Spirit's Chosen

Part I

Kin

1

In the Wake of War

The first flakes of an early snowfall drifted from the sky as Kaya and I began our descent from the hillside above my village. I took deep breaths of the cold air and knew that autumn had slipped away at last. The final steps of the dance that I had just performed for the spirits still echoed through my bones. The lingering scent of summer from the thick pad of fallen pine needles in the forest behind us clung to me like a swirl of ghosts. I was going home.

“Kaya?” I paused partway down the slope and turned to her. She was being unnaturally silent and it troubled me. I was the daughter of the Matsu clan’s chieftain and her mother was chieftess and shaman of the Shika, yet our equal rank as princesses of our peoples was not what bound our lives together. We had become friends when I’d wandered into her village, many years ago, but neither she nor I could say exactly why we’d taken to each other so quickly. Perhaps we each recognized something in the other that we lacked, some quality that made the two of us better, stronger, happier together than we could be on our own. Even if she or I had been born to a family with no noble blood at all, we still would have been the best of friends, and more than that: we were sisters in spirit.

“Kaya, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I could barely hear her response, muttered under her breath. She wouldn’t look at me.

I refused to let her stay silent. “You’re a bad liar.” I spoke gently so she would know I meant no real insult. “You’re so quiet. Something is bothering you. What? Are you worried about what we’ll find down there?” I gestured to where my village lay, or what was left of it.

We were the Matsu, the pine tree clan, as strong and steadfast as the venerable tree that was our guardian spirit. Our village was protected by a sturdy wooden palisade, ringed by a wide ditch, and barricaded behind massive gates. A tall watchtower gave our sentries a good view of the surrounding countryside so that our warriors could rush to defend us when an enemy force appeared in the distance.

It hadn’t been enough. The Ookami—the wolf clan—had brought war to our land, and they won.

Our gates were smashed, our watchtower pulled down, our palisade broken, the dirt walls of our moat undermined until they’d collapsed. Many of our houses were now no more than smoldering piles of blackened timbers and ash. Worse, the ancient pine that was the living symbol of our people had been toppled and destroyed, leaving nothing behind but a splintered stump, a shattered blade that thrust at the heavens and stabbed at the heart of the Matsu.

“Are you afraid the Ookami haven’t gone?” I persisted. “Let me go ahead alone, then. If I don’t come back for you, you can—”

“As if I’d let you risk yourself like that!” she snapped. “If the Ookami are still in your village, we’ll face them together. Do you think I’m a liar and a coward?”

“You know I didn’t mean such a thing. And a coward would never have left the safety of her own village to travel here with me,” I replied evenly. “I’d never question your courage, but I have to question your silence. It’s not like you. What’s stolen your tongue?”

She looked at her feet again.

“Kaya, if you don’t speak up, how can I—?”

“It’s that.” Her eyes flashed with anger as they met mine. She gestured sharply at the wand of cherrywood in my hand.

Her words startled me. I turned the smooth stick slowly between my fingers. The glossy, dark brown bark looked almost black in the pale light of an overcast sky, but all along its length were frothy clusters of pink flowers. With the world poised at the gateway to winter, this thin branch was cloaked in blossoms of spring.

“This?” I was honestly bewildered. “This is what’s troubling you? But it’s a good sign, Kaya; we both know that.”

“Maybe you do.” My friend turned her gaze to the uphill path. “You’re a shaman; you’re at ease with things like this. I don’t know what to make of it. You had that twig with you on the day Sora brought you into our village, when you were lost and half mad with thirst and hunger. It’s been nothing more than a sliver of dead wood for many seasons since then, yet suddenly it bursts into bloom right before our eyes! You might feel comfortable with a miracle just—just”—she flung her hands up—“just leaping out at you, but I’m not!”

“Kaya—” Her distress was plain. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t find the words.

She wrapped her arms around her body and closed her eyes. I thought I glimpsed the trail of tears on her cheek, but she turned away too quickly for me to be sure. “You were right, Himiko,” she said in a strangely choked voice. “I am a bad liar, and I’m a coward too. I am scared. You’re holding a miracle in your hands, I don’t understand it, and I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”

“I know.” I put my arm around her shoulders, holding the blooming branch away from her. “These flowers—at first I felt almost certain they were a message from the gods telling us not to despair, but now . . .” I gazed at the snow falling on the trembling blossoms. Each delicate white flake caused another pink petal to lose its hold and tumble to the earth. “Does this mean that we should hold on to hope, or that it’s something too fragile to survive? Look, the twig is turning bare again.” As I spoke, the last petal dropped. My eyes followed its fall.

It touched the earth and vanished.

I gasped and clutched Kaya, driving my fingers deeply into her arm. “Did you see that?”

“Ow!” She jumped away and spun around to confront me. “That hurt. Why did you—?”

“It’s gone,” I said. “They’re all gone, all of the petals, as if they’d never been. I didn’t notice before, but . . .” I shivered, though I wasn’t cold. “The last one, just now, I saw—I saw it melt away instantly, like a snowflake falling into a fire. Look. There’s not a trace left of any of them.” I motioned to the ground. Though my wand had been thickly laden with blossoms, not a single sign remained. My recent words echoed through my mind—“hope . . . too fragile to survive”—and I felt a hard, sour knot twist my belly.

“Himiko?” Kaya gave me a peculiar look. “You’ve turned white as frost.”

“I—I’m scared,” I replied simply.

“Because the flowers vanished?” she asked. I nodded, which made her scratch her head. “Huh. And they frightened me when they appeared.” Her familiar smile crept back. “It sounds like our fears are playing mirror games.” She chuckled.

I tried to join in, but my false laughter was weak and fled as suddenly as the fallen petals. I gazed at the bare wand and passed my fingertips gingerly over the wood. “Nothing is left. Nothing.”

I began to weep without a sound. Tears bathed my face before I realized I was crying. When the first sob broke from my throat, Kaya already had her arms around me, my face resting against her shoulder.

“You’re not talking about the blossoms, are you,” she said. It was not a question. “I understand. Don’t worry, Himiko. Whatever’s waiting for you down there, you won’t face it alone. Those flowers carried a message from the gods, and messengers don’t linger once their job is done. The news they bring doesn’t change after they leave. You called those flowers a good sign, right?” I nodded. “So we’ve still got favorable omens on our side. Don’t you dare deny it!”

I raised my face and had to smile. It was good to hear my friend sounding like herself again: Lady Badger was back in all her gruff, stubborn glory. My distress let her set aside her own misgivings to help me through mine.

“I won’t,” I replied. “But . . . suppose I was wrong?”

Kaya snorted, sending the snowflakes flying crazily around us. “Next thing, you’ll be claiming that none of it ever happened, that it was another one of your visions.”

“It might as well have been a dream,” I said. “There’s no way to prove it was real.”

“Oh, it was real enough, I’ll swear to that. Maybe you could imagine something so fanciful, but not me, never. I’m a hunter, Himiko. I don’t jump at shadows, and I only see what’s there. Once we bring you home, you’re going to tell everyone in the village about what we saw here. Who’s better than their shaman to bring such cheering news? The gods know, they’ll need it.”

“I’m not their shaman, Kaya,” I whispered. “Have you ever heard of any clan with two?”

“Maybe . . .” My friend took a deep breath. “I don’t like saying this, but maybe your people no longer have a shaman.”

“No!” I pushed Kaya away so violently that she staggered. “Don’t say—don’t even imagine such a thing! Master Michio’s alive. The Ookami wouldn’t dare kill a man who can command the spirits.”

My friend looked at me with pity. “Himiko, it was war. The wolf clan wouldn’t have hesitated to strike down anyone in their way, shaman or not.”

“Stop it!” I cried, clenching my fists so hard that I drove the cherrywood wand painfully into my palm. “I don’t want to hear this!”