Shadow of The Fox (Shadow of the Fox #1) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,138

burst out, then seemed to catch himself. “Er...please excuse me,” he told Morimasa with a quick bow. “I’m her yojimbo, so it’s my job to worry about her. She can be rather reckless at times. Yumeko-chan,” he went on in a low voice, staring at me rather wide-eyed. “Are you sure you can do this?” With the undertone of what the hell are you doing? “If you mess up in front of the emperor, it affects us all.”

“Your yojimbo might have a point,” Reika said in a voice of resigned disapproval. “Though for this request, I don’t know what else you can do but accept.”

“Of course you must accept,” Daisuke broke in, looking both puzzled and slightly offended. “Meeting the emperor, performing for him and the entire court—there is no greater honor.”

“Exactly,” I told the ronin, and forced a smile. “You heard Daisuke-san. When will there ever be another chance to meet the emperor? Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” I hope.

Okame looked dubious, but I turned away and faced Morimasa again. “Please forgive the interruption, Taiyo-san,” I told the frowning noble. “As I said before, it will be an honor to perform for His Highness tonight.”

“Wonderful!” He beamed. “His Excellence will be delighted. If you would please follow me.”

With a last encouraging smile at the concerned ronin and shrine maiden, I stepped forward and followed Morimasa across the yard.

Nobles stared at me, watching with amusement, curiosity and suspicion as I passed. A few sneered or smirked behind their fans, their scorn plain to see. Perhaps they saw through my onmyoji disguise, or perhaps I was not dressed fancily enough. I tried to ignore them and think of what I was going to say to the emperor, though the pounding of my heart and the frantic swirling in my stomach made it hard to concentrate.

“Wait here a moment,” Morimasa said, pausing in the shadow of a cluster of trees a distance from the emperor’s dais. “When the time is right, I will announce you. As you hear your name, come forward and present yourself to His Highness, but stay at least twenty feet from the edge of the platform. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and turned away, walking toward the platform and the men and women clustered around it. I couldn’t see Lady Satomi, as she was on the emperor’s other side, but thankfully, she couldn’t see me, either.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, just as a hand clamped over my mouth from behind and yanked me back into the trees.

“It’s me,” said a low, familiar voice, stopping the surge of kitsune-bi to my fingertips. “I’m letting you go, so don’t alert everyone here by screaming.”

“Tatsumi!” I whispered, whirling on him as he released me. “You scared me! Why are you...?”

I blinked and trailed off. For the Tatsumi before me was not the Kage samurai I had traveled with from the Silent Winds temple. He was clad completely in black, except for a ragged crimson scarf that seemed to float behind him in the breeze. Instead of sandals, he wore split-toed boots that stopped just below the knee, bracers on his forearms and a sleeveless, unmarked jacket that was a much tighter fit than his regular haori. A mask covered his mouth and jaw, obstructing half his face, though the eyes above the cloth were the same, a cold, piercing violet.

“What are you doing, Yumeko?” Tatsumi asked, his voice soft but intense. His gaze seemed to burn in the darkness.

“Um...” I glanced around to make sure no one could see us. The air shimmered as I turned my head, and I could suddenly feel the dark, cool touch of Tatsumi’s Shadow magic, surrounding us. “Performing for the emperor of Iwagoto?”

“You’re not an onmyoji.” Tatsumi’s eyes narrowed. “You have no magic. Talking to the kami is not the same as telling fortunes and divining the future, which is what the emperor will expect. If you’re exposed as a charlatan, you’ll be executed.”

“I know, but what else can I do, Tatsumi?” I whispered. “I can’t refuse the emperor.”

“I can take you out of here.” Tatsumi stepped closer. “Right now. No one will see us—we’ll use the same spell we did in the gaki village. When it’s safe, I’ll come back to look for Master Jiro. We don’t need to talk to the Satomi woman. I can get into places most people cannot.”

“What about the others?”

“I don’t care about the others.” Tatsumi’s voice was flat. “My mission is to get