Kuro would have traded all the mochi on Merchant Row and his left paw not to wake up. But no god accepted his bargain. Aches along his body tore him away from unconsciousness as the world jolted underneath him.

He forced his body to relax while he listened to the racket around him.

Then he upped his bid to include his right paw and his tails.

Footsteps. Cheers. Jibes. The creak of wood. Smoke from cooking fires. He wasn’t in the Shogun’s Palace anymore. That made sense. Kuro hadn’t wanted to stay. He’d wanted to find Ren and leave the city. So either Kuro had succeeded, or things had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Kuro didn’t think he was that lucky.

Especially since he recognised the heavy footfall and creaking wood. He rode a palanquin. He kept himself from frowning. That didn’t seem right. High ranking samurai rode in palanquins. Gods rode in palanquins. Common spirits didn’t.

“I know you’re awake,” Yusuke said.

Kuro forced himself to remain still and his breath shallow. For all he knew, Yusuke had said that every ten minutes since they’d left the Shogun’s Palace. A lie that might impress a lesser fox.

A finger pressed down on the inside of his knee. Raw spiritual power sizzled. Kuro swore out loud, jerking against the pain. His hands and ankles refused to move. The onmyouji had bound him with something stronger than rope. A barrier.

“There was no point to pretending,” Yusuke said.

Kuro glared up at him. The sliding doors had been removed, allowing in the full glare of the evening sun and the crowds. How long had he been unconscious? Minutes or a full day?

Four labourers carried the pole on their shoulders, but seven samurai in full armour surrounded them, including a glowing Daidoji. Daidoji preened to the crowd of humans gathered on either side of the street. Yumi was nowhere to be seen.

His ears flicked around, searching for Yumi’s unique gait. Wait a second. He wasn’t human. The onmyouji wasn’t hiding him. The humans knew exactly who — or what — he was. They glowered at him when he met their eyes with the need to see his blood splattered. They jeered at him. They cheered for the samurai.

They reached the stone steps leading down to the riverbank. Kuro whimpered. In the few miles of rivers, only one set of stairs had been cut into the bank. Their destination couldn’t have been more clear if they’d erected signs.

They carried him to the execution grounds.

“Too afraid to kill me yourself?” Kuro snapped at Yusuke.

The serene smile deepened into amusement.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Kuro said. “You’re always chickening out. Always giving me some fool quest or another. Always hesitating even when the empire depends on you killing me. You’re a coward.”

“Our people need to see demon blood,” Yusuke said.

He scoffed. “You’re just giving me more opportunities to escape.”

Still smiling, Yusuke raised his brow in mock surprise. “You can escape a seven samurai guard?”

Rather than lie, Kuro tried to smirk at him. His lips trembled too much.

“In that case, the Shogun will have to hunt you down.” Yusuke nodded behind them.

Another palanquin followed, lacquered black and embellished with gold dragonflies. The sliding doors were shut and the bamboo curtains lowered to hide the occupant, but unless someone was an idiot, everyone in the Capital recognised who it was. The Shogun’s palanquin.

“Or we’ll release the dogs,” Yusuke mused.

Kuro inhaled, suddenly full alert. He didn’t hear dogs. Not yet. “But I’m on your side. I helped you.”

“By telling my innocent little sister inconvenient things?”

“That was a mistake,” Kuro admitted. “But you know I’ll do anything you want. I want my shrine.”

“Hmm, yes.”

“Whatever you want,” he said again. It wasn’t pretend. He’d say or do anything that saved his own skin for the moment. Except give up Ren. If the Shogun wanted to find him, he’d have to do all the work himself. Kuro didn’t even know where the prince had disappeared to.

“But you are,” the onmyouji said.

“I’m more valuable alive than dead.”

“When the fate of the empire depends on me killing you?”

Kuro muttered a few choice curses under his breath. He should have started with the bribes, not the insults.

They passed the row of severed heads into the grounds already packed with squirming humans. The palanquin slowed as the samurai in front pressed them out of their way.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Instead of peeling off, the Shogun’s palanquin followed. What was the Shogun thinking? Killing a spirit didn’t tarnish the soul, but entering the execution grounds where hundreds of humans had been put to death, certainly did. Only the lowest ranks of samurai oversaw executions. The Shogun was too high rank to risk it. Yusuke was too high rank.

So why did they profane themselves? Why bring him here?

“I know you’ve seen the Sun Prince.”

Yumi. The traitor. She’d probably spilled everything she’d discovered as easily as Daidoji had. As soon as Big Brother asked her to. If she hadn’t been ordered to make nice to Kuro in the first place to root out Ren’s existence. But Yusuke had referred to his little sister as innocent.

“If you were on our side, then you would have reported this to the Shogun long before now,” the onmyouji said. “But don’t worry. We’ll make use of you yet. Your execution will lure out the Sun Prince, like using Undesirables to lure demons.”

Kuro hissed in a breath, searching around him. But with his hands and feet bond like they were, not just in rope but with ofuda, he struggled to move even an inch. He only had his words. “Then you’re wasting my life. Ren won’t come.”

“He will,” Yusuke said, as calmly as predicting that Yumi would add breathless yearning when saying ‘big brother.’

“He despises me,” Kuro said. “He knows I helped the Shogun. He knows I’m responsible for his family’s death. He knows I tried to assassinate him.” Well, that Kuro had slept in his guest futon and ate at his table while planning to kill him. He’d never gotten around to the trying to kill him part. And Kuro never could have. But Yusuke didn’t need to know that. “He’d be as happy as every other human to watch me die.”

Yusuke chuckled. “That wasn’t your best argument.”

“Then don’t kill me, because if you do, you’ll make the prince happy.”

“I don’t believe the prince hates you as much as you think.”

“What would you know? You only saw a shadow behind a curtain.”

“But the First Lord knows him. He knows him much better than you ever would.”

“Ren doesn’t—”

Yusuke tipped his head in Kuro’s direction. “The First Lord knows the Sun Prince can’t stand idle while his beloved dies.”

Kuro’s mouth widened as he sought words. “You want me to maul the Shogun?”

The onmyouji laughed out loud.

“Ren…” Kuro trailed off, the words still not flowing. Ren fancied the Shogun. It was as clear as the sky during a kitsune’s wedding. But Yusuke seemed to imply something else. “Ren does not like me.”

Even outside of the whole plot to kill him, humans didn’t fall in love with spirits. The closest thing they did was become obsessed with a spirit beguiling them to their deaths, but not even that counted as love. Maybe fancy. Maybe liking someone a little more. But humans didn’t befriend spirits. Humans didn’t even care to piss on them if they were on fire.

And no one cared about Kuro. Kuro was unlovable. He was a Dark Kitsune. Not even his own mother cared for him.

But the Shogun knew Ren. Had moulded him since he was a little boy. If the Shogun thought — no, it didn’t matter. Ren had known Kuro for two days before Kuro destroyed his life forever. If, despite all the odds, all the obstacles that he knew and the many others that didn’t matter because a human would never get past the first one, Ren actually had a budding fancy, that was gone. Vanished. Vanquished even.

He remembered Ren in the teahouse, the way his life seemed to seep from his face. As if his love had betrayed him, when he wouldn’t believe the Shogun had ordered his death…

“Ren hates me,” Kuro told himself more than he told Yusuke. “He despises me. He won’t come.”

Ren wouldn’t come to save him, like he’d stepped in on Yumi’s behalf. He hadn’t when Kuro had been surrounded by dogs — but Ren had begged the Shogun to give him Kuro, saving his life. Kuro cringed. Look how well that had turned out for Ren. The Sun Prince may be oblivious and naive, but even he would think twice.

The Shogun would execute Kuro and fail in his objective. Kuro would die because of Ren. Not because of the Shogun’s foolhardy plan to lure Ren out. But because Kuro should have known better. He let Ren and Yumi rub off on him. He let himself think he should watch out for Ren. Put Ren’s safety in front of Kuro’s own ambition, never mind his own personal safety.

Kuro should have run as soon as they found the checkpoint passes.

The palanquin reached the centre of the crowd, an eye in the midst of a storm, but nowhere near as comforting. A straw mat lay behind a freshly dug hole.

On the far side, a line of samurai waited, each holding the leash of a dog. The wind shifted, carrying Kuro’s scent over to them. They yipped, eager to taste his blood.

Kuro’s breath quickened. They were going to drop him onto the straw mat, and then release those dogs. Bound as he was, he couldn’t run. He couldn’t fend them off. He could bite maybe one or two, but the others would swarm him. They meant to maul him to death.

The palanquin stopped. Two samurai grabbed Kuro by the shoulders, and another grabbed his feet. They dropped him onto the straw mat.

Daidoji grabbed him by the hair and pulled hard, forcing Kuro onto his knees. The other samurai, their holds more confident than Daidoji’s, clapped their hands on his shoulders and held him forward so his head hovered over the hole.

Kuro blinked. The soil was red, or so it seemed in the setting sun. They’d cut off his head and drain his blood into the hole, like the thousands of humans who’d been executed before him. At least there wouldn’t be dogs.

The labourers trotted the palanquin away, leaving room for the Shogun’s palanquin to approach. No one dragged the Shogun out. He stepped down gracefully, as if he wasn’t weighed down by fifty pounds of lacquered leather armour.

Tipping his chin up, he surveyed his gathered subjects from beneath his black helm. Two gold horns reached for the sun.

Then he actually spoke. “For too long, our Capital, our empire has been plagued with calamity. Earthquakes. Undesirables. Demon attacks.”

The crowd stilled, as if the gods turned them to stone.

Tightening his grip on Kuro, one of the samurai whispered, “Your Excellency, no emperor or Shogun need speak to commoners. If I may—”

The Shogun cut off the samurai by slicing his hand to the side. Without pause, the Shogun continued, “We fought the demons. We slew them. But more keep descending. More humans die. More humans are lost and terrified. But no more!”

An excited murmur ran through the crowd.

“Two nights ago, the Night Parade brazenly attacked even our Imperial Palace. They murdered the last Tendo Sun Prince. But we need not fear anymore. I have discovered the cause. I have found the rot spreading in secret under our Capital.”

The Shogun turned, making sure his voice carried to the entire gathering. “A Dark Kitsune snuck inside our walls. A Dark Kitsune brings calamity against us. A Dark Kitsune killed our beloved Sun Prince. But today, we reclaim our city. Today, we end the demon’s reign of terror.”

The crowd screamed, more bloodthirsty than a horde of oni. Did they not hear themselves?

The Shogun crossed the mat.

The samurai holding him adjusted his grip, forcing Kuro’s neck long to give the Shogun room to work. Kuro would have preferred making his beheading a challenge.

There was always a way out. Always a way to turn disaster to advantage for any fox clever enough to see it.

The Shogun drew his sword. The glare of the sun on the steel blinded Kuro.

There was always a way out…

The Shogun rested the blade on the back of Kuro’s neck. Kuro yipped, but the Shogun didn’t cut him. He raised his blade to take advantage of the speed.

… but a clever fox never would have gotten involved with Ren.

The Shogun swung down.