Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist #1)(13)

“And so it begins.”





A CALCULATED RISK





Foolhardy. It was not a word people often attributed to Hattori Mariko.

Curious had been the word most often ascribed to her when she was younger. She’d been the watchful sort of child. The one conscious of every mistake. When Mariko had erred, it had usually been intentional. An attempt to push barriers. Or a desire to learn.

Usually it was that. A wish to know more.

As she grew from a curious child into an even more curious young woman, the word she most often overheard at her back was odd. Much too odd. Far too prone to asking questions. Far too apt to linger in places she wasn’t meant to be.

The sort of odd that would bring her—and her family—nothing but trouble.

She sighed to herself. If her detractors could be present now, they would be pleased to admit how right they’d been. Pleased to see her in obvious distress.

True, what Mariko planned to do tonight was foolish. But it could not be helped; she’d already lost nearly five days. Five days of precious time, especially as there could be little doubt that Kenshin was now on her trail. Mariko had doubled back on her path several times. Even resorted to deliberate misdirection.

But her brother would find her soon.

And after five days of creeping through villages and outposts on the westernmost edge of Jukai forest—five days of making quiet inquiries—and having bartered the exquisite jade hairpin her mother had gifted her, Mariko had finally found it late last night.

The favored watering hole of the Black Clan.

Or so that old crone two villages over claims.

After achieving this hard-won victory, Mariko had spent all evening hiding behind a nearby tree a stone’s throw from where she now sat. Hiding behind that tree and determining how she could best use this newfound information. How she could best manipulate it to learn why a band of cutthroat thieves had been sent to murder her on her journey to Inako.

When not a single black-clad man had bothered to show his face last night, Mariko had come to terms with a second, harsher truth: the old crone could very well have fleeced her for the priceless hairpin.

But Mariko would never know if she didn’t try.

This was an experiment, and experiments of all sorts intrigued her. They offered a way to glean knowledge. To use it—shape it, mold it—into whatever she needed it to be.

And this was a different kind of experiment. A different way to collect information. Though it was an admittedly foolish one, and could also have disastrous results.

The watering hole in question was not as grand as Mariko had imagined it would be.

Which makes sense. After all, it’s not exactly one of the fabled geiko houses of Hanami.

She smiled to herself, amending her initial impression. Favoring it for facts.

Sequestered near a farm, the watering hole was awash in the scent of refuse and dank river water. Mud seeped from between a series of misshapen flagstones leading to a weathered lean-to. The structure was fashioned from rotted cedar and bamboo greyed to stone by the sun. Several rickety benches and square tables littered a circle of cleared land enclosing the lean-to. A small fire rose from a lopsided brick oven that served as part of the structure’s only standing wall. Bamboo torches ringed the clearing, bathing everything in a warm, amber light.

In truth—despite its smell, which Mariko would never find acceptable, not even if she lived for an age—it had a certain charm all its own. Hattori Mariko had lived a life disdaining much of the silk and luxury her status had afforded her, and there was a delicious comfort in no longer having to put on airs that had always seemed so foreign to her.

She slouched lower on her bench. Scratched unabashedly at her shoulder. Sat with her feet spread. Ordered whatever she wanted, without hesitation. And met every man’s gaze full on when addressed.

Mariko had been waiting for the past four hours. Upon her arrival, she’d ordered one small earthenware bottle of sake and had nursed sips of the lukewarm rice wine from a chipped cup, watching as the sun took refuge beyond the horizon.

Now it was dark; now the day had given way for the creatures of the night to come slithering from their holes.

Alas, the particular creatures Mariko sought were not of the punctual sort.

Her knee began to jounce beneath the low slab of crooked wood. It was a crude table, perched atop four unevenly sliced tree trunks. If she leaned too hard on one end, the entire structure wobbled like her old nursemaid walking in the wind. To her left, horses drank from a large canvas tarp suspended between bamboo poles staked in the ground.

A watering hole built for both beasts and their drunken burdens.

Speaking of which, where are they?

The more time passed, the more Mariko’s nerves reached a feverish pitch.

The copper pieces she’d won off a drunken peasant in a game of sugoroku two nights past would not last her into tomorrow if the Black Clan did not arrive. She might have to trick more money from someone else tonight. But—though she was beginning to understand the necessity and value of this skill—Mariko did not possess a true taste for thievery, even if she did display a certain knack for it.

Sleight of hand. But faint of honor.

The same kind of thief she’d mocked in the forest.

Before murdering him.

The remembrance pulled at her insides. Washed her cheeks an unbecoming pallor. Not from remorse—as she still did not feel any—but more from the harshness of such actions. The coldness with which she’d taken a life. It unseated her in these quiet moments of reflection. Made her uncomfortable in her own skin.