The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(96)

The doors opened and servants rushed into the room in a panic, shadow guards materializing through the walls. They gasped, but no one made a move to subdue Hiro, or any of us.

Instead, they began to bow.

“Your Majesty,” they said in haunting unison, foreheads pressed to the mat. They looked only to Hiro, ignoring the rest of us. I gasped, pressing a trembling hand to my mouth as I realized what Hiro had done.

He had succeeded Izanami and become the new God of Death.

I pulled myself to my feet, then crashed down to one side before lurching toward Hiro. He finally turned to me, holding out a hand to help me stand up straight, but I slapped it away.

“Ren,” he said, “I—”

“You’re a liar!” I said. I tried to shove him to the ground, but the room still spun above me and I could only grab his collar, pulling us both down. The guards loomed closer, but Hiro waved them away.

“This was what you wanted all along, wasn’t it?” I gripped the front of his kimono and slammed him back into the floor, my strength rapidly coming back to me. He lay limp underneath me, looking pained, but didn’t say a word.

“You didn’t even...” I trailed off as tears burned at my eyes. “You didn’t even tell me your real name,” I said, unable to stop the tears from dropping onto Hiro’s face.

“Ren, my real name means ‘leech boy,’” he said, his voice barely a whisper, fresh tears welling in his eyes. “That’s what she named me when I disappointed her. I showed you everything that I am, Ren, just not everything that I was.”

“You used me!” I said, slamming him once more into the ground. He didn’t fight me when his head bashed against the hard floor. “You pretended to care about me so I would take you here!”

“I never pretended!” Hiro said, grabbing my wrists and yanking my hands from his collar. I tried to pull my arms away, but he wouldn’t release me. “I love you, Ren. That was never a lie.”

“Why should I believe anything you say?” I managed to tear one arm free, but he lunged and pinned me to the floor. I didn’t know if Hiro had always been so strong, or if he had suddenly become so much stronger with his new status as a Death God, but I felt weaker than a moth under his grasp.

“Because you understand me,” Hiro said. When I stopped struggling, he released my arms and cupped my face. “I’ve wandered this world for longer than Japan has even existed, but I’ve never met anyone else who understands.”

I said nothing as Hiro pressed his forehead to mine. Of course I felt the same, but was that enough to make up for all that he’d done?

“You know how it feels, Ren,” he whispered. “When everyone tells you what you’re not, even when your heart knows that they’re wrong.”

My eyes watered, the tense anger melting away from my limbs.

“I just wanted to come home,” Hiro said, his tears now dripping onto my face.

I closed my eyes as more tears fell on me like a warm rain. Regardless of Hiro’s intentions, killing Izanami wasn’t the worst thing he could have done. She’d planned to eradicate all the Yokai, even the good ones, like the Honengame. She’d cast baby Hiro out to sea because he didn’t look like the perfect Shinigami she’d wanted. She’d killed my mother and hadn’t told me until after I’d murdered for her.

Perhaps Hiro would make a better God of Yomi after all.

“You could have told me,” I said, but my words no longer had any anger behind them. “I trusted you.”

“I’m sorry,” Hiro whispered, kissing my forehead. “I’m so sorry, Ren. I was scared. But there’s nothing to be scared of now. We’ve won.”

He sat up, pulling me with him. His eyes sparkled brighter, his grip on my hands tight enough to shatter a human’s bones.

“Marry me,” he said.

My whole body tensed. I was positive that I’d misheard him. “What?” I whispered.

“We can be the new Izanagi and Izanami,” he said, taking my hands and lacing our fingers together. His eyes looked fevered, the temperature of the room simmering with his excitement.

“Hiro,” I said, so stunned that I could barely form a coherent thought.

“I’m the new God of Yomi,” Hiro said, squeezing my hands, “and I want you to be the Goddess.”

Goddess, I thought, the word echoing back a hundred times through the dark cave of my mind.

Once upon a time, I’d lain on the dirty streets of London at the mercy of a pair of scissors, and now I could have a palace made of gold and an army of the dead bowing at my feet. It would no longer matter if I was a Reaper or a Shinigami, because I would be a deity. Those who questioned me would be drowned alive in the tar of deep darkness because Hiro loved me, would do anything for me, would kill anyone for me if I only asked.

Suddenly every part of me burned with black fire. I was all the concentrated light of the sun and the cruelest coldest depths of the ocean. I was every brief flash of life and the frozen infinity of Death, and the whole world belonged to me. Every star of the universe was tied to my fingers by a puppet string.

“Yes,” I said. I grabbed Hiro by the collar and pulled him closer. “Yes, I will.”

I grabbed his jaw with one hand and leaned in to kiss him, but something yanked me to the floor.