by Claire Luana
Pura’s mouth had fallen open and her eyes were wide.
The other woman, however, broke into a grin. She put her knife down on the desk. “I thought you must have a little backbone in you to survive the desert. I’m glad to see I am not mistaken.” She crossed her arms in front of her, studying Kai. “And you’re right. Seishen only bond with the most powerful and honored moonburners. Isn’t that right, Iska?”
Kai jumped as a sharp caw answered from the back corner of the room. She whirled around and saw the eagle statue untuck its head and gaze at her with intelligent black eyes. It was a seishen. She hadn’t even recognized it.
The woman seemed to share a moment with the eagle, before turning her attention back to Kai.
“Quitsu’s presence, his very existence, vouches for you, as you cannot for yourself. He has told Iska what you two have been through in your short time together. The bond between you and he is strong indeed.”
The woman continued. “I believe that the goddess has important plans for you. And it is my job to ready you for them. My name is Nanase, and I am the headmistress of the Lunar Citadel. Welcome to the moonburners, Kai.”
CHAPTER 7
And so it was arranged that Kai and Quitsu would travel to Kyuden, the capital city of Miina, in two days’ time. Pura, her unofficial nurse, had declared that Kai would be ready to fly by then.
“Fly?” Kai gulped. “How, exactly are we getting to Kyuden?” “You’ll see,” Pura said with a devilish grin.
As the sun set on their last day, Pura gave Kai fresh underclothes and a navy uniform trimmed in silver.
“When we get to the citadel, you will have to wear novice grays, but for now, this is all there is.”
Pura left her alone to change. Kai fingered the fabric and the delicate silver threading with mixed emotions. Kai pulled on the uniform, stomach flipping nervously. She was actually doing this. Starting her new life. Kai caught her reflection in the silver tray used to hold medical implements on the side table and saw that the dye in her hair had washed out. Her hair was entirely silver. The uniform fit her well, tighter than any clothes she had worn since she was young. She tugged at it.
“How do I look?” Kai asked Quitsu, who sat on the cot in the medical tent.
“Good,” he said softly. “Like the master moonburner you will be.”
“I wish . . .” she started, the words stalling in her throat. She sat down on the cot besides Quitsu. “I wish we had all made it to Miina, how we planned. I was supposed to join the citadel with my parents safely settled somewhere nearby. Everything went so wrong.”
“It’s not your fault,” Quitsu said.
“Isn’t it? If I had listened to my mother and not gone inside the village . . . or listened to my father and not gone into the building after Sora, none of this would have happened.”
“You can’t blame yourself for doing what you thought was right at the time. You saved that little boy. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“That it would cost my parents their lives?” Kai said softly.
“You don’t know that either. You are supposed to be dead, yet here you are. If what you have told me is true, your parents are smart and resourceful. Maybe they will find a way to escape.”
Hope blossomed in Kai’s chest, lightening the guilt that had been pressing upon her. She had survived the desert. Maybe her parents could find a way out of their predicament.
“I hope you’re right,” Kai said.
She swooped Quitsu up in her arms, too quickly for him. Her displays of affection seemed to mortify him, which only made her enjoy them more. “The best part of being a moonburner so far is you,” she said jokingly, but grew serious. She placed him back down on the cot. “I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you,” she said. “But it’s more than that. I could never really have friends . . . when I was young. I had to keep everyone at arm’s length. I don’t have to do that with you. You’re my first real friend.”
Quitsu blinked his black-beaded eyes twice. “That is just about the most depressing thing I have ever heard,” he said. “I never would have agreed to be your seishen if I knew you didn’t have any friends.”
He jumped past her to the ground, whacking her in the face with his tail on the way down.
“Hey!” she said, laughing. “I was opening up, and that’s all the thanks I get?” She grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at his retreating form. She ducked out of the tent to follow him.
They walked out to the landing ground, where two huge bats dozed in the shade of a stand of acacia trees.
“They are koumori,” Pura said, “Not bats. Although they share a lot of attributes with their smaller brethren.”
“How did you . . . tame them?” Kai marveled.
“Moonburners have a close connection with the moon and all creatures of the night. I think they recognize that we both serve the goddess, and they assist us. But they are not our slaves, nor our pets. We must respect them.”
“I have plenty of respect for them,” Kai said, eying her mount nervously.
Pura explained the basics of the koumori anatomy and the flying harness that fit on her koumori’s back under its wingbones. She taught Kai the basic commands she would need to control her koumori, a female named Peppe. “The main word you need to know is ‘Appu.’ It tells her to go.”
“And how do I tell her to go down?” Kai asked with a shaky laugh.
“Da,” Pura said, clapping her hand on Kai’s shoulder. “But don’t worry. Peppe will take good care of you.”
Kai nodded.
“We’ve rigged up a smaller harness for Quitsu. He will be in front of you, so you can see how he is doing,” Pura said.
Quitsu hissed and backed away.
Kai rolled her eyes, though she didn’t blame him for his reaction. “It’s this or walking, Quitsu. Up to you.”
Kai gripped the harness with white knuckles as Peppe climbed off the desert floor. Her powerful wingbeats threatened to unseat Kai. Quitsu moaned quietly in front of her, strapped spreadeagled between Peppe’s wings. It wasn’t a dignified means of travel befitting a seishen, Kai had to admit.
As they reached elevation, Peppe leveled off, soaring after Pura and her koumori. Kai let out the breath she had been holding and peeked over a black wing. The sun was just slipping over the horizon, its long rays illuminating the golden desert. The moonburner camp was already disappearing in the mirage of the desert.
She gradually relaxed and felt her spirits soar. She was flying!
A line of green appeared on the horizon as they approached the edge of the desert. If Kai remembered her geography lessons, they were coming out into the Churitsu Plain, neutral territory between Miina and Kita. Despite being a fertile valley bounded by beautiful hills, no settlers lived there, due to the constant skirmishes between forces in the area.
As Kai’s utter terror diminished, her wonder grew. The last glowing light of the sun illuminated bits of the landscape in a magical glow. Kai could see the contours of the foothills and the white-peaked crags of the Akashi mountains in the distance. She had never left Ushai province before; their yearly cattle drives had been the extent of her adventures. Now, it seemed as if the whole world opened up before her.
“Quitsu, can you see the Misty Forest from here? That is where you are from, right?”
Quitsu was flattened to Peppe, his claws digging into her tough black hide. “Foxes were not made to fly, not even seishen foxes,” came his response.
She laughed as she saw that his eyes were glued shut.
Kai grabbed tightly to the harness handles as Peppe banked to the right, following Pura. Rough leather reins hooked into a tight-fitting collar around Peppe’s neck, but Kai needed something more secure. The moon was rising and she could just see Pura and her koumori ahead of them. The cool crisp air felt heavenly after the heat of the desert. They were traveling northeast, towards the capital city of Kyuden.
She thought she could make out the l
ights of the city winking into existence in front of her. The silvery serpent of a river wound below her towards the inviting glow.
A flicker of movement behind her flashed in the corner of her eye. Kai turned her head, peering into the twilight.
She saw it again. A shadow passing through the twilight, a shimmer of something.
“Pura,” she hollered into the darkness. “I see something.”
A second later, a fury of feathers and claws bashed into her like a sledgehammer and she went tumbling into the night sky.
The sensation of falling was very much like flying. The wind rushed by her and the landscape below stood out in stark relief in the moonlight. It seemed a funny time to die, when she had just survived so much.
Kai struggled and twisted in the air, reaching out for something to cling to. Her mind grasped too—reaching for a lifeline it somehow knew was there. Just . . . there . . .
She felt a warmth growing in her, flooding her mind with awareness and lucidity. It was as if time slowed down, her mind sharpened to a knife point.
Live! She thought. Do something! The warmth grew. It was getting hotter. Uncomfortably hot. It kept growing until she felt like she was on fire from the inside. She had to release it!
And then, as if her silent, panicked thought was manifested, a power of radiant silver light burst out of her. A great gust of wind wrapped around Kai’s body, then another, until she was caught in a whirling funnel of currents, slowing her descent, bearing her away. Was it one of Tsuki’s miracles?
Kai’s thought was cut off as the tornado abruptly ceased and she fell into the silvery wetness of the river. She hit the surface like a ton of bricks, her whole body stunned from the shock of the force and the cold of the water. The moment passed, and she began to move, sluggishly at first, and then with more force, kicking towards the surface.
She gasped for air as she broke the surface of the water and looked around, trying to get her bearings. Luckily, the current of the river was not strong; it did not impede her as she swam towards the nearest bank.
She collapsed on the ground with a cough, laying on her back, panting. What had happened? Had she been attacked? And where was Quitsu? And Pura? She scanned the sky for signs of the koumori. There! A wingspan!
“Pura,” she cried, waving her arms. Too late, she realized that the wings were flapping like a bird’s, not outstretched and soaring like a bat’s. She looked around for cover and stumbled to her feet, heading towards a copse of trees. Something snared her legs, tripping her and bringing her to the ground. Wind from the backbeats of a huge bird’s wings stirred up the dust around her and she closed her eyes to the grit.
Kai fumbled with the cords of the snare around her legs as the rider of the giant bird dismounted and approached. She grasped for a weapon and came up empty. Why didn’t she have a knife? She always had her knife. Stupid fat Youkai, not even leaving her with a weapon.
In an instant, he was upon her. The rider’s boot connected with her chin and she was thrown back onto the ground, dazed. He followed it up with a sharp kick to her ribs. She doubled over in pain, spitting blood onto the dark ground. The rider grabbed her hands and tied them roughly behind her back before throwing her to the ground once again. She couldn’t even gather her wits to fight back. What was going on? Who was this man?
He knelt next to her and grabbed her by her hair, wrenching her head back painfully. He poured a vial of a bitter-tasting liquid in her mouth, which she coughed down involuntarily.
She could just make out his features, light close-cropped hair, heavy brows, a crooked nose that had seen one too many fights. His mouth was twisted in a snarl.
“Tell me where the facility is! Where is your whore queen keeping our brothers?”
Kai shook her head in silent denial, not understanding his questions.
“I . . . I . . .” she managed, head still spinning from her fall into the river and his blows. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Liar,” he exploded, landing a punch across the right side of her face, knocking her back to the ground. She couldn’t even protect herself with her hands tied behind her. She braced herself for another blow.
“That’s enough, Daarco,” a calm voice said. Her assailant obeyed, standing up and stepping back.
A second man knelt down next to her and helped her to a seated position. Blood stung her eye from a cut on her forehead.
“I’m sorry about my friend. He is very . . . zealous about our mission.” He pulled out a white handkerchief and dabbed it at her cut. She hissed from the pain and pulled away. He stopped his ministrations, putting his handkerchief down.
“Did you poison me?” she asked. The drink the other man gave her still burned her palate.
“No, just some lusteric to keep you from burning,” the man said, “while we ask you some questions.”
He continued, “I think you have probably deduced that we do not belong here,” he began. “We are not here to harm you. We are looking for our friends. They have been taken and are being held by the citadel. We have heard some very . . . disturbing stories of how Queen Airi is treating her prisoners of war. We have heard they are being kept in a facility in this area. We only seek to find our fellow soldiers and bring them home.”
He paused, gauging her reaction. Kai considered him in return. In the moonlight, she could see that he was tall and well-built. He had a handsome face with a strong jaw, a dimpled chin and gentle almond-shaped eyes. He had a well-educated manner and was clearly in a position of command over the other man. He had light hair pulled back into a short ponytail, in the fashion of the Kitan court. No doubt in the sunshine his hair would glow golden.
Merciful Tsuki, they were sunburners. She was as good as dead, despite his kind manner. She might as well tell him the truth.
“I am not a master moonburner yet. I was on my way to Kyuden for the first time. I don’t know anything about what the queen does with her prisoners, or where she keeps them. I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
“She is lying!” Daarco hissed. “Kill her. She will reveal that we are here.”
The other man held up his hand for silence, and studied her.
“You burned. You called the wind to you. It was incredibly powerful. How do you claim to have such power without any training?”
“I don’t know how I did it,” she pleaded. “I just knew that I was falling and I didn’t want to die. And so I didn’t. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” His face hardened.
“It was like the Gleaming,” she said, awareness dawning on her. “My power saved me, but I didn’t do it consciously.”
His penetrating gaze brought heat to her cheeks. All other sounds grew quiet but the urgent beating of her heart. She wanted to look away, but willed herself to hold his gaze, to show him her strength.
The man sighed. “Strangely enough, I believe you. Unfortunately, my companion is right, we should kill you.” He drew a knife from his belt. She stilled, muscles tensed.
“And yet . . .” He moved quickly towards her, so fast she didn’t have time to struggle. He deftly sliced through the binds around her hands and the snare around her feet. “I have had enough death for a season.” He stood, an intense expression on his face.
“Do not make me regret this,” he said quietly, before turning to walk back to his eagle.
“If you can’t do what needs to be done, I will,” Daarco hissed. He unsheathed his sword with a wicked ring of metal on metal and advanced on Kai.
Kai scrambled back away from the man, feet shuffling frantically in the dirt. But as his arm raised for a blow, a fireball engulfed him, sending him to the ground. He rolled from side to side to put the flames out.
The other man jumped onto his eagle as Pura heaved a fireball his way. His eagle made it off the ground in time to avoid her strike.
He whistled to the other eagle, which leapt into the air and swooped in to pick up a still-smoking Daarco in
its strong talons. The two birds with their burdens winged off into the darkness.
Pura leapt from her koumori and ran to Kai’s side. She pulled up short when she saw the blood dripping down Kai’s face.
“I can’t believe you are alive,” Pura said, breathlessly. “I’ve never seen burning like that. I guess the goddess really has blessed you.”
Kai laughed weakly, hardly believing her good fortune herself. She should have been dead at least four times by now, but here she was.
CHAPTER 8
Pura, Kai and Quitsu touched down in an open square inside what Kai assumed was the moonburner palace.
Her flight over Kyuden had awed her, despite her chattering teeth, wet clothes, and aching body. She had never seen so many buildings in one place. And that wasn’t all. The city was beautiful. The main river split the city into two parts, spanned by graceful silver bridges that arched over it at evenly spaced intervals. The buildings appeared to be white, creamy tan and blue, set with mirrors that reflected the moonlight like a carpet of stars. The palace was surrounded by tall, delicate towers that reached for the heavens. She couldn’t wait to see Kyuden in the daylight.
She helped Quitsu out of his harness, where he had remained securely fastened through her ordeal. He tumbled to the ground in a mess of fur and claws, seeming to cling to the ground for a few moments longer than necessary. She pretended not to notice, instead taking in her first glimpse of Kyuden from the ground.
Despite the late hour, there were people all around, bustling from place to place. Servants in silver and white livery ran out to take the koumori to their rookery.
“I will take you to the hospital ward first,” Pura said. “You need to see someone about your injuries.”
