Hey Dragons!
Have you had a chance to read Shade of the Kitsune yet? You can grab it on Ream and read it for less than a coffee a month and read chapters before they’re released on Vella. Even better, the first month is free with the code SHINOBI.
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Here’s a sneak peek into the beginning of Shizu’s life before she becomes a skilled ninja and loses her old name.
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“Otou-san, where are we going?” Haruka looked up at her father and then down at the mud-covered streets in front of them.
He ignored her question, like the others before that on their morning journey. Occasionally she received a grunt of recognition, but nothing more.
The buildings were empty. The cracked windows were coated in grime. She imagined the city near their home would be filled with nice homes and wealthy people. Rumors from the children in her village claimed houses like these were filled with demons and monsters that hid from view until they could devour someone. She attempted to slow her pace and turn down another road back to the market. Despite this, her father’s cobra-like grip around her thin wrist tightened and yanked her further along. She was helpless against his strength and held her breath in hopes it would keep any yokai away.
They turned another corner and stopped in front of a statue of a stone serpentine dragon that blocked the building at the end of the alley. It glared down at her, twisting its body around a glass orb. Whiskers stretched across its face and down the sides of its cheeks. The hollowness of its gaze followed Haruka as she neared. Its three clawed fingers dug into the orb, daring anyone to approach and face death.
She turned away and dug her heels into the ground, but her father dragged her closer to the statue. She shifted where she stood, not wanting to look back at it again. The fire in its gaze bore down on her all the same.
A man dressed in a dark brown cloak with tattered edges and patches in multiple areas stepped around the statue. The man stood almost a head taller than her father. His expression twisted with disgust as if she were a filthy dog. Haruka recoiled behind her father.
“Bringing the girl won’t change your debt,” the man said as if his voice were made of the wind itself.
Her mother hobbled out from around the statue. Her cheeks were sunken in and her brown eyes dull and glass-like. The weeks had destroyed her mother’s inner glow. Her stomach was round. Well into a pregnancy.
“Okaa-San!” Haruka shouted and tore away from her father.
Her father grabbed the scruff of Haruka’s robes and yanked her back. “Stay still, girl,” he snapped.
Her mother winced from Haruka and scuffled closer to the cloaked man.
Haruka looked up at her father and then back at her mother, who stood as still as the statue next to her. They should have been embracing one another.
“Okaa-san?”
Her mother flinched again at the sound of Haruka’s voice. She wanted to reach out to her mother but knew to stay still for now. It pained her that the gap between them was so close and yet more distant than ever before. They’d soon be hugging one another again as long as she stayed patient. At least, she hoped they would. Sakai-san claimed he would be giving her father the money to cover any debts. It had to be enough. But he hadn’t come that morning, and she wasn’t sure if he knew where they were.
“I’ve come to pay the debt in full.” Haruka’s father stood her between him and the cloaked man. “She will provide you many more years compared to my wife. And I’m sure there will be many who will pay for someone so...young to enjoy...”
He took a step from Haruka, releasing her arm. His face contorted into a combination of disgust and sadness she had never seen before. Not since she cut open her leg and bled over the salmon, making them unsellable. At least he claimed they were unsellable, but she recognized the one her neighbor purchased the next day from the too short tail fin. The realization slowly poured over her. She was the fish today.
The cloaked man nodded. “We could find more use for her.” He pushed Haruka’s mother forward, pinching her arm. She squirmed from the pain but didn’t let a sound escape her lips. The cloaked man didn’t seem to notice or didn’t care, that he was causing her any pain.
“Saitou!” he shouted.
From the darkness of the building came a young boy no older than Haruka. He had one long scar across the right side of his face. It reached from his brow past his lip. There was no life in his eyes. Every few seconds, his body twitched and shivered from an unknown breeze or pain.
“Bind the girl and take her inside.”
The boy, Saitou, reached for his belt and held out a long rope. “Of course, Kasshoku-sensei.” He wrapped the end of the rope into a loop and tested the strength of the knot. He strode up to Haruka and grinned. His teeth were half rotten.
Haruka moved closer to her father and grabbed his forearm. “Otou-san, you’re not really leaving me, are you?”
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