A Sword's Poem

by Leah Cutter

  Norihiko started when he heard another voice join in. Then he realized it was just Priestess Ayumi, adding her blessings.

  Norihiko wasn’t certain how long the women wove a blanket to cover him. It might have been an hour, it might have been most of the night. He felt cocooned and warm.

  Then a coolness spread over his entire body. He wasn’t sure what it was. It felt like mist spreading out across wet grass, early in the morning, before the sun rose.

  Then the mist dipped down, seeping into his skin, and he realized what he felt was Junichi’s soul.

  Most of the personality of his former Maker had been stripped away. A little of his greed and his blackest fear—of dying—remained.

  The impression of Junichi remained for merely a moment, then vanished as the cold sank deep into Norihiko’s bones. He shivered as his core absorbed the changes.

  Then changed.

  A furnace started up inside Norihiko’s belly. It burned hot and fast. He couldn’t see anything beyond its flames, feel anything except its heat.

  He recognized it as a kin to Junichi’s kiln, where he’d been forged into a sword.

  Norihiko struggled to get away, but how could he? The furnace wasn’t in front of him, but inside him, a gaping hole where his belly used to be.

  He wept as he had wept before, his tears streaking off his body and forming sparks as a gray, ghostly form assembled in the flames. It wasn’t that it hurt, not like the reforging.

  However, the change was upon him, and he had to let go.

  Without thinking about it, Norihiko reached out his own hand to grasp the gray figure, pull it out of the flames even though it was only half baked.

  Pull it further into himself.

  The blessed heat soothed him, chasing away the coolness that had remained of Junichi’s soul. His blood sang with a wild abandon as it bubbled up. Magic cruised through his veins, carrying the knowledge of what he could do, what he had done.

  Parts of Seiji, that endless chorus of selves inside of Norihiko, stilled and gelled, forming a more solid core. There were still a few individuals, but mostly they grew silent, pouring all of their tightly held knowledge together.

  Norihiko suddenly remembered. Not everything about his former life. But some things were suddenly returned to him, like his own family and friends, the other mountain he loved, where he’d grown up, and a few shared memories of Hikaru, the way they’d passed poems to each other when he’d been courting her, as well as their wedding.

  He remembered their love, but it wasn’t him experiencing it. It seemed an outside, foreign thing to him.

  He still held onto every memory tightly as it came flooding back in, determined to never forget again.

  Twelve

  How Brightly The Sun

  Hikaru

  How brightly the sun shone that morning! I sat quietly on the porch outside Norihiko’s rooms, hidden from all prying eyes by magic. The humans would have been shocked at the state of undress I was currently in, though really it wasn’t much—just my sleeves tied back above my elbows, and the sash on my robe loosened so much of my chest was exposed.

  I didn’t care. I needed the sun to kiss my skin, the winds to play with my hair.

  I’d crafted the greatest magic of my life the night before, bringing Norihiko back to his true, fox fairy form.

  I’d never doubted that I would be able to do it, though releasing Junichi’s soul had been tricky, keeping it trapped in the weaving Kayoku and I had created, not letting it leak away to cause mischief.

  Norihiko had shaken so after that, quaked with the magic racing through his body and reforming him. For a while I had worried that maybe he had changed his mind and was rejecting the spell.

  But the night passed and he quieted, breathing easily as his new form grew strong.

  I didn’t wait for him in the room after the spell was finished. I waited outside, to give him time to come to himself. What would he be like now? I knew he wouldn’t be the same.

  Then again, neither was I.

  Where would I go now? I had no real home to return to. Maybe I would go to the sea, leave the mountains behind. Learn to call the fish out of the water for my dinner, weave nets out of seaweed, sing to the waves.

  Finally, I heard Norihiko stir. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to capture his scent. It had changed, too. It was still sweet and masculine, but held deeper notes, now.

  After a short while, Norihiko joined me out on the porch. “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been shouting all night.

  “It was my pleasure,” I told him honestly. He looked fit and hale. His shoulders had stayed broad and his chin well–defined. However, his lips now held a sensual smile and his eyes twinkled with laughter.

  Norihiko sat down beside me. He had kept the stillness he’d acquired as a sword, a motionless quality that monks would envy.

  I didn’t bother him with questions or try to fill up the space with frivolous observations about the sun, the clouds, or even the estate.

  It hadn’t been that long ago when I would have.

  “I remember more about you,” Norihiko said softly after a timeless time.

  My breath caught. I didn’t dare to look at him. Had he come all the way back to me? Was everything I’d done, all I’d sacrificed, finally going to pay off?

  “Not everything,” he added after another long pause. “And not fully. It’s more like I’m watching myself do those things. Marrying you. Not as though I’m the one who is doing them.”

  Of course. “You’re not the same as you were.”

  Norihiko gave a soft laugh. “That’s the truth.”

  I finally turned to look at him. He still knelt with his back as straight as an iron bar, his hands loosely resting on his knees. But he smiled and his face was relaxed. He looked more comfortable in his skin than he ever had.

  “So what will you do now?” I asked, deliberately not asking about us, about what we would do.

  He might remember our love, but he was obviously no longer in love. It was, as he said, someone else who had courted me night and day, who had shown me such tenderness.

  Norihiko nodded, growing more serious. “I pledged to take care of the mountain,” he said. “When I was Seiji. It was the only way to survive Junichi’s reforging.” He paused, then added, “So I will stay here. Make this my new home. Become another kami protecting this land.”

  I nodded. I had expected as such.

  I didn’t know how I would answer him when he asked me what I would do. I was so prepared for that question that I started when he eventually said, “You could stay here with me, you know. Guard the mountain with me.”

  I didn’t know how to reply. That he might offer me a place here, to stay with him…it went beyond my reckoning.

  “I know you’ll want to go see your sisters first, but after—” he started.

  “My sisters?” I asked, interrupting. “I have no sisters.”

  Norihiko blinked, startled. “Of course you have sisters. Two of them. They visited me before the battle. I danced with them at our wedding.”

  “I don’t have sisters,” I told him, horror building. “I’ve always been alone.”

  “You have sisters,” Norihiko insisted. “Did you give them up? Because they would never have let you go.”

  I had sisters? Maybe a mother? There were no memories left, just the constant loneliness and wishing I did.

  “I could call them. They would like to see you, I’m certain,” Norihiko added.

  “I’m not the same as I was,” I told him. Also, I wasn’t certain. I’d killed a man. The weight of it still dragged at my soul.

  “None of us are,” Norihiko pointed out.

  I sat back and looked back out, over the wall of the estate, toward the trees. There were many wild places on the mountain, many places I could easily call home.

  “Please,” Norihiko said. “Stay with me. Help me protect the mountain.”

  I could
n’t help but shake my head and laugh. Before, I’d never had to worry about another turning Norihiko’s head. Though it wasn’t in the nature of our kind to be monogamous, I knew he’d always return to me.

  Now, I had a built–in rival.

  “What is it?” Norihiko asked.

  I had to share. “She’s always going to be your mistress, isn’t she?” I asked. I couldn’t help but flirt with him. He looked so much like my love, smelled like him, felt like him. Would probably taste like him as well.

  Norihiko laughed, then grew sober again. “I can’t promise anything,” he warned. “There are so many paths leading up and down the mountain. But I’d like to walk them with you.”

  “I would like that too,” I told him.

  It wasn’t a declaration of love. He might not ever feel that way about me again.

  But there was the possibility of love along those paths. Each day, a new sunrise. Each season, new colors for the mountain.

  Finally, since that horrible day so many months before, I had hope.

  About the Author

  Leah Cutter currently lives in Seattle—the land of coffee and fog. However, she’s also lived all over the world and held the requisite odd writer jobs, such as doing archeology in England, teaching English in Taiwan, and bartending in Thailand.

  She writes fantasy set in exotic times and locations such as Tang dynasty China, WWII Budapest, rural Louisiana, and the Oregon coast.

  Her short fiction includes literary, fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and horror, and has been published in magazines as well as anthologies and on the web.

  Read more stories by Leah Cutter at Knotted Road Press.

  Follow her blog at LeahCutter.com

  Never miss a release!

  If you’d like to be notified of new releases, sign up for my newsletter.

  I only send out newsletters once a quarter, will never spam you, or use your email for nefarious purposes. You can also unsubscribe at any time.

  http://www.leahcutter.com/newsletter/

  Reviews

  It’s true. Reviews help me sell more books. If you’ve enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review of it on your favorite site.

  About Book View Café

  Book View Café is a professional authors’ cooperative offering DRM–free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.

  Book View Café is good for readers because you can enjoy high–quality DRM–free ebooks from your favorite authors at a reasonable price.

  Book View Café is good for writers because 95% of the profit goes directly to the book’s author.

  Book View Café authors include Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Rita Award nominees, and New York Times bestsellers and notable book authors.

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Xiao Yen folds paper into the shape of an animal or object, then does magic, so the paper becomes what she’s folded.

  Her problem?

  She’s lost her luck.

  Set during Tang Dynasty China.

  Available from Book View Café or your favorite retailers.

  PRAISE FOR PAPER MAGE

  “Absolutely enchanting”—Booklist

  “Cutter knows just what she’s doing”—Locus

  “An exceptional tale by an exceptional writer”—Dennis L. McKiernan