Spirit's Chosen (32 page)

Lady Sato folded her arms. “I will be.”

I met the first snowfall of winter with a heart as bleak as the empty hillside fields. I was an insect caught in a drop of poisoned amber, a prisoner of Ryu’s longstanding resentment against me and his mother’s younger bitterness.

Lady Sato was a master of spite, an artist who was always finding new ways to improve and adorn her grudge. If I gave any sign that I was becoming accustomed to my dreary existence, she produced a fresh means of torment. When I no longer seemed to care that she and Ryu were the only ones speaking to me, she took to giving me her commands in the form of grunts and brusque gestures. It would have been funny, except that when I failed to understand precisely what she wanted, she would take it out on Noboru.

Oh, my poor little brother! Lady Sato still treated him with fondness, unless she wanted to punish me by punishing him. He had no idea why the woman who fed him the choicest bits of meat from her own dinner would suddenly
scream abuse in his face and send him to his chamber with no food at all. Sometimes he would cry until dawn. I lay on my bedroll, listening to his sobs and imploring the spirits to send him pleasant dreams.

My own dreams became nearly as tedious as my life. Night after night, I escaped to that otherworldly realm where I had last seen Reikon. No matter where I walked, my steps inevitably brought me to the willow grove where my spirit prince had shown me the caged birds and given me renewed strength. The cages were still there, but all the birds were gone. The grove was silent. From the time I closed my eyes to the moment I awoke, I stood among the willows, calling Reikon’s name in vain.

It was a hard season. I overheard Ryu tell Chizu to wear two cloaks when she left the house, for the baby’s sake. Lady Sato claimed that the winter had come earlier than usual and would freeze the life out of the land. That was when she started speaking to me again. It was not compassion, but because she wanted to be certain I would not misinterpret her will when she ordered me into the mountains.

“The mountains?” Ryu said the first time his mother told me to go there. “What are you doing, sending her
there
?”

“I want her to bring me some acorns,” Lady Sato replied huffily. “There are no oaks growing anywhere near our village.”

“What are you going to do with acorns?”

“Er, I’m making something special for
your
wife, to help her deliver
your
baby safely, when the time comes.”

Ryu looked ready to pose more questions, but a ferocious scowl from Lady Sato persuaded him that some
battles were not worth fighting. “Have it your way, Mother,” he said with a shrug. “But give the girl something to wear over her dress. I don’t care what you do to her as long as she doesn’t die from it.”

Lady Sato complied by finding me the shortest, most threadbare cloak in the whole village. As I draped it over my shoulders before leaving on my errand, she said, “If you even think about using this as a chance to run away, the only question will be whether your little brother is punished
before
or
after
our hunters follow your tracks in the snow.”

From that time on, she found me chore after chore that could only be accomplished among the frosty branches of the mountain forests. At first her assignments made
some
sense, such as seeking acorns where oak trees grew. But after a while she began giving me tasks that could be done closer to the Ookami settlement, like gathering firewood.

“I want
mountain
pine!” she shouted at me one night when Ryu had gone to confer with his counselors about plans for the spring sowing. “It burns better. And I
will
know the difference if you try to trick me with anything less.”

Chizu peeked out the doorway. “But it’s dark already, Mother-in-law, and so cold,” she said plaintively. “We have enough wood for the night, don’t we?”

Lady Sato did not like being thwarted. “
I
run this household and I say we need kindling. There will be plenty of small branches for her to gather. The cold will inspire her to work diligently, and the moon is full. She’ll be back with the wood before my son comes home, if she isn’t lazy.”

Chizu actually found the courage to begin a fresh protest, but I would not let her sacrifice herself to Lady Sato’s
temper for me. “I’m on my way,” I said, and was down the ladder as fast as I could go without tumbling down the slippery steps.

I moved through the village in the breath of the winter wind. I was glad to go. Lady Sato thought she was afflicting me with her capricious demands, but I greeted each one with secret delight. I had discovered something wonderful on the day she first sent me to gather acorns and it warmed my spirit better than any fire ever warmed my body.

As I strode along the snowy path, I glanced in the direction of the shrine. Light outlined the edges of the curtained doorway. I had not seen Rinji since I’d spied on him performing the harvest ritual. If he knew what his abrupt treatment of Lady Sato had done to me, he didn’t seem to care.

Beyond the village gateway lay fields of white, like clouds come down to earth. All that marred their perfect smoothness were a few threads of small animal tracks, a sprinkling of claw-prints left by the birds, and the occasional footsteps of a lone hunter. The Ookami did not
need
to pursue game in the cold months. Their village was rich, its storehouses fat with the foods they’d provided for themselves and taken out of the hungry mouths of their subjects. Thanks to Lady Sato’s mean-hearted whims, I went to the mountains more frequently than any man of the wolf clan.

I let the full moon’s beaming face guide me to the place I knew so well, the isolated clearing I had discovered while searching for acorns in the cold. It was smaller than poor, murdered Mori’s campsite, but large enough for me. A flat slab of rock was lodged between the roots of two oak trees,
its gray bulk tilting up to reveal a wedge of darkness. I smiled and knelt, reaching beneath for the riches the shadows concealed.

I unwrapped the small cloth bundle that held my bell and mirror. I had managed to smuggle them out of the house the second time Lady Sato sent me to the mountains. Though they were icy to the touch from their exile in this lonesome spot, they warmed me better than a summer’s day. I wiped the rock clean of snow and set them on it. Loosening my sash, I retrieved my talisman. The clay image of the goddess fit easily into the palm of my hand, but when I placed her on the stone her presence filled the clearing. My wand found its place at her feet.

“I have returned, my dear ones!” I called out, and clapped my hands. “Come to me now, to this place where I am left untroubled, where I have a little peace, where I am free to hear your voices. Father! Aki! Shoichi! Give me your warriors’ courage. Yama! Lend me your wisdom. Mori! Remind me that the world is full of gentleness. Hoshi! Let me never become so bitter that I forget to love.”

I stood and picked up bell and wand. Serenity settled its wings around me. I relished the quiet, for it let me hear nothing but my own thoughts. The clamor of the Ookami village was far away and the barbed chatter infesting Ryu’s household became a distant dream. This was different from the cruel, deliberate isolation Lady Sato had wished on me. This was silence I had chosen freely, silence that was not a wall between mortals but a bridge to take me to the world of my beloved spirits.

I struck the bronze bell three times, letting the separate
tones blend into one another. While the clear note still lingered on the air I took up my mirror and caught the moon’s light. “Come and drink, my cherished souls,” I said, turning the bright reflection into an imagined pool of silver water. I could feel them near me, all of those I had lost yet never stopped loving. I regretted that I could not offer them a more substantial sacrifice than moonlight and a song.

My voice filled the wintry clearing, climbing the ladder of my frosted breath until it reached the stars. This was no chant I had learned during my apprenticeship with Yama. The words and tune came to me from my heart and I poured them out for the spirits. Faces began to take shape among the branches of the trees as my ghosts came nearer, drawn by the bonds between us that were stronger than death. I could still see them when I closed my eyes, sense them in my blood, feel them taking possession of me and leading me into the pattern of a dance. Singing to the heavens, I swayed and turned, feet stitching the snow with the design of an owl’s swooping flight. I do not know how long the magic held me. I only knew that when at last I sank down onto the stone my feet were tired but my soul was content.

“Are they gone?”

The stranger came into the clearing and my breath stopped.

“Please, don’t be afraid,” he said, taking a step back. “I won’t harm you, I promise.” He carried a wooden walking staff, but let it fall to the snow. He held up his hands so I could see he was not concealing any weapon. “Who are you? Where do you come from? Are you lost? Let me help you.”

I said nothing. I was lost, but not in the way he meant. His voice echoed in my head like the clear, sacred note of the bronze bell. I recognized it, though this was the first time I had heard it in the mortal world. The moon shone on his face with a light so bright that I could not deny what I saw: though his long hair was unbound and unkempt, though his eyes were weary and his skin dirty from travel, I knew him.

“Reikon?” I trembled as I spoke my spirit prince’s name.

“What?” He stared at me, perplexed.

“You aren’t …?” My head spun. I teetered where I sat and began to slip sideways from the stone.

He ran to catch me before I could fall. His arms were strong. He smelled of wood smoke and pine boughs.
A spirit of the forest
, I thought, inhaling deeply. Then the unmistakable tang of sweat struck me and I knew he was as human as I.

“I’m all right now, thank you,” I said pushing him away. “Forgive me for troubling you. I see you’re a traveler. If you don’t know this area well, I can lead you to the nearest settlement. I am a slave in the chieftain’s house, so I can’t offer you hospitality, but maybe he will.”

“Ryu won’t welcome me,” he said.

“Ah! You know the wolf chieftain’s name?”

“I am a member of that clan.” He made a rueful face. “We grew up together.” He did not sound happy about it.

I looked him over from head to toe. Who was this Ookami with the face and voice of my spirit prince? What had taken him away from his clan? Was he a trader? But the wolves did not trade; they took.

Then I recalled the first words he had spoken to me. I had been too stunned by his unexpected presence and his resemblance to Reikon to realize what it truly meant when he asked
Are they gone?

They
.

Anyone could watch me dance. Only someone special would recognize
why
. He knew I was performing a rite for the spirits and he had sensed them all around me. There was just one person he could be.

“Master Daimu?”

“Did the spirits tell you who I am?” His smile was beautiful, free of any trace of mockery. “I wish they would tell me your name too.”

I answered his smile with my own. “I am Himiko of the Matsu clan. My father was our chieftain. He is one of the spirits for whom I danced.”

Daimu’s face darkened. “So Ryu’s greed took him traveling that far away?” He closed his eyes, like a man who is near the end of exhaustion. “I hoped he would be sated by the conquests he’d already made when I left. I expected too much of him.” He looked at me with pity. “Your village, Lady Himiko … it still exists?”

“Yes. He didn’t destroy it as thoroughly as the hawk clan’s settlement.”

Daimu’s black brows rose. “How do you know about their fate?”

“My friend Kaya and I found a noblewoman of the hawk clan living near the ruins of their village with her two grandchildren.”

“Ah! Lady Ayame,” he said, nodding.

“You know her?”

“When I first set out on the road, I encountered her and the little ones. I am glad to know they’re still alive, but—” He paused.

“—you don’t like the thought of them living so close to the edge of survival?” I finished for him.

He looked uncomfortable. “Himiko—Lady Himiko, I am afraid to tell you this, but … my homeward road took me past the hawk village ruins. I searched the area carefully and found the shelter Lady Ayame and the children were using. It was deserted. I could not find them anywhere. I am afraid they are gone.”

“Thank the gods!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands.
He gave me such a strange look that I had to explain why I seemed to be rejoicing over the loss of those three innocents. “Master Daimu, set your mind at ease. Lady Ayame has a third grandchild, a young woman named Nazuna, who married into the boar clan. If you could not find anyone near the hawk village it means the lady agreed to accept Nazuna’s invitation to share the safety of her household.” I did not think he had to know my part in changing Lady Ayame’s mind. The credit belonged to the spirits, not to me.