Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist #1)(19)

“I said best on best.” Ranmaru grinned. “What made you think I was talking about me?” He backed away, his body never once turning from his opponent. These movements seemed second nature to him.

Proving that no one ever stood at Takeda Ranmaru’s back.

Mariko refrained from bristling. It troubled her greatly that she could not readily recall the voices of the men beyond her norimono the night her convoy was attacked. Their sounds had been too muffled, her nerves far too fraught.

But she was certain one of them had to belong to the leader of the Black Clan. As certain as she was of the sun rising in the east. Takeda Ranmaru and his men had been sent to kill her. And Mariko intended to do whatever needed to be done to learn why.

She narrowed her eyes at the unflinching boy across the way.

It’s a shame you don’t realize another enemy is merely waiting for you in the shadows, rōnin. Perhaps not a fearsome one, but nevertheless an enemy far craftier than the bumbling colossus before you.

Mariko took stock once more of the other members of the Black Clan.

Several of them had stood taller at Ranmaru’s declaration. Then a ripple of amusement passed across their collective gazes, save for that of the boy with the haunted eyes and the spiked topknot. His eyes had not once left Mariko’s face until now. Though even he was distracted—unable to hide his anticipation—wetting his lips with a swipe of his tongue.

Mariko could believe this boy to be the Black Clan’s best.

His eyes screamed murder with every look. Two hooked swords were laced across his back. The type Mariko knew could be linked and swung, severing head from body in a single blow.

Just as she became certain this boy was to be the giant’s opponent, he, too, stepped aside.

Only Ranmaru continued watching the giant, his expression a strange mix of hard and soft. Punishing and pitying.

The Black Clan turned their gazes behind them in force—

To their lazy comrade, still fast asleep on the bench.





AN UNMERITED BLESSING





Kenshin smelled the body before he saw it.

A sickly sweet scent, mingled with the odor of decaying meat. It caught in the uppermost portion of his throat, scratching at his senses.

Sending his heart thundering through his chest.

His sister was not dead. Mariko could not be dead.

He would not allow it.

Undeterred, Kenshin continued his low prowl through the darkened underbrush of Jukai forest. Continued searching for his sister’s tracks.

Then—in the thorny brambles at the base of a pine grove—Kenshin came across the source of the smell. The body of a dirty man, rotting in the underbrush. Unclothed, save for a filthy loincloth.

At this realization, his heart slowed. Kenshin crouched beside the dead body, on the hunt for any detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

For the third time that night, he was glad to have left his men behind at their makeshift camp. After tracking for nearly two hours, he was now deep in Jukai forest. Had he not taken care to mark the trees as he made his way, the journey back to camp would have been treacherous.

Despite their assurances otherwise, Kenshin knew none of his men rested well in Jukai’s shade. Three of their horses had already bolted. Only his own sorrel steed, Kane, remained unshaken. The whispers of the yōkai ever chased at their heels. Kenshin himself had yet to see a single demon of the forest, but—as such things often did—one man’s story had mushroomed into many. A single tale of a headless deer clomping at their flank. A single sighting of a silver snake with the head of a woman.

One story was all it took. Superstitions were quick to become truths in a night of ghostly sighs and shifting shadows.

Kenshin knew he could order his men to follow him. To obey his every command. But it was far easier for him to march on alone. Much like his father, he did not care to hold council with anyone, no matter how much respect the man might be due. Nor did he care to address anyone’s fears. Kenshin knew better than to even try.

Curbing his distaste for such absurdity, the Dragon of Kai squinted at the body lying supine on the forest floor. The man’s skin was stretched. Bloated from the first flush of decay. Maggots wriggled through a slit across his throat, their tiny bodies the color of rice paste. One of the man’s eyes had been punctured by a small weapon. Some sort of needled blade.

No.

Kenshin leaned closer.

Not a weapon.

He reached to take hold of the slivers of jade dangling from its end.

A tortoiseshell hairpin. One he quickly recognized.

For the second time that night—two occasions too many—Kenshin felt a wave of distress unfurl beneath his skin.

If this man had been pierced through the eye by this particular hairpin, there could be no doubt as to who had placed it there. Which meant his sister had been pushed beyond the realm of reason. Kenshin did not know Mariko to lose her temper on a whim. Nor did he know her to be inclined to violence. His sister had always been a scholar of reason, devoid of emotion.

If Mariko had murdered this man, he had undoubtedly deserved it. What he had done to deserve it Kenshin could only begin to guess.

Could only begin to imagine.

The wave of distress crested into full-blown rage.

Such a clean death. Such an unmerited blessing.

Had Kenshin been present, this man would have suffered far worse.

His chest pressed against his breastplate as he took in a calming breath. The time for anger had long passed. Far more urgent now was the need for action. Kenshin sank lower in his crouch, resuming his search through the underbrush. As his palm grazed across the thicket—brushing the edges of a swallow’s nest—his fingers caught on what at first glance appeared to be a tangle of fine, dark thread.