Spirit's Princess (48 page)

“No.” I imagined I heard the throbbing of my heart trying to drown out those dreadful words. “It’s not possible. Please, it can’t be so.”

But Lady Ikumi’s expression held the grim truth as she
continued. “My messenger spent several days in hiding, hoping to find a way to learn the details of what happened. That was why his return was delayed so long. One night he was able to steal inside the palisade, but it almost ended badly. Two of the invaders came around the corner of a house and nearly surprised him. He clung to the shadows and was saved only by the fact that those men had been drinking heavily. They staggered past without seeing him and he fled as soon as he could, but not before overhearing them brag to one another about their chieftain’s ruthlessness and the heroes’ welcome waiting for them all when they returned to the lands of the Ookami clan.”

I bolted upright at the mention of that name, though my head spun for it. “Are you sure?” It was the first I’d thought of the wolf people in years. The image of their chieftain’s haughty, arrogant son, Ryu, flashed through my mind and brought back ugly memories. “Lord Nago of the Ookami came to us once, wanting to form an alliance with the Matsu, to take over other clans. Father turned him down. That was many seasons ago. If he was going to attack us, why did he wait so long?”

“Lord Nago?” Lady Ikumi repeated.

“The Ookami chieftain those drunkards were so proud to serve,” I said bitterly.

“My man
did
hear them mention their chieftain’s name, but it wasn’t Nago; it was Ryu.” She peered at me and frowned. “Himiko, please lie down. Your skin has just turned the color of snow.”

Mutely I obeyed her. Ryu’s handsome, leering face and casually brutal words came out of the past to turn my blood
to frost. My cheek tingled as though he’d just slapped it again. I had a vision of my village, my people, helpless under his rule, slaves of a man who took what he wanted and showed blatant contempt for any human life except his own.

“Did your messenger—” I clutched my amulet tighter, taking strength from the goddess. “When he was inside our palisade, did your messenger happen to overhear anything else? Anything about … about my family?”

Lady Ikumi shook her head. “We know nothing. After his near encounter with the Ookami soldiers, he fled your village. He’s brave, but how can I blame him for not wanting to test the limits of his luck? He brought no news at all about what became of your parents, or Aki, or … or …” Pity broke her voice. She began to cry.

I put my arms around her, too stunned to weep. Kaya hugged us both. We sat there together like that for some time, until Lady Ikumi recovered her composure enough to speak.

“You are now my daughter, Himiko,” she said, her tone implying that the decision was made and not to be disputed or changed. “As soon as you’re well enough, we will celebrate your adoption into the Shika clan. I want your cheeks to bear the same tattoo marks as mine and Kaya’s. Your place with us will be secure, now and always. My older son has no real interest in ruling the clan when I’m dead, but Kaya will make a fine chieftess. When that time comes, you will serve your new sister as our shaman. Until then, I’ll teach you any part of our lore you might not know. Were you ever taught how to read the future from the cracks in a burnt bone? We use the shoulder blades of deer, but perhaps
the Matsu had another meth—” She stopped suddenly and looked ashamed.

I broke the awkward silence quickly. “My people aren’t all dead, Lady Ikumi. The Matsu still survive. I thank you with all my heart for opening your home to me and wanting to make me part of your family, but I
have
a family—alive or dead, I have them. I must return home to learn their fate. When I have my strength back, I’ll go.”

“I forbid it!” Lady Ikumi’s eyes flashed fire. “Winter is here. To cross the mountains now will kill you.”

“Mother, please.” Kaya clasped the Shika chieftess’s wrist. “It’s colder, but there’s been no snow yet, not even on the high paths. If she’s well, she can make the journey safely.”

“I won’t let her chance it.” Lady Ikumi’s face was dark and hard, rejecting any arguments. “If you don’t care about her enough to protect her from herself, I do!”

“I’d never risk my friend’s life if I weren’t willing to risk my own,” Kaya replied in a voice as steady and commanding as her mother’s. “When she goes, I go.”

“No! I refuse to allow—”

“Mother, are we your daughters, or are we your slaves?” Kaya asked softly.

The question struck home. Lady Ikumi was speechless. The struggle in her heart showed plainly on her face, but at last she regained the dignity befitting a clan chieftess and spoke: “You are my daughters. Go if you must, travel safely, come back alive and well, and walk with my blessing.”

Once she accepted the fact that Kaya and I were going to return to my village, Lady Ikumi became quite clever about finding ways to ensure I didn’t set out on the road home until I’d recovered all my strength. She brought two tightly woven baskets into the house and filled them both with rice. They weren’t as big and heavy as the clay jugs usually employed for storing grain, but when filled, they were weighty enough.

“The clan that conquered your people probably took most of their provisions,” she said. “This rice will be a life-saving gift this winter.”

Kaya hoisted one of the baskets onto her back. “I can carry this, but not both,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Your mother never intended for you to carry both,” I said. I glanced at Lady Ikumi in time to catch the sly smile on her lips. “When I can handle the other basket, we’ll be ready to go.”

If the Shika chieftess thought she was putting an immovable obstacle in my way by challenging me with the weight of the rice basket, she soon learned better. I turned her obstacle into my goal, eating heartily, exercising as much as I could without pushing myself to exhaustion, and forcing myself to sleep without worrying over what I’d find waiting for me when Kaya and I finally returned to my home. This last task was the hardest, and not one I accomplished completely. At least my dreams remained untroubled, so that once I escaped from my waking worries, I rested well.

When the day of our departure came, Kaya’s older
brother put up a strenuous argument with Lady Ikumi, insisting that she should send a party of Shika warriors to accompany us.

“Why? To protect them on the road?” she asked. “Your sister Kaya can do that for herself. You know she’s a skilled huntress and can shoot bigger game than birds with her bow. It will be wiser for her and Lady Himiko to return to the Matsu village as unobtrusively as possible, not with an armed escort.”

“It will also be best for your own people,” I told him. “I know the new Ookami chieftain. He’s greedy for conquest. Our village might not be enough to settle his appetite, and yours isn’t that far away from mine. You want to have all your fighting men here, on the alert, if the Ookami should come.”

Lady Ikumi hugged me. “I doubt they’ll make another foray before spring, but thank you for thinking of us, dear one.”

There were more hugs and kisses and many tears to see us off. We marched away from the Shika village not knowing what awaited us among my people or when we’d see Kaya’s clanfolk again.

Our journey through the mountains was without incident. It had been a long time since I’d taken the path that I’d walked so often with Aki, but I hadn’t forgotten the way. Kaya and I traveled as swiftly as we could, wasting little time over meals. It was all she could do to make me stop for the night. I wanted to get home now, at once, immediately! My anxiety for my people and my keen yearning to learn what
had become of my family turned me into a boulder rolling down the mountainside, mindless and unstoppable.

Luckily for me, Kaya knew how to reason with stones. “You want to keep going after the sun’s down? Fine, go ahead. I’ll spend the night here and catch up to you in the morning. Just be sure to yell my name as loudly as you can so I can find you when I have to haul you out of the ravine where you’ve fallen in the dark. You
can
still yell when you’ve got a broken skull, right?” I grumbled, but I gave in.

Our last night on the road, we made camp in a grove of pines with low-growing branches. There was plenty of deadwood to feed the small fire Kaya kindled to comfort us. When we finished eating, we huddled together for warmth fully clothed, layered between our bedrolls. “I feel like a caterpillar,” Kaya announced.

“Moth or butterfly?”

She giggled. “Only you would ask a question like that.”

“Well, whichever one you turn out to be, you’d better come out of your cocoon early,” I said. “We’ll reach my home tomorrow.”

She shifted onto her side and looked at me. “What do you think we’ll find there, Himiko?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know.” I stared up at the canopy of pine boughs sheltering us. It was a clear night, and the stars were caught in a net of fragrant needles. “If I think about it, my mind swings back and forth. One moment I picture a scene of utter destruction, nothing left but bones and ashes. The next, I see my village exactly as it was when I left it. The gates are open, my family and kin are streaming out to
welcome us, and everyone’s asking, ‘Whatever happened to that messenger the Shika chieftess sent us? Does she
know
what a miserable liar he is?’ ”

“I hope you’re right about that second one,” Kaya said. “That way, once you’ve seen your family again, you can go to him.”

“Him?”

“Your sweetheart,” she replied. “The one whose name you kept calling out when you were sick: Reikon. I want to meet him.”

I laughed so hard that my friend must have thought I’d lost my mind. I laughed myself breathless, and when I was through, I found that laughter had freed my tongue. I no longer had to grope for the right way to tell Kaya about what I’d experienced while in the fever’s grasp. Instead, I spoke of it candidly, naturally, without worrying whether she’d accept what I said. I told her everything about the journey that I’d made through the spirit world, and about encountering her sister’s benevolent spirit, and about the prince who led me from the ghost wood back to the sun goddess’s shining presence.

“And after all the amazing things that I experienced in that realm, Kaya, there’s one alone that I still can’t believe: I love him. He was a stranger to me, but almost at once I felt that our lives were bound to one another. I knew nothing about him—not even if he was real—yet I was so strongly drawn to him, soul to soul, that it didn’t matter. It was uncanny.”

“Maybe not so uncanny.” My friend smiled. “You
did
say he was handsome.”

“It was more than that,” I said. “I’ve seen other handsome faces. They can mask ugly hearts.”

“But not always,” she pointed out airily. “At least, I hope not. I’d hate to think that every time I’ve fallen in love with a good-looking boy, I wasted my time flirting with an ogre in disguise.” In a more serious tone, she said, “You’re a shaman, Himiko. You walked among the spirits. You had a vision grander than anything I’ve ever heard. You stood in the shadow of the sun goddess herself. If anyone should believe that miraculous things can happen, it’s you.”

“You may be right.” I sighed. “And if you are, what difference does it make? He belongs to the world of the spirits, not to mine.”

“I thought that you belonged to both.” Kaya yawned. “I hope that’s true, but if you disagree, let it wait until morning. I’m tired. Good night, Moth.”

I smiled. “Good night, Butterfly.”

Dawn woke us, and we set out on the last small portion of our journey. As we walked on, the woods around us took on a much-loved familiarity. My feet trod a path that was part of me, flesh and spirit, and I breathed the air of home.

We didn’t go rushing blindly out of the forest’s concealment. I thought it best to take the same precautions as Lady Ikumi’s messenger and observe my village from a distance first. It was likely that all of the Ookami war party had returned to their land with the spoils they’d taken from our clan, but it wasn’t certain. If any of them lingered, Kaya and I would need to know and plan our next move accordingly.

I led my friend to a place on the mountainside that I knew would give us a good, extensive view of the village. My
heart shrank as I saw that Lady Ikumi’s messenger had told the truth. The harsh evidence of that lay plain before my eyes: broken gates and burned houses, the toppled watchtower and the great gaps in our palisade, the collapsed walls of our moat, and worst of all, the scorched and splintered trunk of what had been the Matsu clan’s ancestral symbol, the sacred pine. The wolves had torn it down.

“Himiko? Himiko, Sister, are you all right? Can I help?” Kaya touched my hand gently. Her caring words brought me back from the edge of despair.

“I’m—I’ll be fine,” I said. “Look. It’s bad, but not as bad as it could be. I don’t see any sign of outlanders. I think we can go ahead safely, but first—first there’s something that I need to do.”

I stepped back into the shelter of the forest and knelt. I set out my mirror and the bare wand of cherrywood that I had picked from a blooming tree a lifetime ago. I took the smallest pinch of rice I could from my basket, scattered it over the ground, clapped my hands to call upon the spirits, and began a rite to purify my people from the wounds of war the Ookami had slashed across their souls.