Prophecy

They called her the Demon Slayer to her face and much worse behind her back. It didn’t matter that she was a first cousin to the crown prince or that she’d saved his life from a demon attack. Ten years was long enough for most to forget what really happened and instead to believe the rumors that began soon after.

Even now, standing in the congested marketplace of Hansong, she could see the averted glances and hear the urgent whispering. She wondered which rumors they were spreading this time. The one that said she’d raised a sea serpent from the underworld and planned to sacrifice the prince to it. Or the one that claimed she enchanted everyone with her yellow eyes and hunted for human prey at night.

At least they had one thing right. She was definitely on the hunt.

A ripple in the air appeared far across the square. Kira homed in on it, watching as it welled around the thick-set body of a young man in a long yellow coat walking with a smaller man down a side street. She narrowed her eyes as she took a deep breath, her sensitive nose assaulted by the pungent odor of boiled silkworm larvae, dried cuttlefish, and pickled cabbage mixed with a multitude of unwashed bodies. There, underneath it all, was the familiar waft of demon stink.

Upon her advance, a human wave surged away from her in a panicked frenzy. The good thing about being a pariah was that she didn’t have an issue with crowd control. But for the sneaky little thief who had recognized her, she would have slid through the marketplace, unseen as usual. Instead, he’d shouted out her name and stolen her money purse, sidling through the legs of frightened spectators before she could catch him. The dirty rat.

Kira kept her face impassive, giving no hint of the hurt she’d become so used to hiding. All seventeen years of her life it had been this way. She adjusted the
nambawi
on her head, pulling it lower over her brows, shading her eyes. The nambawi was black with a short, sloping brim and fur lining that covered her forehead, ears, and the back of her neck—making her feel inconspicuous.

Usually.

Today she clamped it hard to her head—a shield of protection, along with the sheathed sword and bow and arrows strapped to her back. She had a job to do.

She sprinted across the marketplace and jerked around a corner, stopping in surprise. She was among the
suchae
—the untouchables, to whom the servants and slaves of the wealthy brought animals for slaughter and butchering. Her lips tightened. Theirs was a difficult life. They were despised by all for the very work they did. How could she not feel for them? Kira had more in common with these untouchables than with any of the nobles of her own class.

At the end of the dark, filthy street, Kira could see the lingering ripple of magic in the air.

She ignored the bows of the suchae and rushed into an alleyway, only to find it empty. Closing her eyes, Kira took a deep breath. Underneath the stench of garbage and sewage, she focused on the undercurrent, her nose targeting the rotten funk of dead things long forgotten. This was what she hunted.

Opening her eyes, she followed the scent to a hidden stairwell and down to a dimly lit cellar filled with barrels of roots and vegetables and the overpowering smell of fermenting bean pastes in ceramic pots. It led her to a dark corner where a large opening was hidden in the wall, behind several rows of barrels.

Kira crawled through and stepped into a narrow passageway. She was within the fetid underground tunnels of the city. She knew the tunnel, but not this particular entrance. It worried her that her quarry knew of it, too.

Hansong was one of the largest walled cities on the entire peninsula. Heavily armed soldiers patrolled the perimeter of the city, while shamans protected its walls and gates with demon-repelling magic spells. Kira held a wary respect for shamans. They were keepers of the dead and practitioners of the dark arts. But sometimes the wards weakened, and demons would enter the city.

It was Kira’s job to find them and dispose of them.

The dark tunnels were lit sporadically by the sunlight streaming in from the drainage ditches above. But with her unusual yellow eyes, Kira could see just as well in the dark as in the light. Channeling her senses, she caught the odor trail again and sped off.

Before long, she heard raised voices.

Someone chuckled slyly. “When we reach the palace, the first thing I need is a little snack.”

“We don’t have time for that! Our mission is to kill the king as quickly as possible.” The other voice was deep and menacing.

Assassins heading for the palace—this was what her father had feared.

Kira pulled out the horn bow strapped to her back and nocked the arrow. There was only one way to kill a human possessed by a demon: sever its head.

But she had to be absolutely sure first.

“What a spoilsport,” the sly voice said. “One maiden isn’t going to slow us down.”

“Be silent!” the menacing voice said. “I have no intention of being the only one who fails my mission. If that happens, I’ll cut you up into a million pieces and hide them so you’ll never fully re-form again!”

Kira targeted the menacing voice, the one who was in charge, wearing the yellow coat she’d seen earlier. She watched as he grabbed his smaller companion by the neck, shaking him like a rag doll. She saw the shimmering distortion in the air and glimpsed the grotesque, leathery gray scales of a demon rolling under the skin—fangs grimacing against the flesh, as if it were still adjusting to the fit.

“There you are,” Kira whispered.

With a steady hand, she pulled the bow taut and aimed carefully. The shot had to be perfect in order to release the demon inside the hollowed-out human shell. Her eyes locked onto her target.

In the split second before impact, the demon straightened. Kira’s arrow missed, lodging in the eye of his comrade instead. Cursing, the demon flung his injured partner away and whirled around. His true face flickered with rage as he caught sight of Kira. He turned and fled down the tunnel.

Kira bit back a curse and raced forward. How could she have missed?

She reached the sly-voiced demon just as he pulled the arrow out of his eye. Demons could not be killed, only sent back to the underworld. Kira unsheathed her sword and decapitated him before he could rise. Thick black fluid oozed from his neck, releasing the monster caught within the human form. She ran after her prey, not even sparing a moment to clean the foul gunk off her sword.

The demon’s putrid odor left a trail for her to follow. Kira quickly found the remnants of a knobby pine door scattered all over the ground. She raced through the doorway and into another passage, which opened up into the city streets at the edge of the marketplace.

Kira cursed. Her job was to keep the demon away from the people, not chase it through a crowded market.

The demon shoved past shoppers and crashed into a fruit stand, scattering reddish-orange persimmons helter-skelter. Kira cut through the crowds, ignoring the people screaming at the sight of her drawn sword. She took a giant running leap over a vendor’s stall, landing at the feet of the fallen demon.

Her eyes swept through the crowd. Unease pinched at her.

Damn it! What am I going to do now?

Kira held the sword high and angled at his neck, trying not to show her
uncertainty. She’d never had to deal with a demon in public before.

After the first attack on the prince, her uncle, the king, had decided that the citizens of Hansong should be kept ignorant of the demon threat. A pointless and stupid mandate, as far as Kira was concerned. The only thing it did was increase the rumors that surrounded her.

People thought she was the monster behind the mysterious disappearances.

They were right.

But it wasn’t what they thought. The people she “killed” were already dead.

“I arrest you in the king’s name,” Kira said, thinking quickly. She had to get him away from the crowd.

The demon threw a wooden plank at her and began crawling backward.

“Help! She’s trying to kill me! Someone stop her! Please help!” He hurled persimmons at her.

Kira’s sword slashed through the air, slicing all the fruit open. She heard gasps in the crowd.