Page 42 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

“What’s happening?” I ask, rising to my feet. Our tea knocks over. It splashes onto the floorboards and soaks into the zabuton. Ren reaches for me, his arm encircling my waist. I turn in his grip, embracing him as the supports groan and cracking sounds pop through the air. He holds me close, stabilizing me against the shaking. Terror alternates with awareness that I’m pressed against Ren, so tightly that I can feel the dip and rise of his body, even as fear shoots through me in sharp flashes.

Then Akira’s headless shadow leaps up, twisting free from him. I watch in horror. Several grasping hands emerge. They arch into the air above Akira as though about to pounce, fingers formed into horrifying claws. I think they’ll descend on us, and once they do they might, I don’t know, kill us or melt us or dissolve us. Suddenly, they disappear.

I gasp. I’m not certain if it’s from relief or lingering terror. Akira collapses onto the floor. Ren releases me. He steps back quickly, as though he can’t get away from me fast enough. Everything becomes still again. I straighten my dress. My pulse calms. As it recedes, my skin buzzes where Ren held me. Everything is coated in desire and fear, turning me weak and lightheaded as I try to sort out my emotions and what we just saw.

With a gasp of his own, Akira gets to his feet. He pushes his hair back from his face and struggles to collect himself.

“No, no, no,” he cries, limping across the barrack toward us. “It’s getting worse!” He scrambles inelegantly the last few feet to the mirror and stares at his reflection. The crack in his face has reached the center of his forehead. He pinches it, as though trying to close it.

“What—what happened?” I ask. “Akira-sama, what was that shadow?”

“Nothing. It was nothing,” Akira gasps, but the crack in his face indicates otherwise. Weakly, he goes to the basin and plucks a wet leaf from it. He plasters it over the crack. It clings to his skin, but it can’t cover the full length. “Does this look obvious?”

“Well, it is a leaf on your face.” I pause, attempting to force away thoughts about Ren and focus only on Akira. “Are you in trouble? Maybe we can help.”

“You could.” Akira’s voice rises and falls, the volume changing. My ears pop in response, as though his voice is water, and it’s filled my eardrums. It makes me want to paw at my head. “As I said, you could give me your relic as an offering. In return, I would give you a gift from the heavens.” Slowly, his gaze shifts between the two of us and then to Ren’s neck, where his fox hangs. His low, multitoned voice drops to a whisper and slithers through the barrack like a snake. “Don’t you know? A divine favor can change everything.”

Chapter Thirteen

Ren

Bullshit.

It’s what I want to say to Akira. Yeah, he’s magical. My heart pounded as I watched him change reality with a toss of the hand. But something else is going on. His shadow likes to go rogue and become something out of a horror novel. Then there’s the fact that my fox played dead until I showed Akira that I had it. It doesn’t like him, not one bit.

But maybe none of that matters. If there’s some way a divine favor can help Emi and the baby, then by God I’ll take it and shine his damn shoes while I’m at it. Still, I have to make sure I don’t get screwed in the process. I scowl, making myself focus and not get distracted by how it felt to have Violet in my arms a few seconds ago. She lingered, too, like she would’ve let us stay that way. I was the one who forced us apart and I’m glad I did. I’ll be damned if I let her get under my defenses again, especially right now when I need my wits about me.

“What can a divine favor do?” I ask, trying to figure out the parameters of the god’s powers. “Make Manzanar disappear?” Akira crosses his arms and taps his foot. With a huff, he turns away, sulking. “Well?”

“My abilities are vast, mortal, and you worry about particulars,” he says.

“Okay, so that’s a no. Figured as much since you seem to be stuck here. Well, then…” I take a breath. I finally say exactly why I’m here. “My sister is about to have a baby and has been sick. Could a divine favor make sure she and the baby survive the birth?”

“How unwell is she?” Interest sparks in Akira’s eyes, followed by dark excitement.

“There’s a tear in her placenta. The doctor is worried she’ll hemorrhage.”

“A tear in the placenta…Ah, she has a wound! Like one received from a katana during battle!” His voice makes my skin crawl. “This I can help with. Injuries, especially to one who is young and healthy, interrupt a lifeline. Nature wishes to mend those things and, as such, so can I, should I dispense a divine favor.”

I close my hand around the pendant. It fits perfectly against the patch of raw skin on my palm.

What the hell? I’ve worn it almost all my life, but I’ll give it to him if there’s any chance this’ll work. I’ve handed over most things in my life. It seems unsurprising that I should give this over, too. At least this time it’s for something more important than anything.

Akira faces the mirror but observes me in its reflection. His gaze travels down to my fist, where I grip the pendant. By his sides, his hands tense and his nails sharpen and lengthen, like the claws of a cat. A chill runs through me. I think he’d cut my throat for my pendant, if he could. I feel like I’m about to make a deal with the devil.

“Well?” Akira doesn’t bother to hide his impatience, and there’s a low hiss to his voice, like air seeping out of tires that have just been stabbed. “Do you wish to secure the divine favor or not?”

“Is there any fine print?” That’s one thing I’ve learned. There’s usually a catch—especially if something seems good. “You take my fox, and my sister is healed and everything is hunky-dory? There’s no…I don’t know, side effects? Possible consequences?”

The fox quakes in my hand. Suddenly, I can’t imagine handing it over. I feel protective over it, like I need to keep it safe, as I always have.

“Hunky-dory?” The god tries out the phrase. It sounds ridiculous in his strange, ancient diction, but he likes it. “Yes, give me your relic and everything shall be…hunky-dory.”

“So what’s the return policy? Do I get it back after?”

“It’s an offering. A gift of devotion to a god most powerful, honorable, and worthy. No, you would not ‘get it back after.’ ” Akira mimics my tone. For a guy who desperately wants something I have, he’s not very nice about it. “Nor should you wish to. Sacrifices are precisely sacrifices because you surrender something precious to you.”

With a toss of his hair, Akira takes a step closer to me. Slowly, arrogantly, he holds out both his hands.