Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,22

neither did Master Isao.”

My breath caught, and tears stung the corners of my eyes. I tried to shut out his words, but they echoed in my soul, cutting and painful. “That’s not true,” I whispered.

“No?” He sneered, a cutting, cruel expression I had seen him make only once or twice, but it was still painfully familiar. “Master Isao despised you, fox girl. He knew what a yokai could do, even a half-yokai. He taught you discipline and control because he feared the mischief and misery you would bring if you were allowed to run free. Because he knew a yokai could never be trusted.”

“No,” I protested, and turned to face not Denga but Master Isao, standing a few feet away in the mist. His eyes were hidden in the shadows of his wide-brimmed hat, and he was no longer smiling.

“Fox girl,” the familiar figure whispered, shaking his head. His sad, accusing voice cut into me like the lash of a whip. Raising his chin, he met my gaze, impassive black eyes stabbing me through the heart. “Disappointing,” he whispered in a voice of stone. “I had hoped for so much more. We raised you, taught you our ways, gave you everything, and you repaid us by leaving us to die.”

It was as if he’d punched me. Denga’s scorn and anger I could handle; his words were cruel, but not unexpected. But to hear those words from Master Isao…It was as if he had seen my greatest, most secret fear and had dragged it out to brandish in my face. I sank to my knees, as a hole opened in my stomach and my eyes blurred with tears. Denga appeared behind the head monk, as Jin and Nitoru stepped to his other side. Their reproachful gazes bored into me, heavy and accusing, though none were as terrible as Master Isao’s pitiless glare. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, as images of that night swirled through my head. Flames and demons and blood, and the lifeless bodies of the monks sprawled on the temple floor. Tears crept down my cheeks and stained my robe where they fell. “I wanted to save you…”

“You left us to die,” Master Isao repeated. “We gave our lives to protect the scroll, as the demons tore us apart, and you did nothing. You deserve to be here, with us. Why should we have died, and you lived? Come, Yumeko-chan.” He raised a hand, palm out, beckoning me forward. “Come with us,” he urged, “and all is forgiven. You can start over. It can be as it was before—no fear, no pain. I know you must be lonely, a half-kitsune all alone in the world. Forget your troubles, and your duty. Forget the scroll, Yumeko-chan. You belong here, with us.”

Forget the scroll?

Blinking, I looked up. Master Isao stood there, hand outstretched, a gentle, forgiving smile on his face. Denga, Jin and Nitoru stood behind him, but now their expressions were eager, hopeful.

Almost hungry.

A chill went through me, and I drew back, watching the monk’s smile turn to a puzzled frown. “Master Isao…” I began, feeling as if my mind was mired in cobwebs and just starting to clear “…would never tell me to forget the scroll. His duty was to protect it, and he died to ensure it would not fall into the wrong hands. He and the others gave their lives to make sure I could escape, because their responsibility to the scroll was everything.”

Master Isao scowled. “I died so that you could live,” he hissed, taking a step forward and making me shrink back. His face changed. Now he looked like a pinched old woman, lips pulled back from her yellow teeth as she glared at me. “Ungrateful child,” the woman spat. “You belong here with me. I gave up everything for you—my love, my health, my happiness. And you ran away to live your life with that insignificant merchant nobody. Disgraceful! And after everything I did for you.”

I blinked at her, shaking my head. The woman continued to rail at me, her voice a droning buzz in my ears. Behind her, I could see other forms in the mist, but the figures I had thought were Denga, Nitoru and Jin were now people I didn’t recognize. I had the dawning realization that the woman hadn’t been saying anything different, and she had not changed her image to look like Master Isao. But somehow, I had seen and heard exactly what I had feared, the secret guilt deep