Shadows on the Moon (41 page)

I had thought it was my fault.

What had Youta said to me, all those months and years ago, when he first taught me to shadow-weave? That I had a right to be angry — but why was I so angry with myself? I had ignored him, brushed those words aside without answering because
he was right.
I had blamed myself. I had survived when they had not. The youngest, scrawniest, least clever. The least beautiful. Why me? I had no right to have lived. I ought to have saved them, or died with them.

I had buried those thoughts so deep that I never even acknowledged they existed, but they had informed every choice, every decision I had made since my father and cousin died. Beneath my mania to punish Terayama-san was an even deeper one: the need to punish myself. That was why I had leaped at Akira’s suggestion to attend the ball and win the promise. It was the only way I could destroy Terayama-san and myself at one stroke.

By the Moon — how could I have been so arrogantly, so monstrously, stupid? I had been just as powerless against the soldiers as Aimi had been powerless against the illness that had killed her family. To blame myself for not fighting that company of armed men was the same as blaming Aimi for not discovering some miraculous cure for red-water fever.

Feelings were surging back into me, filling the empty pit that had opened up when I sent Otieno away. What had I done? Oh, what had I done?

At that moment, the ending of my life would have seemed a blessing.

I, who prided herself on piercing illusions and seeing things as they truly were, had clung to this one illusion as a child will cling to its favorite toy. The illusion of control. The illusion that in this terrifying, chaotic world, I had some vestige of choice. I had not wanted to admit that nothing I did could have saved my father and Aimi. I had not even wanted to admit that poisoning my mother had been a moment of thoughtless stupidity, and that I had never really meant to hurt her.

It was easier to hate myself, hurt myself, slice open my own flesh and bleed, than to face the fact that I had been powerless.

Just as I was powerless right now.

“No.” The word echoed around the big, empty room.

I would not accept it. It was no good to come to terms with myself — to finally see my own folly, and the truth — if I simply lay there on the floor, whimpering, and let disaster take me anyway. I was not a killer. I had not damned myself forever. I had a right to life and happiness, just as Akira and Youta — and Otieno — had told me.

It might be too late to undo all I had done, to retrieve the love I had spurned. But it was not too late to escape being a Shadow Bride. My father and cousin would not have wanted this life for me. I did not want it for myself.

I must save myself.

I scrambled up, shrugging away the long, heavy
uchikake.
Clad only in the white kimono, I went to the long wall of windows and threw back the closest screen and the pierced-wood shutter and leaned out. This was the back of the palace, and there were no lanterns lit in the garden below. I could only just make out the shapes of the trees where they blocked out the stars, and a hint of the trellis below, covered in large white wisteria blossoms.

I gulped. I hated heights. My fingers were damp and trembling as I reached for the window frame and hauled myself up until I was astride the curved edge of the window, a leg dangling on either side. Another glance down made me clutch at the frame in panic; my legs kicked reflexively, and the sandal on my left foot slipped off and disappeared into the bottomless darkness.

That is all right,
I told myself with false confidence.
I am better off without shoes for this, anyway.
I kicked the other one off, too, and watched it roll across the polished wooden floor. What would the prince think when he came here and found that a single shoe was all that was left of me?

Still holding on to the window frame, I began to feel below me with my toes for the top of the trellis.
I am light and scrawny,
I told myself.
It will hold my weight easily.

But I could not find the trellis. My searching foot found nothing but the wall, which offered no holds for a climber. I pulled my foot back and leaned out again. I had not imagined it. The trellis was there. It was simply too far away for me to reach. My short legs had betrayed me.

My only way out of the room was down the corridor and past the guards.

“Halt!”

I jumped, almost falling out of the window. My hands latched on to the screen in a death grip and I caught my balance with a gasp, my eyes searching the room. There was no one there. I was still alone. The shout must have come from the guards outside.

The guards who are here to protect me.

Instinct raised the tiny hairs all over my body as I strained my ears, trying to filter out the muffled noises of revelry from the floor below. The silence in the room seemed like a pall now, suffocating me. My nerves told me to hide, to find some dark place and curl up inside. But the noise had come from the corridor that was my one escape from the room. If I wanted to leave, I must go out there.

Working quickly, I drew threads of darkness around myself, weaving an impenetrable cloak of shadows, as dark and dense as the night outside. I went to the door of the prince’s chamber and slid it open a little way, peeking out carefully. I expected to see at least one of the guards by the door — but there was no one there.

I slipped through the gap in the door and closed it silently behind me, drawing my cloak of shadows tighter around my body. My feet moved soundlessly as I turned the corner.

I screamed. I knew the noise would betray me and still I could not help myself. At the end of the corridor, three guards lay dead, blood and vile-smelling fluids pooling around them on the rush mats.

Terayama-san stood over them, just lowering his
katana
. The blade was a dull black in the dimness. Black with blood.

My stepfather’s head snapped up at my hastily bitten-off cry, searching the darkness. Slowly, unbelievably, his eyes focused on me cowering under my cloak of shadows.

“Up to your little tricks again, Suzu-chan.” His eyes gleamed dully, like the blade. “I can see you, though. I could always see through you. It was never any good to run away from me. It only delayed the inevitable.”

His eyes narrowed and he shifted, moving his sword into a defensive position. “Come out from under there. It hurts my eyes to squint, and it will do you no good. Face me. Show a little of the spirit your father was always talking about.”

Terror had sucked the strength from me. I clung to the shadow-weaving with everything I had, but under his eyes, it had become heavy, unbearable. I watched my own arms swim into view, glowing white in the dim corridor.

Terayama-san’s eyes widened. Then he smiled. “How appropriate. White for a virgin bride — a Shadow Bride who will die untouched. It is your own fault. You should not have told Yukiko what you planned to do. You do know that it was your mother who gave you up to me?”

He paused, waiting for me to speak — to cry, or to deny his words. But I could not speak. I could not even breathe.

After a moment he continued: “She told me of your plan, begged me to find you; she knew that when I found you I would not use words to persuade you but my sword. She always knew it. I hope you did not believe that she would protect you over our sons? She is loyal to me. To our family. And it is for her sake that you must die. Take comfort in that, if you will.”

“I shall not die tonight,” I said slowly, forcing the words out into the air between us.

Terayama-san’s smile got bigger. “Easy to say, Suzu-chan, but these three soldiers, armed and trained, could not stand against me. I am a master of the sword. Even poor Daisuke admitted it. I always won against him, did I not?”

“You are not fit even to speak my father’s name,” I hissed. And just like that, fury drove the weakness from my limbs. Power pulsed up along my skin, crackling through my hair and under my clothes like invisible lightning.

Terayama-san arched a brow, seemingly amused by my display of defiance. “Your father was a penniless provincial poet. It amused me to befriend him, to let him think he was my equal, but he was nothing.”

“Liar,”
I said, and as I spoke, I knew that it was the truth. “You have spent years scheming and plotting — and for what? Why, when you are the great Terayama-sama, with your money and your title and lands, would you go to so much trouble to betray a
provincial poet
? Why? Because you know — you have always known — that my father was your superior. That is why you turned on him, and that is why you have hunted me.” I sucked in a deep breath, feeling exultation sweep through me as I was finally able to speak the words that had been locked inside me. There was a storm of power swirling in the air around me, arcing from finger to finger, sparking on my tongue. It felt like being in the center of a hurricane.

His face had lost its mocking expression now. “Watch your mouth, you stupid girl.”

“Why? You plan to kill me anyway. Why should I not speak the truth at last? Or are you afraid to hear it aloud? Afraid that if I say it, you will have to admit it? Nothing you had, not the wealth or power or name, could match what he had. You could not buy his integrity, his kindness, or his beautiful soul. My father might have been a mere scholar and poet, without riches or a title, but he was a better man than you will ever be. He could have beaten you whenever he chose and you knew it. You never won. He just let you lead because he felt sorry for you.”

Terayama-san let out a great roar of rage and swung back his blade.

Sparks of gold broke out from under my skin, lighting the corridor like an exploding firework. I said: “Stop.”

The light fell on Terayama-san, covering him for an instant like a golden net. There was a blinding flash — I turned my face away, closing my eyes — and when I opened them again, the light had disappeared, sinking into Terayama’s skin.

His voice cut off in midshout.

The dull eyes bulged. His mouth strained as if trying to close, but remained open. Snorting breaths puffed from his nostrils. His hands, clasped around the sword hilt, shuddered and trembled as he fought to bring the blade down on my unprotected neck.

Some instinct prompted me to speak, the words leaving a strange taste in my mouth.

“You are bound here by my will,” I said formally. “And bound you will stay. You shall not stir from this spot, or speak, or move at all except to breathe, until the moment that someone discovers you here and sees what you have done.”

Terayama-san’s breaths were shallow and rapid now, and the blind fury was fading from his eyes, replaced with dawning horror and fear. I looked at him, searching my feelings.

“You have no doubt killed many people, as you did my father and cousin,” I said. “Taking their lives without dirtying your hands. It is a shame you cannot be held accountable for all of their deaths. However, I think that your murder of three royal guards and your breaking into the prince’s chambers, when linked with the mysterious disappearance of the Shadow Bride, will bring a severe enough punishment to satisfy their spirits. This is the end for you. Perhaps my father and Aimi will be able to forgive you now, but they always were better people than me. I will not forgive you. I will forget you.”

I saw the rage flare up in his eyes again and nodded, knowing that what I had said would haunt him for however long — and it would not be very long — he had left to live. Then I turned away. Carefully I drew a new cloak of illusion around me and left the corridor behind, and with it the monster who stood frozen over the bodies of his victims. I did not look back.

I opened the door at the top end of the corridor and walked down the stairs, my cloak rippling and changing with the light, hiding me from the blurry eyes of the guests below. I slipped through the crowd with nothing more to show for my presence than a slight breeze here or an uneasy feeling on the back of a neck there. The room was hot, filled with the smells of alcohol and sweating bodies, and loud enough to almost deafen me. I did not search for Akira; if she was there, I knew she would not be visible to me. I did spare one look for the prince, who sat on his throne again, flushed pink and bright-eyed, surrounded by his courtiers.

He would not be broken-hearted, that charming boy. He might be a little sad to imagine that his Shadow Bride had been hurt or had fled, but he would not mourn me long. I would not pity him.

Behind the throne, his mother was staring into nothingness, eyes blank. Her I could pity, even if fleetingly. But she would have her wish now. I was leaving her and her son’s lives forever. I would be nothing more than a strange mystery, a suspected tragedy. A name for little girls to whisper to each other, snug in their beds, before falling asleep, dreaming of the Kage no Iwai. Kano Yue-sama, the most beautiful Shadow Bride who never was.

I slid back the screen and stepped outside.

The air was cool and sweet. I took a long, deep breath, letting my eyes adjust as I walked slowly into the deserted gardens, feeling the cool grass under my soles. I sought the shelter of the trees. There were still lanterns lit here and there, and the moonlight was strong, but from this angle the shining white path of the Shadow Procession was hidden. Should I search it out and follow it? Was Akira out there somewhere?