Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,122

noble,” Okame husked out. “Are you sure you want this? I don’t…” He hesitated again, then sighed. “I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and find you’ve committed seppuku to absolve your shame.”

“No,” Daisuke said with one of his small, rueful smiles. “Have no fear of that, Okame-san. I’ve already promised Yumeko that I would accompany her up the Dragon Spine, and to protect her from any that would try to stop us. I cannot die yet, not when my greatest battle still lies ahead. And the end of this road is the Steel Feather temple…and Hakaimono.” His eyes shone with anticipation and excitement. “I am ready. It will be a most glorious battle. And if I fall, it will be in service to the empire, fighting to stop the rise of the Master of Demons. I will die on my feet with my sword in hand, facing my enemies, as all samurai should. What is one night, compared to an eternity of glory?”

“One night, huh?” Okame shook his head, a bright, slightly feral look entering his eyes. “Ah, the hell with it. When you put it that way…”

He took three long strides, grabbed the collar of the other’s robe in both hands and yanked him close, pressing their lips together.

My eyes widened, and I would’ve gasped had I been human. Daisuke himself drew in a sharp breath, his body stiffening, but after only a moment he relaxed, his hands coming up to grip Okame’s arms. For several heartbeats, they stood like that beneath the giant cedar, the moonlight blazing down on the two bodies locked together, and for a moment, the world seemed to stop.

At last, Okame drew back, his eyes still bright and intense, gazing down at the noble. “Is this…what you wanted, Daisuke-san?” I heard him ask, his voice husky and slightly strained. Daisuke gave a faint smile, his own gaze fevered as he stared back.

“It’s definitely a start.”

Okame’s lips curled in a smirk, and he lowered his head once more.

Leave, Yumeko, I thought, as guilt finally overrode curiosity. You need to leave, right now!

With an effort, I wrenched my gaze from the figures below the cedar tree. Keeping the scroll clamped firmly in my jaws, I turned and slipped into the tall grass, leaving them truly alone.

I changed back into a human at the gate, then tiptoed inside the house. As I came through the bedroom door, Reika was still asleep in the corner, snoring softly, but Chu raised his head and gave me a disapproving look. Ignoring the dog, I slid under the blankets again and pulled the quilt over my head. The night beyond the door was quiet; no haunting music stirred the breeze, no sounds of a flute on the wind. A strange sense of longing filled me, twisting my stomach and making my heart ache. I remembered the fierceness in Okame’s eyes when he kissed Daisuke, the look on the noble’s face as he returned it.

And I wondered if Kage Tatsumi would ever look at me that way.

20

GUARDIANS OF STONE

Yumeko

A tiny shrine, weathered and gray, sat within an alcove in the side of the mountain. It was easy to miss; being the same color as the rocks and the mottled sky, it nearly blended into the background. The shrine itself barely reached the top of my head, and was littered with dead flowers, scattered coins and empty sake bottles; offerings to the mountain kami. At one point, the wood might’ve been brightly painted, perhaps in the vermillion, teal and white of its larger brothers. But weather and time had scoured the wooden planks, and now it seemed just another part of the mountain, as much as the rocks and the few scraggly bushes poking through the stones.

“Well,” Okame said, gazing at the tiny structure with his arms crossed. He looked cold, hunching his shoulders against the wind, but trying not to show it. It had been a long, chilly hike up the Dragon Spine Mountains, following a narrow, winding path that was barely more than a goat trail. The higher we went, the colder and more unwelcoming the weather became; snow flurries now danced on the air, and the sky overhead was as gray as the rest of the mountain. “We found the shrine to the mountain kami,” the ronin muttered. “Now what?”

I gazed around, hoping to see a temple, or any hint that could point to a temple. But there was nothing but rock and snow-shrouded peaks as far as