Smoke in the Sun (Flame in the Mist #2)(14)

Though he’d risked both not once, but twice in recent days. All for the sake of love. For love, ōkami could very well lose everything.

As for regicide? There had been a time—not long after the death of his father and the loss of his family’s fortune—that ōkami had contemplated murdering Minamoto Masaru and being the cause of the imperial family’s downfall. Even now—with a fond bitterness—he recalled longing for the day when he would be strong enough to destroy those who had laid siege to his world.

But it had all been childish folly, this idea of revenge. The musings of an angry boy, bereft of purpose. After all, what kind of purpose did retribution provide? It was the kind that destroyed its bearer in a ceaseless cycle of hatred.

Not long after his father’s death—when ōkami had been faced with the cold, with death, with hunger, with the echoes of ridicule—he had drawn away from such notions and instead opted for the comfort of self-preservation. At least then he would not be the reason anyone bound to him perished for the sake of revenge.

Yet here he was now, pondering the possibility of escape. Dreaming of running a white-hot blade through the heart of this fatuous emperor. Watching his blood flow through the grate meant for waste. Laughing to himself as the life dripped from Roku’s body.

Knowing all to be hopeless endeavors.

Each time Raiden’s fist connected with his skin, ōkami felt his body brace itself, though his mind knew better; it knew nothing could spare him the inevitable rush of pain. Soon each blow melted into the next, until a steady thrum of anguish coursed through his chest, his limbs, his stomach. Until his head rang dully as though a gong chimed within.

Then the beating ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

It seemed odd that they had yet to question him. He thought at the very least they would wish to know if the Black Clan was responsible for the death of the emperor. About what these men did and why they did it. Who comprised its membership. What designs they might have with respect to the future of the empire.

Yet they had asked him nothing of import, save for what it was he truly feared.

Which … gave him pause.

ōkami rolled onto his back and let the sounds of their speech fade as though he were submerged beneath water. Tried his best to ignore the invective in each of the words, regardless of who spoke them. Raiden wore his hate like armor, and a part of ōkami preferred it that way. The elder brother possessed a naked, unsophisticated kind of hatred, easily seen and easily understood. Easily dismantled. The kind of hatred ōkami had faced as a young man, with none but his father’s trusty samurai, Yoshi, and his best friend, Tsuneoki, at his side.

Roku did not wear his hatred on the surface. He masked it with cheerful grins and unnerving calm, as though he were trying to cajole or entice his victims into submission. It was a dangerous kind of hatred, because it was hard to sense how deep its roots lay. The more Roku spoke, the more his poison seeped through ōkami’s skin, setting his teeth on edge.

Raiden’s hatred was easy to ignore. Roku’s was a winding lane beckoning ōkami forward, into a thorny underbrush.

ōkami’s face throbbed. Every breath he took strained the muscles in his chest. One eye was swollen shut. Nevertheless he stared up at the beam of moonlight. That single stroke of luminous white, cascading from the narrow window above. His body reached for it instinctively. Sought its solace. Its strength. The light of the night sky could be his savior, just as it had been his demon for so long.

His bare foot stretched its way, almost as though it were held in a trance. A cloud passed over the moon, shrouding his savior in further darkness.

So close. Yet so far.

Too far to be of any service.

The hateful words flowing around ōkami continued to wend through his chest, wrapping around his heart. He would not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him lowered to despair. Though his face pulsed and his chest ached, he would never let a single tear trek down his face. He would not give anyone—least of all these foolish boys playing at being men—the satisfaction.

The last time tears had flowed down ōkami’s face had been the day his father had died, eight years ago. He had not cried once since then, not even to himself.

ōkami resisted the urge to shout. To rage against the dying light and strike back at the pain winding through his body. It was not the pain of the repeated beatings. It was the pain of his fear. That cold, dark fear ōkami had ignored for so long. The possibility that—no matter how hard he had fought to avoid it—there were people who’d managed to gain control over him, in their own way.

Not these young fools standing before him with their glittering weapons and radiant silks. These fools for whom power had only ever been absolute. No. Never them.

But the people ōkami loved. The people whose laughter had wormed its way into his soul. They were the ones who inspired his loyalty, no matter the reason or the cost. It was something Yoshi had always said, when ōkami had questioned why the wizened samurai had wasted years of his life in service to a young rōnin, fixing eggs for a spoiled little boy.

Loving someone is to lose control, Yoshi had said with a fond smile. And I promised to love you always, as I loved Shingen-sama, my loyal brother in arms.

Yoshi. His father’s faithful samurai and confidant, who had been by their sides following the disappearance of Takeda Shingen’s wife in a storm at sea. The man who had sheltered ōkami as a lost, lonely boy. The man who had kept him safe, even when ōkami had wished him away.