Emperor of the Fireflies Read online

  “I feel much better for seeing you, Saisho.” Still Kurika had not taken the ebony flute from her; he seemed reluctant to touch it. Is it because it once belonged to Flood? “Please put it on the table beside the imperial dispatch box.”

  Saisho, her carefully composed expression marred by a little frown, did as she was bid. As she turned back, Kurika reached out to place a hand on her shoulder. She started, glaring up into his face.

  “This is no time to be thinking of such things, majesty. The whole court is waiting for you.”

  That’s right, Saisho; you know something’s wrong. Get away from him – while you can.

  “But you’re the only one who still matters to me, Saisho.” Kurika slid Hotaru’s hand from her shoulder, fingers tracing her throat, to cup her face. “You’ve stood by me all these years. I need your strength – now, more than ever before.” And although Hotaru screamed his fury with all his force, Kurika brought his mouth down on Saisho’s and kissed her.

  Please don’t harm her! Don’t take her life force!

  Saisho’s glittering stare gradually dimmed, her eyes closing as the kiss deepened. Her head drooped.

  And even as Hotaru continued to protest, he felt Kurika slip his other arm around Saisho to support her as she slumped against him. He laid her down on the cushions, arranging the folds of her layered plum blossom gown around her.

  What have you done to her? Hotaru continued to rail against Kurika but as he straightened up, Kurika stretched out one hand toward the ebony flute. A current of heat swept down the length of his arm, issuing from his fingertips in a burst of feather-shaped flames. The ebony flute sizzled, caught alight, and burned to ashes before Hotaru’s horrified gaze.

  Not the flute. How can I summon Flood now?

  “Do you still not understand?” Kurika cried. “There will be no summoning of Flood or Ebb or any other shikigami. Your reign is over.”

  He blew on his smoking fingernails and Hotaru could feel his satisfaction at the little act of destruction.

  “Flame Feathers. The Akatobi clan’s lost jutsu. When I reawakened the gift in Naoki, I stole the technique for myself.”

  “Imperial majesty? Are you all right?” Hotaru’s attendants were outside. “We can smell burning.”

  “Never better.” Kurika opened the sliding door that led into the imperial courtyard garden. The shock of the fresh air as he walked out over the neatly raked pebbles woke Hotaru to the realization that the sun was setting and lanterns were being lit at every window of the palace.

  Where are you going? I – we – should be leaving to travel to the monastery.

  Kurika flung back his head and laughed aloud.

  “The monastery? We’re going to the mountain. My mountain.”

  To your mountain? But. . . How?

  But Hotaru could already feel a pulse of energy surging through his whole body. Every nerve, every vein and muscle was charged with its fiery power.

  Kurika spread his arms wide and lifted his head to the cloudy night sky. A massive convulsion twisted his frame, almost turning it inside out, as great wings unfurled, flapped free, then lifted him high into the air.

  I’m. . .flying?

  Chapter 58

  “Now what do I do?” Naoki, frustrated and humiliated, pushed his way through the ever-surging tide of imperial servants, still busily packing carts to go to the festival that he and his clan had not even been invited to attend. The Red Kites are still seen as troublemakers and dissenters. Why had he imagined that Hotaru could be swayed by the threat of exposure? He kicked angrily at a loose pebble in his path.

  The sun had set and the city beyond the palace walls was glowing with lanterns, festooned with strings of yellow pearls of light. The crowds were thinning out as he passed beneath through the Southern Gate and approached the river.

  How am I going to break the news to Beniko that her father is under threat of execution? And Yūgiri too?

  Naoki removed his sandals and pushed open the door to Kinkiyo’s house. By the ochre lamplight inside he saw anxious faces looking around to see who had arrived.

  “My lord!” Raiko cried out, leaping up to greet him.

  “Why are you still here?” Naoki frowned. “I thought I ordered you to go to warn my father if I wasn’t back by sundown.”

  “I told him to stay,” said another voice, deeper and tinged with a little note of amusement.

  Naoki peered into the lamplight. “Masao?”

  “The same.” Masao loomed up before him and smothered him in a bear-hug.

  “But how?” Naoki said, half-stifled by the strength of Masao’s arms. “Is the tide on the turn? And what in Inari’s name are you wearing?”

  Masao looked down at the clothes Tetsuo had lent him and grinned. “Ebb set me free.” He held up his left wrist to prove the point.

  “Free?”

  “It seems I absorbed too much kitsune magic after I took up Inari’s sword.”

  “You idiot. You’re doubly vulnerable now. Ebb won’t be there to protect you anymore.”

  Masao’s eyes – no longer luminously sea-green – registered exasperation, anger. Naoki realized, a little late, that he was the last person in the world to upbraid Masao; after all, he was the one who had endured the Sacrifice bond in his stead for the past months. He looked away, muttering, “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that. . . I thought I had some influence with Hotaru and could get Yūgiri and Kinkiyo released. And he all but laughed in my face.”

  “You had an audience with the emperor?”

  “The palace was in an uproar. Everyone was too busy preparing to travel to the Tide Dragon monastery to pay me much attention.”

  “Was there any sign of Kurika?”

  “I couldn’t sense his presence. He wasn’t attending upon the emperor – but Hotaru might have forbidden him to show himself around the courtiers.”

  “Or perhaps the wound I gave him was more serious than we realized.”

  “Sake, my lords?” Beniko poured sake into little bowls for them; Naoki drank two in quick succession, hoping that the clean taste of the spirit would clear his head. Masao took a sip or two but seemed lost in thought, staring into the pearly liquid.

  “We have to rescue Kai,” he said. “Before Hotaru forces him to become his shikigami.”

  “What use is one Tide Dragon?” Naoki let out a skeptical burst of laughter.

  “Ah, but if that one dragon is Flood. . .” Masao drained the last of the sake in one gulp.

  “Do you and Kai have a plan?”

  “We –” Masao began but a sudden rushing sound, like a turbulent storm wind, disturbed the tranquil night.

  Masao leapt to his feet and hurried outside. Naoki and Raiko followed close on his heels.

  “What is it?” Beniko cried after them.

  “Kurika!” Masao cried, pointing up into the sky. The moon was full but half-covered by fast-scudding clouds. But one cloud, Naoki saw, was scudding faster than all the rest, moving purposefully through the night, stirring up great gusts of wind in its wake.

  “Take cover, Beniko-san.” Masao shepherded her back indoors.

  “Is it coming here again?” Naoki heard Beniko ask fearfully.

  Raiko appeared, carrying Naoki and Masao’s swords as well as his own. All three drew their blades, gazing up at the black cloud. The wild, gusting wind whipped their hair about their faces, tore at the riverside willows, growing louder all the while.

  Naoki glanced at Masao as they braced themselves against the blast of the wind and saw the same look of grim determination on his face he had seen when Masao had walked into the Black Crane stronghold alone to rescue him. At the time he had been furious beyond words; Masao’s act had seemed to him both foolhardy and futile. But now he saw what he had refused to acknowledge before: those qualities of quiet courage that marked him out as a leader, a man other men would willingly give their lives for.

  And then the whirlwind was above them, blotting out the inconstant m
oonlight. Everything went black. The turbulent air was suddenly hot, filled with dust, grit and shredded leaves and twigs.

  “Stand firm!” Masao shouted above the roar.

  Naoki, eyes stinging from the cloud of dust, gripped his sword hilt with both hands. He wondered whether Kurika was readying himself to breathe fire on the house and forge. He wondered what it would feel like to be seared in the furnace of one of Kurika’s fiery blasts.

  And then the gusting wind began to drop and the moon reappeared. The black turbulence that was Kurika flew on overhead, setting all the alders and willows creaking and swaying in his wake.

  Raiko opened his mouth to speak but the words came out on a dust-dry, rasping cough.

  Masao was gazing upward, following Kurika’s progress.

  “Where is he going?” Naoki asked, wiping the grit from his streaming eyes. “Downriver?”

  “My guess,” Masao said, “is that he’s heading straight for Mount Sakuranbo.”

  ***

  Yūgiri woke with a start from feverish sleep and a confusion of half-remembered shadowy dreams. He heard cries and the thud of running feet outside the little room in which Hotaru had imprisoned him.

  For a dazed moment, he thought he must still be dreaming, or perhaps the voices had penetrated his dreams, blurring reality and illusion.

  “Where’s the emperor?”

  “Has anyone seen his majesty?”

  It was pitch-black and no one had brought him any light or food and water. His mouth and throat were parched. If Hotaru had neglected to tell anyone he was there, then perhaps no one would come. Perhaps Hotaru intended to starve the information out of him.

  The shouting grew louder. Yūgiri sat up, trying to make out what was the matter. The left side of his face was throbbing, but he forced himself to ignore the pain.

  “The emperor’s missing!”

  There was no doubting what he heard this time.

  “The emperor’s been abducted!”

  Yūgiri stood up and began to fumble his way around one side of the room until his right eye adjusted to the darkness. Yet wherever his fingers touched the walls, he could feel no trace of Hotaru’s onmyōdo. At length he found the door catch and slid it open. The barrier seal had been destroyed, or was no longer effective; his fingertips could detect faint traces of the powerful charm that had lost its potency to hold him inside.

  Can Hotaru be dead? When a powerful onmyōji dies, his spells lose their potency too.

  Unsteadily, he began to make his way along the lamp-lit corridor expecting to be stopped at any moment. Servants and imperial guardsmen hurried past him; several times he had to flatten himself against a wall as a black-hatted official swept by, a gaggle of agitated secretaries in his wake. But, even though the sight of an ivory-haired man with one side of his face bound in blood-stained bandages should have caused someone to challenge him, no one seemed to care.

  Weak, thirsty, unstable on his feet, Yūgiri kept stubbornly walking onward through the tide, determined to escape while he could. An ominous aura was seeping into the palace and even though ordinary men would not have even noticed it, Yūgiri, born with the gift, was almost overwhelmed by its sinister potency.

  “A doctor! Call a doctor for Lady Saisho!” Cries of distress made him stop as servants came running from the emperor’s rooms.

  “I’m a healer,” he heard himself saying. “Can I help?”

  A young serving woman stopped and turned to him. He saw her hesitate as she glanced at his bloodied face.

  “I was injured when the emperor was abducted,” he said. “But I’m all right now; please take me to your mistress.”

  A look of relief softened her anguished expression. “Thank you, Sensei,” she said and offered him her arm. “I’ll take you to her straight away.”

  ***

  Cries of distress and confusion carried from the city walls to Kinkiyo’s house in the wake of Kurika’s passing. Brief flares of flame illuminated the night; Kurika had not set roofs alight with his fiery breath but the whirlwind had fanned flames and sent sparks into thatch and wooden shingles.

  Masao hesitated, guilty at turning his back on people in need, but Naoki merely said dispassionately, “What’s more important to you? Defeating Kurika or putting out a few house fires? There’s a city fire-fighting brigade; leave it to them.”

  Chikaaki and Raiko were saddling two of the three horses Naoki had brought from Kurozuro.

  “If we ride through the night, we should reach Sakuranbo by dawn,” Masao said. “But then it’s a long trek uphill.”

  “Send me in your stead, my lord,” offered Chikaaki.

  “Castle Kurozuro is my responsibility,” Naoki said. “I owe it to Yoriaki and the Kites to ensure everyone is safe. I want you to guard the forge until my father sends reinforcements. And Raiko, you must go straight to Lord Toshiro with my message. We just have to hope that he can get Yūgiri and Kinkiyo released.”

  Yūgiri. Masao could only hope that Yū would forgive him for abandoning him to go after Kurika.

  Raiko disappeared onside the house and reappeared bearing two swords; he presented one to Naoki and the other to Masao, very much the model retainer.

  Masao was not used to this new side to his cousin; he had put up with so many insolent, barbed comments in the past from Raiko that he wondered what had wrought this change in him. All such thoughts were forgotten, however, the instant he took up the sword.

  “But this is my katana. I dropped it on the cliff when the Sacrifice seal claimed me – I never thought to see it again. And you’ve taken good care of it.” He looked gratefully at Raiko, then Naoki. “Thank you. How did you come by it?”

  “Hotaru gave it to me at the monastery,” Naoki said and Masao did not miss the ironic curl of his lip. “I think he regretted making such a benevolent gesture later, though, as he tried to trick me into handing it back.”

  “But don’t forget,” Masao said as swung himself up into the saddle, “that he still has Kai’s flute. And he could use it to seal Kai in the sea forever.”

  Chapter 59

  The full moon illuminated the dark waters, as Ayaka and her ladies-in-waiting, having waited in vain all day for the arrival of the emperor and the court, took a walk in the abbot’s garden. The stars overhead were like a shimmer of silvery fish scales, and the luminous blue seascape was softly veiled in gauzy mist.

  She heard little gasps of appreciation from her ladies-in-waiting.

  “Oh, it’s so pretty,” said Lady Miruko. “If only the festival could have been tonight; it’s a perfect moon. . .”

  But breathtaking as the view was, Ayaka’s thoughts kept straying.

  Something must have gone wrong at the palace. What can have happened?

  All manner of dire possibilities began to flit through her mind: an uprising; an outbreak of the plague; a disastrous fire. . . And yet, a small voice at the back of her mind whispered that perhaps the emperor might cancel the ceremony altogether and Kai would be spared.

  Where are you, Kai? The tide was going out and yet she had not seen him since his mother’s death. She knew that he would need time alone to mourn for her and come to terms with his feelings – but with the ceremony so close, their plans were far from complete. And she was still, after all, the wife of the man who had caused all his clan’s misfortunes.

  She glanced apprehensively out to sea, scanning the misted horizon.

  Perhaps he doesn’t trust me. . .

  When they reached the torchlit main courtyard, one of Lord Nagamoto’s retainers was awaiting her with a dispatch from court.

  Ayaka opened the message which was sealed and stamped with the Nagamoto clan’s badge. It was written in her father’s habitual brusque, concise language:

  ‘Some urgent matters have detained his imperial majesty in the capital. The imperial party will set out at dawn tomorrow. I have informed the abbot of this change in plans in the hope that the ceremony and festival can proceed tomorrow.’

&n
bsp; “Not bad news, majesty?” Lady Miruko was looking up at her anxiously.

  “I’m not sure. The emperor has been detained and will arrive tomorrow. I hope it’s nothing of consequence.”

  Ayaka thanked the messenger and led her ladies back to their rooms, still wondering what had caused Hotaru to change his plans at the last moment.

  Later that night as Reika was combing and oiling her mistress’s hair, Ayaka said in a low voice, “What would happen if the Tide Jewels had lost their magic? Would the emperor be forced to abdicate?”

  “Lost their magic?” Reika’s comb caught in a little snarl and Ayaka smothered a squeak.

  “You were there on the shore at the Tide Festival this summer,” she continued, even more softly, lowering her head until it nearly touched her maid’s. “You saw Lord Kaito push Hotaru into the sea when he was still holding the Tide Jewels. You saw the miraculous jeweled rain that put out the temple fire. Suppose the miracle was caused by the jewels melting or – something,” she finished lamely, failing to find a better way to explain. “And now they’re just ordinary pearls with no magical powers.”

  “For heaven’s sakes, don’t let anyone else hear you make such a suggestion,” Reika whispered back fiercely. “It’s treasonous.”

  “But if it’s true, what’s going to become of us tomorrow? Lord Kiyomori hates my father. He’d like nothing better than to see Hotaru deposed and my clan disgraced. Suppose he sends his shinobi to assassinate us all?”

  Reika laid down the comb and sighed. “My lady, please don’t worry. I’m here to defend you.” With a deft flourish, she held up a fistful of lethal slender blades. Ayaka blinked, shocked into silence. “And no shinobi is going to get anywhere near you without cutting me down first.”

  ***

  The distant rumble sounded like thunder. But as late-night travelers on the capital road stopped to point and stare, Masao and Naoki reined in their horses. Masao’s mare whinnied and jittered nervously; he leant forward to pat her neck and murmur soothing words.