we have to leave so soon—I would’ve liked to see more of it. Without being harassed by marauding sickle weasels, of course.” She glanced at me with a smile. “What do sickle weasels like, Tatsumi-san?”

“What?”

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