presence continues to disturb the peacefulness of my shrine,” she remarked. “Now I have samurai at the gates, upsetting the kami and scaring the mikos. Which one of you is responsible for this, I wonder?”
“Hey, don’t look at me,” the ronin said, holding up his hands as the shrine maiden glared at him. “I’m not in the habit of being around samurai, present company excluded. If anyone, it’s the noble Taiyo, wanting to know why their golden kinsman is hanging around with such riffraff.”
“No,” I said softly, and rose, causing them all to glance up. “It’s the Kage. They’re here for me.”
Stepping over the shattered door panels, I walked out of the room. I knew, somehow, that the members of the Shadow Clan had come for me, and I did not want them to know the faces of those I had traveled with. But I hadn’t gone very far when light footsteps echoed behind me, and her voice floated over the breeze.
“Tatsumi, wait.”
I turned. Yumeko had followed me out to the veranda and was now watching me depart, her gaze conflicted. “What about your promise?” she asked quietly. “We still need to find Master Jiro, and you said we would go to the Steel Feather temple together.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” An odd reluctance tugged at me; for some reason, I found myself hesitant to go. “I’ll meet you at the palace,” I told her. “Don’t look for me. When it’s time, I’ll find you.” She still looked hesitant, and I offered a faint smile. “I swear it.”
* * *
The Kage were indeed at the entrance of the shrine; four samurai in dark hakama and haori, wearing the black-and-purple colors of the Shadow Clan. It wasn’t surprising; agents of the Kage were everywhere and had likely taken note of my presence the moment I stepped into the capital. “Kage Tatsumi,” one said with a short bow as I approached. “Master Masao wishes to speak to you. If you would please come with us.”
I followed my clansmen through the darkening streets of Kin Heigen Toshi, as the sunlight disappeared and lanterns flickered to life. We walked in silence, parting the crowds as we glided through the city. A group of samurai walking the streets was enough to cause most normal civilians to politely cross to the other side, but a group of Shadow Clan samurai warranted even more caution. As the Hino family were infamous for their short tempers, and the Taiyo were known for being as proud as they were beautiful, the Kage had garnered a reputation as being sinister and untrustworthy. A standing we did little to dispute. The Shadow Clan had many secrets; better that the empire expected such behavior of us. It kept them from prying too deeply into our affairs and discovering they had every right to be cautious.
The Shadow district, where the Kage family maintained an estate within the Imperial City, lay on the outskirts west of the palace. As a sanctuary away from home for the smallest of the Great Clans, it was tucked into a corner along the outer wall, far from the bustle of the inner city, out of sight and out of mind. Which suited the Kage perfectly. Like the name suggested, the streets through the Shadow district were narrow and dark, with few lanterns to throw back the gloom. As I made my way down familiar roads and alleys, I could feel eyes on me, invisible, but Hakaimono didn’t even stir. Shinobi prowled the rooftops overhead, silent and lethal, keeping watch over everything that happened within Shadow Clan territory. Ironically, their presence made the Kage district one of the safest in Kin Heigen Toshi; no kidnapper, thief or murderer would risk operating in a territory whose warriors knew the darkness better than them.
The Kage estates lay at the end of the Shadow district, over a canal of sluggish black water that was rumored to be haunted by an irritable kappa, a type of man-eating river yokai. With the amount of shinobi in the area and the fact that Hakaimono had never sensed the presence of yokai near the canal, I doubted this rumor was true and thought that it might even have been started by the Kage themselves to keep curious civilians away from the estate.
The Kage estate itself was surrounded by high stone walls and guarded by black-clad samurai, though I knew even more shinobi lurked in hidden nooks and crannies, watching us as we walked through the gates. Once we