Spirit's Princess (47 page)

Is that who you are?

No, only my name. Who I am is someone who wants to purify your spirit of everything that troubles you, everything that’s making you sink farther from the living world because it seems so much easier to surrender and let go
.

I smiled at him.
But I didn’t surrender
, I said.
You saw that for yourself when I faced the ghosts; you said so! And I’m not going to surrender now, lost in this forest. I’ll find my way back to the sacred mountaintop, back to where my goddess waits, back to the realm of the living. I can do it
.

I know you can
. He clasped his hands over mine so that both of us held my mirror and my wand.
And—with your consent—I’ll help you
. I felt his lips touch my brow, and for an instant I forgot what it was to breathe.

Reikon raised my hands in his. The mirror we held glowed brighter, and a breeze sweet with the scent of cherry blossoms blew around us. I heard familiar laughter, gentle and loving. Hoshi’s ghost floated above us, clothed in a gown of wind-ruffled petals.
Himiko!
she cried joyously, and pressed her cheek to mine.

Hoshi! Oh, Hoshi, forgive me!
I wrenched my hands free, leaving Reikon to hold the mirror and the wand as I embraced her.
I should have taken better care of you! I should have stayed with you! I should have—!

You did what was right
, she answered serenely.
You did all that could be done. If you ever loved me, forgive yourself, for my sake. Not even you could have saved my life, not with all your skills nor all your magic
. She took my hand and set my fingertips to her chest.
I didn’t die because you failed me, Himiko. Something inside me was weak and would have worn out sooner or later, sickness or no. My body simply … stopped. My spirit flew. It wasn’t what you did or didn’t do, it was
time,
only time, inescapable as an encircling fire, fragile and fleeting as this:
she plucked a handful of petals from her gown and blew them into the air.

They became a storm of pink and white, a cloud that hid Hoshi’s spirit from sight. Her words had lifted the last weight of guilt from my heart, leaving my spirit so light that
I found myself racing up a path of nothing but petals and air, a path that spiraled into the heavens. I laughed, jubilant.

Wait for me, Himiko!
Reikon’s hand closed on mine. He drew me back a pace and encircled my waist with one arm. He matched me step for step in the dance until we balanced perfectly on the topmost blossom.
Have you forgotten these?
His free arm reached around me to offer back the mirror and the wand.

I turned within his embrace and for the first time felt warm, human breath from his lips touch my cheek. The shock of it dazed me.
Reikon, are you real?
I asked my spirit prince.
Are you alive, like me?

“Real”? Which side of the mirror are you asking?
he replied, his smile as mischievous as a small boy’s. He placed my wand and mirror in my hands.
They are objects of great power, gateways to those who know how to use them. We hold the mirror and the mirror holds us. It can hold the world, and worlds are mirrors of each other. Look there, Himiko. See the truth of what I say
.

Still holding me close, he gestured with his free hand, directing my sight to gaze down from our place among the clouds. My eyes grew wide with wonder, my vision expanding to take in all that stretched beneath us.

This time I saw much more than the earth that lay in the shadow of the sacred mountain. I poised, breathless, to behold the great expanse of water that lay at the farthest reaches of the land. Craggy rocks lifted their ancient heads from the foaming crash of waves. Pine trees that had been twisted into fantastic, exquisite shapes by seasons of salty winds clung to the stones. In the deep waters, the sleek backs of titanic creatures curved above the surface and sank
back beneath the foam. Gusts of mist spouted from their heads before they dove from sight. The waters where they danced went on forever.

Look back now, Himiko
. Reikon’s voice resonated through me.
There is the sea that gave us our home, but turn your eyes toward the land again
.

Hovering beside him, I looked down once more and saw that the land beneath me was not a single mass, but many. Four great islands spread their bounty over a sea that also cradled innumerable smaller ones. Somewhere among the marvels and blessings of this grandeur lay my home.

No, I thought. Not
somewhere,
but everywhere
. All
of this is my home, and not just mine alone
.

Do you see those lights scattered everywhere?
Reikon asked.
Those are the spirits of the living—mothers, fathers, children, the old, the young, the loved and the lonely, all! See how they cluster there! That is the home of your people, the Matsu clan. And there you see the lives of the Shika in their mountain realm, and on that sliver of coast, the Kamoshika, and there the Ookami, and there, and there, and there—!

So many
, I whispered, awestruck.
But … why so weak?

It was so. The innumerable lights were very dim, and some were flickering low. For a reason I couldn’t name, it made me apprehensive to see those countless sparks in danger of being blown into nothingness by the next faint breeze. Mothers, fathers, children, all, I wanted to cup my hands around their light, shelter it, make it strong, and turn it into a single flame burning with such pure light that nothing would have the power to extinguish it.

Is that what you want, Himiko?
Reikon walked through
my thoughts, hearing them as surely as if I’d spoken aloud.
Then do it. Stretch out your hand. Weave the spell that will save your people, all your people and not just the clans you know
.

I heeded his words. I raised my right hand, holding the cherry branch, and swept it over lights burning low across the land. Light touched light and brightened. Clan met clan and each renewed the other. Old fears and mistrusts long aimed at outlanders were herded away into the ebbing darkness. I’d never felt such joy.

Well done, Himiko
. My lady of the dragon stone rose before us, her beauty bright against the sky. Her presence had become so vast that she stood tiptoe on the summit of the holy mountain, now no more than a snowcapped pebble at her feet. My spirit fluttered on her breath.
Well done, O princess, healer, shaman, chieftess, queen!
She raised one hand, and the islands that were my people’s home became a golden chain the sun goddess wore closest to her heart.

Chieftess?
I whispered as her words and her image began to fade before my eyes.
Queen? But I’ll never
—

Well done, my love
. My spirit prince’s human breath was on my lips in the instant before he kissed me and vanished as I woke back into the living world.

“Are you sure you saw her eyes open?” Lady Ikumi’s voice was muffled and indistinct, a confusion of sounds. I had to work hard to string them into words.

“I did!” Kaya declared. My friend’s clear, assured tone brought my senses sharply into focus. “I’m not just making it up because I want it to be true. It is! Watch closely and you’ll see, Mother. I told you it was a good idea to put her talisman in her hands!”

My fingers flexed. I encountered the familiar touch of my amulet. I lifted it slightly and was amazed to see my face reflected perfectly in the glittering golden curve of the dragon stone. Was that another face beside mine? I strained to see, but then I blinked and it was gone.

“Oh, I
did
see that!” Lady Ikumi exclaimed.

Kaya snorted. “
Anyone
could have seen that.”

“Then she’s out of danger at last. Thank the gods,
but”—Lady Ikumi’s voice dropped—“now we’ll have to tell her.”

“Not right away!” Kaya protested. “Something like that is too—”

“Of
course
not right away. Do you think I’m a fool?” her mother snapped. “I’m worried about
how
to tell her, not when.”

“Tell me what?” I shaded my eyes with one hand and looked up into the weary faces of Kaya and Lady Ikumi.

“Oh! Himiko!” The Shika chieftess was taken by surprise, just as I would have been in her place. It wasn’t usual for a sick person to go from deep sleep to full wakefulness so abruptly. She leaned over me and wiped my brow with a damp cloth. “You’ve been very sick. I never saw a fever burn so hot without killing. We thought we would lose you.”

“You were talking through your fever,” Kaya said. “Sometimes it just sounded like a lot of nonsense, but sometimes you spoke so clearly that we thought the fever had broken and that you were awake again.” She frowned and looked at me closely. “You
are
awake now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” The word was not much more than a whisper. I let my hand drop to my side and lowered my eyelids. “I’m thirsty.”

Someone put an arm under my back and helped me sit up. I opened my eyes as Kaya was putting a cup of water to my lips. I sipped it the way a bird does. When I was done, I smiled and shrugged off her supporting arm. “Thank you, Kaya. That was just what I needed. I can sit up by myself now.”

“No, you can’t,” Lady Ikumi declared. She put her left arm behind me and laid her right hand on my shoulder, gently urging me back down. “I’m not going to let you overtire yourself. You heard me, Himiko: You were sick for many days. Your life was in danger. We heard you talking to people who weren’t there.”

I wanted to tell her that there was more to my rambling words than the tricks of fever, but I didn’t know how to speak about all that I had seen and experienced in the world of the spirits. Instead, I clasped the Shika shaman’s hand and said, “I heard you talking too, Lady Ikumi. You were fretting about
how
you were going to tell me something when I woke. Well, I’m awake now. What do you have to tell me? Just say it.”

“Later, after you’ve had a
healthy
sleep.”

“Not later,” I said firmly. “Now.”

She avoided my gaze. “You’re not strong enough. It’s too cruel.”

“Mother, it’s crueler to leave her wondering!” Kaya cried. “Himiko is strong enough to hear it.
Tell
her. If you don’t, I will.”

“All right. If I must.” Lady Ikumi wound her fingers together in her lap. “The sickness took you with the violence of a landslide. I feared you’d be dead before the next sunrise. When that didn’t happen, I gave thanks, but I knew that you weren’t out of danger. When your fever rose even higher and you began to rave, I made a decision: as soon as our time of mourning for Hoshi was over, I’d send a messenger to your clan. If the gods were merciful, he’d only have to tell them that you were gravely ill; if not, he’d need
to be eloquent enough to persuade your father not to hold the Shika liable for your death.”

She sighed and waited a moment before adding, “He would also have to bring your brother the news that Hoshi was gone.”

I took a closer look at Kaya and her mother. They were no longer wearing hemp garments. “How many days have you been out of mourning?” I asked.

“At least twelve,” Kaya told me.

I was sick
that
long?
I thought, astonished.
No, it must be even longer than that. They’d just begun the formal time of grieving when the fever took me
. “So many days,” I murmured. “You kept me alive for so many days.…”

“It was Kaya’s doing,” Lady Ikumi said. “She found the way to make you drink and take a little nourishment without choking on it.”

Kaya shrugged away her mother’s praise. “It was no different than giving her medicine.”

“At any rate, the time came, and I summoned one of my best men to bear the news to your clan. He was gone longer than expected. I began to fear that he’d suffered an accident while traveling through the mountains—a fall, an encounter with a wild beast, a snakebite. Then I worried that he’d reached your village and the news he brought was so ill received that he was made to suffer for it.”

“My father would never do such a thing to an innocent messenger,” I said, indignant.

“I know that, Himiko,” Lady Ikumi soothed me. “But when you’re responsible for another human being, sometimes you fret first and think sensibly later.”

“Well, what
was
the matter?” I asked with growing anxiety. “Why was the man delayed? Did the great sickness strike my clanfolk too? Is my family all right? Where’s the messenger? Let me speak to him! I want to know what he saw in our village. I have to ask him—”

“He never entered your village. He didn’t dare.”

My stomach knotted. “Why not?” I whispered. Kaya held my hand tightly as her mother went on.

“He told me that when he came down out of the mountains and began the approach to your village, he sensed that something wasn’t right. There was an awful smell of burning on the air—not just the normal scent of cook fires or the blacksmith’s forge, but an evil reek that warned him to keep his distance. Wisely he clung to the edge of the woods high on the mountainside, staying far out of sight until he could discover what had happened. He has good eyes, that man. He saw that the village gates were shattered and that the watchtower had been pulled down. Smoke was still rising from the smoldering ruins of many houses. Worst of all, he spied a train of people leaving the village two by two, each pair carrying a large storage jar slung from a pole between them. Armed men were overseeing them as they trudged away. There were—” She paused and took a shuddering breath. “There were rope halters around their necks, the mark of slaves. Himiko, war came to your clan, and … they lost. The Matsu have been conquered.”