Page 41 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

Ren enters behind me. Somehow, he commands my attention as much as everything else I see. I stare openly at him as his gaze shifts about the room, passing over everything but me. Shock fills his eyes. I understand. I’m shaken to my depths.

But he doesn’t glance at me. Not once.

Akira closes the door, folds his hands, and watches us with smug delight. Reverberations of awe, countered only by Ren’s distance, dance through me. I face Akira.

“How?” I ask, so stunned it’s hard to speak.

Akira smiles. It’s an unnerving sight, narrowing his lips to thin slivers. I’ve never seen such a terrifying smile. It makes him look hungry, lustful, carnivorous. I almost take a step back. He claps once. Everything inside the barrack disappears. It’s now the same primitive space that everyone else has: low metal cot, straw mattress, oil lamp, sagging dresser. Except there isn’t a single personal effect. You’d think no one had moved in yet. Only the man still testifies to the magic of the place.

“How did you do that?” I ask. “You can make the entire place appear and disappear?”

At this, Akira’s skin glows brighter. Pleasure swims to the surface of his eyes, bobbing there like a bottle released from the bottom of the sea to the surface. He claps again, and the dull, dreary barrack is once again filled with magnificence. It’s so bewildering that I reach out to touch the tapestry to make certain it is real. Fine silk and thick embroidery meet my fingertips. As though in confirmation of their existence, the koi fish flap their tails and water droplets strike my cheeks. My mind races.

“Of course I can.” His tone is haughty despite how pleased he appears. “I am a most powerful god and my abilities are vast. You and the rude mortal boy can see aspects of me no one else can. Others can’t even see this barrack at all.”

“Are they?” Ren asks. I turn to him. Despite everything around us, my attention jolts to him in the way lightning jumps to conductive metals. His arms are crossed, and the same caustic smile he gave me outside is back on his lips. It’s like he’s returned to the boy he was when I first met him—distrustful, sullen, withdrawn. The thought is devastating. I want to cry.

“Are they what?” Akira bristles at Ren’s sarcasm.

“Are your powers vast and limitless?” Akira stares resentfully at Ren, and the samurai in the mirror is aghast. Ren continues. “I’m just saying…you’re here with us. Seems like you might be a little stuck. Which, conversely, doesn’t seem very powerful.”

It’s a fair point, which Akira doesn’t like.

“I’d like to see you do better,” he sniffs. “Now. Take your tea.” He commandingly nods to the table. I’m the first one to move. Two zabuton sit by a low table with glazed ceramic cups of green tea, and I settle on one cushion. After a moment, Ren joins me.

As I take a sip of tea, earthiness washes over my tongue and warms me, inside and out. Ren stares at his cup for a moment as though it’s personally affronted him. Finally, he picks it up. His elbow grazes mine. I feel the touch like fire. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his fingers clench the cup. His jaw is so tight I’m surprised the tea can get past his lips.

“Akira-sama.” I use an honorific, which makes Akira smile his terrifying smile again. “It is very odd that you’re here, as Ren says. Will you tell us why?”

While he enjoyed the honorific, he certainly doesn’t enjoy my question. His face darkens, so much so that I’d almost prefer his rapacious smile.

“Wherever did you find these irreverent children, Oda?” Akira mutters, scowling at the samurai mirror face as though it’s responsible. Oda glares furiously—but not at Akira. Rather, he glares at us. “Gods do not explain themselves to mortals. You should simply be happy I’ve deigned to join you. Mortals these days have no respect. In the past, if I visited a village, I’d be worshipped and revered. They would paint beautiful icons of me in tempera paint with gold. They would erect a torii gate and a shrine, inscribed only for me. But no one worships me here. It’s foolish of you mortals! I bequeath divine favors for offerings, after all.”

There it is.

Exactly what I hoped to hear.

“Divine favors?” Suddenly, Ren comes alive, setting down his teacup hard enough to make the liquid slosh over his fingers. He doesn’t seem to notice. “So, what kind of offerings? Something like flowers or food?”

“Of course, I do appreciate any gesture of reverence, but a divine favor requires an offering of magnitude.”

“Magnitude…” Ren pulls out his fox from his collar. His motions are so assured that I can tell he’s already considered it. “Would this count?”

Akira’s pupils flicker into a vertical slit. Lust fills his face, flashing like a dime in the sun. Even though the deer is light in my pocket, I still feel it. Should I take it out and add it to Ren’s fox?

“Why yes,” Akira says. “Very good, mortal. That would do indeed.”

“Kinda hard to do business when you don’t know who someone is,” Ren says. With precise movements, he tucks his fox into his shirt. “Why would we worship you when we don’t know anything about you? And what were you doing at the council meeting?”

“I don’t think that was me,” Akira replies.

“Is there another guy here who looks like he’s been dipped in silver and has a terrifying shadow? You pushed me against the wall.”

“Well, perhaps it was me. Did I look particularly ravishing? If so, then there’s a chance it was.”

“What did you do? When everyone got upset, the shadow got bigger.”

Akira is about to say something when he blinks. It’s as though his glow is being switched on and off like a lamp. His eyes widen in terror. The blinking intensifies. The barrack shakes. The koi fish dive back into their basin. The bonsai trees tuck their branches around their trunks. Oda hides behind the mirror’s frame. Fear fills Akira’s eyes and his features begin to distort.