Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,144

small forest clearing surrounded by ancient trees, great twisted branches woven together to cloak the ground in shadow. Through the canopy, the sky was an eerie bloodred, crimson light filtering through the leaves to mottle the ground.

Something rustled behind me. I turned and saw a trio of children kneeling on the ground, a stern-faced man standing beside them with his arms crossed. Two boys and a girl, no more than six or seven winters old, dressed in identical black haori and hakama trousers. Their heads were bowed, gazes fixed to the ground in front of them, but my heart twisted as I recognized the boy on the end, his small shoulders set in determination.

Tatsumi. I stepped forward, ready to call to the young demonslayer, but paused. None of the humans looked at me or acknowledged my presence. I stood there, in plain sight of everyone, and no mention was made of the strange girl who had showed up out of nowhere.

This isn’t real, I realized, staring around the glen. It has to be a memory. One of Tatsumi’s memories. Gazing down at the younger version of Tatsumi, I felt my stomach tighten. Even at this age, he still wore the same intense, solemn expression, staring fixedly at the ground, as if trying to be unseen and invisible. Before the man and the children stood a pair of tall, gaunt figures with painted white faces and black lips. Twin gazes swept over each of them in turn. “And these are your best students?” one majutsushi asked the man standing beside the group. His voice was flat and cold, and I saw the other boy’s shoulders tremble. “The most promising kami-touched children from the school?”

“Yes,” replied the man, nodding to the trio at his feet. “Kage Ayame, Makoto and Tatsumi. Each has demonstrated a remarkable understanding of Shadow magic. They are the best in their class, they have mastered basic shinobi techniques and they pick up new skills almost immediately. Any one of them would serve the daimyo splendidly.”

The majutsushi considered this. “And of these three,” one mage asked, gazing down at the trio, “who would you consider the most worthy to serve our great lady? To bear the honor, and burden, of the next Kage demonslayer? If you had to choose, right now, which child would you send back with us?”

The man’s eyes crinkled with distaste, but he answered calmly. “Ayame is the fastest,” he said, a tiny hint of pride in his tone. I looked at the girl and saw the faintest of smiles cross her face, but it was gone in the next blink. “She can run circles around these two, but she’s also stubborn. Has a temper. We’re working on that. Makoto is a naturally gifted student, and his Shadow magic is the strongest of them all, but he lacks the ambition and drive to truly be the best.” The man sighed. “Honestly, if I were to choose the next demonslayer, it would be that one,” he said, and pointed to the third child, the boy on the end, who hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time. “Kage Tatsumi.”

“And why him?” asked the majutsushi in a raspy whisper. “What makes him so special?”

“Why Tatsumi?” Instead of answering the question, the man offered a rather mysterious smile. “Last summer,” he began, “one of the village dogs had puppies. The dam was weak, and the birthing was too much for her, so she died. All the puppies died as well, except one, the smallest of the litter. This one,” he continued, nodding at Tatsumi, “asked me if he could try to save it. I told him yes, he could try. So he stayed up with that puppy for several nights on end, nursing it back to health. Much to everyone’s surprise, the runt lived. Soon, it began following him everywhere, lying outside the door of his classes, waiting for him. The other students called it Kagekage, the shadow’s shadow, because you couldn’t find one without the other. After a time, they were inseparable.” The man gave a grim smile. “Until the day I put a knife in Tatsumi’s hand and told him to kill it in the name of the Kage.”

The man glanced down at the boy, who still hadn’t moved or raised his head, though the set of his shoulders was stiff. “I ordered him to do it quickly, and to bring me proof of its death. He said nothing, but that evening he came to me, tears streaming