Page 38 of The Tainted and the Tamed
This was not the place to have a dizzy spell from too little air.
“Let’s hurry,” she said, the wheeze in her voice now unmistakable. In the dim light of the moon, Haruki furrowed his brow.
“You aren’t well at all. I thought the medicine—”
“It’s helped a great deal.” She smiled weakly. “I’ll be fine once I’m off this damned bridge.”
Surprised, Haruki belted out a laugh. Its sound was so pleasant to her ears, like joy unfettered.
With her still clinging to his arm, he guided her to the other side. But the tightness in her chest did not loosen. As they entered the castle, the step up from the genkan seemed to rob her of her last breath. Murasaki bent forward, her hand braced on the doorjamb.
“I’ll fetch the doctor,” Haruki said.
“No!” This was hardly the mood she wished to set. If she could just catch her breath—
“Please. Just. Give me a moment.”
Murasaki squeezed her eyes shut. Couldn’t she have a single moment of peace from her symptoms, even for a couple of hours?
But that was not how this ailment of hers worked. It took everything from her slowly, and her peace of mind was always the first thing to go.
Trying to appear at ease, she straightened, smiled at Haruki and said, “Please excuse me while I freshen up.”
He was waiting for her. She sensed his presence in the shadows, even when she took the outdoor path to the water closet.
Though hours at the festival meant she did indeed need its services, she was there for another reason. Using the water in the stone pedestal for rinsing hands, she swallowed a pair of the capsules the chairman had brought her.
Just a little longer, she coaxed herself, nearly panicking when the act of swallowing them inhibited her already difficult breathing.They always work so quickly.
The additional doses would be fine.Shewould be fine.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Murasaki turned back to the walkway beneath the castle eaves—and found a shadow waiting for her there.
Moonlight kissed the eaves and the stone before the plinth, but none fell upon this being. She knew without hesitation that it was not Haruki.
“You,” a woman’s voice said. “You smell of him. So much that I mistook your scent for his. No matter. I’ll deal with you first.”
She tossed her head back. The person before Murasaki was dressed in a dusty uniform, as if she was a maid. But her face was ghastly, decayed and picked at by insects.
With preternatural quickness, she slid into the moonlight, her hand instantly at Murasaki’s throat, silencing her scream.
Murasaki thrashed in her grip.
As if to prove the futility of fighting her, the woman lifted her from the ground, the vertebrae cracking in Murasaki’s neck. No matter how hard she clawed at the woman’s arms, pulling away loose skin like the attacker was a gutted fish, her hold did not relent.
The world narrowed, darkness circling the edges of Murasaki’s vision.
When she was at her last gasp, the hand tore from her throat, digging into flesh as it ripped away. Murasaki’s body smashed into the stone pavers, her hip knocking back into the plinth. Her throat and lungs burned, every inch of her singing at once as she gulped air, clutching at her neck.
Shadows darted around her. It was not until they stilled, two forms pushing against each other in a contest of strength, that she recognized the second silhouette.
Haru!
The shadow of the woman seemed to float away, slipping from the courtyard to the eaves and into the clouded night sky. The chairman’s body was tense, angled like an arrow pointed at the moon.
At last, he dropped his stance, his hands still clenched into fists. He was at Murasaki’s side in a moment.
She could not focus on him, could not process what he asked her—probably whether she was okay. She wasn’t. Sticky blood coated her hands, warm against the cool night.
