Smoke in the Sun (Flame in the Mist #2)(23)
Her mind told her what would happen if she failed the very first of the empress’s tests. She would lose an opportunity to gain footing in the imperial court, and the tasks she wished to accomplish would be forced beyond reach. Mariko glanced once more at Suke. At the silent tears the girl spilled as bits of egg dripped down her hair and clothing.
I … can’t do this to her.
But the empress’s eyebrows drew together. Her lips pursed. Her stare was a thousand daggers, each aimed Mariko’s way.
This was not about punishment. Though it was meant to be seen as an attempt to keep the morals of the young women at court in line, it came across as anything but. Pelting a girl into submission—even with something as harmless as an egg—was a rather strange show of power.
Despite the warnings of her mind, everything in Mariko’s heart rebelled against it.
This strange show of power.
The empress continued to stare at Mariko. In response, Mariko weighed the egg in her hand. Let it roll across her palm. Considered throwing it at the empress in defiance.
But now was not a moment for dreams.
“Do you feel as though I am unjust?” the empress asked coolly.
Mariko gazed up at the dowager empress’s face. When Yamoto Genmei had been younger, she must have been a beautiful woman. But time and pain and pettiness had withered her features into something unseemly, from the inside out. For the empress, every young woman she met was like the servant Isa—someone beneath her, meant for her to trample upon whenever she saw fit.
It probably began like this. With a simple choice.
Inhaling through her nose to allay her disgust, Mariko lobbed the egg hard at the pitiful girl, who dripped with enough food to feed a family for several weeks, letting it waste onto the freshly woven tatami mats. The egg landed at her knee with a splat, a pitiful finale to a sickening show.
Guilt spiked in Mariko’s stomach when Suke looked up at her, a mixture of embarrassment and gratitude passing across her features. Mariko swallowed.
She is … grateful?
“I was a silly little fool just like you, once,” the empress said to Mariko, her head canted to one side. “I thought myself principled and that my principles would carry me through my life, especially in the most difficult of times, when life did not turn out as I had dreamed.” The empress smirked to hide a sudden flash of pain. “Principles are well and good when you are young and life is at your feet, Lady Mariko. Perhaps you see me as cruel, but I am saving this girl from experiencing far more ruin in this way. And making all these young women present realize a harsh truth: men are allowed to wander in their desires.” She sniffed. “Women who wander risk their very lives.”
Mariko dropped her gaze, settling once more on the piece of unraveling straw near her knee. Back at her father’s province, she had known people like the empress. Women and men who took perverse pleasure in exacting unnecessary revenge on others. Even Ren had been guilty of similar behavior. But the empress was a strange variation of this. She believed herself better because she enacted cruelty to prevent something worse from happening.
Sparing girls public spite by encouraging it in closed settings.
Perhaps the empress was not at all like the people Mariko had known back home.
She was worse.
“Time teaches us all that we need to be better than men. But only by a thread.” The empress rose. “Cling to that thread. You will need it.” She gestured for one of the young attendants in the wings. “You will see my son now.” The empress smiled at Mariko’s kimono. Then shook her head in an approximation of regret.
“What a shame. That one was a favorite of mine, many years ago.”
Gleaming Darkly
Mariko’s hands shook. As the attendants slid open the doors, she gripped her kimono sleeves without a care for rumpling the delicate fabric. Her eyes averted, she bowed one last time to the empress, who remained on her throne, a serene smile upon her face.
Beyond the sliding doors stood Kenshin, as though Mariko’s torment was meant to be unceasing. If possible, her brother appeared even wearier than before. He looked at her face. At the frown tugging her lips and the lines creasing her brow. Then he cleared his throat, his gaze piercing, offering his sister silent advice.
In an instant, Mariko controlled her features.
Kenshin motioned for her to follow him. They turned to the left of the chamber, instead of the path to the right, which would have returned Mariko to the rooms she’d occupied since her arrival in Inako. As they walked, Mariko noted how many paces it took to move from one structure to another.
They exited the Lotus Pavilion and made their way toward a set of ornate sliding doors leading to the central courtyard. The men standing guard just outside were in simple hakama, each of their two swords slung through silk cords around their hips. Samurai, who would unsheathe their weapons only in dire circumstances, and never in front of the emperor, for death was the punishment if anyone dared to brandish a blade in his presence.
Forty-nine paces.
They waited while sandals were brought before them, Kenshin’s the simple geta of a samurai, and Mariko’s gleaming darkly of lacquered wood. Beyond the reaches of the castle, the sun had begun its descent below the horizon, its light caramelizing all it touched.
Mariko followed Kenshin across the center courtyard toward another wing of Heian Castle, one that rose from the main edifice of seven gabled roofs. The scent of the orange blossoms mingled with the yuzu trees, and the blend of sweet and sour citrus floated past Mariko, beckoning her toward the woods beyond. Strange how the forest had never transfixed her before, yet now called to her whenever its jagged shadows came into view.