by Jay Kristoff
Boots crunching on shattered obsidian.
Howling wind.
Thunder.
Whumpwhumpwhump.
The nomad was stirring, talons that could rend an ironclad like cloth curling into fists, leaving gouges in the black glass beneath. Ilyitch ran his fingers through the feathers at the arashitora’s neck, over the mighty wings, breathing deep, a slow smile alighting on his face. The quills glowed with a faint luster; the charge of static electricity lighting his eyes with hunger.
He nodded.
Whumpwhumpwhump.
“No,” she moaned. “Don’t…”
Ilyitch straddled the arashitora’s head, one boot on either side, face turned to the sky.
“Imperatritsa, butye svidetilem!” he cried. “Moya dobicha! Moya slava!”
Whumpwhumpwhump.
The boy raised the knife.
“Ilyitch, don’t!”
Lightning in the skies, reflected in the blade.
Descending.
“NO!”
And with a flash of steel, an impossible gush of red, the boy opened up the thunder tiger’s throat.
PART 3
ASHES
Prayers first for the Judge,
Offerings for Enma-ō, burned in blessed flame.
Coin and holy words, invocations unto him, that he judge them fair.
And from fire’s belly, when all heat and light shall fade, a handful of ash,
Spread upon cold skin, bloodless faces and dead lips,
That we shall know them.
—From the Book of Ten Thousand Days
37
OFFERINGS
He always knocked on her door. As if she had some say whether he entered or not.
Michi plastered on her smile as Ichizo nodded to his retinue of bushimen, sealing them outside in the bustling, servant-strewn hallway. She stepped across the room, joy on her face if not in her eyes, pressing her lips to his and wondering how long it would be before the serpent in her arms reared back to strike.
“My love,” he said. “I missed you.”
“And I you,” she lied. “I get so lonely without you.”
Her hands slipped to his waist, over the hilts of his chainkatana, steel calling to shivering fingertips. How easy would it be, to close her fist about that plaited cord and draw it forth, thumb the ignition, listen to the engine sing …
She began untying his obi.
“Wait, love.” He caught up her hands and kissed each fingertip; eight feather-light touches, eyes sparkling. “I thought we might go for a walk.”
She allowed her eyebrow to rise slightly. “Around the room, my Lord?”
“I thought we might take some fresh air by the sky-docks.” He smiled. “Such as it is.”
A blink.
“You mean I’m—”
“Lord Hiro has assented to you leaving your rooms for a stroll in my company.” He put a finger over her lips, cutting off her cry of delight. “The Daimyo of the Phoenix and Dragon clan are due to arrive this afternoon. Lord Hiro wishes his court present to greet them.”
“Oh, gods!” She threw her arms around his neck. “You did it!”
“Not quite. Once we are done, you must return to your room. But it is a beginning. I said you would be on my arm at the wedding, love. Tora Ichizo keeps his promises.” He kissed her lips. “Now, go change into something that will dazzle them. I will be waiting.”
She turned and ran to the dressing room, still smiling even after she turned away. And if there was some kernel of true feeling behind it, it was only because she hadn’t stepped outside her room in nearly a month. Or perhaps because she might catch a glimpse of Aisha at the reception. Not because he’d lived up to his promise. Not because even in the midst of all this, he’d somehow made her happy.
No, not at all.
* * *
The sun was drowning at the edge of Kigen Bay.
Even through her breather, Michi could smell the reek slinking in off the water, the shambling sea breeze carrying rot in its arms. The docking towers along Spire Row loomed over the sun-bleached boardwalk, a lone seagull above drawing aimless circles in tar-spattered skies. Greasy water slurped and burbled at the rotting pier, the blood-red air vibrating with the murmur and hum of thousands upon thousands of people—half the populace of Kigen, surely—gathered at their Daimyo’s command to greet the masters of the Phoenix and Dragon clans.
Countless faces swathed in grubby kerchiefs and ash-fogged goggles. Silks of every shade of red imaginable, Tiger banners snapping and rippling in the poison breeze. She fancied she could hear the dissent, building like a tide against a crumbling dam. Looking around the thousand faces, the rotting shell of this diseased city, she found herself smiling.
One day, all this will be gone.
The court was gathered in all its finery—magistrates and scribes, courtiers and officials, soldiers and courtesans. The Lotus Guild had also turned out in force, no doubt to impress their support of the Tiger clan upon their Dragon and Phoenix visitors. Dozens of brass-clad insectoid figures stood amidst the crowd, rank and file Lotusmen along with the fanatical Purifiers in their white tabards and soot-stained gauntlets. A dozen more surrounded the glacial menace of Shateigashira Kensai, Kigen’s Second Bloom, his boyish face mask reflecting the blinding glint of the setting sun. Banners bearing the Guild’s sigil loomed at his back, green as lotus leaves.
But of the Lord of Tigers or his fiancée, there was no sign.
Bells rang out across the water, the song of iron entwined with the hiss of black salt, and Michi turned her eyes to the armada closing in on the bay. A half-dozen ships—real, old-fashioned sailing ships—were cutting across the foam-scummed waves. The vessels were heavy, triple-masted fortresses with towering sterns and snarling dragons at their prows, wonderfully crafted but still, practically antiques. Michi found herself smiling behind her breather.
Tall ships were rarely seen since the advent of sky-ship technology, and they would certainly not be considered “proper” to transport a Daimyo and his retinue under normal circumstances. But the Dragon zaibatsu had been a clan of raiders in the uncivilized days before the Imperium. Terrors of the seas, not beholden to any law. The Dragon clanlord, Ryu Haruka, was no fool. Arriving in such a fashion was certainly intended to send a message to his would-be Shōgun—a reminder of what the Ryu clan had been, and could easily become again. A display; hackles raised, teeth bared. But if the Dragon Daimyo wished his display to make an impression, he would no doubt be cursing fate that he had to share his entrance with a Phoenix.
A shadow fell across Michi’s face, ash and dust whipped in a growing prop-blast wind, the drone of massive propellers drowning out the songs of the bay. She looked into the sky and her heart skipped a beat despite herself, awed and outraged at the sheer majesty of it. A goliath loomed in the skies above, growing larger by the moment.
The “Floating Palace” they called it. The largest sky-ship ever built. Three hundred feet of polished wood and towering walls and pyramid rooftops stacked one upon another. Sunflower-yellow flags rippled from its flanks, its inflatables daubed in the same hue, like some vast golden sun burning overhead, spewing a breathtaking plume of exhaust into the already suffocating sky. It was said the Daimyo of the Fushicho clan never set foot on the tortured earth of their homelands anymore. That any pleasure within the Seven Isles could be found in those opulent halls. The fuel it must have taken to keep it afloat—let alone fly it all the way to Kigen—made Michi sick to her stomach. Extravagance and arrogance in equal, nauseating measure.
She looked at the beggar children in the crowd around her, the women and children who didn’t know where their next meal might come from. Fingernails biting her palms.
“Incredible, is it not?” Ichizo said beside her.
“It is, my Lord,” she breathed.
The air about the Floating Palace was swarming with swift corvettes—three-man sky-ships with balloons shaped like arrowheads, a blazing phoe
nix painted on each. Swooping and rising like long-lost hummingbirds, they danced in the air to the delight of the crowd. As the grand old ships of the Dragon clan docked at Spire Row, and a small contingent of corvettes flew down from the palace above, the sun finally slipped below the edge of the world. The sky exploded with a blinding fireworks display—pinwheels and dragon cannon lighting the dusk, the citizens below applauding the arrival of the Daimyo’s noble guests. Michi’s eyes roamed the retinues, fixing on each clanlord in turn as they alighted from their respective craft.
The Dragon clanlord, Ryu Haruka, was an elderly man, short and wiry, a long goatee and thinning gray locks swept away in a topknot. He was clad in a sapphire-blue kimono and an embossed cuirass. A silver dragon-maw breather was affixed below jet-black eyes, deep as the bloody sea in which dragons once roamed. An elegant woman (Michi assumed a wife) stood beside him, face hidden by an elaborate breather fan. The pair were surrounded by Iron Samurai in ō-yoroi of silver, blue tabards reaching to the filthy ground. Dour stares and iron eyes.
By contrast, the Phoenix retinue was all motion and color. Their two Daimyo walked side by side—tall, beautiful men, painted faces, clad in identical kimono of burnt yellow and gold. Shin and Shou were an oddity amongst Shima’s clanlords—twin brothers choosing to rule jointly rather than squabble over who had been plucked from their mother’s womb first. The pair moved with an eerie synchronicity, neither straying from the other’s side. Their retinue was made up of swaying dancers with eyes shadowed the color of flame, slender men shifting balls of flaming glass between their fingers. Even the armor of their Iron Samurai seemed crafted for beauty first, function second—helms sculpted like phoenix heads, tabards of flame-colored feathers upon their shoulders.
The Herald of the Tiger court, grand old Tanaka, stood amidst the crowd, paunchy and scarlet-clad. His warm welcome spilled from the speakers clustered beneath his tiger-maw breather, announcing each Daimyo in turn. Michi covered her fist and bowed with the rest of the court, eyes to the floor. Obedient. Deferential. Playing the good woman. The loyal subject. Her stare drifted to the chainswords at Ichizo’s waist.
Soon.
Her whisper was meant for her jailer’s ears only.
“Pardon, Lord, but where are Clan Kitsune? Will they be arriving later?”
“Daimyo Kitsune Isamu refused our Lord’s invitation,” Ichizo whispered in reply. “The Fox zaibatsu will not attend the wedding, nor swear allegiance to Shima’s new Shōgun.”
“May I ask why not?”
Ichizo shrugged. “Perhaps Isamu-sama tires of living…”
Drums rang out in the dusk as the luminance of the fireworks died. Michi turned with the rest of the throng, watching as a long convoy of motor-rickshaws trundled down the Palace Way. The vehicles were squat, beetle-shaped, chi lanterns at their snouts setting the smog around them aglow. A dozen Iron Samurai marched in the vanguard, arrayed in golden tabards of the Kazumitsu Elite, bone-white armor spitting plumes of blue-black. A stomping, clomping legion of bushimen followed, naginata at rest on their shoulders, Tiger banners streaming from the hafts.
Looking around the crowd, Michi saw sheer adoration—genuine or contrived, she couldn’t tell. Applause and cheers, the tune of flute and drum and string spilling through the rust-clad speakers of the public address system. As Lord Hiro’s motorcade approached, she saw movement on a rooftop at the corner of her eye, glancing across to see a small clockwork spider crawling from a downspout on silver, needle legs, red eye aglow. Her stare grew wide and she flinched, grasping Ichizo’s arm.
“What in the name of the gods is that?”
Ichizo glanced at the contraption, muttered beneath his breath.
“I beg pardon, my Lord?” Michi said, leaning closer to hear him over the clamor.
“A Guild device.” Ichizo spoke a little clearer, turned his eyes back to Hiro’s approach. “The palace teems with them.”
“What do they do?”
“What they see, the Guild knows.”
“My honorable Daimyo Hiro is content to let the Guild into his bedchambers?”
“Apparently so.”
She watched the device ticking across the rooftop of a crumbling store shed, a windup key spinning upon its back. Glancing around, she saw several others, tiny red lights hiding in the shadows of lean-to warehouses or storm drains, silver limbs rippling.
“The Guild has done much for my cousin,” Ichizo murmured. “Returned the arm that the Impure assassin took away. Given him the power to seize the Four Thrones. But Yoritomo-no-miya’s old guard warned against tying ourselves too closely to the Guild. As time wears on, I wonder if there was wisdom in old men’s voices.” He ran one hand over his neck. “At least the Guild keep their spies in the open, I suppose. Not hidden in shadows.”
She glanced at him, trying to read his features. His voice was low and measured, tinged with metal within his breather, but she swore she caught a hint of emphasis on the word “shadows.”
“Do you think my cousin will make a good Shōgun, Michi-chan?”
Michi blinked, attention sharpening at the question. She looked around—the jubilant crowd, the soldiers just a shouted order away. Maybe this was where it happened: here in public, right on this boardwalk. Where the viper bared its fangs to strike.
“My Lord?”
“Hiro-sama.” Ichizo nodded toward the approaching procession. “Do you think he will make a good ruler?”
“It does not matter what I think.” She turned her eyes to the floor, trying to appear embarrassed. “I am not worthy to judge.”
“But you have made a judgment nevertheless. That is only human. You knew him briefly, when he courted the Kitsune girl. How did he strike you? As a fair man? Balanced?”
“He was Kazumitsu Elite. His honor was impeccable, his conduct above reproach.”
They stood in silence for a long time, listening to the crackling music, the fireworks popping anew, the percussion of the approaching legion. Ichizo was staring at her, but she refused to meet his eyes, to show any kind of strength. If this was a play, she didn’t quite know what to make of it. He spoke again, his voice so low she could barely hear.
“When we were children, Hiro and I would play soldiers. Fighting side by side against the gaijin hordes or demons from the Yomi underworld. It was all either of us wanted to do: defend the throne. Preserve the might of the Shōgunate.” He glanced at the Daimyo of the Dragon and Phoenix clans, their gathered entourages. “But never once, not in all the times we played, did we imagine our enemies would be our own people.”
She kept her face still. Breathing steady. Wondering what shape her end would take. How far she would get before they cut her down …
“Do you have something to tell me, Michi-chan?”
She licked her lips. Just once. Finally met his stare.
“My Lord?”
“I want you to trust me.” He put his hand on her arm as the noise of the crowd swelled. “I want you to know you can tell me anything.”
Of course you do.
“If you hide things from me, I can’t protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“Yourself.”
So here it is. He must suspect something. Perhaps he’d heard her as she stole his keys. Perhaps one of those accursed Guild machines had been spying in her bedroom ceiling or through her window. She was in danger. No One was in danger. Aisha was in danger …
Thoughts of personal peril vanished as Hiro’s motorcade pulled to a creaking stop at the boardwalk’s edge. The final vehicle in the row of motor-rickshaws was a large palanquin on rolling tank tracks, its hull fashioned to resemble a snarling horde of golden tigers. Atop their backs in a massive, ornate love seat were propped the couple of the hour. Lord Tora Hiro was resplendent in his bone-white ō-yoroi armor, face covered by a snarling tiger helm, his clockwork arm held up to the cheering crowd. But it was not the would-be Shōgun of the nation who caught Michi’s attention, held her transfixed,
sent a fierce pride swelling in her breast.
Yoritomo-no-miya had discovered his sister’s treachery in the hours before his assassination, and in his rage, had beaten the First Daughter near to death. And yet, here she was. Looking out over her people. Still breathing while her brother’s ashes filled a tomb beneath the palace. Such strength. The strength to defy every impulse within her, to rise up from a place of luxury and privilege and recognize the suffering of the people beyond the palace walls. To strive for something better. The strength to say no.
“Aisha,” Michi whispered.
The First Daughter was a beauty from the pages of poets, a woman wrought of alabaster and fine black silk. Her face powdered pearl-white, deep smears of kohl accentuating knowing eyes. A tiger-maw breather covered the lower half of her face, her hair bound into elaborate braids, pierced with gold. Her gown was scarlet, embroidered with a rippling pattern of lotus blooms and prowling tigers, rising into a high throat and an elaborate choker of gold and jewels. Hiro held her hand, fingers entwined, lifting it to the cheering crowd. Though the boy Daimyo might be a pretender, Kazumitsu’s blood flowed in Aisha’s veins. She was the last remnant of a mighty dynasty, a living link to Shima’s glorious past. The people loved her for it.
She sat poised, immaculate, still as midnight, her eyes roaming her adoring public and twinkling with firecracker light. Her seat was surrounded by Guildsmen of a breed Michi had seldom seen before—wasp-waisted women with long, insectoid limbs made of chrome at their backs. Their eyes glowed red, mechabacii chittering on their chests.
Hiro released his fiancée’s hand, stepped down off the palanquin, surrounded by a sea of his white-clad Iron Samurai. As one, the crowd sank to their knees. The Daimyo of the Phoenix and Dragon stepped forward, bowed low, first to Lady Aisha, then to her betrothed. Hiro covered his fist, returned the bow.
