Even when it had the exact opposite effect on the emperor.

Mariko intended to take every advantage of this, especially if it meant seeding enmity between the brothers. When she and Raiden started ascending the stairs, she pretended to stumble as though she’d missed a step. Her bloodied palm braced her fall, and she pressed her skin into the rough timber beam along the wall. With a soft cry, she inhaled abruptly. A whiff of the discarded charcoal used to heat the braziers floated into her nostrils, and the crystallized dust swirled down her throat, its flakes causing her to cough.

Raiden caught her against his side. “Are you injured?”

Her expression rueful, Mariko lifted her bloodied palm into the light. “I’m not badly hurt, my lord. Just clumsy.” She smiled a hesitant smile, lingering to gnaw on her lower lip. “Thank you … for being there to catch me, my lord.”

Raiden let his eyes run the length of her. He paused on the soiled hem of her kimono. On her trembling hair ornaments. On her bloody hand and tearstained face.

Then made a decision.

“You’re welcome, Mariko.”

Secrets of a Bamboo Sea

Whenever Tsuneoki had time to himself, he liked to reflect upon life. To consider the many decisions—both good and bad—that had led him to where he was now, strolling alone through a forest of bamboo, with nothing but sparkles of sunlight to guide his way.

As a boy, it had been easy for him to make rash decisions. Youth was a powerful excuse for folly. After Asano Naganori betrayed Takeda Shingen—accusing him of moving against the emperor—a chasm formed between factions of the nobility. In the chaos following, Tsuneoki lost his best friend. Then—a mere month later—he lost his own father. Alone and afraid, he swore to do whatever it took to earn Ōkami’s trust again.

And Tsuneoki had done anything and everything. Even sold his own soul.

Not long after the death of Takeda Shingen, Tsuneoki’s father was executed for treason as well. Tsuneoki fled his family to follow after Ōkami, leaving his mother and younger sister in the care of others. It seemed so simple at first, to disappear with his best friend on another adventure, as they’d often done before. To forget everything, especially his sorrowful mother and his wailing sister.

But they were so hungry on their own. Cold. Ōkami was lost. Tsuneoki was desolate. Against Yoshi’s advice, they met with a bedraggled wielder of magic, who brokered a deal for the boys in the winter of their tenth year.

With the aid of blood oaths and a black-stoned dagger, Tsuneoki and Ōkami gave their futures to demons of the forest—his to a nightbeast, and Ōkami’s to a shapeless demon of wind and fire. Tsuneoki learned to control his beast before it wrought havoc on everything it encountered. Ōkami’s demon was harder to control, but these demons of old relished the chance to once again take shape and be more than spirits sighing in the night.

The two boys swore to never betray their demons.

To follow the light of the moon.

To never have children of their own, for the demons would always be their masters. These decisions had been easy for boys barely ten years of age. Simple things to barter for the power to move about without fear.

But now?

Tsuneoki pushed aside the bright green shoots in his path. Paused to catch his breath before continuing his trudge through the sea of swaying bamboo. He’d long harbored the hope that one day Ōkami would return to his rightful place. Begin to care about things of significance again. Tsuneoki started the Black Clan—this band of wayward rōnin, set on offering hope to those in need of it—with a mind to inspire his best friend to greatness. But Ōkami built a wall around himself, preventing him from feeling anything of significance, be it pain or joy or sorrow.

Nothing Tsuneoki did or said managed to breach that wall, not once in years.

Until the arrival of Hattori Mariko.

A sharp pang seared through Tsuneoki’s side. The injury inflicted by the ghostly fox had just started to mend, and its memory was still sharp, the creature’s claws raking over his insides, even as he slept.

He could not shake the sense of disquiet that had lingered in him ever since the Black Clan attempted to take Akechi fortress. The dark magic he’d felt there reminded him so much of that fateful night eight years ago, when he and Ōkami met with a sorcerer clothed in tattered garments, beneath the light of a sickle moon.

That same sense of disquiet had descended over him then, as it did now.

He shook it off with a turn of his shoulders. Tsuneoki moved forward. The bamboo stalks bent at his will, his body rolling across their smooth surfaces. When he listened closely, a hushed melody seemed to sigh from their hollow centers, spilling secrets to the birds above. Soon he found himself winding down a narrow path, hidden deep in the woods.

He paused again to take stock of his surroundings.

Following the attack that had taken place in Jukai forest the week prior, the Black Clan abandoned their former encampment; it was no longer an option for obvious reasons. The battle against the imperial forces cost them many good fighters, each with families and lives and dreams of their own. Upon learning of these losses, several of the fallen warriors’ relatives elected to take their places and bear weapons against those in the imperial city. Word had spread across the nearby provinces. Friends and family members rode through the night, intent on joining the ranks of the Black Clan. They’d answered the call to action—the call to justice—being painted on stone walls and aging fences, hearkening to the not-so-distant past. Nodding to a symbol that combined the crest of the Asano clan with that of the Takeda.

The events in the forest had been an awakening for them all.

With the capture of the only living son of Takeda Shingen, the nobles loyal to the Minamoto clan attacked the last vestiges of the old ways. It was true that both Takeda Shingen and Asano Naganori mounted an uprising and were executed for treason as a result, but before that, they were heroes. Warriors of legend, upholding a sense of honor that had defined their ranks for centuries.

Over the last few days—despite all the odds—Tsuneoki had witnessed his numbers swell. Families who were no longer content to watch the fruits of their labor fill the coffers of their overlords had sent their sons to the Black Clan. Their brothers. Their fathers. Their nephews.

In less than a fortnight, they’d become too many for any one village to conceal.

Two days ago, Tsuneoki and his men took refuge in an unexplored domain, set against the mist-covered mountains. This maze of bamboo was known as the Ghost’s Gambit, famed for the unfortunate wanderers who had lost their way and were now believed to haunt its twisted paths. Tsuneoki’s men decided not to fight against this sea of bamboo, but to work with it. In doing so, they devised a unique kind of refuge.

Tsuneoki listened to the chiming of the wind as it flowed through the hollow bamboo stalks. A soft melody coiled around him, its ghostly fingers a whispered caress. It was the kind of song one heard if one knew how to listen. Soon he found the spot he’d been looking for. Not a clearing, but a narrow stream blanketed by a haze of fog. At first glance, nothing around him stirred, save for the rustling wind and the burbling water. Everywhere he looked, all he saw were long branches creaking in a liquid sway.

Then figures materialized from behind the stalks.

The Black Clan had built their homes in these trees. They used the bamboo as a means to conceal themselves. By collecting and weaving the sturdiest fronds through the treetops, they created platforms upon which structures had begun to take shape, floating in the canopy above. A wandering traveler would see nothing along the forest floor, save for the swirling mist.

Ren shifted from behind a curtain of stalks, a typically sullen look pulled across his features. One moment he was not there, the next he was in full view, the bamboo undulating in his wake. A boy no older than fourteen trailed at his heels—Yorishige, the nephew of Yoshi, who had traveled far to avenge the death of his eldest uncle.

After sliding down a sturdy rope, Haruki, the Black Clan’s metalsmith, crouched near the stream to wash the sweat from his shining face. “Is it true, then?”

Tsuneoki nodded. “My riders tell me the domains of the Yoshida clan and the Sugiura clan and the Yokokawa clan have fallen the same way as the Akechi. Not a single soldier is anywhere to be found; they’ve all fled or disappeared. It appears their minds have been swallowed by a dark magic.”