Red Winter (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 1) by Annette Marie
She squinted at him. Was he an immoral, heartless yokai or wasn’t he? Why couldn’t she figure him out?
“You’re strangely innocent, little miko,” he murmured, casting his gaze toward the predawn sky. “One moment you think we are creatures of depraved evil, and the next you assume we are kinder and far more selfless than we could ever be. I do not understand you.”
Her hands clenched into fists. “Maybe I don’t want to always assume the worst.”
“It’s safer if you do.”
“Weren’t you the one who begged me to trust you, swearing on your life?”
“I never said your mistrust was unwise.”
Her steps faltered. She hurried to match his pace again. “So what are you saying then? That you’re bad but not that bad? That I shouldn’t trust you but you want me to anyway? I don’t understand you either.”
“Who do you think are more evil?” He said the last word mockingly. “Kami or yokai?”
“Yokai.”
“Even after your encounter with Izanami’s vassal?”
“He was an exception.”
“Was he? How do you know? How many other kami have you met to compare him to?”
She gritted her teeth and didn’t answer.
He glanced at her. “A man is betrayed by his friend and kills him. Another man covets his friend’s wife and kills him. Which killer is more wicked?”
“They’re both murderers.”
“So you see no difference at all?”
“I, well …” She frowned. “I suppose the man who killed for greed is worse than the man who killed for revenge, but not by much. What’s your point?”
“For yokai, neither man is wicked.” He absently ran his fingers over a loop of the onenju. “To be killed for an act of betrayal is your due recompense. The one who was betrayed defends his honor; he commits no sin.”
“What about the man who coveted his friend’s wife?”
“The husband failed to protect what was his. The husband was weak. In nature, the strong conquer the weak. Death is natural and expected. If you are not strong enough to survive, you either find someone stronger to protect you or you perish.” His gaze flicked to hers. “And so the kitsune appealed to Inari, becoming servants of a Kunitsukami to ensure our survival, because we are weak but not stupid.”
“So for yokai, killing isn’t a crime.” She couldn’t hide her disapproval.
He waved a hand in the general direction of the mountains. “A fox kills a rabbit for food. Is the fox a criminal?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because … because the fox needs to eat. It’s the fox’s nature to hunt rabbits.”
“And what is the difference between foxes and rabbits, and yokai and humans?”
“Humans aren’t rabbits!”
“Rabbits aren’t deer either. Would you condemn the wolf that kills the deer?”
“Humans and animals are different.”
“How?”
“We—we have lives, families—”
“So do deer and rabbits.”
“We have a higher consciousness.” She glared at him. “We aren’t animals and you can’t compare us to them.”
He shrugged. “Most yokai don’t see much difference. Yumei sees no difference at all, especially since he can speak with the beasts as easily as he can speak with us. To him, humans are just another kind of animal.”
She clenched and unclenched her hands as she walked, furious but not quite sure why. “So you would feel the same guilt killing me as killing a rabbit?”
“Not at all.”
“Because you need me to remove the onenju.”
He stopped, ruby gaze returning to the fading stars. “Because you are more to me now. Because you keep secrets like a kami and I’m curious what you hide. Because you are lonely and scared and I don’t understand why. Because you trust me when you know you shouldn’t. Because I believe you when you say you will keep your word.”
She stared at him, unfamiliar emotions tightening her throat. Her pulse beat in her ears. “Shiro …”
His eyes pierced her and there was no warmth in their crimson depths. “I could not kill you without guilt, little miko, but make no mistake … if you give me a reason, I will.”
Ice rushed through her veins, then shattered into shards of pain. She whirled away from him and stormed up the road alone. His words rang through her mind, over and over. If you give me a reason, I will. She’d almost thought … but no. He had no goodness in his yokai soul. He would indeed kill her if he thought he had a decent reason. He might be curious about her, but to him, she was more like a specimen in a zoo than a real person. She was just an interesting animal.
Why had she tried to convince herself that he cared? His only kindess had been to warn her about what yokai really were, what he really was.
She wheeled off the road, turning onto the path to the shrine, damp leaves crunching underfoot. She glanced back once and saw Shiro following at a distance, not even watching her. He didn’t care that he’d upset her. Maybe he’d hurt her on purpose.
I will not let you die. Forgive me.
Why had he said that? Why had he kissed her?
Why did she care so much?
She shook her head, almost dislodging her hair from its bun. She would tell him he’d met his side of the bargain when she darn well felt like it. He could stew about finding another Amatsukami for another few days while she regained her strength. It would serve him right.
Passing beneath the first torii with a quick bow, she started up the steps, working to keep the suffocating fatigue from snuffing out her anger. If she stopped being angry, she would feel hurt and betrayed—again. She was done with letting him hurt her.
“Emi!”
She continued stomping up the steps, ignoring his urgent call. Whatever he wanted to say, she didn’t want to hear it. She reached the top of the stairs, bowed, and stepped beneath the second torii. The shrine courtyard spread out before her, the peaked roofs coated in white snow. The lanterns on the main hall glowed softly, the only source of light. Not even the shadows moved.
“Emi!” he yelled.
She hesitated, unable to stop herself from looking back.
Shiro flew up the stairs and crashed into her. Grabbing her in his arms, he sprang back toward the steps as a strange shimmering light lit the air. A rainbow of colors flashed across their path, and a sudden invisible force slammed into them, flinging them back into the courtyard.
Emi hit the stones and pain shot through her knees as Shiro half fell on her. She jerked around to see what had attacked them. Instead of an assailant, a rectangular barrier glowed faintly from the torii all the way to the shrine at the far end, enclosing the entire courtyard.
“What is this?” she gasped.
Shiro pushed off her and sat on the ground. “A barrier.”
“I can see that.”
“Someone wants to keep us here. I’m sure we’ll find out who very soon.”
She looked from his expression of annoyed suffering to the barrier and back, wondering where his earlier urgency had gone. “We’re trapped?”
“Are you coming out?” Shiro called to the empty courtyard. “Or do you expect us to wait indefinitely?”
A moment of silence before a voice answered, “Impatient, are we, kitsune?”
From the darkness beneath the eaves of the shrine, a shadow moved. A woman drifted out, her navy kimono brushing the ground behind her. Her impossibly blue hair was swept into an elaborate looping style, with long tendrils swaying down her back. A folding fan in one hand fluttered gracefully as she brought it up to her face, where a white mask with strange markings covered her features except for her mouth and chin.
The woman smiled sweetly. “A handsome one you are, kitsune. I do not believe we have met.”
“An accurate assumption,” Shiro said, rising to his feet and untangling one of the long ties at his waist.
“I am Ameonna
Emi stared in confusion, seeing only the woman in the courtyard. What “pet” was she talking about? Emi looked at Shiro. He tilted his head toward the roof of the stage. A shadow was crouched on the eaves, hunched like a watching gargoyle. Her heart rate picked up, trepidation rising in her chest.
“I am no one interesting,” Shiro replied casually. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Lady of the Rain?”
“Ah, kitsune, is it not obvious?” Ameonna smiled again. “I am here to kill you and the miko.”
Chapter 17
“Kill us?” Emi gasped.
Ameonna flitted her fan. “I owe a certain kami a favor, you see, otherwise I would not bother myself with such a tedious task as killing humans, and on such short notice too.” She pointed her fan at Shiro. “I did agree to kill you, kitsune, but you seem most delightful. Agree to become my newest pet, and I shall spare your life.”
Emi’s brain finally caught up with what was happening. The blue-haired woman was a yokai, and she’d trapped Emi and Shiro inside a barrier so they couldn’t escape. But how had a yokai with lethal intent passed through the torii barrier? Why wasn’t the sacred ground rejecting her?
“A kami?” Emi blurted. “You’ve come to kill us because a kami told you to?”
“He is quite unpleasant,” Ameonna complained. The blank eyes of her mask stared, hiding her expression except for her mouth. “I am pleased to be rid of my debt to him. Well, kitsune? Do you agree to my generous offer?”
“I’m not very obedient, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t make a good pet.”
The yokai woman grinned, showing her teeth. “I would teach you obedience.”
“Tempting, but I’ll pass.”
Ameonna sighed. “How unfortunate. Well, then, Sunekosuri? Come.”
The shadow on the eaves uncoiled. A man leaped from the roof, landing lightly on the stones beside Ameonna. He wore simple black garments, and a plain white mask covered most of his face. Above it, a pair of dark brown dog ears rose from his head. As he turned to Ameonna, awaiting her command, a matching tail swished behind him.
“What is he?” Emi whispered to Shiro.
“An inugami,” he grumbled, not sounding pleased to name the dog version of a kitsune. “This is going to hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“How many foxes have you seen outmatch a dog? And that woman is even more powerful.”
Her heart beat painfully against her ribs. “Are you saying you don’t think you can win?”
With his attention on the inugami as it took several light-footed steps closer, Shiro smiled grimly. “I’m saying I don’t stand a chance.”
“Kitsune,” the woman called. “I ask one final time. Surrender your will to me.”
In answer, he stepped in front of Emi and turned his palms up. Foxfire rippled over his hands and shot outward, revealing his curved swords.
“So be it,” Ameonna said. “Sune, my sweet, kill him.”
The inugami flashed his bestial canines from below the bottom edge of his mask. He advanced toward Shiro, drawing the sword at his hip. The katana blade glowed with ki, and an answering shimmer of flames rippled down Shiro’s swords.
Sunekosuri sprang at Shiro. Blades flashed through the air and crashed together, the clang of metal on metal ringing through the courtyard. Light burst from the point of contact, flinging Shiro back. He landed on his feet and slid across the ground. The inugami charged after him and their blades met again, Shiro catching the katana with his smaller weapons. For an instant, Emi wondered why Shiro was using his blades together instead of deflecting with one and attacking with the other, the way she’d seen dual-wielding sohei in Shion do.
Then the inugami leaned into his blade and Shiro bent under the pressure, unable to hold against the other yokai’s strength. The enemy blade dipped toward Shiro’s face despite his efforts to hold him back. His red eyes gleamed in the darkness and he slid out from under the katana, shoving it aside.
Her heart clogged her throat. The other yokai was too strong. But Shiro still had his speed, didn’t he?
The kitsune spun, his blades whirling. The inugami leaped after him and their blades struck again. Springing apart, leaping in, blades whipping through the air, striking with crashes of noise and flashes of light and fire. They moved so fast Emi couldn’t follow the motions and barely understood what was happening.
Ameonna exclaimed in delight, hands clasped together around her folded fan and a wide smile stretching her face as she watched the inugami and kitsune battle. Emi tried to breathe, but her lungs were locked in terror as the two yokai slammed together again and again, deadly steel moving so fast. Then Sunekosuri caught Shiro’s blades on his sword and flung his katana wide, throwing Shiro sideways. The inugami’s elbow whipped back and struck the kitsune in the chest. Shiro fell hard on his back before rolling away and springing up as the inugami’s blade followed him.
Shiro was going to lose. He was going to die. She had to do something.
She jammed her hands into her skirt pockets and pulled out two handfuls of ofuda. Binding, barrier, and purification. The inugami was too fast for her to hit him with any of them. Even if she could, she had almost no ki left—certainly not enough to fuel an ofuda binding. What was she supposed to do? Her hands clenched, crushing the paper as she looked around the empty courtyard in desperation. The barrier trapping them glowed faintly. She could try to break it, but she doubted they could outrun Sunekosuri or his master.
Her gaze fell on the sacred tree, just inside the barrier. Wrapped around its trunk was a two-inch-thick woven rope decorated with folded paper—a shimenawa, a tool for purification. Shimenawa were used to protect and purify sacred places and objects. An even thicker shimenawa hung above the hall of worship.
With a frantic glance toward Shiro, she ran for the tree. Ameonna stayed wholly focused on the spectacle before her. She squealed in elation and Emi looked back just as the point of the inugami’s sword caught Shiro’s chest, slicing across to his shoulder. His blood splattered the snow-dusted stone of the courtyard, but he didn’t falter.
Forcing herself to focus, Emi jumped onto the bench under the tree and grabbed the rope’s knot. It was tied tight and her fingernails tore as she dug at it. As she struggled with the rope, Ameonna laughed gleefully at the fight before her. The knot wouldn’t budge and as Emi yanked at it, the rope grew warm under her hands. Did its protective magic prevent people from removing it?
As desperate hopelessness swept over her, heat flashed in her chest. Burning power burst through Amaterasu’s mark and flooded her body. Her legs buckled and she dropped to her knees on the bench, barely keeping a hold on the shimenawa. Amaterasu’s presence whispered through her, and magic surged down her arm. The knot beneath her hand sparked with blue light and then popped apart as if it had never been tied.
Strength pulsed in her veins, her ki replenished by Amaterasu’s potent power. The Amatsukami’s presence within her swiftly faded, but just before it left Emi’s senses, she felt a flash of unexpected ferocity from Amaterasu: fight, the kami seemed to say.
Behind her, metal clattered loudly from a sword bouncing across the stones.
“Ah!” Ameonna exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Lovely, Sune, my darling!”
Emi whipped around, one end of the shimenawa in her hand, and froze.
Sunekosuri’s katana was sticking through Shiro’s left arm. Several inches of the blade protruded from the top of his forearm. Somehow, he was still clinging to his short sword, but the other one was on the ground a few yards away.
Shiro bared his teeth. He grabbed the yokai’s blade with his bare hand and yanked it out of his arm. Still holding the blade, he slashed the inugami across the face with his remaining short sword. The inugami bellowed and staggered back.
Ameonna shrieked furiously. “His face! You dam
The inugami threw his head back. Blood coursed down his face from the diagonal cut that ran from his right cheek up to his left temple. He shoved his sword back into its sheath as his skin glowed with white light. His shape softened, the edges of his form rippling. He roared and the sound turned into a dog’s deep howl. Light flashed blindingly bright.
A massive dog the size of a horse jumped out of the light. Its mottled black and brown fur formed rough stripes across its body, and its muzzle contorted into a snarl. Drool dripped from its jowls as it took a menacing step toward Shiro.
Shiro gazed at the dog, unmoving. Then blue and red flames erupted over him and he returned to his tiny fox form, no larger than the inugami’s head. The huge yokai snarled and Shiro opened his jaws, letting his tongue loll out in a silent vulpine laugh.
With a deep barking roar, the inugami sprang for Shiro. The white fox dove away, speeding through the dog’s legs and nipping at its back ankle on his way by.
Tearing her attention away, Emi pulled out her purification ofuda and slapped one against the shimenawa. Shiro could only evade the dog for so long, and he wouldn’t win the fight in his fox form. The ofuda glowed faintly as it stuck to the rope, defying the laws of nature. She smacked the other two onto the shimenawa and tied one end of the rope around the middle to create a sliding knot.
“Kill him!” Ameonna yelled impatiently. “Just kill him!”
Clutching the rope, Emi turned back to the courtyard. The monstrous inugami spun in a circle, trying in vain to bite the fox. Shiro darted around the dog’s legs, staying well away from its teeth. With her heart racing and knees shaking, Emi ran toward them.
The inugami whirled in another circle, jaws snapping furiously and catching nothing but air. Emi sped toward it, the shimenawa in her hands. She needed to catch it as it turned, before it saw her. She could do this. She held out the rope and sprinted into the fray.
The dog spun around. Suddenly, she was face to fangs with the monstrous inugami.