Bloodline, 4/10
The royal court was a busy one. Nino was free to roam the grounds at his leisure, though he was not yet allowed into several areas. His grandfather’s audience chamber and vast suite of rooms were off limits since Nino was still considered illegitimate, a guest of the court rather than an official member of it.
Takahashi or another advisor was usually sent to escort him around, to keep him from visiting locations forbidden to him. Nino figured it was best to make his face known around court than hide away in his chambers and arouse even more suspicion. Many welcomed him, inclining their heads as they passed him in the halls. A few others were colder, but he suspected those people might be more loyal to Prince Jun. Nino’s sudden appearance at court was an open threat to the succession…unless he was proved to be just as powerless as his brother.
He walked the palace grounds, members of the Kingsguard trailing him through the maze of bushes, along the orchard groves. He stood watching the soldiers train, swords colliding as Kanna held a parasol over his head to keep his skin from baking in the sun. On his walks, he did his best to examine the gates. The palace’s doorways and exits. There was always someone around. He doubted he’d ever be able to make a run for it.
Yet by moving openly around court, he was able to keep curious folks from trying to meet with him in his own rooms. This helped him to conceal the injured Sho for the time being, Nino charging Mirei and the others with keeping anyone else out. Sho himself was still sore, tired beyond measure, but in another week or so he might be back to his old self. But there was no erasing the death sentence that still hung over him.
It remained unspoken between them as they sat up late talking the next few nights, Sho doing his best to fill in the gaps in Nino’s knowledge.
The Sorceress Rumiko, Nino’s aunt, was not the woman she claimed to be. Sho made that clear right from the beginning. She was not her father’s favorite - the king had always favored his son, though Yukio had never been as bloodthirsty as Kotaro had wished. Rumiko saw that as her way into her father’s heart, her motives twisted from a young age.
Rumiko’s blood magic was strong, nearly as strong as her father’s. Perhaps stronger than her brother Yukio’s. She was a harsh mistress - there had been whispers for years about Rumiko’s servants vanishing without a trace. Magical experiments, some had claimed. Torture, others hinted. A few of Rumiko’s maids had been found face down in fountains scattered across the palace grounds. Some suicides, some…likely not.
She had relished her powers, and rumors spread about the cruelty she showed to the sons of the God of the Waters as well. Word got back to the king, and Kotaro refused to allow it. Not out of pity for the gods he ruled. No, the king simply didn’t want his illegitimate daughter growing too powerful at court. The king refused to let anyone appear more powerful than him.
Sho had been a teenager when Rumiko had been punished the first time. Sent away to a castle a hundred miles from the capital to “learn her lesson.” Her favor with the king waxed and waned over the next several years. He’d send her away, recall her to court. And then her cruel streak would show itself, and she’d be banished again. Back and forth, her powers suppressed and released. Suppressed and released.
“Prince Yukio believed she was insane,” Sho explained quietly. “I’ve always been inclined to agree with him.”
Always good to see you out of your cage, Matsumoto Jun had joked about Rumiko in Kotaro’s audience chamber. Now Nino better understood what he’d meant.
Kotaro’s favor for his grandson had shifted over the years as well, Sho informed him. In the years before he’d come of age, young Prince Jun had been a court favorite. Charming, intelligent, obsessed with upholding the family legacy.
“He was better liked than his own father,” Sho said. “And then it all went wrong.”
On his twentieth birthday there’d been a lavish ceremony, and Prince Jun had been tattooed right there in the royal audience chamber. His grandfather, his father and mother, and the entire court all watched as the young prince endured the needles again and again and again.
“He didn’t scream, Nino,” Sho told him, face ashen at the memory. “He didn’t scream once. But I will never forget the scream he let out when he discovered he had no power at all. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”
“You grew up together?” Nino couldn’t help asking.
“In a manner of speaking,” Sho mumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“I served his father, and Prince Yukio wished for me to eventually serve as his son’s advisor. The history of the Sakurai family’s loyalty…uh, notwithstanding,” Sho said. “I attended lessons with Prince Jun. I waited on him as I waited on his father. Perhaps you consider that growing up together. I considered it a matter of duty.”
Nino raised an eyebrow. Sho was hiding something.
“Anyhow. As you know, Prince Yukio wished to free the gods. When Jun…” Sho caught himself quickly, but Nino didn’t miss it. “When Prince Jun was revealed to be powerless, it formed a rift between them. Already the king had written Prince Jun off as useless and…and I’m afraid your father was no different.”
Nino sighed. “I’d feel sorry for him, honestly I would…”
And yet Prince Jun had stood there in the audience chamber, laughing as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Prince Jun had stood there and elected not to fight for Sho’s life, for the life of a man who’d grown up with him. Served his family loyally since he was a child. Instead he’d given him a teasing bite from his apple and simply asked for Sho’s death to be postponed. For propriety’s sake.
“He’s lost his way,” Sho explained quietly.
“He’ll inherit this kingdom, powers or no,” Nino said. “He hasn’t lost anything.”
“That’s up to you,” Sho replied. “Isn’t it?”
Nino was silent, stroking the inside of his elbow absent-mindedly. In only a few days, he’d know what his future held…and Jun’s as well.
Out in the desert, he’d never known that gods had been trapped in the capital. But he’d seen one of them, Masaki, standing right behind the king openly in the audience chamber. The people of the palace clearly knew of their existence, saw what power they possessed. How come the common people didn’t? The answer was rather simple, Sho explained. Keeping the royal family’s biggest secret kept you alive at court. If you told an outsider (who was unlikely to believe such a thing was possible anyhow, that a god might be trapped), you would be killed. Sho knew it to be true, had seen it done a few brutal times. The aristocrats and civil servants of Amaterasu held their tongues, if only so they might continue to enjoy the watery benefits of the gods’ enslavement.
“Where do they stay?” Nino wondered. “The sons of the God of the Waters? Takahashi took me all over, but I didn’t trust him enough to ask.”
Sho nodded. “You’ve already met Masaki. You might think of him as the agreeable one.”
“Agreeable how?”
“He’ll create water without being compelled.” Sho exhaled slowly. “On most days. Even gods have limits to their patience.”
Nino said nothing.
“Masaki…he was friendly with your father. Frankly, he’s friendly with most around here. The gods don’t require sleep the way you or I do, but they do require rest after performing their duties.”
Sho was using a rather polite and diplomatic tone. It reminded him of Takahashi and the other courtiers he’d met so far. He didn’t care for it.
“Performing their duties…you actually mean to say that they require rest after they’re tortured.” Nino leaned forward, commanding Sho’s attention. “Be straight with me.”
Sho looked down. “Yes, after they’ve been compelled. They’re far from the sea. You may think the water here is abundant, but it’s come at a cost. A harsh cost.”
“I imagine so.”
“Masaki has a bedchamber in the king’s apartments. He is favored by the king because he is, as I’ve said already…agreeable,” Sho explained. “That part of the palace is off limits to you for now.”
“So I’ve been told,” Nino replied. “And the other one? What palace euphemism do they have for him? Disagreeable?”
“The elder brother is Satoshi,” Sho explained. “He…”
The other son of the God of the Waters was the one Sho warned him about. He remembered Seitaro’s explanation of the blood magic. The gods could not harm a descendant of the Matsumoto bloodline. This Satoshi could not hurt him whether Nino had powers or not. But Sho’s expression was serious.
“He is favored by no one,” Sho said. “Your father tried…he offered Satoshi private rooms once, a place of his own. He refused.”
Good for Satoshi, Nino couldn’t help thinking. Trapped inside the capital’s walls and tortured for hundreds of years, why should he play nice?
“He isn’t seen often. I scarcely know much about him, even though I’ve lived in this palace as long as I can remember,” Sho continued. “He roams at will…well, to the extent that he’s able. As far as I know, he has never created water without being forced to.”
The sons of the God of the Waters had been trapped in Amaterasu for centuries. They’d chosen divergent paths. From the way Sho explained it, Nino assumed that Masaki had come to terms with his fate. Creating water willingly to avoid additional punishment and suffering. Not quite acceptance. Self-preservation. His brother, however, still fought against it all these years later. Nino wondered what path he’d have chosen if their positions were reversed.
“Yukio…my father…he wanted to free them,” Nino said. “How did he plan to do that?”
“He was convinced that one of the ancient scrolls in the royal library might hold the key. The tattoos have been passed down for generations, the curse of the blood magic. Prince Yukio believed there had to have been records or spells from Sorcerer Raku’s time, spells he used to cast the original curse. If he could find a way to reverse engineer the original curse, he thought he might be able to break it entirely.”
“Yukio only just died, but he received the tattoos of the bloodline forty years ago. You’re telling me that after forty years he found nothing?”
Sho looked grim. “The palace is full of spies, and Prince Yukio was never known for his love of scholarship. Those scrolls are nearly impossible to decipher. Sorcerers don’t exactly want their spell secrets in wide circulation, so almost everything Yukio managed to read was encoded to hide the truth. He couldn’t risk looking around every day of his life. If he’d spent days upon days in the royal library, it would have been suspicious. It might have been reported back to the king.”
“Forty years, Sho.”
“Before I left Amaterasu to find you, the prince believed he was close. It encouraged him to find you, just in case he wasn’t strong enough. The plan was for Yukio to find the information he needed and smuggle it out of the palace to you on his estate so you could work in secret. Obviously that plan has fallen through, and you’re right in the middle of the vipers’ nest here. But I know where to at least start looking in the library,” Sho explained. “And besides, you’ve got the best excuse of all to spend time there. You want to learn more about your family’s history. It won’t arouse as much curiosity so you’ll have time to be methodical.”
Nino had to admit that he much preferred the thought of looking through dusty scrolls over continuing his family’s long legacy of torture.
“I don’t have forty years, Sho,” he said. “More like three months.”
Sho frowned. “Nino…”
He moved away, not wanting to linger on the topic of Sho’s pending execution. “I’ll visit the library in the afternoon tomorrow. Establish a routine. The desert rat that loves to read. Now, let’s see what the folks in the palace kitchens have in store for supper.”
Ignoring Sho’s forlorn expression, he left the room to tug on the cord that would summon Mirei.
Tomorrow the library. And the day after that the tattoos.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye once again, outside in the courtyard. He’d left the curtains open, walking briskly to the edge of the pool and looking up. The sky had darkened since he and Sho had begun talking, but even the best spy perched on the roof above them would not have heard their conversation.
He hoped.
He circled the pool, eyes squinting in the dark, looking for anything that might reveal the spy. The edge of a foot or a scrap of fabric disappearing over the top of the wall. He could have sworn he’d seen something out here.
“My lord,” came Mirei’s voice from inside the sitting room. She’d given up on “Your Highness,” but she wouldn’t do much more than that. “My lord, what is the matter?”
A cool breeze rustled his hair, and he settled his hands on his hips in disappointment. Nino took one last look above him, the darkness obscuring everything past the edge of the roof.
“Nothing,” he replied, concealing his growing fear. “Nothing but shadows.”
-
As he had in previous days, Nino made no attempt to conceal where he planned to visit that afternoon. Takahashi was all too happy to escort Nino to the royal library. Nino smiled and acted agreeable when Takahashi led him through the hushed series of rooms, the shelves packed almost to bursting with scrolls dating back hundreds of years.
“While I traveled here with my dear aunt, she told me of her own studies when she was younger. About the family, our heritage,” Nino said, cloaking his true agenda as best he could. “I couldn’t help but envy her, having access to this marvelous collection her whole life.”
Takahashi smiled politely, although like most people Nino had encountered so far, he was no supporter of the Sorceress Rumiko. “Yes, she certainly spent a long time studying here.”
Nino was formally introduced to the elderly librarian, Yoshinaga, who was perched on a high seat behind a podium that guarded the entryway to the oldest items in the collection. She eyed him warily, but Nino had no reason to fear. She looked at Takahashi, the trusted royal advisor, with the same critical expression.
“Whatever you remove from a shelf goes on the work table nearest the door when you’re finished. The staff will return it to its proper place. The items are priceless, many of them the sole surviving copies, and I won’t allow any carelessness.”
Nino inclined his head. “Of course, Madame.” Which meant he’d have to obscure his true intentions. If all he unraveled were scrolls about blood magic, Yoshinaga might have reason to suspect him. He’d have to add in extra scrolls here and there to make it look as though he was studying a little bit of everything. He could see now why Prince Yukio’s search had taken him so long.
Yoshinaga remained on her perch, keeping watch over the larger reading room while Takahashi opened the door to the historical records room. Unlike the main library with its soaring ceilings and big bright windows with views of the palace gardens, this room was dark and depressing. Quiet as a tomb. The shelves were packed closer together, and Takahashi led him to a study table in the rear.
“I must admit I’ve spent little time in this room myself,” Takahashi admitted, “but I think you’ll be able to study in peace back here. I remember Prince Yukio, may the Gods favor him, preferring to come back here when his tutors set him to study his family tree. He never did like studying…”
Nino grinned. “With learned advisors like you around, Takahashi, what need did he have for such intense study?”
To Nino’s surprise, the older man gobbled up the compliment like a fine meal. Given the king’s attitude, Nino wondered if the advisors and servants of the palace were ever truly shown appreciation for their hard work. “You’re too kind, Your Highness. Too kind.”
“Thank you very much for the introduction. I won’t keep you from your work any longer,” he said, still uncomfortable with the idea of dismissing someone outright.
Takahashi left with a smile and a bit more confidence in his steps. Nino was finally alone when he heard the door close. Today wouldn’t be one for study, Nino decided. Not just yet. Instead he decided it was best to learn what was available, the shelves to best consider and the ones to dismiss outright.
The only light came from the sconces along the wall, and the room was cooler than most of the other ones he’d visited. Likely a preservative measure, especially if the scrolls were irreplaceable. The shelves to the left side of the room largely consisted of government records, far older than ones Nino had seen in the offices Takahashi had shown him days earlier. Population statistics for the kingdom as a whole, for Amaterasu. Outdated taxation laws, water laws. Copies of treaties that had long since expired.
It was the shelves on the right side that would likely hold the key to the enlightenment Nino actually sought. Court records dating back to Queen Emi’s reign, Nino discovered as he squinted in the low light to read the handwritten labels affixed to each shelf. Biographies and chronicles of Matsumoto family monarchs and their kin. Nino had a feeling that all of those works had the kindest things to say about the despots who’d been ruling the Sun Kingdom for centuries. He doubted that honest criticism ever found its way into the royal library.
And just as Sho had informed him that morning, Nino found the last few shelves unlabeled. The personal records of Sorcerer Raku himself. As the founder of the current royal bloodline, any scrap of paper that had fallen under Raku’s pen had been preserved here. The problem, of course, was that the man had done his utmost to conceal what he’d done. Nothing but a handful of innocuous records pre-dated his own reign over the Sun Kingdom.
Ninomiya Seitaro had taught him to read at a young age, mostly so Nino might help his mother in organizing and tracking their finances. The Sun Kingdom’s writing system had become more simplified over time, but the characters from the old days, from Sorcerer Raku’s days, often had multiple meanings. A turn of phrase could be read literally or figuratively, depending on an author’s intent. Nino knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
Sho had never been granted privileges to read the works in this room. Only the librarian, her most trusted staff, and those with royal blood were permitted to study here. In bits and pieces, Yukio had looked at scrolls and jotted down phrases, paragraphs. He’d brought them to Sho and together they’d attempted to translate the words of old into something they might be able to understand and use. It had been a painfully slow process - every single thing of Raku’s had been saved. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of scrolls and scraps to go through. And it wasn’t as though a brilliant sorcerer like Raku would have labeled his original blood curse as such.
In a kinder world, Yukio might have enlisted his son to help him. Even if Prince Jun lacked the ability to compel the gods, his royal blood would have granted him entrance to these rooms. He’d studied in here extensively as a boy, reading the family histories while he prepared for the day when he’d be tattooed. Father and son might have been able to cover more ground. And yet Yukio had turned away from Jun. Sho doubted that Yukio had ever even told Jun his dream of breaking the curse once and for all.
Nino knew the king’s views on the gods. He knew Rumiko’s. But what did Jun think? Would Jun want Masaki and Satoshi to be freed? It was too early to know. Nino and Jun had only met the one time, and it had not exactly been a friendly encounter. For fourteen long years, Nino knew that his brother had been treated as an outcast. Perhaps the words of Sorcerer Raku meant little to him now.
Which meant Nino would be on his own, with only Sho to guide him. And if it took longer than three months…
He shook his head, leaning his hand against the dusty shelf and exhaling.
“Hello there.”
He staggered back, turning to find a man standing in the aisle. Nino hadn’t heard the door open and close, but perhaps he’d been a bit too lost in thought. He needed to be more careful.
Nino stood his ground, feeling that chill go down his spine once again. Masaki, the son of the God of the Waters, was at the end of the aisle watching him. It was just the two of them in this room, mortal and god.
“Hello,” Nino replied. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry to startle you.” Masaki’s voice was light, conversational. Nino hadn’t known what to really expect. Perhaps he’d imagined the voice of a god being a bit more…forceful.
“Are you allowed to be in here?”
Masaki smiled. “I’m allowed to go just about anywhere, Ninomiya Kazunari.”
He froze at the sound of his full name falling from the lips of a god. Masaki took a step toward him, turning his eyes away. Already, without the god’s eyes watching him, Nino felt less afraid.
Masaki instead ran a fingertip along the shelf before him, examining the dust. “They ought to take better care in here.”
Nino didn’t know what to say. How did one make small talk with a god anyway?
He was taller than Nino by a few inches, but he was still the size of an ordinary man. Ordinary hair, ordinary nose, ordinary mouth. Ordinary arms and legs. And yet he was immortal. It was likely that Masaki had looked this way, unchanging, for centuries. The thought unsettled him.
“Your father is a Water Finder,” Masaki said, his eyes wandering along the unmarked shelves, crouching down to poke at some of the lower shelves as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
“My…my father was Prince Yukio.”
Masaki looked up at him and smiled again. It was almost soothing this time. “I met your father. I met Seitaro.”
Nino didn’t feel the desire to correct him.
“I traveled with Yukio once, when he was a young man. It was the first time I’d been away from these walls in…” Masaki looked away, getting back to his feet. “…let’s just say the first time I’d been away in a long while.”
Masaki walked back down the aisle, heading to examine one of the shelves on the left side of the room instead, the government records. Nino felt he had no choice but to follow along.
“Seitaro was kind to me, though our acquaintance was very brief,” Masaki said.
Nino remembered what Seitaro had told him that night in Toyone-mura. When Yukio visited his village, how he’d seen Yukio compel the god to create water. That god had been Masaki.
“I was the one who told Yukio to send your mother to Seitaro,” Masaki informed him. “I remembered his kindness. I see it reflected in you.”
Nino looked away. “You know why I’ve been brought here.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow they’ll put those marks on me. They brought me here to control you.”
Masaki turned, leaning back against the shelf gently, crossing his arms. “I know.”
“Doesn’t that anger you?”
Masaki didn’t seem angry or happy. His eyes merely held curiosity as he looked at Nino again. “Do you wish to control me?”
He paused, knowing he had to be careful. The first time they’d met, Masaki had been standing just behind the throne. He had a private bedchamber in the king’s suite of apartments. Nino doubted that Masaki was strictly the king’s ally, but Nino didn’t know the full extent of the blood magic. If Masaki could be compelled to create water, could he also be compelled to reveal whatever he and Nino were talking about? Had the king sent Masaki to spy on him? Had Rumiko? Though Masaki had mentioned Seitaro, had spoken of him with respect, it still might be a ploy.
Nino couldn’t trust him.
“I’ve been told that you will create water without being forced to. Am I mistaken?”
If Masaki was annoyed with Nino’s dodge, he didn’t show it in his eyes. “You are not.”
Nino pulled up the sleeve of his tunic, revealing his pale, still unmarked skin. “I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But there are expectations upon me.”
“I understand.”
I don’t want to hurt you, Nino wanted to tell him. I don’t want to hurt you or your brother. But he couldn’t say it. The king and Rumiko needed to believe he was committed. He had to play their game or he’d never have the freedom to try and undermine them.
Masaki’s fingers were cool, ticklish as he traced them along the inside of Nino’s arm. “They will hurt.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Masaki smiled gently. “Kerida blossom.”
“I’m sorry?”
Masaki gave his arm a gentle poke before letting him go. “Send Sakurai Sho to me tomorrow. I’ll give him some.”
“What for?”
“The son of Ninomiya Seitaro should know,” Masaki teased before moving away. He left the room quietly, the door opening and closing behind him with a gentle click.
All Nino could do was stand there. Gods were real. Gods walked among them. One had spoken to him, seemingly offering advice or help. Was it genuine? Or a trap?
He could still feel the lingering chill of Masaki’s touch on his skin, and Nino rolled his sleeve back down with a shuddering breath.
-
Unlike Prince Jun, Nino received his tattoos in the privacy of his rooms. A young woman Nino didn’t know followed Rumiko into his sitting room that morning. Nino had been instructed not to eat any breakfast. The implication, Sho had informed him, was that the pain of the procedure might induce nausea. Nobody wanted Nino to vomit all over the tattooist.
The woman toted a leather case, opening it to reveal an elaborate set of extremely thin bamboo needles. Just seeing those, Nino was grateful he hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. There were small pots of dark ink, the purple he recognized from Rumiko’s skin. He noticed that the onyx bangle from his aunt’s ankle was missing this morning. Whatever magic was required for the ritual would apparently be her own.
A special chair was brought in for the procedure, a metal clamp attached to it where he was instructed to rest his left arm. He bit his lip when the tattooist strapped him into it, leaving his arm immobile. Sho stood in the corner of the room, watching with a serious expression. He’d watched this happen to Prince Jun. Now he’d have to witness it again.
Nino tried to focus on breathing as Mirei brought in a stool for the tattooist. The young woman sat down at Nino’s side. She would draw the six symbols first, she explained, inclining her head and apologizing in advance for the pain.
“Kerida blossom?” Sho had wondered the night before. “I’m afraid I don’t know it.”
“It’s the old name for slattern weed,” Nino had told him, having looked it up in an herbalist’s guide in the library shortly after Masaki had departed.
Nino watched the six unfamiliar symbols appear on his skin in a thin trace of ink. Rumiko was in the center of the room, holding the pot of purple ink in her hand. She started to speak, but it was in a language Nino didn’t know. Just like the symbols being traced on his flesh, it was likely the language of the gods. She’d learned it by interpreting Raku’s writings. Unraveling his mysterious words on her own.
Nino watched the ink change color, grow darker still.
“What’s slattern weed?” Sho had asked him.
“Rare. Expensive. I’ve never used it before. It grows by the Great Sea. I’ve never seen it in our kingdom,” Nino had replied.
The curse laid upon the ink, Rumiko presented it to the young woman. Nino let out shuddering, nervous breaths as the woman upended the ink pot over his arm. This was no regular tattoo. The liquid was hot, itchy, and he fidgeted at the feeling of it running across his skin, over the symbols traced from the inside of his elbow to his wrist. But his arm didn’t move. If he jerked too suddenly at the pain to come, Rumiko told him with a smile, he’d likely dislocate his shoulder. It had happened to Yukio.
A small reservoir underneath the arm clamp caught the extra ink before it spilled on the tatami floor. The tattooist then brought out a bamboo handle, the tip of it full of small holes. Nino watched as she inserted each of her long, thin needles into a hole. The finished tool full of close-packed needles, the woman explained, would be thrust under his skin again and again, pushing the ink into the wounds.
“And yet Masaki has some of it?” Sho had asked. “What does it do?”
“Slattern weed, kerida blossom, whichever you prefer…it’s a curative for poison.”
The woman positioned the tool full of needles against the topmost symbol, inclining her head. She would work her way down toward his wrist. “Forgive me, Your Highness,” she whispered.
It was maybe ten or fifteen swift thrusts of the needles under his skin before the pain registered. And then he was lost in it, sobbing without shame.
“Poison?”
“Was Jun given anything after he received the tattoos? Do you remember?”
Rumiko sat at his other side, clasping his free hand and squeezing. “They’re going to look so beautiful.”
“No,” Sho had said, lip quivering at the memory of what had been done to Jun. “No, you’re just supposed to endure it. He had a fever for a week when it was done. It almost killed him. They merely wrapped his arm in cloth so they could scab over and heal but…no, I don’t remember the tattooist giving him anything…it was forbidden…it’s always been forbidden…”
Nino had fallen from a camel’s back when he was nine, breaking his ankle. When he was twenty-one, he’d had an infected tooth. Days from any town, he’d had to have a carpenter traveling with the caravan yank it from his jaw. Those incidents…they simply couldn’t compare.
Nino tried to focus on Sho, Sho standing in the corner of the room, trying to be invisible and silent in Rumiko’s presence. He could hear Kanna and the other maids crying in sympathy somewhere behind him. His skin was stained purple from the ink, his blood swirling into it, joining with the magic. Purple and red, purple and red. The tattooist’s hand was steady, pushing the needles under his aching skin again and again. Purple and red, purple and red. The red of the rising sun.
“Nino, if he has something to ease your suffering…”
“Can I trust him?”
“You would know better than anyone if what he has is a genuine curative.”
“Why would he want to help me?”
Sho had simply shrugged. “I don’t know.”
It might have lasted twenty minutes or two hours. He had no sense of time. He only knew it was finished when Rumiko released his hand, getting off of the stool beside him. He had double vision, blinking in confusion. Whatever was in the ink was already seeping into his blood, coursing through his body.
It felt like his arm was ablaze. The needle tool was finally gone, and he could hear the tattooist’s soothing apologies as she patted his skin clean. She loosened the screws on the clamp, freeing his arm. Despite the woman’s efforts, the tatami mat beneath the chair was still splattered with ink and blood.
Rumiko was on his other side then, lifting his limp, throbbing arm in her hand. “They’re perfect,” she murmured. “They’re beautiful.”
The tattooist knelt down before them both, pressing her forehead to the floor. “Your will be done, Sorceress.”
“It’s a pity,” Rumiko muttered as Nino felt an odd shift in the air. He saw Sho turn his head, encouraging Mirei and the maidservants to look away.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong…
“Wait,” he stuttered as soon as he felt his aunt slip away from him.
Rumiko picked up the needle tool, gripping it tightly in her fist.
“No, wait…” Nino begged, hearing the first sob from across the room. Kanna. It was Kanna sobbing. They all knew. Why didn’t he? Why hadn’t Sho told him?
Rumiko took hold of the tattooist by her long braid, pulling her head back. Nino saw the terror in the young woman’s face for an instant before he watched Rumiko plunge the tool into her neck.
Nino screamed.
-
He dreamed that he was wading into a vast pool of water. He dreamed that he was a vulture, circling a desert camp looking for scraps. He dreamed that he was climbing a rope ladder from his courtyard to the roof, but when he made it to the top the ladder turned into a thick braid of black hair.
He dreamed of her, the woman who’d marked his skin.
He woke in the bathtub, cold water coming up to his chest. Sho was seated on the floor beside the tub, watching him warily.
His left arm was wrapped from shoulder to wrist, tightly bandaged and resting on the edge of the tub to keep it from getting wet.
His tongue was heavy in his mouth, and his arm still felt as though it had been set afire. But that wasn’t the worst of it. “She’s dead,” he wheezed, meeting Sho’s eyes. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Sho nodded, and Nino looked away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sho scooted closer, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Whenever a member of the royal family receives the tattoos of the bloodline, the actual markings are done by a professional. Since the language of the gods, the curse itself, is secret like most of what goes on here in the palace, the family doesn’t allow it to be revealed. Traditionally, the tattooist has been blinded, but housed comfortably somewhere on palace grounds the rest of their days. Fed and clothed, their families compensated. It’s never been much of a burden to the Matsumoto treasury since only one or two tattooists are needed in a generation. They’ve always been blinded, Nino, so that they cannot reproduce or reveal what they’ve seen and done.”
“But Rumiko…”
“Rumiko is unpredictable,” Sho replied.
Nino shut his eyes. “That woman’s blood is on my hands.”
“It’s not,” Sho insisted. “Nino, that was Rumiko’s doing.”
He shook his head. “Never again,” he whispered. “Never again.”
The topic of the tattooist and her cruel murder was dropped for now. Sho helped him from the bathtub, wrapping him in a soft cotton robe and bringing him to his bedchamber. Though Sho was now back on his feet, most of his bruising starting to fade, it would have been proper to have him return to his room in the servants’ quarters a floor above, to have him be summoned the same as he summoned Mirei and the other young women. But Nino had had no idea the tattoos would leave him this incapacitated. For now, it seemed like Sho was camping out on his floor, keeping watch over him.
As he made his way under the sheets, Sho informed him that he’d been feverish for the better part of three days already. Nino still felt rotten, but now that he was halfway coherent, he knew he could finally ask.
“Did you get it?” he asked, sitting upright with several pillows propped up behind him.
Sho said nothing, merely bringing over a tray that could rest on Nino’s lap. He watched Sho remove a small painting from the wall opposite the bed. This revealed a tiny panel with a catch that Sho tugged on, opening a secret chamber built into the wall. “It was Mirei who told me about it,” Sho said. “Might be useful if you bring anything here from the library.”
Sho removed a thin glass vial from the chamber and closed it again, re-hanging the painting. He brought it over and set it down on the tray. “I couldn’t get to Masaki right away, but he didn’t seem upset. I only managed to get this from him last night. He just handed it over, no questions asked.”
The vial was about the size of his index finger, a coiled thread of blue sealed up inside it. The color, shape, and appearance matched what Nino had read about in the library. It was authentic kerida blossom as far as he could tell, though it wasn’t a plant he’d ever worked with before.
Poison wasn’t something Nino had dealt with while traveling in Seitaro’s caravan. Most ailments he’d attended to lacked any sinister intent behind them. Desert fever. The coughing fits that accompanied hearth lung. The walking sickness that he’d managed to catch from three different people while he healed them. But poison…never poison.
The herbalist’s guide had described slattern weed or kerida blossom as an extremely potent plant. He could likely buy a grand house in the capital with the mere sliver Masaki had stuck into the vial he’d handed over to Sho without saying a word. The curse of his bloodline, the tattoos, it was a poisoning of his blood. Whatever spell his aunt had cast on the tattooist’s ink, it had likely spread its way throughout Nino’s body already. It was what had left him a feverish mess for days.
The guide had instructed healers to crush a small portion of the weed and mix it into tea or food to disguise its horrid taste. Nino uncapped the stopper and immediately regretted his choice. Even a few feet away Sho recoiled in disgust. Nino shoved the stopper back in, coughing painfully as his movements jostled his aching arm. Masaki had given him enough for about two weeks’ worth of treatments.
He eyeballed the gift from the god, wondering how long it had been in his possession. Wondering why Masaki had offered it to him when it was clear that no other descendants of Raku had been given anything for their pain or suffering for centuries.
He thought of his aunt’s arm, the way the tattoos had all but rotted her flesh. She’d had the tattoos for nearly forty years. King Kotaro had had his for nearly seventy. Nino looked down at his tightly-wrapped arm, noticing six faint oozing red marks. Sho had clearly dressed and re-bandaged it the last few days but still there were open sores leaking life, the poison of the curse taking its place.
“What does Jun’s arm look like?”
Sho raised his eyebrows in confusion. “What do you mean?”
Nino hovered a finger over his covered wounds. “He’s had them what, fourteen years now? What has it done to him?”
Maybe it was the fever playing tricks on his eyes, but Nino might have sworn Sho’s ears were turning red.
“He was always temperamental,” Sho muttered, “and it only worsened when he found out he lacked any magical ability. So I’m not sure about any psychological effects that are purely a result of the markings.”
“Physically though,” Nino pressed him. The only time he’d seen his brother, his arms had been covered up. “Does his arm look like it’s going to fall off?”
“No!” Sho lowered his voice apologetically. “No. No, nothing like that. Prince Yukio used to get feverish easily, especially if he was…aggressive for a long period of time with Masaki or Satoshi. He often asked me to find creams for his arm to soothe it. Nothing as rare as what’s in that vial, but whatever the palace physicians had.”
“And Jun can’t tap into their power, the tattoos,” Nino mused, thinking and considering.
Rumiko had used her powers so excessively that she’d had that bangle latched around her leg in punishment. Perhaps that was the downside to the curse. Power always came at a price. Compelling the gods, turning to dark magic, it was rotting her from the inside out. Had perhaps even driven her insane. It had clearly hurt Yukio as well. Jun being powerless might actually have been the best thing for him. The curse would never leave his blood, Nino imagined, but the poison worked slowly. It might be years or decades before the rot might take hold of him.
“If you use the kerida blossom, do you think it will prevent you from using magic?” Sho wondered. “Do you think that was Masaki’s intent?”
He shook his head. “If that was the case, he’d have given it to someone in this horrible family centuries ago. My guess is that it’ll just tamp down the side effects of the curse. The fever. The madness.” He looked up. “There’s madness in the family, there has to be.”
Sho nodded. “Prince Yukio never called it that, but the more he looked back at his family tree, the more heavily burdened were its branches. The official court records contained mentions of abdications, but I doubt they were all voluntary.”
“All for a few more drops of water,” Nino said with a sigh, tapping the vial of kerida blossom gently against the tray.
“All for a few more drops of water.”
Part Five