The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(104)

Chapter Twenty-Three


“Enter.”

The door to the throne room slid open. The shadow guards threw themselves to the floor in deep bows, and that was how I knew it was bad news.

“What have you found?” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the velvet seat of the throne. “Surely, you’ve found something, or you wouldn’t have bothered returning.”

“We’re deeply sorry, Your Majesty,” the first guard said, his voice trembling. “We searched the depths of the darkness, but there was no sign of them.”

I sighed, resting my chin on one hand. “You see, I don’t believe that’s possible. Do you know why?”

The guards didn’t answer, shivering as Death slowly began to crush down from above, the jagged ceiling sinking lower and lower.

“Do you?” I said.

“No, Your Majesty,” the second one said.

“It’s not possible,” I said slowly, as if speaking to particularly dense children, “because I ordered you to find them, and you must fulfill my orders. Am I wrong?”

“No, Your Majesty,” they said in unison.

“Then where is my brother?” I said, the language of Death stripping the paneling from the walls, sending wood planks crashing down on top of the guards. “You idiotic shadow puppets were the ones that tossed him out there, were you not? How could you possibly forget where you put him?”

“It wasn’t us, Your Majesty,” one of the guards said, crying out as a piece of wood fell over his head. “Other guards—”

“You are all the same to me,” I said. “Faceless minions. So tell me, why haven’t you found him, when I’ve ordered you to do so?”

“Your Majesty,” said the first guard, “if I may, it’s possible that...” He trailed off, looking up to me for permission.

“Yes, go on,” I said. “What’s possible, exactly?”

“It’s possible that the creatures of the deep darkness... Perhaps we’re too late.”

In an instant, I crossed the room and ripped the shadow in half like a sheet of paper. He cried out as I ripped him into infinitely smaller pieces, sprinkling them like confetti over his trembling companion.

“Do you agree?” I said.

“No, Your Majesty!” he said, the edges of his silhouette rippling with fear.

“Then go back out there and find him!”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” The moment he felt my dismissal, he phased through the walls and vanished.

I tossed open the doors to the throne room and stormed down the hallways. The dead servants threw themselves to the ground in bows as I passed, but I ignored them. It had been months since I’d become their goddess, and while they excelled at cowering before me, they had made nonexistent progress fulfilling the only order that I actually cared about.

At first, I’d tried to charge into the deep darkness myself, but could walk only as far as the edges of my courtyard before the darkness turned to lead and crushed me to the tiles. My katana clattered to the ground, suddenly too heavy to lift.

“Your Highness, you cannot go to the deep darkness without a successor,” a shadow guard had said. “If you die—”

“I do as I please!” I’d said, raking my fingers through the air behind me. The guard evaporated into the night, but another took his place.

“If you die at the hands of the monsters in the deep darkness,” he said, “they will inherit your kingdom.”

“They can have it!” I said, trying to charge through the darkness once more, but it formed a solid wall against my hands.

“Your Highness,” the guard said, “they would devour all the souls above. Everyone in Japan would die.”

I gave up pushing against the unyielding barrier, falling to my knees. How fitting it would be, as my last dying act, to ruin all of Japan, just as I’d already destroyed everything else that mattered. But Neven was worth every soul in Japan and more.

“I have no intention of dying,” I said. “Let me through.”

“I cannot do that,” the guard said.

Darkness boiled in my fingertips. “I said—”

“This is not my rule, Your Highness,” the guard said. “It was written by Izanagi when Yomi first came into being.”

I slammed my fist into the ground, shattering the black tiles. Of course, Izanami’s husband, responsible for the birth of new souls, would protect his kingdom of the living. But ever since Izanami had chased him out of Yomi in a rage of thunder, no one knew where to find him.

The darkness rumbled, raining down in jagged hail around us. Now I was strong enough to smash all the tiles of the courtyard, drain the lake in the garden, turn all the water lilies to ashes and rip every shadow guard to shreds, but none of it would bring Neven back.

I fell onto my hands, hanging my head and letting the darkness inhale my tears.

“Find him,” I whispered. “Please.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the guard said instantly. But I didn’t want reflexive obedience and empty promises. I wanted Neven.

While I waited for the guards month after month, I had to keep the rest of Japan from falling apart.

In a few hours, I expected some Southern Shinigami to arrive and report on their progress, as they did every few weeks. I could sense the population of Tokyo increasing, so I considered transferring some Shinigami north to compensate. The population of Japan was growing, now that it had opened up to the West, and we had to keep up the pace. More Shinigami would be born soon, and I would need to oversee their training. I had so many duties that I cared so little for.