The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(57)

Neven screamed somewhere far behind me, but there was nothing I could do but hold on. Hiro shouted something as well, but I couldn’t hear over the rumble of flames searing my ears and the hiss of steam and the endless trickle of water.

Then time came unglued.

Yuki Onna jolted, then let out the loudest, most bloodcurdling sound I’d ever heard.

A thousand stolen voices wailed all at once. All of them cried out in a chorus of agony at the light and heat. I’d heard humans scream and cry at the end of their lives, but nothing resembled the bone-splintering torture of Yuki Onna’s voice, the volume blasting my hair back and rattling the flames on my arms.

She tried to push me off, but she had already melted to a cream in my arms and I easily pressed her to the snow. The screams reminded me of humans begging for their lives, and I needed her to be quiet, but she wouldn’t stop. Even when I pressed my hand into her mouth and her blue lips bubbled through my fingers, a shapeless sound of pain knifed through the air. I pressed harder and her face splattered into the snow, and finally she was silent. Her soul rose from her melted face in a wisp of white smoke, but it hovered for only a moment before a gust of harsh wind ripped it to pieces.

I sat astride her as the rest of her body melted, unable to breathe through the smell of smoke. Fire still blistered my wrists and neck, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. What did it matter if I was going to heal in a few minutes anyway? Let it burn through my flesh and all my bones until there was nothing left of me.

I kept staring at the swirl of blue and black in the snow where Yuki Onna had been, kept replaying the horrific sight of her face stretching down like pulled taffy. I fell to my forearms, unable to take in any air. My fingers splashed in the puddles of Yuki Onna and the memory of her screams echoed from far away in the mountains.

Someone ripped my coat off from behind and packed snow onto the back of my neck, saying words I couldn’t hear over the ringing. Had the explosion of sound ruptured my eardrums?

I lifted one hand as the sticky gray sludge that had once been a powerful Yokai dripped through my fingers onto the snow. The little foreigner had destroyed an ancient monster. The little foreigner was smarter and stronger, had reduced a Shinigami killer into a murky puddle, and it felt good.

Your heart is already made of ice, she’d said.

I let out a sharp laugh and realized I could hear my own voice.

“Ren?”

I blinked and turned around. The whispers had stopped crawling through my ears and the air smelled of smoke and flesh. Even though the temperature had risen to survivable level, I shivered so hard that I couldn’t see straight. Neven and Hiro stared at me, Neven clutching my singed jacket and Hiro holding handfuls of snow.

“Are you hurt?” Neven said.

I looked down at my hand, suddenly disgusted at the milky white that coated it. I wiped it on my skirt as Hiro tried to pack more snow onto my neck.

“No,” I said, dodging his advances and turning to Neven. “What about you?”

“I’m okay,” he said far too quickly. Neven couldn’t tell a white lie to save his life.

Before he could protest, I grabbed his wrist and turned his hand over to see the damage.

His hand had turned a rotten color, so shriveled and blistered that a careless touch could have snapped it off like a dead branch. He did this for me, I thought, suddenly nauseous.

“It’s okay,” he said, blackened fingers twitching slightly. His voice sounded pinched, but mostly calm. “It’s healing already.”

My fingers hovered over his palm, wanting to touch but not wanting to hurt.

“Ren, really,” Neven said, pulling his hand back. “It’s okay, I promise.”

I looked to Hiro, whose own fingertips had slightly grayed. He’d probably had to force Neven’s hand closed toward the end. All three of us were damaged, kneeling in a barren village in the soupy remains of a Yokai. It was ridiculous. Something out of my childhood storybooks, but twisted and perverse.

I bit back a laugh that felt like holding down vomit. How could I possibly feel so close to the precipice of unraveling, so powerful yet so untethered? I was a butterfly twisted inside a tornado, the brightest colors between day and night, a little brown bird in the maw of a fox, waiting for the teeth to bite down.



Chapter Thirteen


As the night train carried us west, I spread the Book of Hakutaku out before me, unrolling it until I found the story of Iso Onna. Neven slept beside me, his head on my shoulder, while Hiro sat across from us, watching the trees flash past.

I ran my fingers across the characters almost punishingly, as if I could force them to make sense if I glared hard enough. I read the first sentence three times until I could barely understand what it might have meant.

“Would you like some help?” Hiro said.

I looked up at his reflection, the night passing by us beyond the window of the train.

Hiro must have known. Either from my hesitation or the look of confusion in my eyes, he knew I was basically illiterate. A Shinigami who couldn’t read. Surely Izanami would be pleased.

I shook my head, looking down. “I’m just...” I shook my head again, unable to think of a good excuse. My mind was still spinning with all of Yuki Onna’s accusations, my own face staring back at me on the body of a monster, her body that had turned to soup so easily in my hands. Too easily.