bothered with the ryokan. Yumeko was proving to be an unexpected drain on both my time and my supplies.
Then kill her.
Instinctively, I cut off my emotions and shut my mind to the sword, giving it nothing to latch on to. The bloodlust faded and the faint hostility toward Yumeko disappeared, leaving me frozen inside.
Yumeko yawned, covering her mouth as she trailed beside me, barely favoring her leg. The healing salve, a secret mix of numbing agents created by the best poison-makers in Iwagoto, was doing its work. “The town certainly looks different now,” she remarked, gazing around the empty street. “I guess it only comes to life after dark. Shame we have to leave so soon—I would’ve liked to see more of it. Without being harassed by marauding sickle weasels, of course.” She glanced at me with a smile. “What do sickle weasels like, Tatsumi-san?”
“What?”
“Well, if we run into any more sickle weasels, I was thinking we could give them something to make them not attack us.” She cocked her head at me. “You know a lot about demons and yokai. What do they like? Do they like fried tofu? I’m very fond of fried tofu.”
“I don’t know what they like.”
She sighed. “Maybe I’ll try tossing them a rice ball.”
No one has ever showed you any kindness before, have they?
I shook myself as her words from last night echoed in my head, haunting me. Kindness? Kindness was a vulnerability, a luxury given those who did not hunt demons. To be kind, you had to drop your guard, something I could not afford, especially with Hakaimono poised to take advantage of the smallest distraction. My various sensei—the men and women who trained me—knew that. I was a weapon to the clan, nothing more. Kindness had no place in my life.
As we left Chochin Machi and continued our journey toward the capital, I spotted a single crow perched on a lantern string over the street. I wondered if my mysterious observer and the attack on Yumeko were related, and if they were, I wondered when and where the person behind them would try again.
I’d be ready if they did.
By the time the sun had fully risen, we had left Chochin Machi far behind and were following the Hotaru River as it wound north toward the capital. After several miles, the flat fields and grassy farmland became hillier, and the path diverged from the riverbanks, heading into the mountains.
As we approached the forest, Yumeko suddenly stopped, her attention drawn to an old wooden signpost staked into the ground.
“Entering Kiba-sama’s forest,” she read slowly, as the sign was cracked and faded, the words nearly worn away. “Tread softly. Beware of Kiba-sama.” Blinking, she looked at me. “Oh, he sounds very dangerous. Who is Kiba-sama? Do you know, Tatsumi?”
I did. My training required me to know the stories and legends of all demons, yokai and spirits that existed throughout the land. “Kiba-sama,” I explained, “is the name the locals gave to an onikuma, a great demon bear that makes his home in this forest. The stories say Kiba-sama stands taller than two men, and that he is so large, he can pick up horses with one paw and carry them back to his lair to devour.”
Her eyes widened, and she glanced at the edge of the trees. “How exciting. But he doesn’t seem very pleasant. What if we run into him?”
“It’s unlikely that we will. No one has seen Kiba-sama in a long time, close to twenty years. But we should walk softly.” I gazed at the sign again. “The tales claim that, deep in these woods, there is a cave where animals never venture and birds never sing in the surrounding trees. Kiba-sama sleeps there still, and has been slumbering for the past two decades. So when you walk through his forest, tread softly, lest you wake the great demon bear of Suimin Mori, who will be ravenous after twenty years of hibernation.”
“Ah.” Yumeko looked at the forest again and nodded. “Tread softly. I can do that. The leaves won’t even know they’re being stepped on.”
The trees closed around us as we entered the woods, large pines and redwoods whose branches shut out the sky, making the forest floor dim and cool. We followed the trail over moss-covered rocks and fallen trees, between the trunks of ancient giants, and through patches of forest where the sunlight never touched the ground. The woods were unnaturally still; as the legend promised, no birds sang in the