Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,145
down his face, with his puppy’s head in a little lacquered box, and we buried it in the fields that night.”
I felt a lump rise to my throat and blinked back tears, even as one of the majutsushi let out a long, hissing sound of satisfaction. “Excellent,” he whispered. “Most encouraging.” He pressed two fingers to his blackened lips, looking thoughtful. “There will be trials, of course. Tests to see which of these candidates will be chosen. But I believe we might have found our next demonslayer. Tell me, boy…” He strode forward until he was looming over Tatsumi, casting the small form in his shadow. “Do you know why you had to do what you did? Why you had to kill your dog? Answer me.”
For the first time, a tremor went through Tatsumi’s shoulders, small hands fisting on his knees. “I killed Kagekage,” the young Tatsumi said, his soft, quiet voice making my heart ache for him, “because the Shadow Clan told me to. Because I was given a direct order. That is all I need to know to obey.”
I could see the majutsushi’s eyes gleam, the smile curling his lips as he straightened. “That will be all,” he rasped, as the pair drew back. “You have done your job admirably, and the lady will be pleased. Students,” he continued, his voice growing harsh. “You will follow us.”
A distant roar echoed over the trees, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. No one else seemed to hear it; Tatsumi and the other two children rose obediently to their feet and began following the mages out of the clearing. But, through the trees, I could see something moving. Something huge. Limbs groaned, and branches snapped like kindling, as the massive dark shape plowed toward me through the forest.
Hakaimono, I realized, as a chill unlike anything I’d felt before slithered up my back. The First Oni in his real, terrible form, was coming for me. I have to find Tatsumi, I thought, backing away and looking around the clearing. The real Tatsumi. His soul has to be here, somewhere. I have to go deeper. This is just a surface memory. I have to find Tatsumi’s soul before I can face Hakaimono.
The massive shape in the trees turned toward me, eyes like hot coals glowing through the black, and my insides twisted in fear.
“Kitsune!” rumbled a deep, terrible voice, making the very ground tremble. “I know you’re here, little fox! I can feel you. Show yourself, if you think you can drive me out!”
The memory around me rippled, like a dragonfly landing on the surface of a pond. Flattening my ears, I turned and fled into the trees, away from Hakaimono, and the forest clearing faded into blackness.
I stumbled from the darkness into a small room and immediately had to leap back to avoid the robed figure rushing across the floor. When my gaze followed him across the room, my stomach twisted, and my hands flew to my mouth in horror.
Tatsumi lay on a table near the back wall, face turned toward the ceiling, staring fixedly upward. His shirt was off, and the upper half of his chest was covered in blood, spattered across his skin and dripping to the floor. Two men in ash-gray robes bustled around him, wiping away blood and pressing cloth to torn flesh. They were not being particularly gentle, I noticed, cringing as one of them poured a clear liquid from a vial onto a strip of blackened skin along Tatsumi’s arm, making it bubble and smoke. Tatsumi’s jaw clenched, and his fingers gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white, but he didn’t make a sound.
The door opened with a snap, and a man stepped into the room. Short and stocky, with sharp black eyes and strangely forgettable features, he marched up to the side of the table and glared down at the wounded demonslayer. It took me a moment to recognize him as the man I’d met in the halls of the Shadow Clan castle. Tatsumi’s sensei. After a heartbeat of glowering, the man snorted and shook his head in disgust.
“Where was he found?” he muttered, sounding more irritated than relieved.
“Just inside the gate,” one of the robed figures answered, not looking up from his task of bandaging the demonslayer’s ravaged arm. “Taro spotted him coming just before dawn. He likely dragged himself back from wherever he was sent before collapsing from blood loss.”