Kuro drew the Shogun’s face in the garden’s grovel path. Sharp lines for his cheeks. A top knot swallowed by the enormity of his head. A gloating smile beneath beady eyes.
Standing, Kuro admired his work. It was ready.
He stamped his foot on it repeatedly. “Die! Die! Die!”
Grinding his heel into its eye, he cackled.
The lines erased, Kuro slumped on the path and looked up past the pond to the veranda.
Ren should be the one stomping on the Shogun. He should be the one demanding mochi and yen and everything else he wanted.
He shouldn’t be hiding behind closed screens, unable to bear the sight of Kuro. He hadn’t even looked at him when he dismissed Kuro with an imperious wave of his hand.
Kuro laid back, laced fingers cradling his head. Balls of cloud sauntered across a canvas of blue, needling him with his uselessness. Why had the Shogun bothered to make a deal with Kuro at all? All Kuro could do was play witness as Ren drove himself onto the Shogun’s sword.
Ren would probably ask if he was killing himself well enough.
Kuro curled on his side and pinched his elbows together.
An indigo sleeve disappeared around the corner of the bath house.
Kuro pushed himself up. A servant scrubbing the bath? But he hadn’t spotted a single one the entire time he’d been in the palace. They stayed out of Ren’s eyesight. Kuro followed the sleeve into the bath house.
“You,” he said.
Halfway across the tiles, Yumi froze. She’d swapped her servant uniform for a bland grey kimono, but she hadn’t covered her scent.
Kuro leaned against the frame. “What are you doing here?”
Jerkily, as if her limbs were made of stone, she turned to face Kuro. Her cheeks were bright red.
He grinned, delighted with this turn of events. “If you wanted to catch the Sun Prince in the bath, you should have come in the evening. That’s when he bathes.”
“I—bu—fe—” She garbled her words. The blush spread from her cheeks to her ears and jaw.
He gave a long, melodic sigh. “Ah, but it’s probably for the best you missed him, since he’d be the last thing you saw. But well worth it. He is magnificent beneath his kimono. All muscled up his chest and down his thighs, and he’s quite si—”
Yumi threw her hands up in front of her, as if shielding herself from his next word.
Kuro obligingly stopped speaking in favour of sauntering close. A step away, he leaned past her arms. “I could show you, if you don’t mind ogling a demon.”
If he had thrown a bucket of water on her, she would have steamed.
He laughed. Taking a walk had been a good idea. He’d uncovered Yumi’s secret weakness. All the weight of his fight with Ren lifted from his shoulders—
Yumi punched him.
The blow landed on his cheekbone. He hadn’t expected it, hadn’t braced. The blow sent him backward. He flailed his arms, but fell.
“What is your problem?” Kuro ground out. He rubbed his cheek, as if his fingers had the power to alleviate the pain flashing through, or the raw spiritual power lancing him. Perhaps if he licked it… He strained his human tongue, but it wasn’t long enough. He licked the back of his hand and rubbed it over his cheek. It helped, a little.
Yumi stared down at him, chest heaving and fist still raised.
Kuro pulled back his lip to snarl, but the movement caused pain to slice his cheek. He winced.
“I didn’t come — I mean—” The red that had abated returned at full force. She fisted both hands in front of her.
Kuro hunched his shoulders, readying himself for the blow.
“I mean — why haven’t you killed the prince yet?”
“Shh!” He hissed at her and checked over his shoulders to the open doorway. He couldn’t hear anyone around the bath house, but that didn’t mean the walls weren’t listening. And a human like Yumi couldn’t even hear that much to decide it was safe to throw around words like ‘kill the prince.’
“Don’t change the subject,” she said. “You had all day yesterday.”
He threw his hands to either side. “So what?”
“A residential gate broke last night.”
“So?”
“The Night Parade murdered and ate an entire street of humans.”
Kuro closed his eyes for a moment. After escaping the ghost, they’d heard a rumbling and crackling. That must have been demons tearing out walls and roofs. “Samurai, artisans or merchants?”
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She blinked. “What does it matter?”
“Samurai are worth more than artisans, who are worth more than merchants. You should know. You’re human.”
“Humans were murdered by demons.”
“So you said,” he said. “But how much did they matter?”
Yumi raised her foot. She was so violent!
Kuro blocked his head with his arms. “Fine, fine, demons eating humans is bad.”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you had killed the prince like you were supposed to.”
“But the prince…” He broke off. He had been about to argue that Ren had nothing to do with the Night Parade. He couldn’t have, secluded in his cage. But Ren had run off the night before, claiming he wished to protect the Undesirables. Kuro had found him before he’d been eaten, but not before he’d spoken to a ghost.
Kuro shook his head. He was being ridiculous. Ghosts didn’t have enough sentience to know about the Night Parade, never mind join it. But he couldn’t be sure she was the only thing that Ren had talked to.
“You and the onmyouji will just have to be patient.” Kuro backed out toward the door, holding his hands up to placate her, or at least protect anything vital from her wrath. “You shoved me in here without teaching me anything useful at all. And with a concussion, thanks to your violent tendencies.”
“You’re a demon,” she said. “Demons kill humans.”
“Soon-to-be god, thank you very much.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t know any human-killing powers.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t even know what you expect me to do. Yes, yes, kill him,” he added, when Yumi opened her mouth, “but how? Transform into someone so sexy that Ren bleeds out of his nose to death? Any fox could do that for you. So why me?”
“You’re a Dark Kitsune,” she said.
“So I’ve heard,” he said. “But that doesn’t make me any different from any other fox.”
She tilted her head to the side, considering him. She scrunched her brow. “You don’t know what a Dark Kitsune is.”
“Thanks to your brother’s tight lips.”
She exhaled through her nose. “Sit.”
He barked. “I’m not a dog.”
“Sit, on the tiles,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to teach you.”
His eyes widened and his breath slowed. She’d really tell him? Usually when anyone found out he was a Dark Kitsune, and those times were few and far between, he didn’t have time to ask why they immediately tried to murder him. His mother had never even told him. He supposed that she hadn’t thought it worth wasting words on someone she’d have drowned, and if she had told him, he’d have only tried to escape.
Kuro crouched on the tiles.
Yumi measured the distance between them, kneeling far enough away that he couldn’t pounce on her. As if he would, when even a slap threw him to the ground. “Red kitsune are shapeshifters and tricksters. White or Celestial kitsune are messengers of the gods and protective deities, watching over god’s shrines and purifying the grounds.”
He rolled his eyes. “What a riveting description of things I already know.”
She narrowed her eyes. “White fox are divine. Red fox are neutral. Black fox are worse than demons.”
“I’m not a demon,” he snapped.
“You’re worse than the Night Parade,” she said. “You’re a thing of chaos and calamity. The Night Parade attacks homes. You destroy empires.”
Kuro pulled his lip back into a snarl. She lied. He would know if he was so powerful. He might pretend to a human, but he knew his own strengths and weaknesses. Any spirit stupid enough not to know wound up dead.
“The last recorded Dark Kitsune appeared over a thousand years ago, before the Tendo first seized power.”
Another Dark Kitsune? Someone like him? Kuro leaned forward.
“At that time, the empire of Oyashima was carved up in a dozen kingdoms ruled by humans and demons obsessed with their own power and riches. Then the Dark Kitsune appeared. Wherever it tread, disaster followed. Armies broke through seemingly impenetrable fortresses. Rice stalks shrivelled in their fields or refused to sprout. Not even Inari could coax the rice to grow. Fevers killed whole villages. Earthquakes toppled huge cities. Fires razed what was left. Typhoons tore up the land. Tsunami hits the shorelines—”
“That’s my terrible power?” he interrupted. “That I exist?”
He wanted to scream. This was why they tried to kill him? This was why his mother had drowned him, why he’d had to hide in the forest surviving on field mice, and in the city?
Yumi sneered. “You kill everyone around you. By existing. The calamities only ended when the Sun Goddess sired a human son and sent him to kill the Dark Kitsune, beginning the Tendo reign. Dark Kitsune bring disaster. They destroy empires. They topple dynasties. That’s why we have to kill them at first sight.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “Earthquakes happen all the time. That giant carp under the ground hates to lie still. And dragons start typhoons to mate.” It wasn’t his fault, he wanted to say. They didn’t have to kill him. But she wouldn’t believe him.
He wasn’t even as powerful as a red fox. He couldn’t transform without his tail poking out. He summoned fox sparks, not fox fire.
“That’s what you are,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’ve lived in the Capital for years. It’s still standing.”
“With the Night Parade snapping at our barriers.”
“That’s not my fault,” he said. “It’s your stupid Shogun’s. I can barely transform.”
She exhaled, her shoulders softening. “You were rather pathetic.”
“Thanks for that,” he muttered.
“I don’t know how you’re supposed to bring disaster,” she said. “Or how you’re supposed to use your powers.”
Of course not. Only that last Dark Kitsune would know, and Ren’s ancestor had killed them. No one would have bothered to find out, either, since they’d rather cut off his head than speak to him.
“Too bad for you,” he said. “Since I can’t fulfil your plan. Oh well, better luck in your next assassination plot.” He stood.
He’d meant it as a joke, but the knots in his stomach still eased. Humans might kill him on sight, but Ren would protect him from them. Kuro wouldn’t have to kill Ren. He couldn’t, not if he didn’t know how to use these powers.
Except Ren knew. He must know about the first Dark Kitsune; it was his family’s history. He’d seen Kuro’s black fur before Kuro had spotted him on the rooftop with the Kusanagi. Ren could have killed him before Kuro noticed his presence. But instead, he’d talked to Kuro. Followed him around the city. Begged the Shogun for his life, when letting Kuro die would have been the one responsibility Ren could have accomplished.
The only reason Ren would want an empire-destroying fox was if he colluded with the Night Parade. Kuro could apparently wreak a hundredfold the damage the Night Parade could.
But Ren was so naive he didn’t think the Shogun wanted him out of the way. If he wanted Kuro as a weapon, he wouldn’t have confided in Kuro like that. Or was that all an act to lure Kuro into complacency?
“Not so fast,” Yumi said, making Kuro snap up his head. “My brother believes that it will just happen.”
Kuro scoffed. “If things just happened, I’d have my shrine already and you’d have a harem.”
Her left eye ticked. She raised her fist.
“Ah, ah, ah.” Kuro ticked his finger in her face. “If you hit me, your whole family will get cursed, because apparently that just happens.”
She dropped her fist. Wait, she really believed that?
“I don’t cause calamities.” What did some human know? It wasn’t like the onmyouji was the foremost expert on dangerous spirits. Except he was. Kuro slammed his hands on his thighs. “I’m not going to kill the Sun Prince.”
“It’s not your choice. Your very existence will kill him.”