The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(99)

The door slid open and Hiro returned. He pulled me up and placed a piece of cool metal in my hand, a circle of intertwining gold and silver, freezing cold, somehow lighter than air. A ring.

I looked up at Hiro. “Is this—”

“There are no rings in a Shinto wedding ceremony,” Hiro said, “but I read of this tradition and I rather liked it.”

I closed my fist around the ring. “English traditions are of no importance to me,” I said. Was I not Japanese enough for his Shinto ceremony?

Hiro shook his head, sitting on the bed beside me. “It’s not only an English tradition,” he said. “The ancient Egyptians wore wedding rings. They believed the circle was the symbol of eternity. That’s fitting for newlywed gods, isn’t it?”

My anger melted away as Hiro gently opened my palm and picked up the ring, then slid it onto my finger. The gold and silver on the band swirled together in a watercolor design, like two typhoons crashing into each other. It sparkled with diamond flecks, casting light even in the darkness.

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” Hiro said. “I only wanted to give you a gift.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kissed Hiro’s cheek. “Thank you,” I said quietly. What an odd feeling to receive a present, much less one so valuable. “Where did you even find this?”

“You would be surprised what kinds of riches are hoarded in Yomi,” he said. “To my understanding, offerings from the dead are melted down and forged into new jewelry. I looked through the vault while you were asleep, and this piece reminded me of you.”

“Why?” I said, smirking. “Because of the mixed metals?”

He shook his head. “Because it’s beautiful.”

My face flushed and I turned away as Hiro laughed at me. How could such simple words always disarm me so easily?

“I have to go,” he said. “There’s a lot to arrange for the ceremony. We’ll need to inform the dead of Izanami’s passing.”

I wanted to cling to him, my only tether to the world above, but I nodded and let him go.

“The next time I see you,” he said, squeezing my hand, “you will become my wife.”

Servants came in shortly after to run me a bath hot enough to melt bones and scrub my skin raw. All of them called me “Your Majesty” and wouldn’t look me in the eye. They looked more like silhouettes than true people, watery abstracts of souls. Was this how all souls decayed in Yomi, or were these servants bound by some contract to the God of Death, my betrothed?

Their stoicism unnerved me. The air of the bathroom filled up with steam that masked their hazy faces and made them look more like ghosts than humans, halfway part of this world and halfway Beyond. It was a strange sensation to be in a bathroom with so many others yet feel so alone.

One of the servants raised a bucket of boiling water to add to the tub, but it slipped from her fingers and poured out too quickly, rocking the still waters with a scalding wave across my face. I frowned and combed wet hair from my eyes as the servant gasped and threw herself to the ground.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she said, bowing to the tile floor.

The other servants ignored her, continuing to scrub my legs and feet while the girl lay still as a corpse, waiting for my pardon.

I peered down at her and wondered just how long she would lie waiting for me in foolish obedience. If I told her to wait until the end of time, would she listen? And was it allegiance to Izanami that bound her, or did she truly fear me? I had never had so much sway over anyone, never been anything more important than the soot beneath their boots. I felt like someone had handed me the entire universe in a box with a bow and told me to use it as I pleased.

“Get on the floor,” I said.

The servant instantly deepened her bow.

“No,” I said, “put your face on the floor.”

Without hesitation, she pressed her face to the bathroom tiles, soaked with the scalding water she’d spilled. But there was nothing glorious about her obedience. Instead, a sour feeling sloshed in my stomach and the water around me felt too hot, like it was no longer cleansing me but cooking me alive.

But why? I was supposed to feel smug, or at least feel an ounce of the satisfaction I’d felt when killing the Yokai. Never again would I have to bite my tongue or apologize for wrongs I hadn’t done or bow to people who didn’t deserve it. Now the world belonged to me, to break and burn as I pleased, and it was supposed to feel better than this. A true goddess wouldn’t have thought twice about making her servants look like fools, or the look on her ignorant brother’s face when she’d sent him away. So why did my hands shake and my mouth fill with bitterness?

I gripped the edges of the bathtub.

“Get out,” I whispered.

The servants exchanged blank looks.

“Your Majesty,” one of them said, “we’re supposed to help you—”

“Get out!” I said, the porcelain rim of the tub cracking under my hands.

The servants scurried out, bowing as they shut the door with a quiet click. The moment they were gone, I hurled a scrubbing brush at the mirror and shattered it, spraying shards across the wet tiles.

I leaned back, placing my shaking hands over my face as the water settled back into stillness.

Even now, Neven was ruining everything. I had everything I’d ever wanted, but because of his childish moralism in the back of my mind, I couldn’t enjoy it. Neven was wrong about Hiro and I didn’t need to waste my time worrying about him. He would be perfectly fine. That was what Hiro had said, and Hiro wouldn’t lie to me. Except that technically, he already had.