It exploded in front of Shuri’s body, the lightning stone blasting it into tiny shards. Snatching up a third bar, Yaki charged, twirling it like a two-handed sword. Still reeling, Shuri brought her blades up too late, her blades sparking against the stone as Yaki swept them aside and slammed the heel of her boot directly into the woman’s tit. Shuri yelped, her body twisting with impact, unclawed hand coming around to grasp at where Yaki’s ankle had been. Yaki smiled as the bar completed its arc and came down on Shuri’s shoulder. The hard snap of the woman’s brittle collarbone was music to Yaki’s ears.
“HEY, YAKI!” Ishe’s voice bellowed out over the square. “Stop beating up on the people we’re here to save.”
Chapter Sixteen
To fight with dragons is to know the taste of ash.
Lord Signa, Lyndon bounty hunter
Ishe hardened the grin on her face to keep the astonishment from leaking into her expression. It appeared that her little sister had just handed one of the Steward’s bodyguard concubines her ass. Not only that, she’d done it with what appeared to be a stone bar. Ishe chuckled to herself.
A groan drifted up from the priest who’d dared to suggest Ishe go around the square. She ground her boot into his back, hoping he’d get the hint and stay down. Ahead of them, Yaki held the bar as if she were about to knock her opponent’s head clear off her shoulders. “Let’s all calm down here and have a chat.” Ishe twirled the ice pike the priest had been holding. She had her hand cannon in her bag, its flap open in case she needed it. “No need for a public beating. Yaki, let the poor lady up. We’re here on a peace mission from the Silver Fox.” Ishe’s stomach twisted at the lie, but she plowed on with the speech she had been rehearsing in her head. “The dear Steward, my adopted father, will want to hear our offer. It concerns the safety of all who dwell in the city. A threat that he has not foreseen.”
That the Steward had been their father had always been a rumor that Ishe had knocked no few heads together over. But as her mother had been his concubine, she could technically call him father if she were being crude. Officially, that changed nothing; Stewards were selected by the kami. Practically, it changed everything. The priest-soldiers who had slowly sunk into a fighting stance relaxed a hair. Ishe gave a half-glance behind her; Drosa nodded back from a shadow, another ice pike in her hands. Gama stood a bit off to the side, dazed. The priest who that had gotten between him and Yaki had clocked him. Ishe had been planning on blindsiding Shuri with a hand-cannon shot if worse came to worst. But Yaki had demonstrated that she couldn’t even pretend to need rescuing anymore.
Yaki backed up a smidgen, letting the jagged bar fall against her shoulder. Shuri clutched at her shoulder with a taloned hand. Her mask panted, long paper tongue lolling out its side. “The Steward will not meet with an Enshadowed.”
“I don’t see any Enshadowed here,” Ishe said, twirling the spear easily between her thick fingers as she met the gazes of the priests. Several of them more than matched her bulk. “If anyone does, they’re going to regret it, and not simply what I’ll do with this. Because if we don’t speak to the Steward, nothing will be able to stop what is coming.”
Yaki continued to stare at Shuri with her mismatched eyes. “Yaki, maybe you want to close that one eye.” Dropping her voice, she said, “Make it a little easier for them.”
With a deep sigh, Yaki made a show of closing her human eye, then winced and switched eyes. Ishe had to smile inwardly; that part of her sister hadn’t changed, at least. .
The woman stood. “I will take you to the Steward. And then he will pronounce both your sentences for sullying his presence.” Her voice was so tight and controlled, it nearly hid the pain.
“Doubt it,” Ishe said. “Lead the way.”
With an imperious snort, Shuri turned her back on them both and began to walk up the hill toward the palace. She made no attempt to call for a carriage, and the priests fell in around them so tightly that Ishe thought herself in a cage of flesh. Still, it moved toward their ultimate destination, and she judged that to be progress.
Yaki did not let go of her slab of pilfered stone as she drew near.
They walked for nearly fifteen minutes in silence, trudging up through the district and climbing toward the middling neighborhoods in the city. Yaki broke it with a low whisper, shoulders hunched with effort. “I had a vision. Everyone in the city burned.”
Ishe nodded, silently thanking the Death Panther for the vision. “And that’s what will happen if we don’t stop him. We’re on the right path.”
Chapter Seventeen
While much has been written about the significance of a dragon’s forge being the key to its life force, it’s not the source of a dragon’s flame. That originates in the lungs, where there is an alchemy of air and blood.
Hon Nishamura, chief historian of the Steward’s archives
Yaz’noth busily assembled a heart as he watched the sun arc across the sky and battled his doubts away. After all, the farther away that fleet got, the longer it would take them to return. The humans he had brought with him sat in a circle around the warm glow of a heating crystal, their thickest cloaks discarded like molted skins behind them. Hammer and Smurge dug at the edges of the cave, each searching for traces of their own favored metals.
Yaz’noth swallowed as he carefully cracked open the egg and swiftly extracted the forge from the embryonic dragon within. Batting aside the guilt, he told himself, I’m not killing it. I’m helping it along. Maybe it was even true this time. Everything had been done as he had with Yaki’s heart, except that Miss Cog might be over two decades older than the teenager. It should work. It had to work. Once the poppy milk had arrived, he administered it to Miss Cog, but she stopped breathing. He had been forced to intervene, cutting open her chest and working her lungs manually. Just like Yaki. It had to work. The process had to improve.
A motion caught his eye. A very small human jumped up and down as she waved her arms. She was clad in a bright blue, one of the Ninth. She should be the one in his forge, although this particular one’s torso was so small, he’d need to miniaturize the organ in order to fit it in her chest. He let her continue to wave as he finished securing the baby dragon forge to the mechanical heart.
“Yes?” he said.
She ceased jumping but still bounced on her toes, grinning with that certain excitement that only children possessed. “Guro’s coming! He’s bringing the quicksilver here, lord! Right now!”
“He what?” Anger started to rise in his bowels, but he forcefully calmed himself with a long breath. Cooking Miss Cog alive accidentally would truly spoil the day. “What happened?” he said in a voice that did not cause pebbles to fall from the ceiling.
The girl had not flinched, which identified her as Sin, the most brilliant and fearless of the Ninth compared to Mei, the oldest, who seemed to jump at her own shadow yet had also insisted on coming. “He said there were too many ships overhead, so he’s making a dash for the cave.”
Yaz’noth closed his eyes and forced himself to speak in a very soft tone. “He defied my order again.”
“Yep!” Sin’s bounce increased as if eager to see his anger. “That’s why he didn’t plan to tell us until he arrived. And he’s not far away! Mei says she can see him heading directly for us. Same with the patrol ship chasing after him!”
Yaz’noth heaved himself up and went to the cave entrance, growling to himself. He had to stick himself halfway out of the mouth of the cave to snake his neck around the mountain to see. Mei waved at him from a small ledge and pointed north. The patrol ship he found first, a small sail ship, painted red and black like a poisonous bug, chasing after the even smaller propeller-driven skiff. The wind, fickle as ever, favored the patrol ship. That could be fixed. Yaz’noth started to move the wind crystal up his gullet but stopped. The wind crystal would spoil his operating theater.
“Guro, you are an idiot!” Yaz’noth didn’t quite shout it. Couldn’t have waited two more hours? That was all
he needed. Two more hours of stillness, and then Miss Cog’s survival would be up to her own body and the nurses Hammer had flown last night. Hammer…
Yaz’noth pulled back inside. “Hammer!”
Hammer turned from a hole he had been digging and swallowed. “Yes Father?”
“I need you to go smash a ship for men” Yaz’noth said.
Hammer’s wings scrunched tighter to his body. “Yes, lord.”
“It’s a little ship. You slam through this one. No passengers. Easy.” Yaz’noth wished he had brought a few of Hammer’s brothers and sisters, but they all needed another decade or two of seasoning.
“But—”
“I don’t like that word, Hammer. I need you to do this,” Yaz’noth growled.
Hammer’s head ducked in submission. “Yes, Father.”
Chapter Eighteen
Justice in Golden Hills is determined by the complex overlay of bureaucratic precedent, divine inspiration, and the whims of the watch, all of which can overridden by the Steward.
Hon Nishamura, chief historian of the Steward’s archives
Walking from the market all the way to the palace took so long that Ishe feared that it was a stalling tactic. At any moment, a squad of crossbowmen could appear and end this parade. Maybe Yaki would survive. In her dirty dress, one eye pinched with stone slab carried over her slender shoulder and an unhappy slash of a mouth, she looked more than a little feral. Ishe herself could barely see her sister’s former self and forgave the whispers that spread as they climbed through the strata of wealth in the city.
Yet the whispers did not stop them, nor did the stares of the upper classes from their porches and balconies. No one commented on the way that Shuri’s right arm hung limply from her shoulder. Drosa watched them all back, walking slightly behind Ishe, her stolen pike always in her hand. Meanwhile, Gama had chosen a different approach and disappeared back into the crowd. Ishe decided he could take care of himself, and she focused on looking as tall as she could stretch her back. It took effort to keep her face stern. Coyote’s grin wanted to shine forth in the attention. The sun had reached its apex before they came to the “wall” of the palace: a simple palisade of timber painted red. It protected nothing but the foot of the great stair. The palace itself, built of stone and carved ironwood, loomed over everything. The great palace doors opened at the top of the penitent’s path, the stairway that zigzagged up the mountain. Anyone who climbed the five thousand steps would be granted an audience, traditionally. Ishe looked around for the small airship they called the elevator but found it moored up at the top of the stairway.
As she stared, a small speck of white grew larger as it descended. A paper crane the width of Ishe’s arm glided down toward Shuri. She caught it with her good arm. The paper unfolded itself and she read the expressive script. “You are to climb.”
“Really?” Ishe called out to Shuri. “Every moment we drag this out, doom gets closer to the city. We could simply leave you to it.”
“You and your family speak in lies and false promises,” Shuri answered. “And yet he will still hear you out.” She lifted her mask a crack and spat on the stone path.
“Insulting us doesn’t change our mother’s message,” Ishe said.
“But it delivers one to her well enough.” Shuri gathered herself and the wind stirred around her before she lifted from the ground. Her dress thrashed like a tethered sail as the air bore her all the way up to the Steward’s balcony at the very top of the castle. The priest-soldiers stepped back, opening their circle and forming a line that blocked the three off them from the exit.
Drosa filled the air with her laughter. “Chief in mountain! Woman who fly! Oh, you live in a wild place.”
“No magic yet,” Yaki grunted. “All crystals.”
“Back home, the only crystals I see just glow.” Drosa had a wide, wondrous grin that put one on Ishe’s face as well.
“Come on; Father dear awaits.” Ishe started for the steps.
“Your father is chief of Golden Hills?” Drosa asked, nearly scampering to keep up. Yaki tossed her bar to the ground and trudged behind.
Ishe waited until they were on the steps before answering. “Could be him as well as anyone.”
“Bullshit,” Yaki said.
“What? You don’t see the family resemblance, Yaki?” Ishe said as she began to climb.
Yaki snorted out a cloud of black smoke as she fished out her reel of gold thread. Less than half remained.
As the reached the first switchback, Ishe spotted Dancing Fly twirling around the sky along with other pleasure craft outside the city limits. Ishe took her signaling mirror out and said hello.
In the beginning, Ishe pointed out the various districts and neighborhoods to Drosa. After the first thousand steps, however, she had no more breath to spare for talking. The world narrowed to Ishe and the next step. Drosa and Yaki passed her, drifting farther, moving with an almost-mechanical gait. Drosa made her climb look effortless, pumping her herself up a flight of stairs and waiting at the top for Yaki and Ishe to catch up. This pattern held a little more than halfway. Then Yaki started emitted white smoke with every breath, and her gait grew into a bit of stumble. Drosa, too, stopped her little dashes and settled into a rhythm of heavy breathing.
None of them stopped moving. They reached the palace gates, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. The palace’s secretary met them at the gate, bearing water. Ishe recognized the little man. “Girls! Girls! It’s so good to see you again. Can the cat wait outside, though? Madam Xi is horribly allergic.”
Ishe took a deep swallow of the crisp water and coughed. “No cat here.”
The man blinked. “Oh, I must be mistaken. Kami’s playing tricks on my eyes. Happens when you get old. Would you girls like a bath? Perhaps a change of clothing? I could find something more pleasing for the Steward.”
Ishe straightened herself. “Don’t play that game with us. We lived here, remember?”
“Come now, Ishe. You can’t go in to see His Excellence looking like that. Your smell alone might slay him instantly. He’s not so young anymore. Lady Crane will cut you to ribbons. By the time she’s done, you’ll wish she used her claws instead of her tongue,” he said.
“No—” A hand on her elbow cut her off. Ishe looked down to find Yaki there.
“Change, please,” Yaki said.
Ishe looked at her sister, the grime and blood that stained her dress. “No more than twenty minutes.”
“Follow me!” he cried, and then led on.
It took a bit longer than that, but Ishe successfully fended off a trip to the baths and a gang of insistent masseuses. Yaki looked far more like her old self, clad in a fresh white dueling dress. Ishe had been gifted an outfit of a long coat with trousers, gray and black. The colors were probably insulting in some abstract way. Drosa herself seemed torn between the offered choices but finally selected to emulate Ishe’s fashion instead of Yaki’s. Ishe found herself mildly disappointed with the choice.
Once dressed, they were led deeper into the palace, into the great hall. The floor of checkered marble was polished to such extent that you could see your own face within it. It was occupied by only a few sixteen-place tables that took up an eighth of the room. The walls were studded with countless trophies from wars and hunts from Golden Hills’ two millennia of existence. Only one held Ishe’s attention.
Yaz’noth’s head hung behind the Steward’s own table, still and lifeless yet preserved to such an extent that it looked like he could decide to move any second.
There were subtle differences: the great swept-back antlers were larger, bearing more branches, many of the scales were pitted, and their tips showing spots of rust. Scars were marked with a silver gleam, and his left eye had a spider-web of cracks. Yet it still maintained the dragon’s essence, maintaining his brooding anger and unflinching cruelty.
Ishe found herself frozen, looking at it. Their guide had taken nearly a dozen steps before he realized that I
she had stopped. All three of them stood transfixed for several heartbeats before Ishe found Yaki’s hand in hers. “We’re going to beat him, Yaki,” Ishe found herself declaring.
Yaki did not look confident. She had tied a handkerchief around her head to cover the dragon eye. She gave only a small nod.
“He stops here. Like he did three hundred years ago,” Ishe said as much to herself as to her sister. She wondered what it would mean to declare herself Ishe, the Storm Coyote, to the Steward, to the entire crew. Would Coyote then give her the cleverness to win? Would he lend her the same power he had used to crush the moon? Probably not. She snickered nervously, a sound that she had never made before she had met the forbidden god.
Her sister seemed to consider those words. “I…hope you ri-ght” she said as if picking her own words from a jar. Together they walked into the grand hall, toward the double doors marked with the emblems of the two thrones.
Yaki wanted to believe her sister. A weird gleam entered Ishe’s eyes as she declared they’d win, they’d kill the being that had done this to her. Yet it still felt wrong to be there. Memories had been assailing her since she had seen the servants at the gates. Eating in this hall during the off seasons, the mountains of rice and dumplings and pork slathered with sweet and spicy sauces. The white dress itched at her skin as if it were the dress itself that couldn’t stand being on her. And through it, the Death Panther’s mark bore down on her, as if her paw itself pressed against her back. A sense that the cat needed Yaki to do something. She wanted to scream at her, Just tell me what I need to do! But Death stubbornly refused to give her any more hints. Yaki felt her in the back of her mind, watching, tail flicking with interest, waiting for the spectacle to be unleashed. Every step deeper into the Steward’s domain, Yaki’s insides coiled more. Now that the three of them stood in front of the great door to the throne room, her intestines or whatever equivalent she had now were like a spring trembling with tension.
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