The wood was dark about Torosei. The blood red sky could not sweep the cloud of shadow from between the trees. The darkness crept across the snow like a living thing, pooling beneath roots and stones.

Nothing lived here. Nothing made a sound. The only creature Torosei had seen since entering this accursed haunt of Phoenix ghosts was a single owl.

It had lain dead upon the cold earth, maggots writhing beneath the cold feathers.

Torosei marked his breathing, counting silently as he had been taught. Gently, he slowed the time between them. Each breath took longer, quieted. Now he was as silent as the forest around him. A forest which sat still, watching him, listening, lusting for his blood.

The wood was like a single creature, a vast spider hoping to lure him into the heart of its spiral. He would not be caught. He would not vanish.

Tsuruchi-sama yet lived. In his heart, Torosei knew this to be true. No body had been found. No blood had been spilled. Yoritomo-sama also knew this to be true. It was Lord Yoritomo who had charged the Wasp with finding their lost daimyo. The Phoenix had fallen, the war was done. Honour had been reclaimed. Mukami-sama had sent the Wasp out to scour the Empire. This was the place where Tsuruchi-sama had vanished. Here, at Mori Kage. The Shadow Forest.

It well lived up to its name. Since he had entered the forest, Lord Moon had been swallowed by darkness, and Amaterasu herself had abandoned her place in the sky. In the darkness, the forest had tried to swallow Torosei - for three days he had walked back along his path, yet he had not reached the forest's edge. All the world, perhaps, had ended except for this wood. This haunted wood.

There, in the dark, Torosei saw a glinting light. A fine white gleam, as of metal... or crystal.

An arrow stood across his path, buried through the limb of a tree. Such force had carried the shaft that the point had burst through to kiss the air on the other side. A tiny dagger-point of crystal was bound to the wood with elegant tracings of metal vines. The shaft itself was inlaid with jade, a serpentine design tracing back so far as the fletching.

Torosei had seen craftsmanship like this only once before. Long ago, as a boy, he had seen such an arrow, such a work of art. Long ago in the forest Shinomen...

Torosei pulled the shaft free, and slipped it softly amongst the arrows of his quiver. Tsuruchi-sama would be found...