Shadow Fan (The Shadow Fan Series #1) (5 page)

  Aya tried to calm her quick gasps of pleasure and surprise. “Where are you going, my husband?”

Naru smiled at the word and kissed her wrist again. “I must leave to train with Yoshino soon. I will try not to be gone long. Maybe a few months. But she explained that time has very little meaning in her land.”

Aya’s heart ached immediately. “But, surely we will marry before you leave?”

He cocked his head with an apologetic turn to his brows. “I cannot. Where is the balance in getting married only to leave my bride so soon after our vows?” His fingers brushed her cheek, lighting them on fire again. “Then you would have to leave to even it out, and I do not wish to be away from you any longer than I must.”

Her chin dropped, but she understood. “I know you have much to learn, and training to be Yoshino’s priest must be a great honor.” She lifted her head. “I will proudly support you in any way I can while you train.”

He nodded. “I’m glad, because I fear I may need your help a great deal.”

She cocked her head. “How?”

“I will not be leaving in the physical sense. You know I can’t be around Yoshino for too long. The bloody nose is only the start.” He stretched his fingers and looked at them. “Next to the numbness, my muscles begin to weaken and my head gets dizzy. It then takes time for my body to heal. Yoshino feels guilty for the damage, but it’s not her fault. Her spiritual pressure is just too great for a lowly human. But she thinks my body will be able to heal itself over time, as long as she doesn’t come around.”

Aya was lost. “But, how can you train with her if you need to be away from her?”

He flashed a small smile. “Do you remember the dream you told me about in the forest? You said I was glowing. That means I had left my body. To train with Yoshino I must leave my body and go to the Border Lands.”

Aya’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t be serious. “But you’ll die. That’s where people get stuck and become ghosts if they have regrets. Everyone knows this.”

He offered a reassuring hug. “If my spirit stays balanced I can come back. Remember, I am Yoshino’s Priest. Don’t underestimate her power. She will not let any danger come to me.”

Aya knew he was right. Of course Yoshino was strong and could protect him. But the stiffness in her shoulders would not let up. “It’s just so dangerous.”

“This is how it’s done. You cannot take a body to train with a spirit.” He reached for her hand and her fingers entwined with his. “I need this time so my body can heal.” He squeezed her hand, his eyes heavy lidded with meaning. “I want to be able to
feel
you. I want to be strong and healthy for our time together.”

Aya blushed. Was he talking about their wedding night? She couldn’t dream of what it would be like to not feel the heat his touch drew. She wanted to do the same for him. “I understand, Naru.  And I will come every day to help care for you in any way I can.”

CHAPTER NINE

Aya finished spoon feeding Naru and cleaned up lunch. “Would you like more tea?” He didn’t motion one way or the other. She knew he probably couldn’t taste anything, since his spirit wasn’t even in his body. It had taken over a week for Naru to learn to move his limbs. She figured it must be difficult to make his body walk and move when he was somewhere far away.

She motioned to the waiting priest and he helped Naru from the kneeling position. Once standing she took Naru’s hand and slowly walked forward. “How about we go for a walk to the old butterfly field?”

Naru only followed alongside her. She took one step after another, carefully helping him traverse over grown roots and ice covered rocks. When they came to the empty field Aya stopped in the middle. Her body shivered, but she didn’t notice. A sad smile touched her lips. “Today it’s been six months since you left.” He didn’t move, he just stared straight ahead, no emotion whatsoever. She had been a daily fixture at the shrine, full of hope and faith. Naru was strong. Yoshino would let no harm come to him.

But he’d been gone so much longer than what he told her. “You know,” her breath puffed white as she spoke, “people are starting to talk.” She toed a frozen clump of grass. “Well, I suppose they didn’t just
start
to talk…” She squeezed back the sting in her eyes. “They say you aren’t ever coming back. That you’ve been lost to the other side, and you’ll never get better.” A mutinous tear trailed down her cheek. “My family wants me to leave you.”

Naru’s body turned and took two steps toward her. Aya gasped as she searched his glazed-over eyes. They were as empty as always, but his arms circled around her and held her close. She buried her face into his hard, muscular body.  Her hands flattened against his chest as she let the tears run. Safe in his earthy scent she realized something was not right. Naru hardly moved. There was no way he would still have all those muscular ridges. He should be pale and thin and weak. But he was just as strong as the day he knelt in Yoshino’s shrine and left his body.

Yoshino really was sustaining him! Her arms wrapped around him and she closed her eyes. No one was going to take her away from her Naru. No one.

~***~

 q

Naru sighed as the priest helped his body to the shrine. He focused, tilting his feet back, balancing his body on his knees until he was in a safe kneeling position. He let go of the tendrils of energy that acted like strings on a heavy puppet. He could focus on what he was doing now.

Yoshino zipped through the dimension, slowing down at a shop in a busy town. How odd, Naru thought, that she would stop at a human village. She really didn’t like humans all that much. He learned she preferred plants and animals above humans. She seemed to think humans always messed her mountain up.

He stroked the little glowing strand wrapped around his wrist. It was a
Mushi
that had gotten attached to him when he was learning at the Mushi Gardens. The Mushi Gardens were akin to a bamboo forest filled with luminescent little creatures, flitting though the sky, roaming over the ground and vegetation. Yoshino explained they were much like bugs of her world, just passing through life. But they each had a particular tie to the fabric of his world and the next. The one that liked him was pretty harmless, though Yoshino said exposure might have some interesting effects once he got back to his body. Apparently this little critter could travel through time and space as if it were a wave to ride on.

He often though
t about naming it, but he knew he was going home eventually, so there was no need to get too attached. Instead he simply called it Tomodachi or Tomo for short, which meant “friend.” The twelve-inch
Mushi
floated around him like a ribbon of light. It often hung from his neck or coiled around a limb.

Yoshino stared at a blanket of fine silk fans in the market. She held her hand out to hi
m. “Naru, may I borrow Tomo for a moment?”

Naru’s brows lifted. “Of course.” He unwound the little creature from his arm and placed it in her hand. It hovered, twisting and rolling in the air like an eel dancing in water.

Yoshino held her hands over a black fan and dropped the
Mushi
on it. For a moment it hovered, and then it wrapped itself around the bamboo handle and silk fabric. With a satisfied smile Yoshino held her hand out to retrieve Tomo, but it continued to explore the table, coiling under a white fan next.

Yoshino chuckled. “Naru, you better catch him before he causes anymore trouble.”

“Of course.” He held his hand out and a moment later Tomo floated up to dance around his headq. He settled on his hair like a crown of light. Naru petted the
Mushi
.

The Mountain Spirit grinned
and pointed to the two fans Tomo had touched. “Go ahead and pick those up.”

Naru almost laughed out loud. He was the equivalent of a ghost. He couldn’t pick anything up.  However, he had also learned not to doubt the mountain spirit.

He reached out his hand and picked the black fan right off the table. He gasped. “How is this possible?” He picked up the white fan with the other hand.

Yoshino took the fans from hi
m. “That is what Tomo can do when his kind absorbs energy from larger spirits. It’s such a small amount you or I would never notice, but to the
Mushi
it’s a great deal. The item they touch afterward fazes in and out of time and space. It’s very helpful for a spirit like me when they are in need of something from your world, or the world beyond. Unless it slips through time. Then you’re out of luck.”

Naru nodded to the fans. “Will those slip through time?”

She folded them up and tucked them in her kimono. “Not now that you and I have touched them.” She retrieved a raw chunk of blue jade and rubbed it against Tomo. The creature didn’t move from his spot on Naru’s head. Yoshino waited until the woman who worked the shop turned around. She gently tossed the plumb sized rock at the woman’s foot. It bounced off her ankle and she glanced down.

“Where did that come from?” She grabbed it and hurried out to see who had lost their precious stone. Standing directly next to them she scoured the crowd until she saw the two fans were missing. She looked down at the jade, nodded, and went back inside.

Naru cocked his head. “So the stone became grounded as soon as it touched her?”

Yoshino nodded with a far off look. Naru knew that look. She was concentrating somewhere else. Something of significance
was happening on her mountain. “Come. It’s almost time for you to go back to your fiancé.”

If Naru had physical body parts his heart would have sped up. But instead his emotions soared. Aya. He was going home to marry the woman he’d always loved. Times had been tough on her. It only felt like last week she told him her family wanted her to leave. But he knew she waited for him. He couldn’t wait to see her.

CHAPTER TEN

As Naru followed Yoshino up the mountain he could sense pain, fear and bloodshed. Smoke billowed from the direction of his village. What was going on? He couldn’t smell or feel the things in his home land, but he could see them clearly. And what he saw was the Lord of the land running into the shrine. He heard the distant voice in his head before they approached.

“Help us! Please, save us.”

Naru and Yoshino passed through the roof like the wandering spirits they were. Lord Osamu had ahold of both Naru’s shoulders, shaking his body like a rag doll.

“My daughter swears you are still in there.” The Lord stopped his shaking to drop his head. “If you are, make Yoshino help us!” He resumed his shaking.

Yoshino landed beside the Lord. “The village is being attacked by the neighboring Lord. I’m not pleased he wants you to
make
me save them, but I will do it for you, Naru.” She pulled out the fans, opened them and laid them against each other in her hand. With a flash of light the two became one. On the front, the black side had two white swirls interlocking in the center. On the back, the opposite, with a white background and black swirls. She passed her hand over the new creation while chanting a few words in a language unkno>

Yoshino spoke as she concentrated on the fan. “Naru, you better get ba
ck to your body. Aya is not in my temple.”

Realization slammed home. He slid back into his shaking body. Once he had full connection of his spirit to body his eyes snapped open. His iron hands gripped the Lord’s, and he froze. Naru leaned into the man’s fearful face. “Where. Is. Aya?”

“You came back. Please. Kill them. There’s too many for our Samurai.” His fingers dug into his shoulder. “Save us.”

Naru’s fingers gripped the Lord’s hands harder and ripped them from his body. “Where is my fiancé, Lord Osamu?”

He jerked his hands back. “She’s down there, in the middle of it, trying to save her sister.”

“And you just left them?” Naru roared.

Yoshino appeared before them. The Lord fell back, holding his hand up as if to shield himself from her brilliance.

Naru blinked.
The Lord can see her?
Perhaps that was Tomo’s doing? She had just held him to retrieve the fans.

“Naru. Balance.” Her steady words helped him remember himself. She held her hand to his head and the fan appeared. Tomo must still be wrapped around his hair.

Yoshino laid the fan at his feet. “Pick it up.” He did so quickly, preventing it from slipping through time or reverting back to spirit form. “I have placed a portion of my spirit in this fan. Turn the black side out to draw shadows from the attacker’s body. Turn the white side out to bring light back to the body.
When you are ready, it will guide you in the steps you must take.” Her voice lowered. “You can only use the fan once, unless the human spirit is balanced. Make sure no other person uses this fan. If they do a price will be paid.”
Yoshino laid her hand on his shoulder. “Aya is still alive. I can feel her. Remember, be balanced as the light and the shadow.”