She stumbled through the gate, and froze.
There, by two dead bodies and a dying horse, stood the demon in white. She was smiling, motionless as the moon.
It was as if she had been waiting.
At her feet, the wounded prince was struggling to escape. He had fallen to his knees. His horse lay dead beside them. As he tried to rise, the arrow still jutting from his side, the slim, smooth steps of the woman in white came closer, and he looked up. He looked into her eyes.
“Mae,” Jobo whispered. But the woman didn’t seem to hear.
As Rui watched, breath in her throat, she simply kneeled down, kneeled by Nioh on the stones. And she smiled at him once again. The prince was making thin, gasping noises, either from the wound or from some powerof the demon, or both. Quietly the woman in white reached out to him, saying something that Rui couldn’t hear. She cupped her hands around his face, and for a moment it seemed that she might kiss him. Nioh shook, and moved to stab her with his small knife, but it was too late, and he was too weak, and of course the woman didn’t notice. Instead she brought her forehead down to his, strangely tender, strangely gentle, and remained like that, staring into his eyes, in the wet, cold air and the snow and the growing scent of blood. Deep pools of red spread around them, staining his robes and the earth, but she was untouched; she cupped Prince Nioh’s face in her hands even now, softly, carefully, as he died, and it was as if she were cradling a child. Finally, she lowered his head, and his body, to the earth.
When she rose, Rui saw Nioh’s dark blood on the woman’s hands and face, from where she’d held him. She turned, tipping back and showing the deep gleaming red across her face when it was done.
“Mae, listen to me,” Jobo called out.
She looked at them then, face stained, eyes blank, yet shining like a cat’s in twilight. Prince Nioh lay dead at her feet, the arrow rising from his body, dark blood pooling across the earth.
Her teacher took a step forward.
“Mae,” he said again.
Mae, was that her name?The woman just stood there, motionless. Behind them, toward the river, the sounds of battle were getting worse. Sounds of breaking swords and crushed armor. Sounds of broken bones. Sounds of fear. Of crying, wailing, loud and shrill like children.
Rui felt a chill. She moved behind her master, gripping her bloodied sword. “They’re coming.”
A cheer went up in the battle behind them, and the sounds of men fighting grew close.
As if in response, the demon leaped, impossibly high, onto the roof.
As if to flee.
“Halt!” Jobo cried.
The demon ignored him, landing lightly on the temple rooftop, but Jobo leaped like she did, landing on opposing eaves: “Mae, stop this now!”
Rui cursed and climbed the railing with her sword in one hand and the wooden framewood in the other. She scrambled, gripping tiles and almost slipping to the ground before she made it up, and found the two of them, her teacher and the demon, standing face to face, with the angle of the roof between them.
“Stop this,” Jobo commanded. His voice was unlike anything Rui hadever heard. There was no emotion in it. There was power – a power he rarely let her know he had. “Demon. Stop now.”
The demon ignored him. Instead, she looked at Rui. “You,” she said. “I remember you.”
Jobo stepped before her, spear in hand. “She is not for you.”
The demon muttered, “Maybe.”
She drew her sword. And came at them.
In one motion, Jobo flung an arm out sideways, knocking Rui back so hard that she skidded on the snowy shingles, slipped, and fell headlong off the roof.
She heard his shout, and the sound of metal striking metal, before she hit the ground.
CHAPTERFORTY-FIVE
Kai
I’m not going to make it, Kai thought. I’m not strong enough. I don’t know what I’m doing.
She slipped on a patch of ice and felt a searing pain in her ankle, sharp enough to make her gasp. She tried to stand and instantly buckled again. “Not now,” she muttered. Atsu kept running, the boy – Nioh’s son – gripping her hand. They vanished through the trees by the southern gate.
