This time, the silence that took shape around them was different. Weightier, a low hum gathering in the air. “It would not have made a difference if he were here,” Ōkami said, his words dangerous in their control. “Yoshi would not have said anything to you.”
Roku lifted a finger to emphasize his point. “That may be true. But I am remiss. There is no need to resurrect dead cooks. We have in our possession—at this very moment—someone who could answer all these questions and more. Someone far more … pliant.”
“Ah, of course.” Ōkami lowered his head, letting his hair veil his features once more. “The feckless daughter of Hattori Kano. This should prove amusing.”
Roku glanced his brother’s way. “Brother,” he began, “your bride lived alongside all these men, no?”
His expression souring, Raiden sheathed his blade. “My bride? I have no intention of taking that dirty sparrow to wi—”
“Nonsense.” The emperor whirled in place, the hem of his lustrous silk robe dragging through the grime. “We cannot go back on our word. Nor can we ignore the last wishes of our esteemed father.”
Raiden inhaled with distaste. “Even if the goods have been sullied beyond repair?”
Though he snorted in amusement, the chains near Ōkami’s fists clanked softly.
“Hattori Mariko has sworn her loyalty to you and to our family, has she not?” Roku continued.
Raiden nodded, his features still dubious.
“Then,” Roku said as he locked eyes on his prisoner, “your union must go forward with all haste.”
“My sovereign,” Raiden replied, “perhaps we could—”
“I will not be challenged on this, brother. By anyone.” His nostrils flaring, Roku spoke over him, his reedy voice almost grating in its force. “There is only one way to know for certain if Lady Mariko retained her honor in Jukai forest.” A gleam alighted his gaze as he watched Ōkami’s obsidian eyes flash. “Take her as your wife. And if she is indeed sullied—if she has lied to us—her punishment will be the slow death of a traitor.” He waited to see how his words hung in the air. Then the emperor met the stony face of his prisoner. “And the Dog of Jukai Forest will be there to bear witness to it.”
The Ashes of Loyalty
Escape.
And regicide.
They were notions Ōkami had not entertained in a long while. While he received the newest blows dealt by Prince Raiden, he wondered to himself at the irony of it all.
That he would have come here. Willingly. Accepted this abuse. Willingly.
Any given night on the journey to Inako, Ōkami could have escaped. Could still have escaped, if his chains had been but an arm’s length longer.
For many years, such a thing as escape had not been a cause of concern for him, because he’d always believed he would never surrender to anyone. The deal he’d made with a demon of darkness had ensured that no one could take him prisoner, so long as the night sky touched his skin. His power to move with the wind—faster than a flash of lightning—enabled him to vanish like a shadow in the sun, even in the direst of situations.
After witnessing his father’s grisly death as a child, Ōkami had sworn to the heavens that he would die before allowing any man to possess that kind of power over him. The power to murder without consequence. The power to separate a man from all he loved and rob a young boy of all he’d ever known in one fell swoop.
This boyhood vow had been the reason Ōkami had made his deal with a demon during the winter of his tenth year. He’d taken the demon’s blade of strange black rock and sworn his oath. Considered it well worth the cost to his well-being and to his future.
Though he’d risked both not once, but twice in recent days. All for the sake of love. For love, Ōkami could very well lose everything.
As for regicide? There had been a time—not long after the death of his father and the loss of his family’s fortune—that Ōkami had contemplated murdering Minamoto Masaru and being the cause of the imperial family’s downfall. Even now—with a fond bitterness—he recalled longing for the day when he would be strong enough to destroy those who had laid siege to his world.
But it had all been childish folly, this idea of revenge. The musings of an angry boy, bereft of purpose. After all, what kind of purpose did retribution provide? It was the kind that destroyed its bearer in a ceaseless cycle of hatred.
Not long after his father’s death—when Ōkami had been faced with the cold, with death, with hunger, with the echoes of ridicule—he had drawn away from such notions and instead opted for the comfort of self-preservation. At least then he would not be the reason anyone bound to him perished for the sake of revenge.
Yet here he was now, pondering the possibility of escape. Dreaming of running a white-hot blade through the heart of this fatuous emperor. Watching his blood flow through the grate meant for waste. Laughing to himself as the life dripped from Roku’s body.
Knowing all to be hopeless endeavors.
Each time Raiden’s fist connected with his skin, Ōkami felt his body brace itself, though his mind knew better; it knew nothing could spare him the inevitable rush of pain. Soon each blow melted into the next, until a steady thrum of anguish coursed through his chest, his limbs, his stomach. Until his head rang dully as though a gong chimed within.
Then the beating ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
It seemed odd that they had yet to question him. He thought at the very least they would wish to know if the Black Clan was responsible for the death of the emperor. About what these men did and why they did it. Who comprised its membership. What designs they might have with respect to the future of the empire.
Yet they had asked him nothing of import, save for what it was he truly feared.
Which … gave him pause.
Ōkami rolled onto his back and let the sounds of their speech fade as though he were submerged beneath water. Tried his best to ignore the invective in each of the words, regardless of who spoke them. Raiden wore his hate like armor, and a part of Ōkami preferred it that way. The elder brother possessed a naked, unsophisticated kind of hatred, easily seen and easily understood. Easily dismantled. The kind of hatred Ōkami had faced as a young man, with none but his father’s trusty samurai, Yoshi, and his best friend, Tsuneoki, at his side.
Roku did not wear his hatred on the surface. He masked it with cheerful grins and unnerving calm, as though he were trying to cajole or entice his victims into submission. It was a dangerous kind of hatred, because it was hard to sense how deep its roots lay. The more Roku spoke, the more his poison seeped through Ōkami’s skin, setting his teeth on edge.
Raiden’s hatred was easy to ignore. Roku’s was a winding lane beckoning Ōkami forward, into a thorny underbrush.
Ōkami’s face throbbed. Every breath he took strained the muscles in his chest. One eye was swollen shut. Nevertheless he stared up at the beam of moonlight. That single stroke of luminous white, cascading from the narrow window above. His body reached for it instinctively. Sought its solace. Its strength. The light of the night sky could be his savior, just as it had been his demon for so long.
His bare foot stretched its way, almost as though it were held in a trance. A cloud passed over the moon, shrouding his savior in further darkness.
So close. Yet so far.
Too far to be of any service.
The hateful words flowing around Ōkami continued to wend through his chest, wrapping around his heart. He would not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him lowered to despair. Though his face pulsed and his chest ached, he would never let a single tear trek down his face. He would not give anyone—least of all these foolish boys playing at being men—the satisfaction.
The last time tears had flowed down Ōkami’s face had been the day his father had died, eight years ago. He had not cried once since then, not even to himself.
Ōkami resisted the urge to shout. To rage against the dying light and strike back at the pain winding through his body. It was not the pain of the repeated beatings. It was the pain of his fear. That cold, dark fear Ōkami had ignored for so long. The possibility that—no matter how hard he had fought to avoid it—there were people who’d managed to gain control over him, in their own way.