Smoke in the Sun
Page 46

“How can you say that?” Kenshin asked. “Father feeds and clothes and—”
“Our father is among the worst offenders. Have you ever gone into our rice fields and looked into the eyes of those who work the soil, day after day, with only a pittance to show for it?”
“Of course I have. We played in those fields when we were children.”
“No, Kenshin.” Mariko shook her head. “Not with the eyes of a child. And not just a passing glance. Have you ever looked at any of them and seen an equal? Seen someone who struggles and lives and breathes and loves just as you do?” She reached for his hand, her voice barely audible. “Can you tell me even one of their names?”
He did not take the hand she offered. Instead Kenshin stayed silent, his gaze searching.
“You can’t,” Mariko continued, stepping back. Giving her brother the space he needed to think. “I still cannot call a single one of them by name. It’s not enough for us to pretend to be better than they are. Because we are not. We cheat and kill, lie and steal to get what we want. And we don’t care who we hurt to get it.”
“On that point, we agree,” Kenshin said softly. “Because you are still lying to me, little sister. Still hurting me. You fight alongside the Black Clan because you are in love with the son of Takeda Shingen.”
Mariko blinked. Kenshin wasn’t wrong. But it wasn’t that simple. It had never been that simple. For an instant, Mariko thought of spinning another lie to spare herself any more of Kenshin’s judgment. But why did it matter?
Mariko was married to another. And she no longer wished to deny her heart its truth. Her eyes clear and her heart full, she stared up at her brother. “His name is kami.”
“No,” Kenshin replied. “His name is Takeda Ranmaru, and he is the son of a traitor.”
Mariko nodded once. “Then I am in love with the son of a traitor.” She took a step closer, daring her brother to challenge her. “Tell me, Hattori Kenshin. What do you love? What do you fight for?” Another step. “Do you fight for Amaya?” She stopped directly in front of him. “I hope you do. Especially since you failed to fight for her when it mattered most.”
Kenshin’s hand flashed toward Mariko before she could move away. It struck her cheek in a crack that reverberated through the room. Blindsided by her brother’s blow—by the irrevocable choice he’d made for both of them—Mariko reeled to the floor, her fingers covering her cheek. Tears streamed down her face from the shock.
Kenshin’s eyes were wide, his skin paler than freshly fallen snow. “Mariko—”
“Don’t apologize.” She struggled to sit straight.
He knelt before her as he would kneel before his lord, his head bowed, his eyes averted. Her brother reached for her hand. “Please forgive—”
Mariko snatched her fingers away. Took in a steadying breath. “Look at me.”
Kenshin waited a moment, struggling to maintain control. Then met her eyes.
“When I asked about her before, you lashed out at me with words. Today it came to blows. What happened to Amaya?”
“She”—Kenshin shuddered before he spoke, his eyes darting about as though he were searching for a handhold on a cliff—“was lost. In a fire. Father and I watched while she tried to save our people. There was an explosion in our granary, and … it collapsed before I could save her.”
Mariko took both his hands in her own. Squeezed them tightly. “I’m sorry, Kenshin. Sorrier than you will ever know,” she said, her features laden with grief. “Travel safely home. Do not write to me. Do not make inquiries about me. I do not wish to see you ever again.”
The instant he laid eyes on it, Kenshin upended the low table in the center of his room. All the beautiful food—the sea cucumber and grated yam, the turnip dumplings and brightly colored radishes, an entire copper pot of crackling rice with spring onions and pufferfish—crashed to the floor, staining the tatami mats in brilliant hues.
He watched as servants rushed into the darkened room, their eyes averted, whispers of apology falling from their lips. They hurried to clean up his mess. To hide the proof of his hideous temper.
And they apologized to him as they did it.
Disgust clawed at Kenshin’s throat. He crouched to help a servant collect the shattered pieces of a porcelain bowl. Startled by his sudden attention, the girl nearly fell over.
“Please forgive me, my lord,” she murmured, her voice shaking.
Kenshin met her gaze. “Do not apologize. This is my fault, not yours.”
Fear washed across her features. As though the girl suspected Kenshin of playing games. Of testing her. The look of terror in her eyes was exactly like the one Mariko had shown him only moments before.
Kenshin glanced around the room. Some of the faces he vaguely recognized, as they were servants who’d been attending to him ever since he’d arrived to the imperial city. All of those present were afraid of him.
He did not know a single one of their names.
“Go.” Kenshin cleared his throat. “Please take your leave. I will clean this myself.”
The servants paused, uncertain. Then—under the direction of the most senior among them—they quietly exited the room. Kenshin sat with the mess he’d made. The waste of expensive food and the heap of broken dishes carefully sculpted by the hands of a master artisan.
His sister despised him. And the girl he loved—
Kenshin furrowed his brow.
He did not know why he’d been unable to tell Mariko that Amaya had died. He’d said she was lost. As he attempted to share the story with his sister, his memories turned foggy. Strange images of Amaya’s face, carved into the center of a tree, had taken shape instead. Dreams of fluttering silver leaves and a world without color.
Kenshin pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
He’d lost time again today. Just as he had the day by the watering hole, when he’d woken to find his hands stained with the blood of three slaughtered innocents. He had no memory of killing them, but the evidence had been irrefutable. He’d lost his honor, just as he’d lost his mind. Then a few days ago, when he’d returned from Hanami to catch his sister sneaking back to her chambers, it had happened again. After he’d been waylaid by the imperial soldiers, Kenshin remembered drunkenly following a smiling fox through the gardens.
He recalled nothing after that.
Today—as he’d moved to take position during his sister’s wedding—he’d lost consciousness again. A strange heaviness had settled behind his eyes, dulling his senses. The last image he recollected was Mariko beginning her long procession toward the shrine of the sun goddess. He remembered disapproving of the way she’d styled her shoulder-length hair. Its affront to tradition.
Hours later, Kenshin found himself outside his chamber doors, a strange ache in his right shoulder. Only then did he learn of the attempt made on the emperor’s life. He’d lost hold on most of today. His mind, his honor, his truths all betrayed him.
Kenshin knelt among the ruins of the meal and stared into the shadows on the other side of his chamber. He rolled his arm. That same twinge from earlier caught his attention. Reaching inside his kosode, he discovered a welt beside his collarbone.
As though he’d shot an arrow.
The sound of tightening sinew emanated from the darkened corner of his room. Immediately Kenshin took to his feet.
“Keep your hands at your sides,” a feminine voice rasped at him. “Don’t say a word, unless you wish it to be your last.” A small figure—dressed in garments the color of stone—moved from the shadows into a strip of moonlight cast from the open screen nearby.
The girl continued speaking as she moved closer. “I don’t understand you, Lord Kenshin. You had a clear shot, and you missed.”
Kenshin blinked. He did not know what the intruder was talking about. But he did recognize that voice. It was one of the only things to soothe him of late.
The maiko at the teahouse. Yumi.
It took only a moment for him to make the connection.
This girl had tried to kill the emperor.
Kenshin lunged for her, intent on subduing Yumi and calling for his guards. She slid from his grasp with the ease of a wriggling fish. The next instant, she swiped his legs from under him. He struck the floor with a dull thud, the breath knocked from his chest. Yumi pressed her knee on his stomach, then drove the tip of a nocked arrow into his breastbone.