Red Winter (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 1) by Annette Marie
The only thing working in her favor was Yumei and Shiro’s inability to guess why she, a human, could affect a spell that only a Kunitsukami should be able to touch. Amaterasu’s power had been filtering into Emi for years, and she would only absorb more of Amaterasu’s ki until the ceremony on the solstice. That had to be the reason she could do what Yumei couldn’t. Though the powerful omamori she wore around her neck hid the presence of kami power from others’ senses, the two yokai had tasted it in her blood. At least they hadn’t figured out why—yet.
She needed this bargain completed fast, before the two yokai realized what she really was. With the Kunitsukami missing and unable to balance the power of the Amatsukami, Yumei and Shiro would be all the more eager to kill a kamigakari.
An unexpected panicky feeling spread through her chest. As her head came up, she realized a nerve-racking sound had been growing in the distance for a few minutes now, a sound that sent fear spiraling down into her center.
A small river rushed through the trees, winding down the slope, its water splashing and swirling violently. Boulders, their surfaces shining wetly in the moonlight, were scattered across the river, the water beating at them mercilessly. There was no bridge.
Shiro, ignoring her entirely since her last silent rebuff, strode to the bank and jumped easily onto a boulder. On agile feet, he sprang from rock to rock, utterly unafraid of the rushing current around him.
Her feet stumbled to a stop as she stared at the water. The sound filled her head, and beneath it, she could hear Hana’s screams. She could feel her friend’s cold, slippery hand clutching hers so tightly that she’d had bruises for two weeks afterward. Her chest tightened, ice forming in her lungs as though she were underwater, breathing in the arctic current, trapped and drowning with Hana.
“Emi?”
She blinked rapidly. Shiro’s face came into focus, ruby eyes fixed on her. He stood in front of her, blocking her view of the river. Hadn’t he already been most of the way across? How long had she been standing there, hyperventilating over a memory?
“Where are we?” she croaked. They hadn’t intersected a river on their way to the Tengu.
“West of the shrine.” He reached for her. “I’ll carry you across—”
“Don’t touch me!” Her cry was hoarse, her voice unfamiliar to her ears. She stepped away from him, hugging herself. She didn’t want his help, didn’t want to trust him to carry her safely over the terrifying water. But if he didn’t carry her, how would she get across?
Shiro lowered his hand. They stood in silence, the forest quiet and still. She shivered, tightening her arms around her middle. She wanted to lie down in the snow and sleep. She wanted to be home—not the Shirayuri Shrine, but her childhood bedroom, with her mother in the kitchen, humming as she cooked, and her father reclined on the sofa, watching the news on their small television. She wanted to hug her mother, tell her how much she loved her, tell her that she had never meant to push their relationship aside. She wanted to go back and change it all.
“I didn’t intend for you to get hurt,” Shiro said softly.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see his face. Liar. He was a liar.
“Actions count,” she rasped. “Not intentions.”
“Not to yokai,” he murmured. “Actions change our course, influence our futures, but intentions define us, empower us. Without intent, we are nothing.”
Her eyes opened, and against her better judgment, she glanced at him. He was gazing at the star-dusted sky, his expression as unreadable as the moon. That ageless quality of his features was even more evident as the dim, silvery light cast strange shadows across his face. Sometimes, he spoke as if he’d walked out of a high school just yesterday, as casual and crass as a teenager, but other times, he sounded like Yumei—his speech slower, softer, more formal and ancient.
“How long has the onenju bound you?” The question slipped out before she could stop it.
His gaze dropped from the sky to the snow, not meeting hers. He absently ran his hand over the beads.
“I don’t remember,” he whispered. “I can’t remember not wearing them. I can’t remember a time when they didn’t burn my soul and devour my ki as fast as it grows within me.”
He was a liar, she reminded herself. He was tricking her, playing on her emotions to win her sympathy. He was a liar. She chanted the words in her head, but she couldn’t believe them, not this time.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asked bitterly. “Why didn’t you tell me the beads were hurting you and ask me to take them off?”
“I did ask you.”
“You didn’t tell me why.”
“Would it have made a difference? You didn’t trust me.” He looked away from her. “And yokai know not to trust the goodwill of humans either.”
She hesitated, caught off guard by his words. Did yokai have their own tales, where humans were the cruel or untrustworthy ones? Maybe they weren’t entirely wrong. Had he told her that the onenju were so terrible from the start, would she have freely removed them? She wasn’t sure.
He turned toward her. She gasped as his arms came around her, scooping her up.
“Shiro!”
“Either I carry you, or we stand here until you pass out and then I carry you.” He started toward the river. “Would you prefer to be unconscious?”
Not bothering to answer that, she watched the river draw closer with each step he took, terror rising in her. The water sounded the same as that day. Abandoning dignity, she grabbed a double handful of the front of his kosode and buried her face against his shoulder to hide the sight. His steps hesitated, then resumed with a touch more speed. She felt him gather himself for the first jump.
The wind whooshed over her as he leaped. Her heart froze. He landed lightly and sprang again. She could only hear the water and the distant screams in her memory. Another landing, another leap.
With a thump and the crunch of snow, he landed again and his gait switched to an easy walk. Cautiously, she lifted her head and peeked past her tangled hair. They were on the far side of the river. She looked back at the rushing water. He’d crossed the river in three jumps?
She squirmed, trying to wiggle her legs free so she could stand. His arms tightened, one looped under her knees, the other around her upper back.
“Just relax,” he murmured. “It’s only a mile farther.”
“I do not need you to carry me. Put me down.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“Put me down!”
“Exhausted and stubborn,” he observed dryly. He dipped his face toward hers until his breath warmed her cheek. “Does it bother you to touch me, little miko?”
She grabbed his furry fox ear, pinching it hard between her fingers and thumb. “Does it bother you?” she asked sweetly.
“Ow ow ow!” His face contorted, eyes scrunched as he tilted his head, pulling away and trying to ease the pressure. “Let go!”
“Put me down.”
He dropped his arms.
She yelped as she fell rear first toward the ground. He scooped her out of the air and back into his arms, but she’d already let go of his ear.
She glared at him. “Why won’t you put me down?”
“Because you’re walking so infuriatingly slow that it’ll take us all night to get back,” he growled, looking extremely displeased over the ear pinching. “If you just shut up and hold still, we’ll be back at your shrine in a few minutes.”
He started forward, his long strides eating up the ground so quickly that the difference in the speed was embarrassing. She might still have insisted on walking herself, but in the minute she’d been off her feet, a terrible, weary ache had settled deep in her calf muscles. She gave up and slumped in his arms. He jostled her a bit, getting a more comfortable grip, and actually picked up the pace even more. To still have so much strength, was he that utterly tireless? Or was she that pathetically weak?
Her head bobbed in time with his steps and sh
“Emi.”
Drowsy weight kept her eyelids firmly closed. She mumbled wordlessly.
“Emi, wake up.”
Her eyes squinted open and she stared at the front of the house, confused. She was back? She blinked sleepily and looked up at Shiro, then back at the house. Alarm flashed through her, chasing away her drowsiness. She was in the arms of a yokai in perfect view of numerous windows. It was the middle of the night, but still way too risky. Judging by the dark windows, her absence must have gone unnoticed.
Seeing her alert, he tipped her, feet first, toward the ground. As soon as she was standing, she stepped away from him—and her legs threatened to buckle. He caught her upper arms and pointed her toward the entrance.
“That way.”
“I know,” she mumbled. Had she really fallen asleep for the rest of the walk? She looked over her shoulder and squinted at him. “Where will you sleep?”
“Oh … somewhere.” He nudged her toward the door. “Go to bed before you fall over.”
“I am not some weak damsel who needs coddling,” she said firmly, taking a wobbling step away from him.
“If you say so.”
Scowling, she took one stomping step toward the front door before realizing she needed to be quiet. Tiptoeing up the steps, she slid the door open and glanced back. “But what about you?”
His grin widened, showing the point of one sharp canine. “Are you offering to share your bed, little miko?”
“No!”
“Then I’ll see you when I have a lead on an Amatsukami.” He gave her a little bow. “Sleep well, lady of the shrine.”
She watched him walk away and vanish around the corner of the house, leaving no trace behind. Biting her lip, she wondered if he would be sleeping in the snow. He had to be tired too. Maybe she should have offered to let him stay …
She shook her head sharply. Stay in her room? What was she thinking? Slipping off her boots, she soundlessly shut the door and hurried down the hall. He would be fine. He’d survived who knew how many years on his own; he didn’t need her—except to remove the onenju. That was all he needed her for.
Her hand paused midair as she reached for her bedroom door. With another sigh, she walked away from her room and tiptoed down the corridor to the bathroom. Locking herself in, she stripped off her filthy clothing and, very reluctantly, turned to face the mirror.
The tangled mess of her hair was the first and most obvious casualty of her outing. Twigs and leaves stuck out of her long locks, the waves from her earlier braid nothing but knots. Red smudges on her throat would probably bloom into impressive bruises by morning, and blood streaked the sides of her neck and down one shoulder. She pushed her hair aside and flinched at the four puncture wounds on one side of her neck, with a fifth on the other side. At least her hair covered those.
Her elbows and knees were bruised and already turning colors. The palms of her hands were scraped, one pierced by Yumei’s teeth, and her ribs ached from where Shiro’s arm had crushed her against his side while he fled the oni. Everything hurt.
The most obvious mark on her body was not an injury, but the black symbol emblazoned on her chest in the center of her sternum, just above her breasts. Amaterasu’s kamigakari mark. The day it appeared, it had been as faint as a shadow on her skin, but now it was pitch black. She pressed a hand over it, hiding it from her sight, wishing that ripping it from her flesh could rip it from her soul as well—but magic didn’t work that way.
Though she’d removed her clothing, the one item she didn’t remove—never removed—was the small silk bag around her neck on a simple leather string. The flat bag, decorated with embroidered flowers to look like the good luck charms that shrines sold at festivals, held the powerful omamori that hid her ki from the senses of yokai. Without it, she had no doubt Yumei would have figured out exactly what she was, even if Shiro hadn’t.
She wet a washcloth and cleaned the wounds on her neck. Fresh blood stained the cloth, and in the privacy of the bathroom, she let herself cry. She soundlessly wept for the terror of the night, the pain she’d suffered, the exhaustion, the lies and betrayal. She wept for her naïve idiocy, for how easily she’d let Shiro manipulate her.
When she was passably clean, with her wounds scrubbed and bandaged and her hair brushed, she slipped into her bedroom and put on her soft sleeping robe. She collapsed onto her bed, face in her pillow and blankets tangled around her legs because she was too tired to straighten them out. Eyes closed, she let the weariness roll over her in waves, dulling the aches and pains. As sleep pulled her under, she wondered why the thoughts she dwelled on weren’t of the danger, the terror, or even the ominous information she’d gained that night. Instead, the memory of Shiro admitting he couldn’t remember a time before the cursed onenju lingered in her mind … the starlight on his face, the sound of his voice, and the look she’d glimpsed in his eyes—swirling, hopeless despair as deep as a midnight ocean.
Chapter 13
The door to the storehouse slid open with a clack.
“Emi?” Katsuo called.
“Good morning,” she answered, poking her head out from behind a shelf to see him standing uncertainly in the doorway, framed in a rectangle of sunlight. “I’m back here.”
She returned her attention to the array of books spread around her. Joining her, Katsuo crouched to gaze bemusedly at the pile.
“This is where you’ve been hiding today,” he said. “I thought you were still holed up in your room.”
She nervously adjusted the scarf around her neck. After her adventurous night in the forest with Shiro, she spent the next two days in her room, claiming a mild cold so no one would see the spectacular bruises Yumei had left on her neck. Fujimoto and Nanako had been worried, so she’d ventured out, using the excuse of the chilly weather to don a strategically arranged scarf.
“I’m feeling much better,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. Lying was one of those impure activities that kamigakari weren’t supposed to engage in, so she didn’t have much practice. “I wanted to get some fresh air.”
“I wouldn’t call the air in here ‘fresh,’” he remarked. “What’s all this?”
She made a face at the books. “I just wanted to … well, after our encounter with the oni, I wanted to look up some better self-defense ofuda. The barrier and the binding ones don’t last very long.”
The encounter with the oni that she’d shared with Katsuo wasn’t her only motive for finding a better way to defend herself, but she didn’t need to mention that to him.
“In general, ofuda reflect strength,” he told her. “A line in the snow lacks permanence, so a barrier ofuda wouldn’t last long in that case, but a line carved into stone would be longer lasting and more powerful. Binding a yokai by hitting it directly with the spell doesn’t work well either. It’s better to trap the yokai inside something and bind that instead.” He tapped a finger against his chin. “If you really want to bind a yokai, though, you’ll need a proper marugata.”
“You mean an exorcism circle?”
“Yes. A simple circle is the most basic form, but marugata can get extremely complex. You can use them to trap a yokai and force their ki into a vessel that you can then bind permanently. It’s how the ancient sohei dealt with immortal yokai who couldn’t be killed.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “Some yokai can’t die at all?”
“No, all yokai can die,” he corrected. “Ki is life energy, and whether you’re human, yokai, or kami, if you run out of ki, you die. However, very powerful yokai will come back to life after a while. Remember the story of Orochi, the eight-headed dragon? It terrori
She’d heard the story before but hadn’t considered the details. “So you’re saying that if a weak human sohei manages to kill a powerful yokai, it can potentially come back to life and seek revenge on mankind?”
“Yep. That’s why sohei seal yokai away instead. Sealing a powerful yokai’s ki is the only surefire way to take it out of the picture permanently. Seals fade over time, but as long as someone is around to renew it, the yokai will stay sealed forever.” He gestured at the wall, indicating the wider world, she assumed. “They say there are sohei families that still, to this day, guard seals on the most powerful yokai that once terrorized the land.”
“Can I learn how to do one of these marugata?” she asked.
“Do you know how to do the Five Blossoms of the Heavenly Garden dance for spring festivals?”
“Of course.”
“Then you already know one,” he said with a smile.
“The … the dance is a marugata?”
“Not the dance itself, but the circle you draw as you do the dance. It’s one of the simpler marugata and doesn’t even require an incantation. If a yokai walks into it, it will be paralyzed and unable to move as long as it’s inside the circle. It doesn’t do anything else, but it’s more powerful than an ofuda.”
She squinted, picturing the dance. The popular, and challenging, solo dance was performed by a miko every year, and Emi knew it well. The miko not only had to dance, she also had to draw a design on a huge sheet of white paper with charcoal as part of the choreography. Drawing a perfect circle while dancing gracefully was difficult even for an experienced miko.