Rain poured in shards of glass, cutting through the decay of stench that clung to the slums of Kanrei Ward. Mud pooled in crevices of rough stone, streaked with grime and thinned blood. In the dim light of distant lanterns, Kurozawa Ren crouched in the mouth of the alley, watching the street like a starving fox.

  His ribs prodded at his flesh, and his split, hardened fingers clutched hard around a deformed shard of broken pottery. He no longer felt the cold. Hunger had destroyed all reason long ago, leaving him with only an emptiness that pressed within him.

  "Ren," breathed a voice behind him.

  Kaede.

  Ren did not turn. His sister's voice was a fragile thread that held him to what remained of his humanity. If he saw her, he could break.

  "They're coming," she whispered.

  Ren's grip on the shard of pottery grew tighter, the sharp edge digging into his palm. He did not flinch. Pain was a language he spoke.

  Three men emerged from the misty street — enforcers of the buke. Samurai, but not the kind that sang songs of glory and honor. These were Watanabe Clan dogs, wearing patchwork armor and lacquered masks that glinted like predator eyes.

  They carried naginatas, the curved swords shining with rain.

  "They're hunting again," Kaede whispered. "For the ritual."

  Ren's pulse beat in his ear. The *Kami Mandate* was fed by blood — an unholy, ceaseless hunger appeased by the lowest caste of flesh by the noble houses. The slums were hunting grounds once a month. Tonight, the full moon rode big and red.

  Ren pulled Kaede into the alley and pressed her into the wall. "Don't move," he breathed.

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  The enforcers moved forward, their boots splashing mud puddles. Ren measured their step, counted their paces, sensed the gritty lag in their movement — like a predator stalking prey.

  Except that he wasn't the predator.

  Not yet.

  The lead enforcer with the Tengu face came to a stop a pace away from the alley, tilting his head. The mask on his face was molded in the form of a Tengu — a demon with a hooked nose and a vicious, beaked mouth.

  "I smell you," he crooned, voice muffled by the mask.

  Ren's heart pounded against his chest. He pushed Kaede behind him, standing between her and the enforcers. He couldn't fight them off — not with a shard of pottery and a body almost starved to death. But he could buy her time.

  If he ran.

  If he made himself bait.

  Ren controlled his breathing, the world contracting to the sound of rain and the distant rumble of thunder.

  One chance.

  He sprinted.

  The alleyway blurred around him as he tore through the maze of slums, feet barely touching the ground. He didn't look back — didn't need to. The enforcers' pounding footsteps sounded like war drums behind him.

  Ren zigzagged through streets, leaping over wreckage, paddling through sludge. Burning lungs, narrowed vision, but he didn't stop, instincts screaming.

  He didn't stop until he was at the docks — until wooden planks creaked beneath his feet and salt water washed over the stench of death.

  Trapped.

  Ren wheeled around to the enforcers, gasping in a chest-heaving breath. They advanced on him, blades glinting like fangs.

  The Tengu-masked enforcer tilted his head. "Afraid?"

  Ren spat blood onto the dock. "No," he croaked. "Just wondering which one of you croaks first."

  The enforcers laughed.

  And then they fell.

  Ren battled like a beast. He stabbed with the pottery shard, slicing it across the Tengu's mask. The enforcer backhanded him, slamming him across the dock. Wood cracked beneath him, splinters biting into his skin.

  They battered him. Shattered him.

  But he smiled in the blood.

  Because he was buying Kaede time.

  And because he could see it.

  The shadow.

  It spread out under him, writhing and twisting — a black, liquid mass that pulsed like a living heart. The enforcers hesitated, guns raised, eyes flicking to the unnatural darkness spreading across the dock.

  Ren sensed it.

  A cold, suffocating weight on his chest.

  Something old. Something hungry.

  It addressed him in a voice that wasn't a voice.

  *Do you want to live?*

  Ren coughed up blood, eyes screwed shut against the flood of pain surging into his body. He should have been terrified. But terror required energy — and he didn't have any to spare.

  So he laughed.

  "Yeah," he gasped, lip reddened with blood. "I want to live."

  The darkness surged.

  And Ren's world went black.