Spirit's Princess (14 page)

“Aki! Father! Here I am!
Here I am!
” Hobbling and flying by turns, I ran to meet them.

Father and Aki spent the next two days as Lady Ikumi’s honored guests. The Shika shaman-chieftess saw to it that they received the best of everything her village had to offer, and urged them to stay longer. Father refused. His words were polite, his reasons believable, but his tone was curt and guarded.

He was also reserved with me. Some of the old coolness had seeped back into our relationship, and while our reunion began with a blaze of love and thankfulness, this soon winked out like a wisp of burning straw, extinguished with a single breath. He didn’t chastise me for what I’d done, or even ask for an explanation, but I could feel anger smoldering behind his impassive face.

Sora became the center of attention for his part in bringing my kin into the Shika village. He wasn’t the sort of man who thrives as a hero. A look of embarrassment settled over his face with the first words of praise from his clanfolk,
and I never saw it leave. Every time someone reminded him of what a great thing he’d done and what an expert tracker he was, he squirmed and repeated, “But you don’t understand: I didn’t find them.
They
found me!”

That was true. Aki told Lady Ikumi and her family the whole story over dinner on the first night he and Father lodged in the chieftess’s house. “We would have come for Himiko sooner, but we didn’t even know she was missing for many days. Our village was troubled by a wolf pack, so all of our best hunters were deep into the mountains, seeking to kill the beasts or at least to drive them so far away that they’d never come back to our clan’s territory. When Himiko didn’t come home that first night, and my poor mother wanted to send word to Father, there was no one left in the village with the skill to track the trackers! She turned to our shaman for help, but all Lady Yama could do was tell us that the last time she’d seen Himiko, they’d spoken about the cherry trees.”

He lowered his eyes and gave me a guilty look. I clasped his hand, silently trying to reassure him that none of what had happened was his fault. There
was
no fault to be found; I knew it. Aki had been needed on the wolf hunt, but I didn’t
need
to go in search of cherry blossoms that very day. Lady Yama’s words had stung me into setting out on my own, but I didn’t
have
to let her sway me. I’d made my choices, and that was my responsibility. The consequences were all mine. No one should bear the blame but me.

“Yama …” Father growled our shaman’s name so low that I thought I’d only imagined it until he added, “Useless
leech.” I turned questioning eyes to him, but Aki was talking again and drew back my attention.

“Our hunt was successful—two wolves dead and the rest driven far beyond our land. As soon as we were in sight of home, we saw our clanfolk come running to meet us. We thought it was a welcome, not evil news. Father wanted to set out on Himiko’s trail at once, but it was almost sundown. He and I left for the grove of cherry trees the next morning, as soon as there was enough light to see by, and once we found clear signs she’d been there, we followed her traces.” He lifted one corner of his lips. “We would have come here sooner if she hadn’t laid down such a wandering path. It was like trying to track a butterfly’s flight.”

“I couldn’t help it,” I muttered. “I got lost.”

“I don’t know how much longer we would have been trailing back and forth through the forest if we hadn’t met your man Sora,” Aki went on. “It was pure luck, that encounter. He must be an excellent hunter: he moves so noiselessly that no quarry would know he was near until they felt his arrow.”

“He said the same about you.” Hoshi’s sweet voice drew all eyes to her. Her smooth face and glossy hair seemed to glow with their own radiance, even in the dim interior of the chieftess’s pit house. “He’s been telling everyone in our clan that when he first caught sight of you, you moved among the trees without a sound, so easily and naturally that he was sure he was watching a forest spirit. I mean”—she shot an awkward glance at Father and dipped her head sharply—“I mean forest
spirits
.”

“It’s very”—a strange catch stole my brother’s breath as he gazed at Hoshi’s bowed head—“very kind of you to say so, Lady Hoshi. If anyone’s worthy of Sora’s praise, it’s Father. He taught me all I know.”

Hoshi lifted her face and met my brother’s eyes. “Then you learned well,” she said so softly that the words were hardly more than a whisper. I’d never seen anyone look at Aki so intently, and never seen him stare at another person as though there were no one else in the world besides the two of them. I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

Father impatiently took up Aki’s abandoned story: “Well, Lady Ikumi, the
real
forest spirits must’ve been the ones who put that broken nutshell right under your man Sora’s next footstep. He didn’t yelp, but he couldn’t stop himself from sucking in his breath from the pain. As soon as he knew there was another human near, I shouted that we were peaceable and declared the reason we’d come searching the woods.”

Father’s words broke the spell between Aki and Hoshi. My brother made haste to finish his tale, saying, “Oh yes! Blessed gods, you can’t imagine how we felt when we heard Sora call back from behind the leaves, ‘You’re Lady Himiko’s people?’ I thought I’d grown wings and could fly!”

Hoshi laughed, and the sound made my brother’s cheeks blaze. While Father and Lady Ikumi spoke of other things, Aki and Hoshi settled into a strange, bewildering silence.

Two days is not a long time. Kaya reminded me of that every waking moment of our remaining time together. Her mother
saw our shared melancholy and did what she could to help us deal with the coming separation, releasing us from all chores and giving us the freedom to enjoy those last, precious days together. We wandered through the village, ran races around the palisade, explored the land within a safe distance of the clan fields, and tried not to think about what was coming.

We failed.

“What am I going to do after you go home, Himiko?” Kaya said as we sat on the banks of the stream, watching minnows.

“You’ve got other friends,” I said. That was true; she’d introduced me to them and we’d played together.
The real question is, what am
I
going to do without
you? I thought. I hadn’t had playmates for years and it hadn’t bothered me; forfeiting the companionship of girls like Suzu and her little toadies was a small loss. It was only now that I’d experienced what a real friendship could offer that I dreaded returning to my solitary, unshared life.

“I know,” Kaya said. “But I’ll never have another friend like you, Himiko.
Never
.” She thumbed a pair of tears from her cheeks and put on a brave face, pretending they’d never been shed.

I frowned. “I wish I were a hunter.”

“Huh? Why?”

“If I were, I could leave my village and come here to visit you anytime I wanted.”

“Oh. Like your brother’s going to do so he can see my sister.” Kaya spoke as if she were mentioning the weather rather than saying something that made my jaw fall open.

“What?”

“Well,
you’ve
seen how they are together,” my friend said, still unaware that she’d dropped a boulder on my head. “The first night your family was here, those two kept sneaking looks at one another and trying to act like it was all one big accident. I’ve seen Hoshi blush before, but never
that
much, and I didn’t know boys could do it too until your brother showed up. They’re in
looooooove
.” She stretched out the word sarcastically and made smacking noises with her lips.

“No they’re not,” I said firmly. I did remember how things had gone between Aki and Hoshi that night, but I’d pushed the memories aside on purpose, denying them completely. I didn’t like the idea of anyone being more important to Aki than me. “They can’t be. They only met two days ago!”

“I don’t know,” Kaya said, looking thoughtful. “Mother used to tell us stories about how she and Father got married. She said that there are all sorts of ways to know when you love someone. Some are slow, like ferns uncurling or buds opening, and some hit you
fast
, like … like … ummmm … like when you drop a pot and it goes
smash
! He was just another village boy until one day she looked at him and—” She clapped her hands together so sharply, the loud report made me jump.

“Smashed pot?” I asked. She nodded. “Hmph! Just because that’s the way it happened to your parents doesn’t mean it happened to
my
brother
at all
.”

Kaya shrugged. “I think it did. I
hope
it did.”

“Why would you—?” And all of a sudden, I understood
what my friend was thinking.
Aki’s a hunter. He’s at home in the forests and the mountains. Now that he’s learned the route to the Shika village, he won’t have any trouble finding his way here again, and if he
is
in love with Hoshi, he’ll want to come back many times. And some of those times
—my heart beat faster—
maybe
lots
of those times, he’ll bring me!

“You figured it out, huh?” Kaya was grinning. “Good. Now you don’t have to be jealous of my sister anymore.”

“I’m not jealous,” I said primly. I didn’t mean a word of it.

No matter how much comfort Kaya and I took in the thought of my inevitable return to her village as Aki’s traveling companion, we still cried when it was time for me to go. We both awoke early that morning, sat up on our bedrolls, exchanged a single look, and threw ourselves into each other’s arms.

“Don’t go, Himiko, don’t go!” Kaya sobbed.

“I don’t want to, but what can we do about it?” I asked, sniffling.

Kaya dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s hide your brother’s clothing.”

I glanced around the room. “Too late. He’s not here, so he must be dressed and outside already. Father too.”

“Well, then let’s hide
your
clothes!”

“Your mother will only give me new ones. But what if—?” I thought hard. “What if I pretended to be sick? We’d have to stay longer then.”

Kaya considered this awhile before her shoulders slumped. “That won’t work. My mother would know. She
always does when I try that trick.” Defeated, we hugged each other and let our tears fall.

In time, we managed to get up and dress, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to eat a mouthful of breakfast or to step outside the chieftess’s house. It was as if we were clinging to the false belief that if I didn’t cross that threshold, I could put down roots in the beaten earth floor and stay forever.

In the end, it was Hoshi who had the power to comfort us. “Poor girls, this is breaking your hearts,” she said. Her sympathetic eyes added the unspoken message,
I know it’s breaking mine
. “Lady Himiko, your father and brother are waiting for you at the village gateway. Mother’s ready to perform the leave-taking ceremony. Maybe it would be easier for you if Kaya stayed in the house and didn’t have to watch you go.”

The thought of saying farewell to my only friend was bad, but the thought of losing even one moment of her company was worse. Kaya must have felt the same way. We dried our eyes and hastened to assure Hoshi that we’d attend the leave-taking ritual on our best behavior.

“Don’t let Mother make me stay inside,” Kaya begged, clinging to her older sister. “I promise I won’t cry anymore.”

Hoshi sighed and put her arms around both of us. “I wish I could promise the same thing.”

The whole Shika village turned out to see us off. Lady Ikumi appeared in what must have been her most elaborate shaman’s garb and performed a dance that called upon the spirits to protect our homeward journey. Her two youngest children gave us parting gifts—food for the trail, a handful
of gorgeous pheasant feathers, a pendant of green beads for me that I’d last seen around Kaya’s neck. Father accepted these with cold formality and had Aki give Lady Ikumi the trophy wolf’s tail from his belt.

“May the gods protect and guide your footsteps,” the Shika shaman-chieftess said, accepting the return gift with a smile. “I hope that the next time our paths cross, it will be for a happy reason, not fear for a loved one. Perhaps we can begin to trade or—”

“The Matsu have nothing fit to trade,” Father said brusquely. “We are not worth the time or trouble it would take to bring any of your people to our gates. You have our thanks for the care you’ve given to my undeserving daughter. May the gods grant that this experience has taught her the wisdom to value her own home.”

“Ah.” Lady Ikumi’s expression chilled to match Father’s. “Yes. It would be a good thing if we all prayed for such wisdom.”

As we started out of the gateway, I heard a sob behind me. I knew it must be Kaya, but I didn’t dare turn my head for fear that I would break down in helpless tears. I tried to distract myself by looking elsewhere. The sight of Father’s flinty, unwavering gaze on the road ahead lent me a little self-control, but I came near to losing it all when I looked to the other side and was struck to the heart by the poorly contained pain I saw in Aki’s face.