Page 68 of Shadow of the Fox

The ronin snorted. “Don’t show up looking like filthy peasants, then?”

“If at all possible.”

“Miss Reika?”

I turned, ignoring the sudden surge of bloodlust. Hakaimono was angry that the scene with the miko hadn’t ended in violence and was now lashing out at everything around it. A pair of shrine maidens, probably the two I’d heard in the rooms next door, appeared on the veranda, peering cautiously into the room.

“Miss Reika,” one said again. “So sorry to disturb you, but there are samurai at the entrance that will not leave. They say they are looking for one of their kin.”

“Thank you, Minako-san,” the shrine maiden said, as a cold lump settled in my gut. “Please inform them that I will be there shortly.” As the two miko bowed and hurried off, the priestess gave the rest of us an exasperated look.

“It appears your presence continues to disturb the peacefulness of my shrine,” she remarked. “Now I have samurai at the gates, upsetting the kami and scaring the mikos. Which one of you is responsible for this, I wonder?”

“Hey, don’t look at me,” the ronin said, holding up his hands as the shrine maiden glared at him. “I’m not in the habit of being around samurai, present company excluded. If anyone, it’s the noble Taiyo, wanting to know why their golden kinsman is hanging around with such riffraff.”

“No,” I said softly, and rose, causing them all to glance up. “It’s the Kage. They’re here for me.”

Stepping over the shattered door panels, I walked out of the room. I knew, somehow, that the members of the Shadow Clan had come for me, and I did not want them to know the faces of those I had traveled with. But I hadn’t gone very far when light footsteps echoed behind me, andhervoice floated over the breeze.

“Tatsumi, wait.”

I turned. Yumeko had followed me out to the veranda and was now watching me depart, her gaze conflicted. “What about your promise?” she asked quietly. “We still need to find Master Jiro, and you said we would go to the Steel Feather temple together.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” An odd reluctance tugged at me; for some reason, I found myself hesitant to go. “I’ll meet you at the palace,” I told her. “Don’t look for me. When it’s time, I’ll find you.” She still looked hesitant, and I offered a faint smile. “I swear it.”

* * *

The Kage were indeed at the entrance of the shrine; four samurai in dark hakama and haori, wearing the black-and-purple colors of the Shadow Clan. It wasn’t surprising; agents of the Kage were everywhere and had likely taken note of my presence the moment I stepped into the capital. “Kage Tatsumi,” one said with a short bow as I approached. “Master Masao wishes to speak to you. If you would please come with us.”

I followed my clansmen through the darkening streets of Kin Heigen Toshi, as the sunlight disappeared and lanterns flickered to life. We walked in silence, parting the crowds as we glided through the city. A group of samurai walking the streets was enough to cause most normal civilians to politely cross to the other side, but a group of Shadow Clan samurai warranted even more caution. As the Hino family were infamous for their short tempers, and the Taiyo were known for being as proud as they were beautiful, the Kage had garnered a reputation as being sinister and untrustworthy. A standing we did little to dispute. The Shadow Clan had many secrets; better that the empire expected such behavior of us. It kept them from prying too deeply into our affairs and discovering they had every right to be cautious.

The Shadow district, where the Kage family maintained an estate within the Imperial City, lay on the outskirts west of the palace. As a sanctuary away from home for the smallest of the Great Clans, it was tucked into a corner along the outer wall, far from the bustle of the inner city, out of sight and out of mind. Which suited the Kage perfectly. Like the name suggested, the streets through the Shadow district were narrow and dark, with few lanterns to throw back the gloom. As I made my way down familiar roads and alleys, I could feel eyes on me, invisible, but Hakaimono didn’t even stir. Shinobi prowled the rooftops overhead, silent and lethal, keeping watch over everything that happened within Shadow Clan territory. Ironically, their presence made the Kage district one of the safest in Kin Heigen Toshi; no kidnapper, thief or murderer would risk operating in a territory whose warriors knew the darkness better than them.

The Kage estates lay at the end of the Shadow district, over a canal of sluggish black water that was rumored to be haunted by an irritable kappa, a type of man-eating river yokai. With the amount of shinobi in the area and the fact that Hakaimono had never sensed the presence of yokai near the canal, I doubted this rumor was true and thought that it might even have been started by the Kage themselves to keep curious civilians away from the estate.

The Kage estate itself was surrounded by high stone walls and guarded by black-clad samurai, though I knew even more shinobi lurked in hidden nooks and crannies, watching us as we walked through the gates. Once we passed through the tall, iron-banded doors, all but one samurai bowed to me and left, leaving me in the care of a single bushi. I followed him up the steps into the Kage estate, smaller than Hakumei-jo, the home castle of the Shadow Clan, but no less elegant.

And no less confusing. Both structures were designed to be baffling, and those without intimate knowledge of the estate’s interiors would soon find themselves hopelessly lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the Shadow Clan palace. Added to this were many hidden rooms, trapdoors, secret tunnels and spaces between walls and floors, where shinobi could ambush intruders and vanish without a trace. Within Hakumei-jo, it was said that there were hidden rooms, tunnels and passages not even the shinobi knew about, and that the only person who possessed all the secrets of the Shadow Clan palaces was the architect who designed them. But she’d left no record of her work behind, no blueprints or journals, and in the end, took her perfect knowledge with her to the grave.

Thankfully, I had been to the Shadow Clan estate a few times before and was familiar with the layout. And, unlike Hakumei Castle, the interior of this palace did not switch around or change appearance several times a year, so I was able to keep my bearings as I followed my guide through the long, twisting corridors of the Kage estate.

However, as we turned a corner, a trio of men melted out of the shadows to block our path. They wore dark robes, and their faces were painted white with black markings across their cheeks and forehead. The majutsushi of the Shadow Clan.

“You are dismissed,” the lead figure told the samurai. “Return to your post. We will take the demonslayer from here.”

The warrior bowed deeply, turned on a heel and strode away without looking back. The sorcerer waited until the footsteps had faded into the dark before turning jet-black eyes on me.

“Kage Tatsumi,” he murmured as the others stepped forward, surrounding me. I kept my face blank, my hands at my side, though my head was filled with images of slicing them in half, drenching the corridors in blood. The robed figure’s painted black lips curled in a faint smile, as if he were reading my thoughts. “I can feel your hate from here, demonslayer,” he said in a raspy whisper. “You know what’s coming, and you desperately want to kill us all, don’t you?”

“Hakaimono’s desires are not mine, Master Iemon,” I replied carefully. “I am fully in control, both of myself and my weapon.”

“Are you?” The majutsushi’s lips curled higher. “Not according to Master Jomei. You have been seen in the company of a girl, a ronin and now, a samurai. A Taiyo noble, of all people. Did you think we would not notice your abnormal behavior? Have you forgotten the rules?” His stark black gaze narrowed. “What have we told you about dealing with those not of the Shadow Clan? Answer me.”

“I am to have little to no dealings with those outside of the Kage,” I replied obediently. “I am to avoid contact with people whenever possible. If it is not possible, I am to act as society dictates, until I can remove myself from their presence as quickly as I can.”

“And why is that, demonslayer?”

“Because my existence puts them in danger,” I quoted. “Because humans inspire emotion, which Hakaimono will use to weaken my defenses.”

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