Red Winter (The Red Winter Trilogy Book 1), Page 6

  The ritual dance continued, an intricate series of careful movement of arrow and bow, hands and feet and body. Emi lost herself in the familiar motions, letting them flow through her, feeling the faint shimmer of power rise from the earth. Most people thought the ritual dances were just traditional performances meant to entertain, but there was true power in them—if the performer did them right.

  As she moved into the final position, forming an inward-facing square with Nanako, Yui, and Rina as the other three points, Emi nocked the arrow on the string. In unison with the other miko, she drew the string back to her cheek, her muscles burning. She lifted the bow, pointing the arrow toward the ceiling of the stage. Rina and Yui’s arms visibly trembled from the effort to hold the position. They brought their bows down, directing the arrows at the four-pointed wooden compass sitting on the floor in the middle of the stage.

  Together, they fired. Emi was so focused on hitting the right spot, the north compass point, that she wasn’t paying attention to the others—until a ricocheting arrow flashed past her face, barely missing her cheek.

  “Rina!” Nanako shrieked.

  Rina dropped her bow in horror. She wailed incoherent apologies while Yui stared at Emi with eyes the size of tea cups.

  Katsuo and Minoru appeared out of nowhere, weapons raised. Rina went silent, her face beet red.

  Katsuo leaped onto the stage, not bothering with the steps. “What happened?”

  Emi blinked, gathering her wits. A chunk of wood had splintered off the floor a foot beyond the wooden compass. Rina had overshot her mark and the angle had caused the arrow to bounce off the floor and whirl past Emi, spinning like a boomerang.

  Still holding her bow, Emi clasped her hands together and gave the two sohei a dazzling smile. “Oh, nothing to worry about! Just a small mishap with the dance.”

  Rina shot her another grateful look.

  Katsuo looked around suspiciously. “That’s it?”

  Nanako cleared her throat. “We’ll leave off practice for today. Girls, I expect you to practice your archery for at least two hours every day for the rest of the week, no excuses. Now put all this away and go pray for the kami’s luck—you both need it!”

  Emi was surprised Nanako hadn’t taken the opportunity to humiliate Rina, but maybe she didn’t want the sohei to think she was an incompetent teacher.

  To Emi’s relief, Katsuo finally relaxed his stance and sheathed his sword. The stage wasn’t a large enough space for five people and over two feet of deadly steel. Giving the girls one last glare, Nanako shoved her bow at Yui and hurried down the steps.

  “Are you free now?” Katsuo asked Emi.

  Consternation and a twinge of anger sparked inside her but she didn’t allow her feelings to show on her face. She hadn’t spoken with him since the unpleasant ending of their conversation yesterday. Maybe he wanted to apologize—or maybe he wanted to continue his quest to convince her that every decision she’d made in her life was wrong.

  “I’m free until dinner.” She glanced at Rina. “Would you mind …?”

  The girl quickly accepted Emi’s bow and started gathering the other ceremonial items along with Yui. Emi descended the steps after Katsuo. Minoru gave her a polite nod, cast a questioning glance at Katsuo, and wordlessly walked away, presumably returning to wherever he’d been before all the screaming brought him running.

  “I wanted to show you something,” Katsuo explained as they walked away from the stage. The main hall and the stage formed an L-shape around the stone courtyard. Behind the stage was a plain building with offices and filing rooms where Fujimoto and Nanako spent most of their day when they weren’t maintaining the shrine or assisting worshippers. Katsuo led her off the sidewalk and onto the unkempt grass behind the offices.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Just over here.”

  He held the branches of an overgrown bush out of the way so she could squeeze by along the wall. Just beyond, a small building in the traditional architecture of a shrine sat comfortably amidst the shrubbery, its peaked roof and curling eaves painted yellow and orange by fallen leaves.

  “It’s an old storehouse,” he said excitedly. “Kannushi Fujimoto obviously hasn’t been maintaining it. The regular storerooms are back by the offices.”

  He grabbed the front door and pulled, dragging the heavy panel aside to reveal the interior, dimly lit by sunlight leaking in through the dirty windows high on the walls. Shelves covered every wall and a rack as tall as the ceiling occupied the center of the room, leaving only a narrow, rectangular aisle to walk in. Katsuo entered without hesitation, gesturing for Emi to follow. She minced across the threshold, pulling her sleeves close so they didn’t brush against the dirt-coated shelves. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of moldering paper. Leather-bound books, crumpled boxes, and wooden cases in all sizes filled every available nook and cranny.

  “This place is a gold mine. Has Kannushi Fujimoto even bothered to look at what’s in here?” Katsuo pointed at a long, narrow case perched precariously on top of another box. Paper ofuda covered most of its surface, the written talismans likely intended to seal the supposed supernatural power within. “This here is labeled as Fudo Masamune. If it’s the real katana, it’s worth a fortune.”

  She offered a polite noise of interest, utterly clueless as to why he thought she would care about famous swords or anything else in this storehouse. He flashed her a grin over his shoulder.

  “You’re wondering why I brought you here, right? There are a ton of books mixed in with all this junk. I came last night to see if any of them mention anything about kamigakari or the ceremony.” He stopped at the back of the room and crouched. “Look here.”

  She joined him, trying not to cough as the air grew even more stale. Deciding she would not kneel on that filthy floor, she bent at the waist to look at the shelf. Books were haphazardly stacked in piles ten tall and three deep.

  “These are all shrine histories,” he told her. He picked up the three on top. “I only looked at a few, but these ones talk about past kamigakari, Amaterasu’s and others. I bet more of these books have information on kamigakari, maybe even details about the ceremony and stuff.”

  He looked up at her, eyes bright even in the dim light. “I know you’re content to wait until the Guji fills you in about the ceremony, but I thought you might enjoy learning more about past kamigakari and all the things they’ve done. This one”—he held up a book—“talks about Tsukiyomi’s kamigakari turning a hurricane away from the coast. Can you believe that? And in this really old one, Izanagi’s kamigakari forced an emperor to end a war.”

  His excitement faded as he waited for her to respond, but she couldn’t find her voice to reassure him that he hadn’t offended her again. How long had he spent searching through this grimy storehouse, looking for books about kamigakari? How long had he sat in here last night, sifting through boring histories, when he should have been sleeping? The book he was waving around had to be five hundred pages thick. He must have spent hours in here.

  She’d been afraid he would try to convince her that she was making a big mistake, but this was the opposite. He sounded outright amazed by the two examples of kamigakari power in the books, and he wanted to share that with her.

  In the wake of her silence, he deflated like a punctured tire. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “N-no. This is wonderful.” She managed a wobbly smile, struggling to contain her emotions. “Thank you, Katsuo. This is amazing. I don’t know much kamigakari history, especially not the histories of the other kami.”

  He hesitated, trying to read her, maybe doubting her sincerity. She must have passed his scrutiny, because his grin returned. He handed her the three books—she resisted flinching at the dust-coated covers—and rose to his feet.

  “I can’t stay—Minoru and I are doing a quick patrol down the northern trails before dinner—but you should stay and check out some of the other books. I’m sure there’s more intere
sting stuff.”

  Before she could respond, he was out the door and she heard him take off at a jog. Alone in the shadowy interior, she allowed herself to sink down onto her heels and stared at the books in her hands. Katsuo’s kindness made her ache inside. Was he trying to make up for failing to save Hana? No, she’d recognized his good nature when she first developed a crush on him. He was thoughtful and considerate of everyone around him.

  Smiling to herself, she set the three books aside and swiftly examined the rest of the pile. Some were too faded or moldy to decipher, but from among the remainder, she selected six more—four other histories, a kannushi manual of some kind, and a journal that had belonged to a miko from a hundred years ago. Gathering the nine books together, she carried them to the front stoop and sat. The steps, having been exposed to regular rainfall all summer, were significantly cleaner than the storehouse interior.

  Dappled sunlight danced over the pages of the book that detailed Tsukiyomi’s hurricane-battling kamigakari. She quickly located a recently dog-eared page and read the driest, most tedious account of fantastical magic she could have imagined. When she finished the segment, she had to take a few deep breaths. Assuming the story hadn’t been exaggerated, she would wield far more power as Amaterasu’s kamigakari than she’d guessed.

  Excitement quickly replaced her nerves and she devoured several pages of the next book. When she ran out of material flagged by Katsuo, she skimmed through the other histories. Eagerness gave way to frustration as she flipped through page after page of cramped print, finding nothing but dreary descriptions of ancient politics. Maybe she’d underestimated how long it had taken Katsuo to find the passages he’d marked.

  She abandoned the histories and paged through the diary. Another miss. The miko who’d written out every detail of her daily existence had led an exceptionally uneventful life. Not that Emi, a journal-keeper herself, could criticize, but the woman’s musings were hardly the makings of a masterpiece. Setting the diary aside, she picked up the kannushi manual and opened it. Her heart sank. Page after page of dull instructions on every facet of managing a shrine.

  She huffed, wanting to scratch an itch on her nose but unwilling to touch her face until she could wash her hands. It seemed she would need to practice patience if she wanted to learn more. As she mentally planned out how she might sneak some of the books back into her room, she idly flipped through the pages of faded ink, barely watching what she was doing. Only when a smear of black on the paper flashed by did her attention return to the book. She backtracked until she found a page with an image splashed across it:

  The carefully painted lines depicted a perfect illustration of Amaterasu’s mark—the very mark emblazoned over Emi’s heart.

  Pulse racing, she lifted the book closer to her face. The author described how the mark would darken as the years passed and how to judge when it was fully formed, therefore indicating that the ceremony should be held on the next solstice.

  Delay not, for the growing ki within the kamigakari will act as a beacon to all spirits. Yokai will be drawn to her as moths to a flame. Loyal to their masters, the yokai will make every attempt to slay the kamigakari before Her Holy Kami’s descension from the heavens. The Kunitsukami seek to preserve their dominion over the earthly realm and will not passively allow Her Holy Kami to challenge their rule. They will grow only more brazen as the ceremony approaches.

  Emi swallowed hard. She knew that Amaterasu’s power would slowly filter into her, but she hadn’t realized that it would also draw yokai to her. With numb fingers, she reached under the collar of her kimono and pulled out her omamori—a small, flat cloth bag on a tie around her neck. Within the rectangular bag was a powerful ofuda, a talisman to protect her. Ishida had made it himself. He’d given her a new one every six months for the last three years. With each replacement talisman, he’d warned her to never, ever take it off. As long as she had it around her neck, yokai would not recognize her as anything more than a miko.

  Ki, as referenced by the book’s author, meant spiritual energy or life force. It was the power wielded by kami and yokai, and humans possessed it too, though on a much smaller scale. Most humans couldn’t do anything special with their ki, but kannushi, sohei, and miko were trained to tap into their ki in order to perform rituals, create ofuda and omamori, and protect shrine grounds. With a close connection to their kami, a kannushi’s or sohei’s ki could gain extra potency as the kami loaned a touch of their power to supplement what a mere mortal could do. Purity of heart and mind, as well as a focused will, made ki more powerful.

  Of all the elements of her miko training, ki was Emi’s only real weakness. She knew all kinds of theory and she could technically create ofuda. They were quite straightforward: a rectangle of pure white paper upon which she would write the ritual words, imbuing them with her ki and will. The problem was, short of inviting a yokai attack, she had no way to know if she had succeeded. A protection ofuda wouldn’t do a thing unless someone truly intended her harm.

  If Amaterasu’s power was already beginning to fill her body, Emi could create ofuda more powerful than even Ishida. But, again, she had no way to test that. If she was gaining power, could she somehow feel it? She lifted the book back to her nose, and scanned the text for more information. Surely there was a way to confirm if—

  Her eyes jerked to a stop on the passage at the bottom of the page.

  Speak not to the kamigakari of the ceremony. Regardless of her inquiries, you must not enlighten her to the reality of imbuing a divine spirit. Universally, they have reacted to the knowledge with poor grace, some going so far as to sabotage the ceremony. A compromised kamigakari is unsuitable for Her Holy Kami’s spirit and any dissonance will result in the swift demise of the kamigakari.

  It is also recommended to disguise the truth from other servants of the shrine. The understanding that the kamigakari’s being will cease to exist upon Her Holy Kami’s descension into her vessel is rarely received well, even by the most devout of followers.

  Know that the sacrifice of the kamigakari is as necessary as the withholding of this very fact. Sorrow not for the kamigakari, whose mind and soul will be consumed by the ultimate glory of Her Holy Kami’s spirit, a fate we might all wish for as our ultimate end.

  She stared at the page, the words thundering in her brain.

  … the kamigakari’s being will cease to exist …

  … the sacrifice of the kamigakari …

  … mind and soul will be consumed …

  The words spun and twisted and burrowed deep, repeating over and over until she couldn’t draw a breath. Cease to exist. Sacrifice. Consumed.

  It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. Someone would have told her. Someone would have warned her. Her own parents had encouraged her to seek this path. Someone would have told her that her fate wasn’t to unite with her kami, but to be consumed by her kami, mind and soul.

  She couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t true. If this book was right, she’d dedicated her whole life to preparing herself as the perfect host for her kami, and in two months, Amaterasu would reward all her sacrifices by destroying her.

  The book fell from her numb fingers. Her entire life had been forged by a terrible lie, and there was nothing she could do to change her fate.

  Chapter 6

  Lying on her back across her futon, Emi stared at the ceiling. Her tears had run dry. Her muscles ached. Hunger chewed at her belly.

  She’d taken the kannushi manual back to her room and refused to leave, sending Nanako away when she came by to demand why the lady hadn’t come to dinner. Emi had read the entire manual from cover to cover, hundreds of pages of dry exposition about how to run a shrine. Most of the section about kamigakari was familiar to her. Everything from the special prayers girls said in the hopes of being chosen, to the exact diet she’d followed for the last ten years, to the protective omamori she needed to wear—it was all in there. All accurate and true to her experiences.

  Which meant it was h
ighly unlikely that the one passage was wrong. The manual described her life so perfectly that she was certain Ishida had his own identical copy.

  And if the book was accurate, then her entire life had been based on a lie.

  To her, “become the kamigakari” had always meant “become a kami.” She hadn’t known exactly what her union with Amaterasu would entail, but no one had ever suggested that her mind wouldn’t survive it. Before Amaterasu chose Emi, hundreds of young miko had hoped and prayed that the kami would choose them, but very few of them would have been interested in becoming a kamigakari if they’d known they were voluntarily ending their lives.

  In less than two months, Emi’s life would end. Her body would continue to live, but she would be gone from it, consumed by Amaterasu’s all-powerful spirit. Destroyed by it.

  Her first thought had been to escape that fate. Dozens of desperate plans had rushed through her mind, but the book had struck down every one. She couldn’t run away. The ceremony, as the author explained, was a ritual to help Amaterasu’s descension go as smoothly as possible, but it could be moved to a different location or even skipped altogether should circumstances become dire. Nothing would stop Amaterasu from descending and taking Emi’s body on the solstice. She could be on top of the highest mountain or at the bottom of the ocean, and the kami would still claim her.

  Sabotaging her purity wouldn’t save her either. Other kamigakari had tried and Amaterasu had descended anyway. Damaging her purity would only increase the chances that her body would die along with her mind and soul. Either way, the girl named Emi would be no more. Her life, over at eighteen.

  What kind of life had she lived? Day after day, devoted to miko studies and prayer, to staying pure. She hadn’t read popular books or seen movies or eaten interesting foods. She’d never driven a car or flown in an airplane or seen new places that weren’t shrines. She’d never ridden a bike or skied down a mountain or done any of the other things the girls at the private schools talked about. Her favorite treat was chocolate, and the last time she’d eaten it was on her seventh birthday—a chocolate cake her mother had made for her.