by Claire Luana
CHAPTER 20
Azura
Azura couldn’t help the thrill she felt as she strode through the city night. Free of the citadel, free of obligations, free to save Takeo and live the life she wanted. Her heart soared in her chest, but she tried to keep it grounded, trying to force it back to earth. She still had to get through the city undetected. There would be time enough to celebrate.
She headed for the city’s northwest gate. Master Vita had promised to leave a mount near the gate, which would get her to the koumori farm where she would start the last leg of her journey. No one paid her much mind. In fact, the city seemed unusually deserted, even for this time of night. She frowned. Where was everyone?
She rounded a corner and came to a stop behind a crowd of people. The people held candles in their hands, and stood in relative silence, waiting. She looked up at a nearby building and saw Lyra’s silver shape flicker by, staying out of sight. Maybe she could see what was going on from her perch.
Azura pushed her way through the crowd, leaving muttered “excuse me’s” and “pardon me’s” in her wake. After a few minutes, she emerged at the front of the crowd, pressing against a father whose son sat on his shoulders for a better view. She looked to her right and left and realized she had intersected with another street. The crowd lined the street as if waiting for a silent parade. What was going on?
“What is everyone waiting for?” she finally asked the man next to her.
He turned to her with a look that was one part annoyance and one part incredulity. “It’s a walk of mourning for the princess.”
“The princess?” she asked.
“Azura,” he said, as if speaking to a child. “She died. The royal family and the moonburners are doing a walk of mourning in her honor.”
Azura paled. She had faint memories of the walk of mourning her family had done when her aunt, her mother’s sister, had passed away years ago. She remembered being forced into a white dress that itched at the collar, and crying when she was forced to leave her stuffed koumori doll in her room. Of course they would conduct a walk of mourning for her.
It was then that Azura noticed the banners, standing tall along the walk route and flapping slightly in the breeze. The banners were painted with huge images of her.
Azura drew her hood up further over her head as figures appeared down the road to her left. The walkers were approaching her spot. Her mother, Airi, everyone she knew would be passing by inches from her. She needed to get out of here.
As soon as the thought flickered into consciousness, someone in the crowd behind jostled her, throwing her forward to the ground. As she looked up, her hood fell back, revealing her silver hair and face.
The little boy on the man’s shoulders pointed at her. “It’s the lady in the picture!” he said.
Heart hammering in her chest, Azura pulled in moonlight and burned quickly, casting a net of shadows and illusions over herself. Darkness to hide her hair, shadows to add to the planes and lines of her face.
The father and others around her muttered, shaking their heads as if confused by the glimpse they had seen.
She scrambled to her feet and pushed past the father and son, past people and faces and hard shoulders, through the back of the crowd, until finally she was free. She fled through the streets of Kyuden away from her face and the candles lighting the faces of the mourners.
Azura didn’t stop running until her breath was ragged in her throat and her legs were heavy and leaden with exhaustion. Her shoulders ached where the pack straps cut into them and her lower back was raw where the weight of it had bounced against her.
It didn’t matter. She needed to get out of the city. Her run-in with the crowd had been far too close. She had almost ruined everything. Fool! She cursed herself for her curiosity. From now on, she would head straight to the gate. Which was…
Azura slowed to a stop and looked around, realizing she didn’t have the faintest notion where she was. The streets here were made of packed dirt marked by wagon ruts in criss-crossed patterns, the buildings worn and neglected. A dirty woman clutching the arm of a small boy glanced at her sidelong as she hurried by, averting her gaze when Azura’s eyes met hers.
Azura’s heart began to pound with another kind of fear. She slipped sideways into an alley, to stay out of sight and catch her bearings. She needed to locate the citadel walls in the distance to orient herself.
“Wrong alley, girlie,” a rasping voice said behind her.
She whirled around and found a man standing in the shadow of the alley wall, a few paces from her. His silhouette was tall and thin, and in the half-light flickering into the alley, the planes of his face looked garish.
“I don’t want any trouble,” she said, pulling in moonlight in case the man tried anything. She would use burning only as a last resort, as it would draw too much attention if word of a rogue moonburner in the city reached her mother.
“But I do,” he said with a giggle. He took two rapid steps towards her and she pulled out her knife, holding it before her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.
He laughed outright then, a cold laugh that held no humor. “You, hurt me? You flatter yourself, girlie.”
“I know how to defend myself,” she said.
“There’s one thing you forgot,” he said.
“What’s that?” she said, taking a slow step back. Her back bumped against something hard and she risked a glance over her shoulder.
“Me,” the mountain of a man behind her said.
And then he knocked her over the head with the flat of his blade and her world went black.
CHAPTER 21
Azura
It was the pounding in her head that roused Azura first. She laid still—the thought of moving too painful a prospect. She heard voices.
“We’ve really stepped in it now, haven’t we?” a rasping voice said. She recognized the voice from the alley. “We should’ve left her there.”
“How much’s she worth?” a deep baritone said. That must be the man who knocked her over the head. How much was she worth? She had happened upon a pair of slavers?
“Forget how much she’s worth! Who’s the buyer? And how’d we transport her even if we had a buyer? She’ll slice and dice us the minute she wakes up. We should’ve left her in the alley.”
“But she’s so pretty,” baritone said. “Plenty of men would pay handsomely for a pretty girl like that.”
“It’s like chaining a wild manga cat in your sitting room. No one’s stupid enough to do that.”
“What about the sunburners? They might know how to control her.”
The men continued to bicker over potential buyers for her, prices, and ideas of how to keep her from using her powers. She was suddenly profoundly grateful that the intricacies of moonburning were closely guarded by the citadel. All the men had to do to neutralize her power was keep her in complete darkness. But luckily they didn’t know that.
It appeared that the men hadn’t recognized her, another stroke of luck that Azura thanked the goddess for. She risked opening one eye to take in her surroundings. She laid in a dingy basement room on a dirt floor. Her hands and feet were tied behind her back with rough twine. The room was empty except for a table and one rickety chair. The chair must be for the raspy-voiced man, she thought, as the big man looked like he would break it into chopsticks if he even attempted to sit.
How long had she been out? And where was Lyra? The men were still intent upon their debate, and so she risked craning her neck to look about the whole room. Her spirits lifted. There. They weren’t totally underground. A tiny window looked out onto the street, and a single ray of moonlight shined dully into the room.
She couldn’t wait. She pulled the moonlight into herself and burned it into a hot blade that sliced through her bonds. The minute her hands were free she exploded into action, burning a lightning strike that forked and hit both men, throwing them against the wall. They slumped to the ground, smokin
g and groaning.
Azura approached, examining her attackers. They weren’t dead.
Should she kill them? They were slavers. If she didn’t, they would kidnap more innocents and sell them into slavery. But she had never killed anyone before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to start with these two.
The door to the basement burst open, and Lyra spilled through it. “Your burning attracted attention. We have to get out of here. Now!”
With her captors forgotten, Azura grabbed her pack from where they had discarded it on the floor and flew up the rickety wooden steps into the alley. They hurried around a corner and disappeared into the streets beyond.
Lyra led them both as they made their way to the city’s northwest gate.
“I was figuring out the best way to rescue you,” Lyra explained as they paused, looking around a corner. They were attempting to stay out of sight, keeping to the small side streets that flanked the main thoroughfares of the city. No more alleys. No more main roads. Their way through the city felt painfully slow. Though Azura had only been detained by the slavers for an hour, every minute they took getting out of the city was one minute less for Takeo.
Finally, minutes before the sun broke the horizon, they reached the edge of the city. Azura slowed as they reached the gate, pausing to catch her breath and think. There were two guards manning the gates most of the time, and they would no doubt question a lone traveler leaving Kyuden on foot at this time of night. She bit her lip.
“Should I try to slip though?” Azura asked Lyra, who had dropped onto the ground next to her from a parked food cart.
“I think that’s best,” she said. “Should I create a distraction?”
“Yes,” Azura said. “Perfect.” She needed to try this before her nerve and the little remaining moonlight were gone.
Lyra darted to the other side of the road and dove into a pile of rubbish. She began yowling and screeching, giving off the sounds of a dozen tomcats fighting. One of the guards poked his head out of the guardhouse, ears pricked at the disturbance.
“S’going on?” another male voice asked from the guardhouse.
“Dunno,” the first said, reaching inside the door for his spear. He walked slowly towards where Lyra was still flailing, screaming and flopping about in the garbage.
Azura wrapped herself in moonlight as best she could, pulling shadows around herself so any watching eyes would slide off her dark form. She crept forward with such deliberate slowness, so intent on the gate that she let out a surprised gasp when the other man from the guardhouse plowed out of the door right into her.
Azura dropped her illusion in surprise, moonlight slipping from her. Her eyes widened in recognition at the guard’s thick head of dark hair and bushy black handlebar mustache. It was Potsu, the kind guard who had always waved her through when she went for her rides outside the city.
He recognized her as well, his eyes wide like round saucers. “My lady?” he whispered. “Is it really you? Or…are you a ghost?” He rubbed his eyes and looked at her once again.
“It’s me,” she said. “But please, tell no one. It is a matter of life and death.”
“Of course,” he said. “Your secret is safe with me. Go ahead.” He stepped aside, to let her pass.
Profound gratitude welled in her. She couldn’t handle another set-back. Amidst the monsters of Kyuden, there were kind souls as well.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I won’t forget this.”
She hurried through the gates and looked back to see a streak of silver dart through the other guard’s legs. He exclaimed in surprise, stumbling back.
They were out of the gates.
They flanked the western wall of the city until they found the knot of ironwood trees that Master Vita had described. There would be a horse waiting for them in the shade of the trees.
When Azura saw the copse of trees, she broke into a run. It had taken her too long to get to this point. Takeo was slowly dying under the hot sun of the Tottori at this very moment. She needed to get to him.
As she reached the trees, she slowed to a stop. The dirt was trampled with hoof-prints, and a piece of knotted rope hung from the closest tree, sliced off near the knot.
“Where’s the horse?” Lyra asked.
CHAPTER 22
Takeo
Bako found him just before morning on the third day. Takeo was sleeping, curled into his rock shelter, arms wrapped around his knees to fight off the cold. Something woke him, stirring his senses. He was suddenly alert. Something was near. A predator?
He blinked his gritty eyes and peered into the darkness, making out a dark form silhouetted against the starry sky. An equine form. And then Bako fell to his knees next to Takeo—warm, and familiar, and real. A lump filled Takeo’s scratchy throat and he started to weep. His shoulders shook as he cried crusty, dry tears.
“I feared I would never see you again,” he said, sniffling, his arms tightening around his seishen’s neck. A small part of him was embarrassed that the desert had broken him down in such a short time, but there was no hiding his thoughts from Bako. The time for pride was long past.
The stallion laid his head in the sand, exhausted from his days of galloping to catch up with Takeo. “I knew you’d last longer than a day,” he said, from his prone position. “But it is good to be together again.”
“I haven’t found water,” Takeo admitted his failure. “I probably won’t last beyond tomorrow.”
“I have word from Lyra,” Bako said. “Azura is coming.”
“What?” An incredulous laugh bubbled from Takeo’s cracked lips. “How is that possible?”
“It is difficult for seishen to communicate over such a distance,” Bako said. “So I know little more. But one message is clear. You are not to die before she arrives.”
Takeo’s heart soared, his resolve restored. As he lay down in the sand besides Bako, throwing his arm over his seishen’s soft neck, he suddenly felt like the richest man in the world. Bako had made it back to him. Azura was coming. He would survive.
Takeo lay in the shade of the rock outcropping as the morning sun beat overhead. “Remember the first day you found me?” Takeo croaked, savoring the memory like a fine whiskey.
“You were sitting in the rain, pouting,” Bako said. “Ozora had beat you in sparring practice. You always won, but that one time he had you.”
“Rain,” Takeo said for a moment, thinking about all the times he had cursed the rain. Trips with court ladies cancelled on account of weather; long marches made miserable by an incessant downpour. How foolish of him to not see it for the precious gift it was. “I didn’t take it very well,” Takeo chuckled dryly, turning his thoughts to his bout with Ozora. “I was a poor sport.”
“You were a twelve-year old boy,” Bako said. “It goes with the territory.”
“It had been raining for days and the practice field was muddy and gray. I saw you in the distance, the rain steaming as it hit your coat. I thought you were a ghost. Or a demon,” he said. He was having trouble speaking. His tongue felt large in his mouth.
“I like to make an entrance,” Bako said.
“Ozora could have beaten me every day after that, and I wouldn’t have cared. Nothing mattered, except you and me. We were inseperable.”
“Until Azura,” Bako said.
Takeo flinched. “Yes. You’re a better friend than I deserve. I’m sorry I got us into this mess.”
“It is the way of things,” Bako said. “Nothing stays the same. The seasons. Growing old, dying, being reborn. Do not regret that you fell in love. It was fate.”
“Seishen believe in fate?” Takeo asked.
“Of course. The seishen elder always said there was a flow to time and reality. We are intimately connected to it. We all have our part to play.”
“And what is my part?” Takeo mused, afraid of the answer.
“To live.”
CHAPTER 23
Azura
“Damn it!” Azura scre
amed in frustration. “Someone stole the horse.” She slumped onto the ground, hot tears of disappointment bubbling from her.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “There’s no way we can get back to the city to tell Master Vita we need another horse.”
“You have money,” Lyra said. “Could we buy one?”
“It’s too risky,” Azura said. “Someone might recognize me. And then all of this would be for nothing.”
She dragged herself back to her aching feet, wiping her tears with dirty fingers. “I guess we’re walking.”
They had been walking briskly for about an hour when Lyra spoke up.
“Azura…” Lyra said. “I contacted Bako. Takeo is weak. They have not found water. We need to hurry.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” Azura said. Was she really going to make it this far only to be foiled by a horse thief?
“It is leagues to the koumori ranch,” Lyra said. “At this pace…”
“We won’t make it to Takeo in time,” Azura finished.
“No.” Lyra said. “It is already a close thing.”
Desperation filled her, welling up inside her like a hungry animal, threatening to consume her. The thought of Takeo, alone in the Tottori waiting for her, only to find death waiting in her place…it was too much. There had to be something she could do.
In the distance, a lone rider appeared on the main road. A wild idea sprang into Azura’s head, her desperation driving all sense and caution from her.
“Lyra, do you think you can spook that horse?”
“I suppose,” Lyra said. “Why?”
The rider was closing on them. It was now or never.
“Do it,” she said.
Lyra darted in front of the chestnut horse and it let out a whinny of fear, rearing back on its hind legs.
