Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa

Author:Julie Kagawa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Published: 2020-01-23T20:53:02+00:00

22

The Cave of Sorrows

TATSUMI

I didn’t like this.

The ghost was right. There was something lurking in these caves. Something...powerful. I could feel it in the walls, in the air itself, a dark, pulsing energy that seemed to grow the deeper we went into the tunnels. It made my demon instincts bristle, prodding at them like an open wound, making me tense. Whatever was down here was not a lone kami or even a wandering yokai. It was darker than that, old and powerful. Though the question of whether or not we would run into it was unknown. The cave system was enormous; we had been walking for a couple hours, following the hitodama through caverns and narrow passages, ducking stalactites and low-hanging ceilings, the glow of the floating sphere our only light in the utter blackness.

“How do you know where you’re going, Suki-san?” Yumeko asked at one point, her voice echoing in the cavern overhead. “Have you been here before?”

The sphere shimmered into the figure of a girl, who then shook her head. “Not exactly,” she whispered. “I came through these caves once...in a vision. But the path is clear. The person who sent me to fetch you showed me the way. I...know where we’re going.”

“Pretty convenient, this passage,” came the ronin’s gruff voice. “I find it hard to believe no one knows about it. Especially if it goes right to the place we’re trying to get to.”

“It was...hidden,” replied the hitodama. “Only recently has the way been opened. No one, not even the daimyo...knew of this passage.” She shivered, losing form for a moment, before flickering into sight again, gazing around nervously. “This is...a dead place. The kami avoid this mountain. They fear...what lives in the tunnels.”

“Oh, good. And here we are, marching right into the jaws of...whatever it is. Sure sounds like us.”

“Did anyone hear that?” Yumeko suddenly whispered.

We stopped, and silence descended, closing around us like the stillness of a tomb. Overhead, the ghost girl floated nervously back and forth, making the shadows on the walls sway. The quiet throbbed in my ears, broken only by the faint thump of my own heart.

And then, I heard it, drifting through the tunnels: a low, shuddering noise, like something gasping for breath. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck and caused the hitodama to lose form, shivering once more into a ball of light.

“What is that?” Yumeko whispered. She cocked her head, ears twitching, and a frown crossed her face. “It almost sounds like...someone crying.”

“Right, because that’s not alarming at all,” the ronin muttered. “I can think of several things that live in dark, lonely, horribly depressing caves, and all of them are things I’d rather not meet, crying or not.”

The sound faded away, and there was only silence again. Yumeko shivered and looked up at the hitodama. “Suki-san, do you know what could be down here?”

The ball of light floated toward her, rippling into the image of the girl again before shaking her head. “No,” she whispered.

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