Page 4 of Son of Shadows

Or something worse.

In spite of his usual sense of self-preservation, Masaru was the only one foolish enough to speak. “I can explain.”

Keiko stood in front of Ryuichi with her hands on her hips, attempting to shield him. “Don’t you even try your lies on me! What is wrong with you all? What if Ryuichi got hurt? What if we lost him? Can you imagine? What would you do if his goddess mother was here and saw this travesty? The entire world order depends on this precious boy. He’s the only one who can close the gate to the nether realm. Do you ever think with those brains of yours?”

Ryuichi was a bit embarrassed by Keiko’s display of concern. Yes, he owed her so much for taking care of him all these years, but couldn’t she see he was no longer the weakling child she swore to protect?

“I’m fine, Keiko-san. Koichi was only trying to⁠—”

She turned around and gave him a bone-crushing hug. Then she looked up at him with teary eyes.

“You’re not hurt, are you? If anything happened to you, I’d never forgive them. Did that foolish Masaru put you up to this? It was him, wasn’t it? Tell me the truth.”

Koichi nodded immediately. “Yes, it was him. He did it. He has no regard for Ryuichi’s safety at all. Bad, Masaru!”

Masaru gaped. “I’m going to kill you, traitor.”

Before Masaru had a chance to make good on that threat, a loud scream echoed in the woods.

It sounded like someone was being murdered.

CHAPTER TWO

Ryuichi took off through the woods, weaving around towering maple trees in search of the source of that bloodcurdling cry. Leaves in every color—from brilliant red to bright orange and even magenta—gently fluttered to the ground, only to be crushed by the fierce pace of his boots.

Ryuichi didn’t need to glance behind him to know the rest of his crew was following close behind. He could hear their footsteps clamoring in the distance. Part of him felt thankful to not be alone, while the other part wished they were somewhere else, safe from whatever awaited them.

Ryuichi reached a clearing in the forest and came to an abrupt halt when he saw his aunt, the goddess Haruki, standing over the body of a collapsed tengu that was clearly from Ryukage’s army. Her pale white hair and skin were a sharp contrast to the tengu’s ruffled and splayed-out black feathers. Its bird head was thrown back as if it had broken its neck. But the slight rise and fall of its chest let Ryuichi know the tengu still lived.

If only barely.

Once the rest of the group made it to the clearing, they formed a circle around Haruki and the fallen tengu. His aunt’s long white hair billowed in the breeze, and her pale skin caught the morning sun in such a way that she almost seemed angelic.

“What happened?” Ryuichi asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but if this thing dies, I say we eat him for breakfast,” Haruki replied, nudging the tengu with her foot to see if it could still move.

This kind of cold, unfeeling reaction was to be expected from his mother’s identical twin. She was pure evil. She hated the world and loved to watch others suffer. The only reason she was a member of Ryuichi’s party was because she was expelled from the spirit realm and had nowhere else to go.

Despite that, Ryuichi desperately wanted to believe there was still some good in Haruki. That she was more like his mother than some vicious yōkai out to annihilate everyone around her.

But at times like this, she tested his hope.

To his knowledge, Haruki was the only blood relative he had left. Ryuichi wanted to make things work with her, but as he’d learned with his father, all the desire in the world couldn’t make people be what you wanted them to be.

Sometimes you had to let them go.

And right now, as she stood over the body of one of his father’s injured tengu, he was doubting the sanity of keeping her around. It might just be too much of a risk.

Ryuichi’s thoughts started racing. Was this dying tengu part of a larger plot against them? When Haruki did Ryukage’s bidding, she had sent these creatures out into the world to hunt Ryuichi, with orders to drag him to his father’s lair and keep him as a prisoner.

Haruki grabbed a stick and poked the mangled bird demon as if she were afraid the thing might be carrying some sort of disease. Apparently, being loyal to his father didn’t mean she had to be kind to his servants if she suspected they might be filthy and contagious.

Ryuichi-kage knelt next to Ryuichi. A curious look spread across his face.

“How is he?” Ryuichi asked.

His shadow shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? I don’t think your aunt kicking and swatting him with a stick helped heal him though.”