The moment the heavy wooden gates slid shut behind Crown Prince Ryu, the terrifying, unbothered Demon Prince disappeared.
In his place was a man enduring a quiet, catastrophic collapse.
"I will reduce that shrine to cinders," Akira said, pacing a measured line across the tatami of the inner chamber.
His pink hair shifted over his shoulders like disturbed silk. "I will lead the Northern Army down the capital's central road. I will offer Ryu to the spirit-wolves."
"Akira, please stop pacing, you're making me dizzy," I sighed, seated on a cushion beside the brazier.
I lifted a warm cup of barley tea, trying to steady my hands before he noticed. It was much easier to act fearless when I was shouting at the Crown Prince.
Now that the rush had drained away, the reality of walking into a corridor of divine fire was beginning to settle into my bones.
"I cannot," Akira said, halting so abruptly the sleeve of his robe snapped softly at his wrist.
He turned his glare on the wall as though he meant to split it with nothing but contempt. "It is a sentence of death, Kitsune. The Path of the White Lotus requires a vast, untainted spirit core to raise a shield. You do not possess one. And I cannot place mine around you."
His broad shoulders lowered by a fraction.
He looked down at his hands, where the faint blue sheen of his yokai power flickered across his knuckles like ghost-light under ice.
"The shrine's fire exists to purge demonic energy," he said, and now his voice had gone low and rough, the sound of someone forcing calm over something far more violent. "If I lay even one ward upon you, the sacred flames will sense my bloodline. The fire will turn at once. I would be the one sending you to your death."
My heart tightened with a painful little twist. For the first time in his life, the most powerful warlord in the empire could do nothing at all. And he despised it.
"Then it's fortunate I'm not planning to use magic," I said, taking a sip of tea.
Akira's head turned toward me at once, his amber eyes widening. "What?"
"I'm nineteen years old," I said softly, glancing toward the heavy futon where my little sister slept in peace. Yuki was curled against her pillow, snoring faintly. "I've spent the last nine years trying to keep a nine-year-old alive in a poisonous basement under an abusive uncle. Do you know how I survived Uncle Kenji's bamboo practice swords?"
Akira crossed the room and knelt before me with startling grace, all sharp power and rigid focus. His gaze never left my face. "How?"
"I never blocked them," I said, tapping the corner of my eye. "I dodged."
Then I leaned forward. "My spirit-sight is practically worthless to high-ranking onmyoji because I cannot perceive huge, blinding auras. But because my sight is weak, I can see the currents. The tiny trailing threads of magic. I can see the way power knots itself together."
Akira's dark brows drew in. "The sacred fire..."
"It isn't a solid wall, is it?" I asked, staking my life on a single thought. "Fire needs air. Magic needs flow. The Path of the White Lotus is only a weaving of divine force. The nobles survive it by raising one massive shield and forcing their way through."
A slow, brilliant understanding entered Akira's eyes.
"But you," he murmured, breath catching very slightly, "mean to step through the openings."
"Exactly." I gave him a wavering smile. "I'm a basement rat, Akira. I don't force my way through anything. I slip between what forgets to close."
He looked at me for a long, quiet moment. The panic left his face completely, draining away until only that same terrible, awed devotion remained, the look he had worn on the night we met.
He reached out, his large calloused hands cupping my cheeks with astonishing care. His thumbs brushed lightly over my cheekbones.
"You," the Demon Prince whispered, with a reverence that should have belonged at an altar, "are the most dangerous creature in this entire court."
Heat flooded my face so quickly I was certain the blush had reached my collarbone. "I... um. We should probably get dressed. The execution, I mean, the divine trial, is at noon."
The Grand Shrine of Amaterasu stood at the highest point in the capital. It was a vast complex of white timber and gold leaf, ringed by ancient cedar trees that rose like dark green pillars into the sky.
And at that moment, it was thick with vultures.
The entire Imperial Court had come to witness the spectacle. Hundreds of nobles lined the broad stone stairway. At the summit, beneath a silken canopy, sat the Emperor.
Crown Prince Ryu stood at his right hand, wearing an expression of unbearable satisfaction. To the Emperor's left stood Second Prince Jin, who was shivering in his new robes and wearing three very angry red claw marks across his nose. I felt an immediate and petty surge of delight at the sight.
"They look cheerful," I muttered as Akira helped me down from the spectral-wolf carriage.
I wore a plain white kosode, unadorned and severe, the proper garment for a purification rite. Or a funeral. Akira, meanwhile, had chosen full warlord attire. Black armor plates layered over dark indigo silk, long pink hair bound high, and a massive katana resting at his waist. He looked like a man prepared to conquer a province before lunch.
"Let them smile," Akira said, his voice low and calm in a way that felt far more lethal than shouting. "Their expressions will not survive the afternoon."
We climbed the hundreds of stone steps side by side. The whispers began at once, swelling around us in a humming tide of curiosity and spite.
"She looks terrified."
"She has no aura at all. She's utterly exposed."
"The Demon Prince's little pet is about to become ash."
We reached the summit and stepped into the great central courtyard.
At the center of the gravel expanse lay the Path of the White Lotus.
My breath stalled in my throat.
It was a corridor of roaring white fire, fifty paces long from one end to the other. The heat that poured from it was so intense it bent the air itself, turning the shrine beyond into a wavering illusion. There was no smoke. Only the deafening crack and hiss of divine force.
"Lord Kurogane," the Emperor's voice rang across the courtyard, smooth and deadly. "Your bride has arrived. Is she prepared to prove her purity before the gods?"
Akira did not look at the Emperor. He came to a stop at the edge of the blazing path and turned to face me.
We were surrounded on every side. Hundreds of eyes watched us without blinking. If he showed even the faintest trace of yokai power, if he tried to tuck a ward into my sleeve, the Imperial Guards would descend.
He could not use his strength. He could not fight in my place.
"Kitsune," Akira said. His voice was so soft it belonged only to me, barely audible beneath the thunder of the flames.
The icy walls were gone from his amber eyes. Nothing remained but something raw, desperate, and unbearably deep. This was no longer about insult or pride.
"I cannot walk beside you," he whispered, his jaw tightening.
"I know," I said, giving him a brave smile I did not quite believe myself.
He took both my hands. He did not care who saw. Lifting my knuckles to his lips, he pressed a firm, lingering kiss against my skin. The warmth of his mouth sent a shiver all the way down to the glowing Consort Mark over my chest.
"Do not look at them," Akira said softly, his gaze fixed on mine. "Look only at the weave. Look only at the openings. When you reach the end, I will be there."
"I'll see you on the other side," I said.
I drew my hands away before courage could desert me.
Then I turned to face the inferno. Heat struck my face at once, sharp enough to sting. Closing my eyes, I took one deep breath and gathered every scrap of my small, laughable spiritual energy into my purple eyes.
Show me the currents.
I opened them.
The blinding wall of white fire changed. I was no longer looking at flame. I was looking at an immense tapestry of luminous white threads crossing and re-crossing in motion. And just as I had hoped, there were gaps. Tiny shifting hollows of empty air where the divine force inhaled and released.
I stepped into the fire.
A collective gasp rose from the courtyard.
I did not burn. My foot landed inside a pocket of cool air while white flame roared only inches from my face.
Step left. Pause. Lower. Step right.
I moved like a dancer who had learned grace in places that did not forgive mistakes. I twisted between two towering folds of fire, waited while one current swept past, then slipped forward three more paces.
The heat was awful, soaking through my white robes, but the flames themselves did not touch me. I had no shield. I was simply crossing through the spaces they had neglected to guard.
Beyond the roar of the fire came the silence of the Imperial Court, absolute and stunned.
"She has no shield!" someone finally cried in disbelief. "Why isn't she burning?!"
"Is she blessed by the sun goddess?!"
I was halfway through. Only twenty-five paces remained. I could see the far end of the corridor. I could see Akira waiting there, his hands clenched so tightly the tendons stood out, his amber eyes following each of my movements with terrible concentration.
I'm doing it, I thought, laughter rising in my chest, wild and almost disbelieving. I'm actually doing it.
I stepped right, aiming for the next hollow of cool air.
Then, the instant my foot touched gravel, a sharp and unnatural crack split across the roar of the flames.
The weave changed.
A sudden surge of sickly yellow energy, wholly foreign to the sacred white fire, slammed into the corridor.
The opening I had been aiming for snapped shut with brutal force.
My eyes widened. I tried to pull back, but momentum betrayed me.
The wall of white sacred fire rose with a violent roar, serpent-like and enormous, and struck straight for my chest.