EIGHTH BLOOD

Chapter 79: The promise

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Rin hurried through the castle, keeping her head low as she neared her destination.

None of the soldiers had questioned why she wasn't in her room or with Tsunayoshi, but they were bound to say something when she tried to enter a restricted zone without their lord's permission. Her heart pounded as the large wooden gate that marked the entrance to the jail sector came into view. The two soldiers manning the gate raised their heads when they sensed her coming, then assumed defensive stances. Their naginatas glinted in the harsh midday sun.

Her expression changed from calm to worried as she broke into a run. "Intruders!" she shouted. "They ambushed us in the Stone Garden! One of your comrades is hurt! Please help him!"

The demons lowered their weapons and waited for her to catch her breath. "How many?" one asked.

"I'm not sure," she whimpered. "It all happened so fast."

"You're all right now," the other demon assured her. "We'll deal with the matter from here. You said this took place in the Stone Garden?"

She nodded, then added, "Please don't tell Tsunayoshi-sama that I was there. I wanted to surprise him with a bunch of flowers, so I begged the guards to sneak me outside. They put themselves in harm's way so that I could get away. I'd hate for them to get into trouble on account of me."

To her surprise, the two demons smiled.

"Fear not, my lady," the first one said. "We won't breathe a word of this to anyone."

She smiled back. "Thank you for your consideration. I won't forget it. Now go. And please hurry."

They bowed low before sprinting away with their weapons drawn. Rin waited until the sound of their loud footsteps petered out before smiling wider. The lie would no doubt come back to bite her in the ass later, but at least it would buy her enough time to learn what she needed from Kohaku.

She turned and yanked the gate open, then pulled it shut behind her. There weren't any soldiers inside the jail sector itself, so searching the cells was an easy albeit monotonous task. There were over a hundred cells to check, and each one had a heavy iron door with multiple latches and a rectangular slot. The latter made her job a lot easier, since it saved her the trouble of opening and closing every single door. She thanked the gods for her latest growth spurt. If she'd been a couple of inches shorter, she wouldn't have been tall enough to peer through the slots. Her stomach fluttered when she saw a pair of humanoid feet sticking out of the shadows in one of the cells. She scrambled with the locks and hauled the door open.

"Kohaku?"

He raised his head and stared at her with dull, lifeless eyes. His face was a mess of cuts and bruises. Her throat burned when she saw recognition flash through his features.

"Rin?" he whispered. "Is that you?"

She launched herself at him. He grunted in pain as she wrapped her arms around his blood-slicked neck, but made no attempt to push her away. She felt him press his face against her shoulder and shudder.

"For a second there, I thought you were an onryo," he mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

She drew back and locked eyes with him again. "Isn't it obvious? I'm here for you." She reached down to take his hand, only to find that his wrists were bound together with rope. The flesh where the fibres had rubbed looked bloody and raw. "That looks bad."

"I've had worse."

Tears blurred her vision. "I should've come sooner. I'm sorry. You must hate me."

"I could never hate you."

She reached into her robes and pulled out a flask of water. His eyes brightened when he saw it, encouraging her to unscrew the cap and touch the flask to his cracked lips. He drank until his thirst was quenched. Rin waited for his breathing to return to normal before combing her fingers through his matted hair, untangling the knots.

"Have you seen Kirara?" he asked.

"I thought she was with you."

"They moved her yesterday. The usurper hasn't said anything to you about it?"

She shook her head.

"What about Shippo? Is he . . ."

"He's alive," she answered.

"Thank the gods."

She scrubbed the tears from her eyes and exhaled deeply. "Listen to me. We don't have much time. I didn't come to break you out. I'm here because I need your help. I know that probably isn't what you wanted to hear, but it's the truth. I'm so sorry, Kohaku—"

"Quit apologising and tell me what you need."

His eyes blazed with determination. "I need to know which plants are toxic to dragon youkai. If there even are any. I know Inuyasha-sama can't eat onions because he's part dog youkai, so there must be a dragon equivalent. It doesn't have to kill him. It just needs to weaken him a bit."

Kohaku frowned. "There's the akai shi flower, but it only grows at high altitudes. You can find them in the Western Mountains."

"I've never heard of them."

"It's an endangered species," he explained. "Ingesting the flower's poison triggers a disease known as the Red Death, which – as the name suggests – is fatal. When demons learned that the flowers were just as harmful to them as they were to humans, they wiped most of them out.

"When I was a boy, my father told me a story about a woman who used the akai shi to punish those who harmed her. Her parents sold her to a pleasure house when she was nine, but she didn't discover the flower until her sixteenth birthday. Once she'd learned what it was capable of, she realised that she could mash the petals into a paste and wear it as a rouge. After that, every customer that bedded her died a slow and painful death. It was obvious that they were being poisoned, but there wasn't enough evidence to incriminate her. Eventually, the owner of the pleasure house ripped up her contract and threw her out. Before she left, the woman gifted the rouge to the youngest of her former sisters and fled, never to be seen again."

"How long does the disease take to kill someone?"

"It depends on the dosage. The more poison you've consumed, the faster the disease sets in and kills you." His frown deepened, causing a cut on his bottom lip to reopen. Rin wiped the blood away with her fingers, then withdrew her hand and cradled it against her chest. "Don't do anything stupid," he implored. "The usurper doesn't stand a chance against Sesshoumaru-sama and he knows it, so have a little faith in him."

"I do!" she insisted. "But faith isn't enough on its own." The howling was at her back, and the sound of paws on the forest floor clogged her ears. She could feel their teeth tearing into her, hear the scrape of their claws as they dragged them across her already bruised and battered flesh, smell the blood that oozed out of her like scalding hot mud. "I learned that the hard way."

Kohaku's frown faded.

Rin banished the awful thoughts and gazed into his amber eyes. Her chest ached at the reminder of all she'd lost. "Why did you lie?"

"About what?"

"You said you'd write to me. You promised. After you set off on your quest to rebuild your village, I sent you hundreds of letters, but you only replied to a few of them. Did they annoy you that much?" He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "You never once came back to visit me, either. You were my best friend. Were you really that busy or were you just sick of me?"

"Of course I wasn't sick of you! I couldn't always write back, but I did read all of your letters. I looked forward to them, actually."

Rin swallowed the lump in her throat. She was being stupid. It had been years since she'd said goodbye to him. She hadn't realised how final that goodbye would be at the time. He usually found his way back to Lady Kaede's village one way or another, so when he didn't return, her heart had broken all over again.

He was here now, though.

"I don't know what to do, Kohaku. I know I have to stop him, but I'm so afraid. I can't eat. I can't sleep. All I can think about is how scared I am. It's not fair. You never let fear get in the way of doing what needs to be done. Why can't I be like you?"

He snorted. "You don't want to be like me. Besides, you're plenty brave yourself."

She shook her head. "The villagers were right about me. I really am cursed."

"No, you're not. Those cowards who hurt you—they were the ones in the wrong. You were a child. They should have protected you."

"People rarely help unless there's something in it for them," she countered.

Kohaku's eyes softened and he clutched her fingers. "Not you," he whispered. "You don't need an excuse to help people, you just do it. It's one of the things I love about you. Don't you get it? I wanted to be like you."

Her cheeks warmed at the admission.

"Fear isn't evil," he told her. "Everyone gets scared sometimes. Bravery isn't the absence of fear. It's what you use to fight it. Remember that."

"I will."

"Good. Now go. You have to get out of here before the guards come back."

"I can't just leave you."

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Promise?"

He smiled. "I promise. And I mean it this time."

Tears rolled down her cheeks and pooled beneath her chin. Kohaku's grip on her fingers tightened and he leaned in to press his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes and shuddered, wishing he would just swallow his pride and swear fealty to Tsunayoshi like Shippo had.

A loud bang echoed from outside the cell, followed by booming footsteps. Rin's eyes snapped open and she scrambled to her feet. She contemplated slamming the door shut with her still inside, but there was no guarantee that whoever the footsteps belonged to wouldn't check the cells for intruders. She held Kohaku's gaze one last time before dashing out of the cell and closing the door behind her. The slam thundered through the jail sector, making her pulse quicken as the intervals between each footstep grew shorter. She reached a dead end and punched the wall with her fists. If she were a demon, she could make the entire wall crumble with a single blow. If she were a demon, she could best the thing that was following her and free Kohaku without breaking a sweat. But she wasn't a demon. She was human. And just like last time, it was going to be the death of her.

"I underestimated you," the usurper's voice echoed from behind her. "You're craftier than you look."

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Author's Corner

Onryo = a vengeful spirit characterised by its long black hair and pale white skin.