“Oh?” He looked up. “Yaeko. I wanted to thank you. Seichi said you fought well at the river. They told me you were the first to cross the banks.”
“I tried to do my duty, lord.”
This brought him a smile. “Good. I want to let you know your loyalty will not go ignored. I know what you’ve gone through with your family, I know what it is like to see the rest of your house turn away from the True Path…”
He paused. For a moment, Yaeko could see the deep grief that lay in him. He had been Yora’s friend once, after all.
And now?
“I’ve given the order to burn the Onji temples,” Seikiyo said. “And those south, in Naruji, who’d given them support.”
She stood at attention. “Yes, lord.”
“Tell me something,” he said, reading her. “You see this as a dark omen.”
“I cannot speak for you, lord.”
“I am asking you to speak for yourself.”
She paused. “I would not do it. If it were up to me. But it is not.”
“They warned me not to.” Seikiyo’s voice grew thick, and strange. “They said it would bring only evil. But there’s already evil, Yae…A sign of flames.There were reports… a demon in white, walking past where Nioh’s body was found… Some of the soldiers claim this demon was the one who killed him. Is this true?”
Yaeko hesitated. “I wasn’t there, ame’in.”
“The curse,” he said. “It’s spreading. How many generations has it claimed? Has it spilled out onto us, onto our…”
He rose suddenly, sweeping past her and moving to the garden terrace. “The evil spirits, the demons, have come into the world. They are here,” he said. “They are here.Do you see them?”
Seikiyo clutched at the edge of his garden patio, shaking, with one gnarled hand reaching out; his fingers curled into a clawlike grasp, over nothing. “They are here,” he said again.
He stepped back, eyes wide and fearful. A man possessed, he tensed, voice wavering as he said it again.They’re here.He’d grown haggard in the last months, his face drawn and tired, deep lines cutting down from his eyes. She felt the blade she still wore at her side, the dagger that had once been her father’s.
It would be so easy to do it now. Seikiyo was lost in his pain. It would be so easy to finish this once and for all.Kill him, her mother the nun had said. Her dying breath.Avenge your family.She could pull the dagger silently from its sheath, slip it into the thin bones of his neck, and be done. Her family, and her teacher Yora – all of them – would have justice.
I could end this.
She didn’t move. Seikiyo, unaware, gazed out at the little skeleton of a tree that canted by his wall. He seemed so tired, so old.He’s haunted by the ghosts of those he’s killed. By his religion, by his feelings of remorse.He always wanted the more peaceful path, and as he so often said, everything he did was to protect his family.
And yet.
Kill him, her mother whispered, a ghost in her ear.Do it now.
Yaeko gripped the knife. She stepped forward. She stopped.
“Do you see?” he asked.
“See what, lord?”
“The skulls, Yae,” he whispered. “The skulls.”
He pointed with a shaking hand, fingers still curved from the bony fist. Snow covered everything, casting deep shadows over the ornamental stones and the hollows of the tree.He’s seeing faces out there, in the dark. He’s seeing ghosts.
He is ill in his heart, Shigeo had told her once.He is suffering.
He whispered, “The Poet is dead.”
She said, “I know.”
