by Jay Kristoff
She spit at him, then. A glistening spray, right into his face. He closed his eyes and flinched, lips drawing back from his teeth.
“You bastard coward,” she breathed.
Hiro grabbed a handful of her long, black hair, used it to wipe the spit from his eye and cheek. He coiled it in his fist, pulled her head back as she hissed in pain.
“I will leave you now, love.” He planted a gentle kiss on her brow. “Think well of me until I return.”
She glared at him, boiling hatred unmasked in her eyes. He stood and straightened his kimono, the swords at his waist, marched to the rice-paper doors. Sliding them apart, he turned to look at her one last time.
“Consider your position carefully, my Lady. Consider the people you hold dear. The maidservants who even now languish in their cells, awaiting judgment for their complicity in your betrayal.”
“Leave them alone,” she hissed. “They knew nothing of this.”
“So you say. But consider your life is not the only one at stake here. And consider there are far worse fates than death.”
“To live as you do, you mean?” she said. “On your knees? A Guildsman’s slave?”
“It is honor that bids me kneel, Lady. Honor to my oaths. My fallen Lord.” Contempt curling his lips. “A concept you would have no understanding of.”
“Honor,” she spat. “If you had any notion of it, you would have already committed seppuku, Hiro-san. Bad enough you allowed your Lord to perish. But for a member of the Kazumitsu Elite to live on while his Shōgun lies slain…”
She glared with narrowed, hate-filled eyes.
“You are a disgrace, boy.”
The ghost of a smile graced Hiro’s lips.
As empty as the jade-green eyes that rose to meet her own.
“As I said,” he nodded. “You always were an insightful one…”
14
INTOXICATION
Nothing.
Not a godsdamned thing.
They sat together at the tip of a black spur, dropping away into a raging sea. Buruu curled up, chin pressed to stone, a barrier of fur and feathers against the howling wind. Yukiko huddled against him, almost drunk on his warmth, the rhythm of his pulse entwined with her own as she pored over her grim prize, line by painstaking line.
Bishamon’s scroll was not, as she’d hoped, a work concerned with the Kenning’s mysteries. Rather, it was a compilation of mythologies concerning Stormdancers and their mystical bonds to the thunder tigers they rode. Though Yukiko had never really considered it in the past, it made sense that every Stormdancer in Shima’s history was possessed of her gift—how else would they bond with the arashitora they rode into battle? The scroll contained accounts of Kitsune no Akira’s battle against the Dragon of Forgetting. Kazuhiko the Red’s triumph over the One Hundred Ronin. An incomplete account of Tora Takehiko’s heroic charge into the Devil Gate (she presumed the rest of the legends were inked on some other part of Brother Bishamon’s body). But as to clues about how to control the power, or even accounts of it surging beyond control, there was no mention.
Yukiko hung her head, fighting back bitter tears, pushed knuckles into her eyes. Her hair hung over her face, the rain slicking it to her skin in sodden skeins. Lady Amaterasu was sinking to her rest, the Sun Goddess burning the cloud-choked western skies a scorched and bloody umber. Night was falling, and with it, all her hopes.
Slipping into Buruu’s mind, lips pressed tight, trying to focus the Kenning to a tiny point, like sunlight through an aperture of flesh and bone. Her skull ached, warm sickness swelling in her belly, pressing at her gorge. Sharp teeth waiting just beneath her skin.
Can you hear me, brother?
I HEAR YOU.
Wincing. Licking slowly at wind-parched lips. Too tired and disheartened to build her wall, to push bricks into place that would only come crashing down again.
There’s nothing in here that will help us. Legends of old heroes, long dead.
A bitter and helpless fury curled her fingers to fists. She looked up at a black sea rolling overhead, searching the skies for answers she knew were not there. The ache in her skull tightened its grip. The frustration made her want to scream.
AT LEAST THE EXERCISE WAS NOT AN UTTER WASTE OF TIME.
Why the hells do you say that?
The arashitora unfurled one clockwork wing, wrapped it around her shivering form. The static electricity made her tingle, wrapping her up in lightning’s scent.
NO REASON.
She smiled, closed her eyes and rested her head against him. Holding him tight, she pushed warmth into his mind, the gratitude she felt for him just being near. The promise he’d made her was bright in her memory, etched on the stone she set her back against.
“Beneath and between and beyond anything else I may be, I am yours. I will never leave you. Never forsake you. You may rely upon me as you rely upon sun to rise and moon to fall. For you are the heart of me.”
WE SHOULD HEAD BACK TO THE IISHI. THERE YOU CAN SLEEP. AND I CAN EAT.
I hope the Kagé have been treating Kin decently. I worry about him there alone.
HE IS NOT ALONE. THE GIRL IS WITH HIM.
That worries me even more.
SURELY YOU ARE NOT STILL JEALOUS?
Why on earth would I be jealous of Ayane?
… DOES NOT MATTER.
No, say what you mean.
He heaved a sigh, wind curling in the feathers beneath narrowed, amber eyes.
BECAUSE SHE KNOWS A PART OF HIM YOU NEVER WILL. BECAUSE YOU FEAR HE WILL SEE IN HER A KINSHIP HE CANNOT SEE IN YOU.
She pouted amidst her snug kingdom of fur and feathers.
I thought you said you didn’t understand human relationships.
DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHY. THE WHY NOT IS MUCH EASIER.
I don’t know what to do.
NO, YOU ARE SIMPLY FRIGHTENED OF WHAT DOING IT WILL MEAN. HE IS NOT HIRO. HE LOVES YOU.
I know that.
AND YOU HIM?
A part of me must. To feel this way. When I think of him and Ayane alone together, I want to choke something.
AH, YOUNG ROMANCE …
As the sun sank toward the world’s edge, she surveyed the storm looming on the northern horizon. Lightning arced across the clouds and Buruu turned to watch, melancholy staining his mind a somber blue. She reached out to touch it, still unsure of the Kenning’s strength, and as she smoothed it away, she recognized it for what it was.
You’re homesick.
THE TEMPEST REMINDS ME. ALWAYS.
Of the Everstorm?
WHERE THE GREAT SEA DRAGONS SLUMBER. WHERE RAIJIN AND SUSANO-Ō SING LULLABIES TO STILL THEIR HUNGER, FROM NOW UNTIL WORLD’S ENDING.
Are there many of you there? Arashitora?
A FEW SCATTERED PACKS. THE LAST OF MY KIND. WE ARE SLOW TO BREED. JEALOUS. PRIMITIVE. LIKE YOU IN MANY WAYS.
The question rose unbidden in her thoughts.
You never really explained why you came to Shima, you know. You said you were curious, but I’m sure there was more to it than that.
…
Buruu?
GUILD.
Her senses sharpened at the word, feeling his hackles rise in sharp peaks. Staring toward the horizon, squinting in the growing gloom, ears straining for the sound of engines.
I see nothing …
USE MY EYES.
She slipped into the warmth behind his pupils, saw the world as he did, flaring too bright for an agonizing moment as she wrestled for control. She could feel her nose bleeding, slick on her lips, narrowing her eyes as if staring at the sun. The details were picked out in brilliant relief; the shapes of the clouds, of every curling wave and foaming breaker. And to the north, she spotted a shadow, tiny as an infant lotusfly, stark black against iron-gray. The unmistakable snub-nosed silhouette of a Guild sky-ship.
What the hells are they doing all the way out there?
WAR.
Gaijin lands are east, not north. If they’re a warship, t
hey’re way off course.
WE COULD ASK THEM?
Yukiko looked toward the northernmost tip of Seidai, then back toward the tiny silhouette. She knew they should be flying back to the Kagé. They had to plan the strike on Hiro’s wedding, Lady Aisha’s rescue. But if they let the Guild ship go, the opportunity might never arise to find out what they were up to again. And she had promised to deal harshly with the next ship they sent northward.
She gripped Yofun’s hilt, remembering Daichi’s words. Remembering the endless miles of deadlands they’d flown over during their visits to the clan capitals, the Guild’s stain seeping through every province. The rusted pipelines. The blacklung beggars. The Burning Stones.
Whatever the Guildsmen were doing, she’d bet her life it was no good.
All right.
She nodded.
Let’s follow and see what we can see.
* * *
Mechanical marvels they might be, but in the end, sky-ships suffered most limitations of their sea-bound cousins. The truth is, any dirigible is at the mercy of the Wind God Fūjin, no matter how powerful her engines. Heading directly into a gale consumes enormous amounts of fuel, and as the charred remains of three Guild ironclads and the Thunder Child before them could attest, the hydrogen in a sky-ship’s gut is highly flammable. Which is why, when Yukiko realized the Guild ship was not only flying directly into the wind, but also headed straight for a lightning storm, she knew the bastards were up to something on the south side of righteous.
They’d been flying for almost a day, and Buruu was showing signs of fatigue. He caught sleep in fits and starts, gliding high on ocean-born thermals, drifting in a kind of sleepwalker state. Yukiko kept watch while he dozed, slowly rebuilding the wall inside her head, but he showed a remarkable ability to remain aloft despite being, for all intents and purposes, fast asleep. Yukiko nibbled on the rice cakes at the bottom of her satchels, sipped water from her last gourd. She watched the horizon, gaze fixed on the ship she could now see with her own eyes.
The Guildsman was headed directly into the storm. Thunder rocked the skies, lightning splitting the horizon in hairline fractures. The distance between them was narrowing; the arashitora cut through headwinds a dirigible couldn’t. Yukiko fancied the ship wasn’t an ironclad—it looked too small to be a warship, and moved faster than a gunboat should.
Scout, maybe? But what are they scouting for out here?
PERHAPS THE PILOT IS JUST VERY DEPRESSED.
The gale grew stronger as day descended into night, the storm reaching out to them with eager hands, adrenaline coursing through Buruu’s veins. The thunder was a rumbling hymn in his ears, and each lightning strike birthed a tiny blue-white thrill of delight in his belly.
Could they be headed to the Everstorm?
WRONG COURSE FOR SUICIDE OF THAT FLAVOR.
Then where are they going?
THERE ARE ISLANDS NORTH OF HERE. BLACK GLASS. RAZOR ISLES, WE CALL THEM. BUT NO MONKEY-CHILD BOAT COULD SURVIVE THERE.
Well, I’m running out of food. And the wedding is drawing nearer every hour we use up here. It seems a godsdamned waste to turn back now, though. What do you think?
…
Buruu?
A long, whining growl rumbled in his chest, adrenaline kicking along his veins, pupils dilating. A feeble mote of scent hung on the air; a half-remembered sliver stirring something primal inside. For a second, Yukiko was overcome; Buruu losing all control and flaring bright inside her splitting head, an impulse traveling down the Kenning and filling their mouths with saliva, making their hearts beat faster, breath come quicker. Butterflies in their stomach, face and neck flushing with heat, thigh muscles quivering. They dug her fingers into his fur, felt every strand across their palms, goosebumps thrilling their skin.
With a gasp of effort, she pulled away, drew back from his mind and slammed hers shut, pawing at the blood dripping from her nose. She realized he’d put on a burst of speed, muscles taut, talons curled into fists. She could feel his heart pounding, taste the lingering rush in her veins. Recognizing the sensation from her nights in Hiro’s arms, the anticipation of that moment each evening when their lips would first touch after a day of longing, feeling the warmth spread from her stomach down between her thighs. The way Kin had made her feel in the graveyard, her body pressed against him, breathing him in like oxygen and fire.
It was lust.
No, something worse.
Something further from desire and closer to madness.
Buruu?
She reached into the Kenning, trying to expose only the smallest sliver of her psyche, as if opening a door just the tiniest of cracks. His heat burned brighter than the sun. The headache lurched about her skull, a stumble-drunk thing of avalanches and metal clubs, and she closed her eyes against it, holding her hand before her face as if shielding it from a bonfire.
Buruu? Can you hear me?
His only response was to fly faster. The rivets and bolts in his wing assembly groaned in protest, and he climbed higher, out of the wind snarling at the ocean’s face, up into smoother skies. Bearing north like a compass point, blood pounding, thudding, thrumming, focused on the faint fragments of scent now filling his mind, hooks in his skin, drowning out her voice and leaving nothing but the thunderous pulse at his temples.
Buruu, stop. Where are you going?
NORTH.
She reeled upon his back, almost falling, digging fingernails into his neck. So impossibly loud. So awfully bright. The pressure and heat turning her skull to glass and kicking at the insides with iron-shod boots.
She twisted to look behind them. Shabishii Island and the monastery were nowhere to be seen. Nothing but blood-dark ocean now, as the sun’s last light guttered and died. Howling wind all around, the break and hiss of vast seas below, and fear raised its cold, smooth head in her belly, spread fingers through her insides. Throwing her arms around Buruu’s neck, she pressed her face into his warmth. Tasting the echo of his thoughts, the intoxication filling his veins, like a junksick lotusfiend in a burning valley of smoke. And there, amidst his heartbeat’s pounding song, the blood-drunk rush of desire, she caught a hint of it. The thing that spurred him on, robbed him of all reason, reduced him once more to the beast she’d met in the shadows of the Iishi, prowling from the darkness, smeared with oni blood.
Somewhere north, a trace hanging on the wind, knotting itself amongst his feathers and dragging him onward, like lightning toward a spire of copper.
It was a female.
A female in heat.
PART 2
TEMPEST
Yet pitiless Death,
Claimed Izanagi’s pale bride, as night claims frail day.
And in Yomi’s depths, pure love turned to darkest hate, her thoughts to revenge.
The Maker God failed, night swallowing all his hopes, his bride left behind.
Black kiss on his lips, Izanagi put to law,
The Rites of the Dead.
—from the Book of Ten Thousand Days
15
THE HOUR OF THE PHOENIX
Father was just another word for failure.
Slumped at the table with a bottle in his hand, shrouded in old sweat and liquor. Medals on the wall behind, bright ribbons and tarnished bronze, engraved with kanji like VALOR and SACRIFICE. Empty eyes in a bloated, sunburned face, a spit-slick sheen on the whiskers at his chin. An ugly stump where his hand used to be, forearm mangled, shining skin. Hair like a scarecrow in a crowless field, shoulders buckled under the weight of regret. Knuckles scabbed from their mother’s teeth. The land outside running to ruin while he drank himself stupid and blamed the weather, the blood in his veins, the gods, the war. But never himself.
Never himself.
“Where’ve you been, Yoshi?” he growls.
The boy is drenched in sweat, pollen fogging his goggles, skin blistered from his day in the sun. He hasn’t even had time to wash his face, drink a mouthful of water, and already it’s begun.
“Where do you think?” He holds up his hands, black dirt under broken fingernails.
“And now you’re off to town, eh?” his father slurs. “Prancing about with your pretty little friends? You think I don’t know what you do? Who you do it with?”
“Who and what I do is my business.”
“You act like lowborn trash, that’s all people are ever going to see.”
“You’d know, right Da?”
“I made something of myself, you little bastard. I was a soldier. A hero. Lowborn or not.” He waves at the medals on the walls. “I proved to those Kitsune bastards it doesn’t matter what blood flows inside a man. It’s the heart that beats in his chest.”
“Gods, spare me…”
“You’re old enough now,” he spits. “Time to grow up. Be a man. Be a soldier.”
“Tell me more, Da. Tell me all about the man I’m supposed to be.”
“Watch your mouth.” He sways upright, the first unsteady steps of a familiar dance routine. “You act like a woman, I’ll treat you like one.”
Yoshi’s mother is in the kitchen, head down, bright blue eyes squeezed shut. Hana comes in from the fields, clad in threadbare cotton and lotus pollen. She pulls her goggles down around her throat and glances back and forth between her father and brother. The boy sees the look on her face. The fear. Her eyes are bright with it, brimming with the terror that darkens her every day. Twelve-year-old girls weren’t supposed to have eyes like that.
“Have another drink, war hero,” Yoshi says. “You look thirsty.”
The man stalks toward him. Hana starts pleading to her father, begging. His flower, his baby girl. The only one he loves. Between all the blood and all the years, the only thing father and son have in common. She won’t move him a foot, or sway him an inch. But still she tries. She tries every time.
Yoshi raises his fists.
