Yatagarasu Series
Volume 8:
The Raven's Reminiscence
Author: Abe Chisato
Part 3: The Women Who Disappeared
Yukiya’s mind was stuck on a singular question: Why?
Why was Nazukihiko dead?
He couldn’t think about anything else. He was numb to the world for minutes or hours as he considered the terrible why with his analytical mind.
He couldn’t believe it. Nazukihiko was always doing absolutely insane things, and he was always fine. This had to be part of some scheme. Yukiya had been away from Yamauchi for an entire year; he obviously wasn’t up-to-date on the latest plots in the Imperial Court.
It was infuriating to be deceived by his own side, but Yukiya understood that such deception might be necessary. Nazukihiko might be attempting something dangerous. Circumstances that couldn’t be safely reported might be to blame. Maybe Yukiya was only being summoned back now because communication channels with the human world had been compromised in some way.
He thought all of this with complete seriousness as he rode in a car that the Tengu had provided and traveled back to Yamauchi.
It was past midnight when he arrived at the Gate of the Vermilion Bird. The gate, normally a busy place full of goods and people, was quiet. The sound of rain reached him steadily; he heard nothing else. Waiting at the gate, holding Yukiya’s sword, was Haruma.
“Military strategist Yukiya.” Haruma saluted.
“I received a ridiculous report. What on earth is His Imperial Majesty thinking?”
Normally Haruma would have explained the situation without being asked. Tonight, he struggled to speak. “This way,” he said. He led Yukiya through the gate. They approached Shion Temple on foot.
The sky was thick with Yamauchishu in raven form, all moving at speed. Large white tents were pitched in the temple courtyard.
Haruma led Yukiya into a tent and then stopped.
Yukiya went utterly still. Nazukihiko was in front of him, only half-transformed, and he was dead. His head, chest, and one arm were all in human form; the rest of his body was stuck in his monstrously large raven form. The position he lay in was unnatural and appeared uncomfortable. There was no way to place him so that the two halves of his body would be equally supported. It was like all the old prejudices of the noble class against raven form were staring Yukiya directly in the face.
Nazukihiko’s face in death was strangely peaceful, a stark contrast to the blood sticking to his jet-black feathers. His eyes were slightly open, staring at nothing; he might have been some artist’s strange statue. His hair had been pushed away from his face, though some of it stuck to his nape, too wet to be artfully arranged.
As Yukiya took in the corpse of the Golden Raven, he reflected that a body without a soul was just a thing. An empty vessel. Lights off; nobody home.
For some reason, he remembered his first days working in the Sun Palace with a harried Sumio for a guide. The Crown Prince had greeted him in a casual robe with his hair down. Even as emperor, he’d had no liking for grooming or specialized attire. Perhaps he’d even approve of the unique messiness of his own dead body.
He would never wake to tell Yukiya so.
“Why?” Yukiya asked the corpse in disbelief. His mind tripped over grief and anger and settled on loneliness. He hadn’t felt alone like this in so long that he’d almost forgotten the sensation. He sat on the floor of the tent, gaping like a small child while his furious mind tried to prod him into movement. He had no time for this. No time.
He had overlooked something critical. He didn’t know what. His comprehension of what was happening, what had happened, was missing pieces.
He needed to ask, or the pieces would remain missing, and he’d be wasting time he didn’t have. “What happened?” he asked, half to himself.
Haruma had remained on his feet, and he managed to answer with a calm steadiness that soothed Yukiya’s interior state.
“Around sunset today, His Imperial Majesty was stabbed in the back by an unknown assailant. During the upper hour of the dog, His Imperial Majesty ordered the guards to summon Chihaya. After that, he returned to the Night Palace by air. A quarter of an hour later, those on aerial watch spotted His Imperial Majesty in raven form, heading toward Shion Temple. He descended into the herb garden. When the Yamauchishu caught up to him, he was not breathing. The whereabouts of Lord Akeru of Saike and the Yamauchishu Kashima, who should have been at His Imperial Majesty’s side at the time of his disappearance, remain unknown.”
“Who is in command now?” Yukiya asked.
“Prince Natsuka stripped the former emperor of command authority. He’s at Clear Mirror Temple now. All active Yamauchishu have been mobilized. Cooperation from the Aerial Army of Heaven has been requested. The temple guards have been mobilized and given orders to seal off Souke Territory; no one is being permitted in or out. We are still trying to grasp the full situation. We do not know where His Imperial Majesty was stabbed, or by whom.” He paused. “Since this does not fall under our usual battle plans such as responding to an enemy attack or the suppression of a rebellion, we have not appointed a strategist to lead Yamauchi’s armies yet. Prince Natsuka is requesting strategic advice. Lord Chihaya is standing by with his sword left in Prince Natsuka’s custody as punishment for his negligence in guarding His Imperial Majesty.”
Yukiya let out a slow breath. None of this felt real, but there was more information coming in. That was correct and proper; if he’d been here before, he would have requested more information, too. And he had a task: Prince Natsuka wanted strategic advice, and he was more than willing to give it.
“Understood. I’ll go to Clear Mirror Temple now.”
“Prince Natsuka awaits you. I will take you to him.”
***
The main shrine of Clear Mirror Temple was dedicated to the mountain god and rarely in active use. Prince Natsuka had claimed the vast space for his base of operations. Maps were spread across the floor and on every flat surface. People moved back and forth between the maps, scribbling notes and speaking in low voices.
Natsuka stood at the center of the chaos with the bearing of a man who had decided to be responsible even if it killed him. The moment Yukiya entered the hall, he said, “By order of myself, Prince Natsuka, head priest of Clear Mirror Temple, Yukiya of Hokke is appointed to the task of uncovering the truth of this matter effective immediately. Dedicate all your efforts to finding and capturing His Imperial Majesty’s murderer.”
“I humbly accept this task,” Yukiya said. “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”
“The mastermind was Shiun no In, though you probably guessed that already.”
Yukiya wasn’t surprised by Natsuka’s bluntness. The former empress had always hated Nazukihiko.
“That bitch laughed,” Natsuka said in a furious undertone. “She told me that if I believed she was the mastermind, I should kill her—she doesn’t care anymore if she lives or dies. She believes she’s won.” Natsuka’s face twisted in a feral grin. “It was practically a confession.”
Yukiya said nothing. The loathsome former empress was Natsuka’s mother. She’d never acted like a member of the imperial family; she’d spent her whole life scheming for the Nanke family. She was a fool who thought only about her own desires. Now, when Yamauchi was in danger of fracturing into nonexistence, she had killed the one person that Yamauchi couldn’t afford to lose.
Shiun no In saw no future with Nazukihiko in it. She was purely selfish and cared only about achieving her own goals.
“I will return to secular life and ascend the throne as emperor.” Natsuka said this very quietly, for Yukiya’s ears only. “I will name Princess Shion as my heir. I will not take a consort.”
Yukiya nodded in understanding.
“I expect the same loyalty you would have shown him.”
“Of course,” Yukiya said, lowering his eyes to the floor. His head swam; the version of Yamauchi he knew had changed overnight. He was still trying to make sense of it all. He looked up and squared his shoulders.
“We know who the mastermind is and what she wanted,” Natsuka said. “We must find proof. Above all, we must capture the person who actually committed the murder, and with haste. In my experience, the one chosen to perform this kind of act is discarded quickly.” He looked Yukiya in the eye. “I’ll manage the Imperial Court. You find out what happened, and you do it now. Five minutes ago.”
“I’ve heard that the location where His Imperial Majesty was stabbed is still unknown,” Yukiya said.
“That’s correct. He left the Night Palace without warning.”
The Golden Raven had gone somewhere with Akeru and Kashima after dismissing everyone else. The gates leading out of the Night Palace were guarded by Yamauchishu, and they hadn’t left their posts. The only other way out of the Night Palace was through the forbidden zone of a temple. That temple connected to the Ministry of Divinity and the Forbidden Gate. The mountain god’s realm lay beyond the Forbidden Gate.
The former mountain god was dead, and so was the true Golden Raven.
The Forbidden Gate had been sealed shut after the former mountain god’s death. The Ministry of Divinity had recently confirmed that there’d been no abnormalities with the Forbidden Gate. It remained closed and locked, as did the Grand Gate that served as the main entrance to the Imperial Palace. No keys had been stolen and no guards had been displaced.
“There is a possibility that Shiun no In’s people are still inside the Imperial Palace,” Natsuka said. “I sent the Yamauchishu in, but no abnormalities have been found yet.”
Where had the Golden Raven met with disaster? And where were Akeru and Kashima now?
“You knew Nazukihiko as well as I did,” Natsuka said. “I suspect that he knew a way out of the Night Palace that no one else had knowledge of.”
But why would he use that way out? Since becoming emperor, the true Golden Raven had been so cautious—careful in a way his younger self had never been. While Yukiya was turning the sequence of known events over in his mind, he remembered…
“Sakura Palace.”
Natsuka blinked. “What?”
Sakura Palace was technically the residence of the crown prince’s wife. When there was no imperial princess in residence, a duchess or lady could be appointed in her place. The Golden Raven’s younger sister, Princess Fujinami, had taken religious vows some years ago. Since then, Sakura Palace had been closed off. No one lived there now.
Sakura Palace connected to the rest of the Imperial Palace. The Golden Raven could have used Sakura Palace to leave the Night Palace without being observed.
“Previously, there was an incident that suggested His Imperial Majesty the retired emperor made contact with someone from Sakura Palace in secret. This was during the Rite of Ascension, when His Imperial Majesty was still the crown prince,” Yukiya said. Sumio had expressed frustration when this incident was reported.
The then-Crown Prince had smiled mischievously at him. “Given the floor plan, there’s got to be a secret passage between the Imperial Palace and the treasure vault. Maybe I’ll go there and search for it someday.”
Natsuka’s expression became animated. “We haven’t checked Sakura Palace yet. But we will.”
“I’ll go,” Yukiya said. “I’ve been there before and I know the general layout of the place. Sakura Palace has been closed up for so long that I wouldn’t expect most of the Yamauchishu to be familiar with it.”
In addition, Yukiya would be shielded by Natsuka’s authority, which would prove helpful if he encountered opposition. His task compelled him. He felt the time constraints they were under as much as Natsuka did.
Natsuka nodded. “Understood. Empress Hamayū will know what keys you need. And I’ll dispatch temple guards at once to prepare the way for you. Head for Sakura Palace now and take any free Yamauchishu with you.”
“I will accompany you,” Haruma said.
Just as Yukiya was about to nod, Chihaya rose unsteadily to his feet in the corner of the hall. “May I come as well?” he asked. He was unarmed and soaking wet.
Natsuka hesitated for a moment. Chihaya was being punished for his failure to guard the true Golden Raven, but manpower was scarce and trustworthy allies were scarcer. “Very well,” Natsuka said. “You may go.”
Haruma, Chihaya and Yukiya left the hall together. Yukiya and Chihaya walked side by side. Haruma followed half a step behind.
Yukiya glanced sidelong at Chihaya as they walked. His face was an expressionless mask and his posture was hunched and forbidding. Yukiya knew him well enough to let him be. Demanding an account of events from Chihaya would be pointless, and Yukiya had no words to encourage or comfort Chihaya over their loss. Talking right now wouldn’t help matters. They might not be able to speak about meaningful matters for a long time.
They mounted up and flew straight toward Sakura Palace. The rain had stopped and the sun was rising. The morning air carried the scents of wet earth and washed stone. The gate of Sakura Palace loomed before them. A large carriage yard lay beyond it. The palace itself was built in overhanging style, with half of it built into the mountain and half built over the mountain’s edge. It was unchanged from when Yukiya had last seen it. There were no lights shining out of the windows.
Yukiya hadn’t been to Sakura Palace in a long time. Decades, at least. He confirmed in broad strokes that the exterior showed nothing unusual, then brought his horse over to the stage in front of the gate.
“The gate is closed and locked,” Haruma said.
Yukiya turned his horse’s head. “Then we’ll go over it on horseback. There is an inner courtyard facing Wisteria Hall. We’ll enter from there and search Wisteria Hall first.”
Wisteria Hall connected to the rest of the Imperial Palace through the treasure vault.
Yukiya, Haruma and Chihaya spurred on their horses and cleared the gate easily. The descended into a connecting corridor built into smooth stone. Beyond that was a rocky ledge and a garden. The entrance to Wisteria Hall was past the garden.
“Hey.” Chihaya pointed through the branches of the garden’s trees. There was a small courtyard there enclosed by connecting corridors and planted all around with vivid blue and purple hydrangeas.
Chihaya jumped off his horse and ran into the courtyard. Yukiya followed him quickly.
On the white sand beneath the flowers was a pitch-black splash of dried blood. The air reeked of iron, taking Yukiya back to his war experiences in an instant.
It smells like a battlefield, he thought.
The blood was hours old. Its metallic quality mixed with the flowers’ sweetness, creating a decaying, overripe smell. Yukiya’s stomach turned over as he bent to examine a large bloodstain. The rain had washed a bit of it away, but not much. The stain glistened on the sand and the garden stones in the early morning light, stark and terrible in the story that it told.
And then there were the bodies.
Two Yatagarasu in human form lay dead in the garden, partially concealed by the hydrangeas. One was Kashima of the Yamauchishu, who had graduated four years behind Yukiya and Chihaya. He had been on night watch, guarding the true Golden Raven. He had the ability and experience for that post.
An arrow jutted from his chest. His sword was still in his hand, clean of blood.
The other Yatagarasu was…
“Akeru.” Chihaya’s voice was small and quiet and sounded strange.
Kashima and Akeru had been dead for hours. Like the true Golden Raven, they were beyond saving.
Akeru had resisted. His right arm had been severed below the elbow. Two arrows were embedded in his chest. He had thrashed in his agony; there was blood all over him and his surroundings. His eyes were wide open and angry. He’d died snarling at his attacker. His jaw had been pulped by some kind of bludgeon. Small white teeth glinted in the blood surrounding him. The pink flesh of his mouth was exposed by his detached jawbone.
This level of violence hadn’t been required to kill Akeru. Was it a message of some kind? What had caused Akeru’s killer to go so far?
“We need to report,” Haruma said. “Prince Natsuka must be informed, and we need reinforcements.”
Without waiting for Yukiya’s reply, he turned and ran back to his horse.
Yukiya and Chihaya could not bring themselves to leave until reinforcements arrived. They stood in the courtyard, not moving, not speaking, while the clear light that comes after rain lit the garden around them.
The hydrangeas went on blooming blue and purple like beautiful bruises, untouched by pain or violence.
***
With the dawn of a new day, news of the Golden Raven’s death reached the Imperial Court.
Before any official statement was issued, all of the Four Families were aware of what had happened. The capital erupted like a hive of hornets. No true Golden Raven had ever been assassinated before in all of Yamauchi’s history. Shock and bewilderment touched everyone, even the most traitorous and villainous Yatagarasu.
What followed the shock was rage at the unknown perpetrator and at the failure to protect the true Golden Raven. The Yamauchishu who had been responsible for his safety bore the brunt of others’ ire.
Natsuka navigated through the uproar with disciplined composure. Having stripped his father of the authority to command, Natsuka acted more rationally than anyone expected. He set up interrogations for the Yamauchishu to determine gaps in security protocols. His temple guards secured Clear Mirror Temple and his person to prevent more violence. He managed the outraged nobles by soothing their ruffled feathers and redirecting their attention to other problems.
He headed the investigation of the true Golden Raven’s death with Yukiya as his active agent. Yukiya was the perfect pick: a Yamauchishu who had been in the human world at the time of the murder. No one could pin responsibility for the true Golden Raven’s death on him.
***
The true Golden Raven was stabbed at Sakura Palace; so much was known. After entering the Night Palace, he had summoned Chihaya, who was in charge of the night watch that evening. Without waiting for Chihaya to arrive, the true Golden Raven had gone to Sakura Palace accompanied by Akeru and one other Yamauchishu. They were attacked. The Yamauchishu and Akeru were killed. The true Golden Raven himself was gravely wounded. He had remained in raven form and flown to Shion Temple, where he’d breathed his last.
The question that remained—the question that everything else depended on—was why.
The true Golden Raven had been a cautious ruler. He no longer took the same kinds of risks that he had when he was young. Even if he had wanted to go out alone, Akeru and the Yamauchishu would never have permitted it. And yet he had gone to Sakura Palace at night with almost no escort, as if he’d desired to travel in secret.
There had to be a reason for that. Something had drawn him there at that specific time. He hadn’t even waited for Chihaya, who would have given him additional protection.
The key to understanding these events was the true Golden Raven’s motives.
The true Golden Raven himself was as out of reach as the truth.
***
The day before the fatal attack, Sakura Palace had been cleaned.
If Princess Shion were to be formally designated as the Golden Raven’s heir, she would eventually move to the Sun Palace. There had been discussion of having her come to Sakura Palace first. The Golden Raven and Empress Hamayū had both felt it was time for Shion to move to the Imperial Court. To that end, Sakura Palace, the Sun Palace, and several other suitable imperial residences were prepared for new lodgers.
A potential clue regarding the attack came from an imperial attendant who had dropped by Sakura Palace on the day of the murder. He’d been sent to check on the progress of the cleaning. While there, he’d received a letter to deliver to Lord Akeru.
“It’s not unusual for me to be entrusted with letters for Lord Akeru,” the attendant had said. “Lord Akeru manages all kinds of things—requests for favors, personal correspondence, updates on infrastructure projects, and so on.”
The woman who had given him the letter had said, “Look at the contents and you’ll understand why Lord Akeru must read this letter.” She had not given her name. Her appearance was that of a refined noblewoman in her mid-thirties.
No one knew what the letter had said. Akeru was dead, and no letter had been found on his body.
The woman directing the cleaning of Sakura Palace had been a lady-in-waiting named Yamaji. She was a nobleman’s wife from Saike Territory. She had been selected for the role at the recommendation of Princess Shion’s wet nurse, and Empress Hamayū had asked for her by name. Yamaji had served at Sakura Palace in the past. The women who had been there more recently had all left with Shiun no In, and the empress had given strict instructions that none of them were to be summoned into her presence. New personnel were needed, and those personnel could not have ties to the former empress. Yamaji was old enough to be familiar with Sakura Palace and to have no connection to the former empress. She was appointed to hire more staff and make Sakura Palace livable for a new generation.
The Yamauchishu brought Yamaji to Sakura Palace. She was a dignified woman past fifty years of age. She passed through the gate and walked over the stage with the great poise. When she was told that the true Golden Raven had been attacked at Sakura Palace, she was visibly shaken by the news. She gave Yukiya her full cooperation, opening her records to him and putting her staff at his service. She also answered every question posed to her clearly and concisely.
“The people you hired for cleaning the palace—what kind of people were they?” Yukiya asked.
“I selected each one myself after checking into their backgrounds. Those who had previously served here are now with Shiun no In, and we were under orders not to summon any of them back. I began entirely fresh.”
“Did you serve in Sakura Palace before the reign of the previous empress?”
“I did. I entered the Inner Palace as a lady-in-waiting in charge of court etiquette instruction. When Shiun no In became empress, I was assigned to the Autumn Hall and served Princess Izayoi, who is—was—His Imperial Majesty’s mother. When Shiun no In moved to the Imperial Palace, I received a marriage proposal and was permitted to withdraw to Saike Territory.”
She had been frightened and astonished to be appointed to this new position at her age, but the empress had insisted. She had come to the capital in answer to her summons.
“I was very careful,” Yamaji said. “Or at least, I thought I was. They’re all good people that I hired; I was sure of it. And yet…” She went very pale.
“Do you know who was here yesterday?” Yukiya asked. They had no time for a break in questioning.
“Yes, of course.”
“How many people were here?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“That’s a considerable number. Did you confirm that all of them were present, and that no one else was here?”
“Yes, that was the first thing I confirmed after I heard the news.”
“How did everyone arrive?”
“Most came by flying carriages that I arranged for them.”
“And you confirmed that everyone left when their work was done?”
“Yes. But…” Yamaji faltered for the first time. “I did confirm the headcount. But when the carriages were called back, they arrived all at once, and there was some confusion. I couldn’t see each person off individually as they left.” She said this very quietly, as if she were afraid her voice would turn to smoke and disappear. “Someone might have slipped away in that confusion without being noticed.”
“Understood. I’ll have the Aerial Army of Heaven begin their patrols here. Please summon the women who cleaned Sakura Palace yesterday, and the carriage drivers operators who brought them here and took them home.”
Yukiya returned to the courtyard where the true Golden Raven was believed to have been stabbed while he waited for Sakura Palace’s staff to arrive. The body had already been removed, but the smell of blood lingered in the air.
Chihaya was already present when he arrived, working through what Yukiya recognized as a human-world method of investigation: mapping the terrain, noting footprints and where the blood had fallen. He was sketching this out on a large sheet of paper.
The physician who’d treated the true Golden Raven’s injuries was with Chihaya, recounting everything he’d observed while Chihaya made his sketch of the crime scene.
“Have you found out anything new?” Yukiya asked Chihaya.
“Akeru’s cause of death was poisoning,” Chihaya said.
“Poison? Not blood loss?”
“Poison was applied to the arrowheads. His arm was cut off while he was still alive, but his jaw was most likely smashed after death. Kashima’s cause of death was the arrow wounds, without question. The physician’s assessment is that he was killed almost instantly, before the poison could take effect.”
“An excellent archer attacked them, then.”
“Or Kashima threw himself into the arrow’s path trying to shield His Imperial Majesty.”
Chihaya stepped between the hydrangeas—still blooming and beautiful, oblivious to tragedy—and stood in the place where Kashima had fallen.
“If we assume he was shot and collapsed on the spot, the archer was over there.”
A large old pine stood in the direction Chihaya indicated, its green needles bristling in the morning air. Beyond it were rhododendron bushes and garden stones large enough to conceal a person. The line of fire from there didn’t look clean.
Yukiya studied the angle of the attack in silence. “An excellent position,” Yukiya mused. “The archer could see, but not be seen. The pine tree breaks line of sight. No one would expect an arrow to come from that direction.”
“Kashima likely didn’t expect the attack. I wouldn’t have,” Chihaya said.
“The archer was probably hoping His Imperial Majesty would stand a little further forward. He would have had a clearer shot.” Yukiya shifted slightly. A pine branch intruded on the edge of his vision. “Only a few steps. It’s not certain if His Imperial Majesty was being especially cautious. Kashima and Akeru could have managed his position, keeping him behind them. We know he didn’t stand where the archer needed him to be, or the poison would have killed him, too.”
“To shoot His Imperial Majesty, the archer had to move,” Chihaya said. “If they stepped out from cover onto the white sand, there would be sound. Kashima would turn toward it, instinctively putting himself between His Imperial Majesty and the threat.”
Yukiya nodded. Chihaya had just given him a plausible explanation for Kashima’s death.
“If Kashima shielded His Imperial Majesty and went down, then His Imperial Majesty was standing here,” Chihaya said, pointing to a larger bloodstain on the ground.
Yukiya put himself behind Chihaya.
“Akeru would have been close by,” Chihaya added. “His Imperial Majesty was stabbed in the back. The weapon was a dagger, not a military weapon. It’s the kind of thing a woman or a civilian would carry for self-defense. We saw no signs of resistance, so the attack happened suddenly and without warning.”
Chihaya walked slowly around Yukiya. He placed the side of his hand lightly against Yukiya’s back.
Yukiya turned only his head and looked Chihaya in the eye. “There were at least two attackers, then.” He turned to face Chihaya. “I think that the true Golden Raven was summoned here by one of the attackers. While His Imperial Majesty’s attention was on that person, the archer struck. When he turned toward the shot, the one he’d come to meet stabbed him in the back.”
Akeru had been caught between the stabber and the archer. He hadn’t stood a chance.
“When His Imperial Majesty tried to escape by taking raven form, both attackers would have tried to stop him,” Chihaya said.
Akeru had shielded the Golden Raven. He had drawn his sword and fought them both. He’d been shot and had his arm cut off, but the true Golden Raven had escaped. The blood splashed across the garden stones was mostly Akeru’s. He’d fought to his dying breath.
“Akeru’s jaw…” Chihaya’s mouth set in a grim line. “He bit them. Whoever it was. They had to smash his face like that to make him let go.”
Akeru had managed to wound at least one of the attackers severely. He’d looked that attacker in the face as he’d died. He was almost unrecognizable as the boyish, ridiculously attractive man he’d been, but he had died heroically, fighting the true Golden Raven’s enemies. He had died to protect his lord.
***
Sakura Palace’s staff were lined up for identification. The woman who had given the attendant a letter for Akeru was not among them.
Three women were missing. One was named Oei, the daughter of a merchant family, apprenticed to learn etiquette in Sakura Palace. The second was Oei’s mother, Tane, a woman with a history of service in noble households. The third had introduced the previous two women to Yamaji: the wife of a nobleman from Touke Territory with whom Yamaji had maintained a warm acquaintance for several years.
Oei had struck Yamaji as shy and quiet. Tane had been energetic despite her years. She had spent a lifetime keeping order in her own household and expected her instructions to be obeyed.
The carriage drivers who should have taken the three women away at the end of their workday had vanished as well. The Aerial Army of Heaven conducted a search for them all.
The three carriage drivers were found dead.
The wife of the Touke nobleman had assumed a fabricated identity. She had rarely come to the capital at all before she was hired at Sakura Palace. She was a fraud, and learning so devastated Yamaji. She’d been corresponding with the woman for more than a decade.
Yamaji let out a sound that was not quite a scream and not quite a cry. “That can’t be true,” she said. She added that she had met the woman many times at memorial services in Sky’s Sorrow Temple in the capital. They had exchanged seasonal greetings for more than ten years. They had sent one another gifts. They’d stood together at the same ceremonies and spoken of ordinary things.
“She lied to me all this time?” Yamaji asked through tears.
The real wife of the nobleman Higashi Katase, whom the woman had impersonated, was summoned from Touke Territory and brought before Yamaji.
Yamaji took one look at her and collapsed, weeping.
“Then who was she? Who on earth was she?”
The woman had lived under a false name for more than a decade. Oei and Tane might be false identities, too. The three women were in the wind, likely under false names. No one knew where they had gone.
***
After they had finished making their reports to Natsuka at Clear Mirror Temple, Yukiya caught up to Chihaya, who was walking out of the main hall.
“Isn’t all this very strange?” Yukiya asked.
“What, specifically?” Chihaya asked.
“The carriage drivers were found—their bodies, at least. They were disposed of carefully, but they were found. And yet there’s no sign of the women.” Yukiya spoke quietly. “If Shiun no In is responsible for this, she would have produced someone to take the blame by now. That’s always been her method. Cut the connection quickly and cleanly before the investigation reaches her. That’s what she’s done before.”
“Yes.” Chihaya nodded.
“It’s been two days, and we’ve heard nothing from her. We know there are three women involved, but we don’t even know their names. That’s not how Shiun no In operates.”
The false noblewoman from Touke Territory—whoever she actually was—had maintained her false identity for more than ten years. That wasn’t a hasty improvisation. That showed patience and careful planning. Shiun no In had not previously attempted such a sophisticated fabrication.
“Is it possible something went wrong on her side? Something she didn’t account for?”
“Something unforeseen?” Chihaya asked.
Yukiya nodded. “Perhaps she wanted to kill the true Golden Raven so much that she wound up making a mistake.”
“If only we could use the human world’s methods,” Chihaya said.
Yukiya made a sound of reluctant agreement.
In the human world, there were techniques to identify an individual from a bloodstain or a fingerprint left on a surface. Given the ferocity of Akeru’s fight, the culprit’s blood would almost certainly be present at the scene of the attack. The evidence was there, but the tools to interpret it were not available in Yamauchi.
“Could we take a blood sample out through the gate?”
Yukiya shook his head. “In the worst case, perhaps we could try it. But blood is difficult—moisture tends to deteriorate quickly in the human world. We should look for bite marks first.” Proof that Akeru had not let go, even after his death.
“Bite marks,” Chihaya repeated.
What if the person Akeru had bitten was important to Shiun no In? What if, instead of one of the people Shiun no In had intended to sacrifice, Akeru’s teeth had closed on someone whose existence, if exposed, would lead directly back to her? Someone who might expose the entire scheme for what it was?
Chihaya shook his head. Bite marks wouldn’t be reliable evidence. Shiun no In could command one of her people to be bitten, creating a decoy. So why had she gone to all the trouble of concealing the identities of the three women? There was something missing in their reasoning. He pressed two fingers to his temples.
Yukiya looked at him expectantly.
Chihaya said nothing more. He stared down at the dried blood in the garden and thought about physical evidence. Bite marks, bloodstains… what else? If he had other ideas, he didn’t share them with Yukiya.
***
A report came in on the morning of the third day after the true Golden Raven was murdered.
“Bloodstains were found below a cliff near Sakura Palace, near where His Imperial Majesty took flight,” a messenger said to Yukiya and Natsuka in Clear Mirror Temple.
Yukiya went to the murder scene at once. Yamauchishu were waiting for him, keeping their distance from the bloodstains. They explained that one of them had noticed branches broken in a way that didn’t look natural. A search of the surrounding area had turned up a large quantity of blood, half-concealed by grass. It had rained the night of the attack, but the blood had not been entirely washed away.
There was so much blood left to see that Yukiya shuddered to think how much there must have been originally. He looked up and saw the rocky ledge close to the garden where the attack had taken place. Wisteria Hall was directly above him and the Yamauchishu. The true Golden Raven might have fled here, bleeding, from the garden.
The true Golden Raven had been stabbed at sunset. He wasn’t certain that the true Golden Raven would be hindered by the lack of sunlight for transformation, but that was a possibility. It wasn’t clear if he’d fallen or run down here in raven form or human form. If he’d fallen in human form, Yukiya would expect to find torn clothes or discarded items, but nothing like that was discovered. Even ordinary Yatagarasu could transform at sunset if they were desperate and their lives were on the line, though such a transformation would leave them weak and in pain. Yukiya assumed, for the moment, that Nazukihiko had transformed and flown down to this place before taking flight and heading for Shion Temple.
A memory surfaced of a similar incident during the then-Crown Prince’s Rite of Ascension. Nazukihiko had pushed Yukiya over a cliff as a distraction, and Yukiya had transformed in midair to save himself from a nasty landing. He held that thought for a moment and then let it go. The memory wasn’t useful right now.
Yukiya examined the area, then returned his gaze to the pool of blood.
Someone had almost certainly died here. But why wasn’t there a body, then? The true Golden Raven himself, fully transformed, could not have lost so much blood. He wouldn’t have been able to fly if all this blood was his.
That meant someone else had died here, and their body had been carried away before it could be discovered. A wild animal could have carried the body somewhere, but animals large enough to do that were rare around Sakura Palace.
Someone had been here along with the true Golden Raven and the other dead body, and that someone had moved the body deliberately.
But how? Visibility had been poor on the night of the murder, but the Yamauchishu patrolled Souke Territory regularly. After the true Golden Raven’s death was discovered, a very large number of soldiers had been mobilized and put on watch. Slipping past all of them while carrying a body would have been extraordinarily difficult.
Yukiya looked at the Yamauchishu around him. They were holding their breath, waiting.
“Mobilize the Aerial Army of Heaven and conduct a search of the mountain,” Yukiya said. “Search this entire area thoroughly. If someone carried that body away, they must have left traces. Find them.”
The Yamauchishu saluted and said, “Yes, sir,” in unison.
***
Yukiya stood on the stage of Sakura Palace, watching the Yamauchishu conduct their search.
Why? Yukiya thought. Why was the Golden Raven here? To him, this was the most important question to answer. There was no reason for Emperor Nazukihiko to go to Sakura Palace in secret. The archer had been waiting for him, and the other attacker had either been there to set the scene or had guided him into the garden. It was reasonable to assume that the true Golden Raven had been lured to that place for a specific purpose, and that his attackers knew when he would come.
The true Golden Raven had been cautious for years. Since his enthronement, he had acted carefully, arranged guards for all his movements, and generally avoided the kind of impulsive wandering that had given Sumio gray hairs when they were both young men. And yet he had gone to Sakura Palace at night, with almost no guard presence…
He didn’t think he would be in danger, Yukiya thought.
Whoever had summoned him to Sakura Palace was a person he trusted. Or, if not trusted, than at least not someone he feared. He hadn’t expected violence.
Only a few names came to mind.
Yukiya looked down at the Yamauchishu moving through the undergrowth and said nothing.
***
A Yamauchishu’s signal bell rang late in the afternoon. The sound reverberated across the whole of Sakura Palace. Soldiers in raven form flew up from every direction and converged on the sound of the bell.
Yukiya walked over to the stage.
A Yamauchishu came running up to him in human form. “We found a suspicious person attempting to bury a corpse. We believe she is one of the three we were looking for—possibly two of them together.”
The woman had been restrained on the spot. She had not responded when spoken to, and after being found she had refused to leave the body.
Yukiya and Chihaya went to see this woman together. She was found close to a waterfall, so the air was crisp and cold. A pool at the waterfall’s base was as clear as crystal.
The woman they had captured sat in mud at the base of a tree some distance from the pool. The ground around her had been torn up. Tree roots shone bare at the edges of the hastily dug hole. The woman’s hands were blackened with earth. In her arms, she held a large bundle covered in mud. The bundle was approximately the size of a person.
The Yamauchishu had formed a perimeter around her, short spears and swords leveled in her direction. She sat with her head bowed, unmoving.
Yukiya drew his sword and used his scabbard to lift her face. She didn’t resist. She turned toward him weakly, and he narrowed his eyes at her.
Her hair was about shoulder length. There was far more white in it than he remembered. Deep wrinkles had been carved into her skin by time, but Yukiya recognized her.
Yukiya had come to Sakura Palace as the Crown Prince’s attendant when he’d been very young, not yet of age to attend the Keisōin. The woman who had presided over administrative matters in Sakura Palace at that time was Takimoto, the personal attendant of Princess Fujinami.
Princess Fujinami was Nazukihiko’s sister.
Way back when, Yukiya had feared Takimoto’s terrible sternness and authority. Now, he saw fear in her eyes reflected back at him.
“It has been quite some time, Lady Takimoto.”
Takimoto said nothing in reply.
“Do you not remember me? I am Yukiya of Hokke. You assisted me during His Imperial Majesty’s Rite of Ascension.”
Yukiya crouched down and tried to meet her eyes. She kept turning her face away. She was a stooped, exhausted old woman who was terrified of him. Seventeen years ago, she had been formidable, but whatever had happened here had robbed her of all her previous strength.
“Is Princess Fujinami well?” Yukiya asked. His words were polite, but his tone was as cold as the air around the waterfall.
Takimoto’s arms tightened around the bundle. Blood seeped from the tips of her mud-blackened fingers.
Before Yukiya could speak again, Chihaya reached out and took hold of one of Takimoto’s arms.
“Lady Takimoto,” he said sharply.
Takimoto looked up at him briefly.
Chihaya smirked. “He got you good, didn’t he? I hope it hurts like fucking hell.” Chihaya’s hand slid down to Takimoto’s wrist. Her sleeve fell back, revealing an angry red bite mark on her forearm.
Takimoto groaned and collapsed forward onto the ground.
Yukiya reached for the bundle she refused to let go of.
Translator's Note
The hour of the dog is a 2-hour period in the traditional Chinese body clock, spanning from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. It is the time of day associated with the pericardium organ system, family, loyalty, and protection, marking the transition from day to night when households settle in. The upper hour of the dog would be between 7:00-8:00 PM; the lower hour of the dog would be between 8:00-9:00 PM.
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