Smoke in the Sun (Flame in the Mist #2)(16)
Stumbling at the entrance of the cell, the strange thin man made his way toward ōkami, the wooden box clasped tightly before him. When Raiden and the four imperial guards moved to restrain ōkami against the wall, ōkami responded instinctively. The reaction of a boy who’d sworn never to appear weak—never to show his fear—no matter the cost. Who’d promised the heavens he would not lose himself to a lesser man, as his father had.
ōkami shoved into Raiden’s chest with his shoulder, then slammed his forehead into the prince’s face. Raiden grunted in pain as he recoiled, then took hold of ōkami’s throat, the hardened leather of his gauntlet digging into ōkami’s skin. His teeth bared in fury, the prince smashed ōkami’s face twice against the stone wall. An imperial guard landed a well-timed blow in the center of ōkami’s chest. Another to his gut. With a gasp, ōkami doubled over and spat a mouthful of blood in the filthy straw, his ears ringing and his vision swimming. Blood trickled past the tip of his nose from a wound splitting across his brow.
“Enough!” Roku’s reedy voice spiked into the rafters. For an instant, ōkami thought the emperor might succumb to the rage simmering beneath the surface. Then Roku sighed, long and loudly. “Brother, you—and your cursed temper—have ruined my plans for our prisoner’s punishment.”
His fingers still wrapped around ōkami’s throat, Raiden glanced over his shoulder toward his younger brother, his eyebrows raised in question.
“His forehead is cracked and bleeding.” Roku inhaled, his eyes closing for a moment, steeling himself once more. “His face is a mess.”
Only a breath passed before ōkami understood the emperor’s meaning. Realized what lay in the skeletal man’s iron-bound trunk.
Insult. Upon injury.
Gritting his teeth, he marshaled his fury. Silenced his fears.
ōkami would need all his wits about him for what was to come.
“I … apologize, my sovereign.” Raiden’s hesitation offered ōkami the barest glimpse into the prince’s mind, past all the rage and spite. Something about the emperor’s actions troubled his elder brother. But Raiden’s reluctance flickered once, then vanished with renewed resolve. He relinquished his hold on ōkami’s neck the same instant the imperial guards tightened theirs. “What would you have me do?” Stepping back, Raiden bowed, again the emperor’s loyal watchdog.
“We must think beyond tradition now. Beyond what is expected.” Roku shifted closer, his nostrils flaring as he studied ōkami’s face. “I want him to see it, to feel it—to witness his truth—for the rest of his life, however short that may be.” A spark of inspiration lighted his gaze. “Place the mark on the side of his neck.”
ōkami closed his eyes as the chains around his ankles were yanked from under him. Resentment coursed beneath his skin as he struck the stone floor, bile churning through his throat. It was followed by bitter amusement. Cold irony. Always irony. He had but to choose which feeling to wear tonight. His eyes opening—locking on the willful light beyond his grasp—ōkami settled on the darkest kind of humor. As a child bereft of his family, ōkami’s humor had often been the only thing keeping him sane.
The mark was meant for the forehead. Thieves and petty criminals were branded thus. Black symbols inked their crimes onto their brows, making it impossible to shed the stain of their folly. It was just as well. ōkami was a thief, after all. And if this was to be the first of the new emperor’s forays into torture, it was a decidedly less gruesome one than ōkami had expected.
The scarred man unlocked his box. In it was a series of small, needled blades. He lifted two jars into the nearby beam of moonlight. The first was filled with the expected black ink. The second? A sinister grin took hold of the man’s features, stretching the spray of burn scars peppering his skin. The second vial contained a thick silver substance that glowed as he swirled it. He dipped one of his needled blades in the luminescent liquid, and the edge of the blade sizzled like fish scales above a fire, distorting the space around it.
Acid. The mark would be fused to ōkami’s skin with acid.
Twisted and unnecessary. Meant to elicit pain and nothing more.
Pressing his filthy sandal down on ōkami’s brow, Raiden shoved ōkami’s face into the straw.
ōkami inhaled. He’d fought once. It had given the emperor satisfaction to see him struggle. To witness him being beaten into submission. Metering his breaths, ōkami glanced upward to gaze upon the placid face of the emperor. He refused to give Roku that satisfaction ever again.
The next time ōkami fought before this weasel of a sovereign, it would end in rivers of royal blood.
“What do you wish for most at this moment, Takeda Ranmaru?” Roku asked, his tone blithe.
ōkami wished for many things, but he refused to give the emperor any further power over him. He stayed silent, his eyes gleaming like daggers.
“You wish for vengeance, do you not, phoenix?” Raiden said softly, as he increased the pressure of his foot against ōkami’s face. “To rise from the ashes?”
Roku smiled as he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.
“First you must burn.”
Traps of Spun Silk
Mariko kept her head bowed, her eyes lowered. She followed in the footsteps of the servant Shizuko, each of her split-toed tabi susurrating across the polished wooden hallways of Heian Castle.