Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott

Daisuke, when it should have been me. All I did was to set that right, to make things as they should always have been. You are happy now, are you not? You have everything you ever dreamed of. You are my wife. The mother of my sons. Think about what would happen to our life if this truth came out. Think what would happen to our sons. Think what would happen to you. Do you want that?”
    Silence. In my mind, I saw her shaking her head.
    “Good.” The word was satisfied, and final. “We need never speak of it again. Understand, my dear, that I did not tell you this to distress you. I had to know that we shared the burden equally. I had to know you accepted that you were truly mine.”
    There was another silence. Then Terayama-san spoke again. “Come, now. Look at me. Do you forgive me? Do you still love me?”
    One of the babies let out a plaintive mewl.
    Her voice broke on the words: “I could never stop loving you.”
    Daisuke’s blood . . .
    A sick fancy . . .
    I could never stop loving you . . .
    Father.
    Aimi.
    I barely noticed the outer door open. I barely heard Mai’s voice.
    “Here you are, Nakamura-sama.”
    I could not look at her. My eyes could not leave the thin shield of paper and wood that separated me from the man who had murdered my father.
    “Nakamura-sama? What is wrong?”
    The inner screen flew back with enough force to echo through the room. Terayama-san stood there, his eyes, riveted on me, almost bulging out of his head. Behind him, my mother leaned forward, openmouthed with horror. Her hands hovered protectively over the babies lying on either side of her.
    No one moved.
    “T-Terayama-sama?”
    Mai’s tentative voice broke the stillness.
    Terayama-san’s fingers twitched toward the long knife at his thigh. Mother’s voice rose in a wail of denial as I jumped up and ran.

It was the wrong thing to do. I knew it, even as instinct moved me. My brain screamed at me to be still, but my legs reacted before I gave them leave, pushing me out from under the table and turning me to the door. I had no choice.
    He would follow. I knew it. Terayama-san was a hunter, and from the moment he had seen me on the other side of that screen, I was his prey.
    He would chase me.
    He would catch me.
    He would never stop until I was dead.
    He was shouting, telling Mai to stay in the room. I cleared the doorway and was halfway down the corridor before he had finished speaking. The corridor was dark; the lamps had not yet been lit. My sock-clad feet made no sound on the tatami mats, but my long sleeves flapped with the movement of my arms, making a noise like the frantic beating of birds’ wings.
    The outer screen to my mother’s rooms slammed shut behind me, and footfalls thundered across the floor. It was like being in a dream, except that I was sweating, my heart jumping with fear. No nightmare had ever terrified me like this.
    I rounded the corner and flung myself into an alcove, tucking my body into the gap between the wall and a tall arrangement of spiny black branches and white flowers.
    I reached for the threads of an illusion — a familiar one, of shadows and nothingness. Frantically I wrapped it around myself, weaving it so thickly that my own vision went dim and gray. It was clumsy, but I did not have time to pick it apart and begin again.
    Terayama-san came into view, his posture tense and ready, leaning forward as if in anticipation. He was not holding a weapon. Not yet. There at the corner, not a full arm’s reach from me, he stopped. His eyes searched the corridor ahead, and then he turned back to look behind him.
    “I know you’re here. Come out.”
    The gentle coaxing tone, the way his hands flexed and clenched, sent a sickening quiver through me. I bit down on my lip to hold in the whimper that wanted to escape.
    “Little Suzu-chan, don’t hide. Answer me. I don’t want to get angry with you.”
    He turned, his gaze tracking slowly over the twilight shadows of the corridor.
    I had used this