Page 25 of Night of the Dragon

I swallowed. “We’ve been chasing the Dragon scroll,” I said, and her eyes widened once more. “A great evil has come to your lands, Kiyomi-sama. Genno, the Master of Demons, has all three pieces of the prayer, and intends to use the Wish to bring darkness to the empire.”

“Your friends have told me this,” the daimyo said. “But you must understand—the Moon Clan made a pact with the kami long ago not to interfere in the ways of men or gods. We are impartial observers, far removed from the strife and politics of the rest of the empire. These are the Dragon’s lands. We thrive on the back of a sleeping god, and we have promised never to seek out the power of the Dragon’s Prayer, nor attempt to stop those who wish to call upon the Harbinger. Change must come—it is the way of the kami.”

“But your people are in danger,” I insisted. “Genno is trying to overthrow the empire. He doesn’t want to bring about change, he wants to bring about destruction. We came here to try to stop him, but the Master of Demons has an army, and we can’t do this ourselves. We need your aid, Kiyomi-sama. The Kirin told me to find you. I can only assume it thought you could help.”

“The Kirin spoke to you?” Kiyomi-sama looked taken aback. “In all my years as daimyo,” she murmured, “I have seen the sacred beast only once, and it was from afar. It has never deigned to grace me with its wisdom. But it spoke to you.” I nodded, and her brow furrowed. “One cannot ignore a sign from the kami,” she whispered. “Though I shudder at what this means for the Moon Clan.”

“Kiyomi-sama,” Reika broke in, her voice carefully deferential, “I know you wish to protect your people. I know the Moon Clan has declared themselves neutral from clan politics and the ways of the empire. And I know that your family has made a vow to live in peace with the kami, to not interfere in the ways of the gods. But if Genno gets his wish and summons the Dragon, the whole empire will be in danger, starting with these very islands. Together, we must stop him before he can call upon the Harbinger. The night of the Wish is almost here.”

The Moon Clan daimyo was silent for several heartbeats, her expression clouded and far away. Finally, she stirred.

“I must...think on this,” she announced. “Tonight, I will commune with the kami and seek their wisdom on these matters. I will give you my answer tomorrow, but until this conflict is resolved, please stay at the palace as honored guests. The servants will prepare your rooms. Girl...” She turned to me, a shadow of uncertainty, doubt and fear sliding through her eyes, before they hardened with resolve. “Yumeko-san... I would speak with you alone. You are in no danger, but I think there are questions we both need answers to. Please, follow me.”

I glanced at the others who, aside from the stoic monk behind me, looked as dazed and confused by these revelations as I felt. My emotions seemed frozen, too stunned to comprehend the magnitude of what was happening. But Tatsumi gave me a somber nod as our gazes met, his dark eyes almost sympathetic.We’ll be fine, he was telling me.Go with the daimyo, Yumeko.I smiled at him weakly, then took a deep breath and started after Kiyomi-sama.

I followed the Tsuki daimyo through the halls of the palace, passing servants, courtiers and samurai, who gave me curious glances while pretending not to see us. The palace was dim and cool, but unlike the dark, labyrinthine halls of the Shadow Clan castle, the Moon Clan Palace was airy and open, with many rooms and hallways offering access to the outside. Tiny gardens with bushes, stones lanterns and patches of bamboo were interspersed throughout the palace, meticulously planted and tended to, small havens of nature surrounded by railings and walkways. Fireflies drifted through the halls, blips of yellow and green in the shadows, floating around the heads of passersby or landing on their clothes. As we passed another miniature garden, I saw a single kodama sitting on a rock beside a goldfish pond. It waved as I passed by, and I smiled back.

Finally, Tsuki-sama led me down a series of verandas, across an arched bridge over a pond, to a small island in the very center of the water. A gazebo sat surrounded by bamboo, with twisted vines curled around its pillars and a hole in the roof open to the night sky. Delicate chimes dangling from the stalks swayed gently on the wind, filling the air with faint, shivering notes that mingled with the sound of the breeze and the water. All around us, the night was alive with the presence of the kami.

Kiyomi-sama didn’t say anything at first. Walking to the edge of the gazebo, she gazed over the pond at the rising moon, whose pale light glimmered on the surface of the water. I waited silently, my emotions no longer frozen, but a writhing nest of nervousness, fear and disbelief. This woman...knew me. Tsuki Kiyomi, the daimyo of the entire Moon Clan, could be my...

“I come here sometimes,” she said with her back still turned. “When the duties of court become too much, or when I need to commune with the kami. Their voices have always been soft, disjoined, fragmented, depending on how they feel and which ones choose to answer, but they have never led me astray. They can be fickle, but after listening to them for years, I have learned to discern their voices, to separate fact from emotion, to see the truth. But there has always been one question I have asked, time and time again, that they have never been able answer.”

Kiyomi-sama finally turned, her dark eyes boring into me, as if seeking to see everything.

“I know you have questions,” she said, and her voice was shaking now, the thin veneer of calm starting to fade. “And I will do my best to answer. But before I do, I must ask that you tell me your story first. Who are you? Where have you been these past sixteen years? Did your father tell you anything about your past, where you came from? Did you ever suspect that, perhaps, you did not belong?”

I blinked. “My...father?” I repeated in a whisper. “You knew him?”

“Of course I did.” For a moment, Kiyomi-sama looked indignant and furious. “He was my husband. I loved him, gave him everything I had, only to have him betray me and everything I cared for.” She paused, shoulders slumping, and suddenly looked decades older. “He never spoke of me? Even once?”

“I—I never knew him,” I stammered. “I was found on the steps of a temple in the Earth Clan mountains and raised by the monks there. They taught me everything I know but...they never mentioned my family. I don’t think they knew where I came from, either.”

“I see,” Kiyomi-sama whispered, and sat down on the wooden bench surrounding the gazebo edge. “Then it appears he betrayed us both.”

Carefully, I perched on the edge of the bench across from her, watching as she seemed to gather herself. For a few moments, she stared blankly over the water, as if gathering memories long forgotten. Memories that she did not want to remember.

“Your father was yokai,” Kiyomi-sama said at last. “Obviously, you know this. You are half-kitsune, so it should come as no surprise. My husband was a man named Tsuki Toshimoko, a noble from one of the major families of the Moon Clan. It was an arranged marriage, of course. As the heir of the Tsuki family, I was promised to Toshimoko from the time I was six, and married when I was fourteen.”

“I’m sorry, Kiyomi-sama, but I’m confused. You said my father was yokai. Was Toshimoko-sama...?”

“No,” said Kiyomi-sama. “At least, not at first. Of this I am certain.” At my bewildered expression, she shook her head. “I know it sounds disjointed, Yumeko-san. It has taken me sixteen years to untangle what happened, and even now, I am uncertain as to when your father came into the picture. Nor do I know what happened to the real Toshimoko, though I fear the answer is obvious. Please bear with me as I try to explain.”

I bit my lip and fell silent, though inside, my nervousness grew. I could feel the writhing of my stomach, and felt like I was standing on the edge of an abyss, waiting for the ground to give way beneath me. The Moon Clan daimyo paused, then turned to gaze over the water again.

“For the first few years,” Kiyomi-sama went on, “everything was normal. My husband was a good man, honorable and fair. If he was distant, it was because his duties kept him very busy—his responsibility to the Moon Clan was his most pressing concern. Our marriage was one of convenience, though my failure to bear him an heir was always a point of contention between us. I believe he resented me for it, though he would never admit such a thing out loud.

“And then, one day, he simply...changed.” Kiyomi-sama frowned, her lips pursing as if she was struggling with the words. “No, forgive me—I am making it sound as if he suddenly forgot who he was. I do not remember when I started to notice, but he was suddenly more attentive to me, kinder and sympathetic. Not that he had ever been cruel—we had always treated each other with courtesy, but there was a warmth to him that had not been there before. He seemed genuinely interested in me, in my thoughts and ideas, encouraging me to share both my dreams and my fears with him. For the first time, I felt seen, understood. And as the months passed, I began to fall in love with him.

“When I discovered I was pregnant, I concluded that it must have been a blessing from the gods. I thought, however foolishly, that our love had overcome my barren womb, for love conquers all and places even the impossible within reach.” Kiyomi-sama gave a bitter smile. “Such notions are laughable now, but I was young and blissfully happy. Looking back, I lived those nine months as if in a dream.” She took a deep breath, her face darkening. “And then, that dream shattered, and became the nightmare I still live with today.”

A chill slid down my back. Kiyomi-sama continued to stare over the water, her expression growing haunted. “When the time came, my delivery had...complications,” she said. “I lost a lot of blood, and became delirious near the end. Everything is hazy now, as if the entire event had been a dream. But... I remember being desperate not to lose the baby, and screaming at the midwives to save it, to not let it die. What happened next...”

The daimyo trembled, her voice beginning to shake. “I faded in and out of consciousness for a bit,” she whispered, “but at one point, I remember looking up and thinking I saw my husband standing over me. That night, he...he seemed like a stranger, and his eyes...they were yellow, like the flicker of candle flames, and glowing in the darkness. He spoke to me, words that I can’t recall now, but I remember being filled with fear and rage and despair. I thought it was a nightmare, but when I woke and asked for my child...” Kiyomi-sama’s lip trembled; she had to pause and take a shaky breath before she could continue. “They told me that both the baby and my husband were gone. That they had vanished, sometime in the night, and that no one had seen them since.”

I bit my cheek, as the ache that had been growing in my throat threatened to close it completely. “I... I’m sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what to say.

“I looked for her,” the daimyo murmured, as if she hadn’t heard me. “I scoured the whole of the Moon Clan islands, every nook and hidden cranny, all the caves and deepest forests. I sent priests, warriors, even mercenaries to the mainland, searching for my stolen child and the husband who betrayed us all. No one could find a trace of them. It was as if they had vanished from this plane of existence.

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