by Claire Luana
“I was never much for prayer,” Colum said. “I’ve always found it more effective to trust in no one but myself. Harder to be let down. Though not impossible,” he amended.
“I’m the one who messed everything up,” Kai said. “I’ll have to try another philosophy.”
“Kai—” Colum began but cut off as black shapes emerged from above the green foliage of the island. Their koumori.
Kai heaved a sigh of relief.
“How will we find Jurou and Tsuki?” Kai wondered.
“I can find them,” Chiya said. Her eyes remained fixed on the approaching koumori, her face stormy. “I can feel her. Ever since she woke up. Like a tug inside me.”
Because you’re the true heir, Kai thought.
Kai’s stomach twisted. Every time she thought she felt as low as she could feel, another weight piled on, burying her further.
At the head of the horde was an impossibly tall creature in the shape of a man. Corded muscle bulged from beneath its robes of charcoal and navy. In one massive hand it held a broadsword as long as Hiro was tall. But its face was the most chilling part of the strange countenance; its features were distorted, as if hidden behind a slab of ice.
“Taiyo,” the creature said, its deep voice reverberating through the hall and setting Hiro’s very bones on edge. “So kind of you to deliver yourself for execution.”
“Hiei,” Taiyo said, examining his fingernails. He looked up. “To find that you have spent all these years impersonating me? How disappointing. On your best day, you could never be more than a second-rate god.”
Hiei snarled, taking a threatening step forward.
Hiro nervously eyed the tengu arrayed behind Hiei. Black twisted shapes, snarling and slathering, clicking and scratching long claws on the polished floor. He tightened his grip on his swords.
“You always did talk too much,” Hiei said. “It’s all you’re good at. Talk. Talk and hiding. But you can’t hide any longer. Your foolish burners made sure of that. They fell right into our trap.”
Hiro’s face burned at the truth of Hiei’s taunt.
“My burners could take you and your mongrel demons blindfolded,” Taiyo said with distain.
“You’re welcome to try.” Hiei’s voice lowered to a threatening whisper. “But I’ve been waiting a long time for this day.”
Hiei swung its sword in a wicked arc towards Taiyo, who sidestepped at the last minute. The force of the sword hitting the floor shook the room, obliterating the tiles beneath.
Hiei came at Taiyo again, surging forward. Taiyo ducked out of the way, diverting a ray of sunlight into the demon’s eyes.
The tengu roared in frustration, swinging its sword in a wide arc.
Taiyo evaded the tengu’s blows but made no attacks of his own. He was a god of creation, not destruction.
Hiro’s attention snapped to a snarling tengu coming right at him. He swung his sword and made contact with a sickening crunch, slicing the creature’s neck down the spine.
Stela leaped in front of him and shot two arrows in rapid succession into the face of a wolflike tengu racing for them. The tengu crashed to the ground before them, skidding to a halt at their feet. She pulled a knife and tidily slit its throat, opening its neck. Hiro had always admired moonburner fighting prowess.
Hiro slashed at a birdlike tengu that came at them next, its sharp beak headed straight for his face. It knocked him back with one of its wings, but he kept his footing and dove forward, plunging his sword into its soft belly. It fell to the floor with a squelch of black blood. With another swing he lopped its head off.
Hiro took advantage of the brief reprieve to survey the scene. Hiei and Taiyo were still locked in a deadly dance. Black, masked figures at the back of the room directed the lesser tengu, who attacked his friends in relentless waves. Hiro growled. Order of the Deshi. Traitors to humanity.
One of the black-clad figures spun to send two feline tengu towards Daarco and Leilu on the far side of the room. Stela had seen them and sent arrows into them before they could reach their target.
“Save some for us!” Leilu called.
Hiro directed his attention back to the Deshi operative and saw a flash of silver hair beneath her mask.
“Geisa,” he growled. That woman had plagued them for long enough.
He pulled sunlight into his qi and burned it into a ball of flame, sending it towards Geisa with all the force he could muster.
She dove to the floor at the last minute, and the ball of fire exploded against the wall behind her.
As Hiro reached for more sunlight to send another volley, something changed. The sunlight slipped from his grasp like water draining out a bathtub.
The light in the room dimmed, as if someone had pulled a curtain across the windows. But the glass windows were unobstructed.
It was the sun. It had darkened.
Hiro looked frantically around the room for the cause of the dramatic change. Taiyo. He was staggering, clutching his stomach. Golden blood spilled over his fingers.
Hiro took in the god’s look of surprise a split second before he saw Hiei towering above Taiyo. Its broadsword was raised, swinging down to take the killing blow.
Hiro launching into action, sprinting towards the god while desperately grasping at sunlight. It felt foreign to his mind, far away. He would be too late. Hiei would kill Taiyo. And their world would go dark.
But Hiro wasn’t the only one who saw the flash of Hiei’s blade, who understood what was at stake if it found its mark. Leilu dove towards Taiyo and shoved him out of the way an instant before the sword stroke fell.
It fell instead across her back, slicing her body in half.
CHAPTER 38
As Kai stretched out her hand to greet her koumori, a strange phenomenon occurred. The bright tropical morning sun darkened, as if a cloud had passed over it. But the azure blue sky was cloudless. The sun had…dimmed.
“Taiyo.” Quitsu said the word like a groan. He stumbled against Kai’s leg.
Kai swooped him up into her arms, holding him to her to hide her shaking hands.
“He’s hurt,” Kai said, realization dawning. “Hiro’s team is under attack. We have to go to them.”
“We have to follow Tsuki,” Chiya said, rounding on Kai. “Your boyfriend doesn’t matter. He’s got other burners with him, while Tsuki is completely undefended. Plus, we don’t know if Hiro is still in the mountains. We know where Tsuki is.”
Kai opened and closed her mouth, trying to find the hole in Chiya’s reasoning. She held Quitsu before her like a shield, a barrier between her and the force of Chiya’s distain. She couldn’t abandon Hiro…could she? But she didn’t trust herself anymore. It seemed every decision she made had been wrong. Maybe it was time to let someone else decide.
“You’re right,” Kai said, finally. “Let’s go after Tsuki.”
Their koumori harnesses had been incinerated on the island, so they swung onto their koumori bareback, Kai and Chiya holding Quitsu and Tanu tight to their chests.
“Be gentle,” Kai whispered to her koumori, her thighs gripped like iron vises, her fingers twined in the wiry hair at her koumori’s neck.
“Appu!”
The next minutes were a blur.
Hiro threw a vial at Hiei, shattering it at the demon’s feet in an explosion of white light.
Hiei roared with anger, backpedaling away from the burst of energy, away from the wounded god and Leilu’s mangled body.
“Retreat!” Hiro screamed, and the stunned burners leaped into action. Daarco shuffled forward and heaved Taiyo over his shoulder, while Hiro grabbed a berserk Stela around the waist, dragging her away from Leilu. They scrambled back through the doors to the armory, barricading the opening behind them with a huge iron-reinforced beam.
“She could still be alive!” Stela screamed at him, pummeling him with her fists as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Hiro stood and let her flail at him until one of her blows nailed him across t
he chin, sending his head snapping to the side. He grabbed her wrists in his hands, pulling her to him.
“Stop,” he said, as gently as he could with adrenaline surging through his blood. “I saw the blow. There’s no way she made it. I’m sorry.”
Stela struggled for a moment longer before collapsing against him with shuddering sob.
Hiro wrapped his arms around her and let her cry into his chest, trying to keep the tears from his own eyes. Leilu had saved them. Had saved Taiyo. But her sacrifice might not be enough.
Daarco had torn a piece of his shirt off and was trying to staunch the golden blood pouring from Taiyo’s wound. “I thought gods were immortal,” Daarco growled.
Taiyo coughed, blood dribbling from his mouth. “Not…totally,” he choked out. “Men cannot kill me, but demons like Hiei are not men. They are not even of this world. Against them…I am vulnerable.”
Hiro released Stela gently and knelt by Taiyo’s side. Hiro examined Taiyo’s wound—Hiei’s blade had cut a deep slash across the flesh of Taiyo’s stomach. Whenever Daarco took pressure off the area to let Hiro examine it, golden blood spurted anew. Hiro knew enough to know that a man likely wouldn’t survive a wound like that. Would a god?
Hiro pulled in what weakened sunlight he could and delved into Taiyo’s form, sending heat and light into the wound to heal it. It was like trying to patch a river with a bucket of water. It all flowed together.
“There’s nothing I can do,” Hiro said, wiping a spatter of black tengu blood from his face with the back of his hand.
Their brief reprieve was shattered as tengu bodies hit the other side of the door, scratching and snuffling and growling. Worse was the great laugh that echoed through the wood, setting Hiro’s teeth on edge. The explosion had only stunned Hiei.
Hiro caught Ryu’s eyes and silent understanding passed between them. They were still alive only because Hiei was content to toy with its prey for a few minutes. But soon it would tire of the game and would blow the doors off their hinges. And then it would be over.
Another crash against the doors made Hiro jump. He gripped his swords and stood, bracing himself for the horror that would come through those doors.
A blur outside the window caught his eye. He squinted, peering into the darkened sky. Another streak. A golden eagle!
Hiro laughed incredulously. “Reinforcements!” he shouted. “The sunburners are here! Emi did it!”
The doors shuddered and splinters of wood exploded towards him. One of the doors had been breached, and a black snout with snapping white teeth shoved through. The tengu scraped frantically at the opening with fangs and claws, diving and plunging to get through. The wood bent and splintered beneath its frantic assault.
Hiro darted forward and slashed it across the face.
The tengu yelped and pulled back from the hole with a spray of black blood. No new tengu moved forward to take its place.
Shouts of men sounded behind the doors, met with beastly snarls and hisses. The sunburners had landed.
“Daarco, I’m going out to see what kind of reinforcements Emi brought,” Hiro said. “And to see if there is a better healer among them.”
“Let me go,” Daarco said, striding to meet him at the doors. “I’m here to kill tengu. Let me do my job. You’re more valuable than me.”
Hiro considered this. Daarco was probably right, but Hiro didn’t know if he could sit in the safety of the armory while his friends fought and died.
“Hey!” Daarco exclaimed.
While they had been debating, Stela had lifted the beam blocking the doors and was slipping out through a narrow opening between them, bow in hand.
Ryu leaped between Hiro and Daarco after Stela, and Hiro darted after. “Stay here and block the door! I’ll send someone!” he shouted before slipping into the fray.
“Damn it, Hiro!” Daarco said before slamming the door closed.
The grand hall was a melee of burners and tengu. Twenty sunburners had answered Emi’s plea, including General Ipan and his seishen, Kuma. The general, clad in full battle armor, tossed a tengu through a window with a swing of his great axe. Stela was lost in the action, her silver hair flashing as arrows flew true, finding their targets. Four sunburners focused on Hiei, pummeling the tengu with blow after blow of fire and lightning. Hiei roared with anger, throwing fire back at its attackers.
The sunburners were driving the demon and his followers back towards the door one step at a time. Hiro caught a glimpse of Emi, her swords spinning in a whirling arc, taking a tengu down before her.
Hiro fought his way to General Ipan’s side, cutting down a tengu who darted into his path, its jaws bared.
“Quite a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, my boy,” General Ipan said as he sank the blade of his axe into the skull of a black-clad member of the Order who had darted at him with needle-thin swords.
“Thank you for coming,” Hiro said. “Do you have a healer? Taiyo is wounded.”
“That explains a lot,” General Ipan said. “Sadayo!” he called to a sunburner on the far side of the room. “To me!”
Hiro and General Ipan fell into a rhythm, swinging and parrying, ducking and cutting. They each felled two more opponents by the time the sunburner reached them.
“See what you can do for our wounded god,” Ipan said.
“Through those doors.” Hiro pointed. “Daarco is guarding them. Give him some warning before busting in.”
The burner nodded and sprinted past them.
“I think it’s time for a final push,” General Ipan said, surveying the remaining fighting at the end of the hall. Hiei was backed against the far wall.
But before the General could make the order, the great hall shook, as if a giant had taken a step.
Hiei began to laugh and ducked through the far doors, its remaining tengu and Order followers trailing behind.
The sunburners lowered their weapons, looking to the general for guidance.
“What are you waiting for?” he roared. “Finish them!”
The men cheered and headed for the door—Ryu, Kuma, Hiro and the general bringing up the rear. They piled out the door into the sandstone courtyard illuminated by the eerie light of the darkened sun. The sun was setting as it was, and the strange dusk cast harsh shadows across the land.
Hiro was barely out the door when the men in front of him came up short.
In front of them stood Hiei and the tengu masquerading as Tsuki. Yukina. This demon was taller than Hiei and wore dark robes flowing in an unnatural breeze. It shared the strange illusion that was set before Hiei’s face, but its face had a different cast, like looking through rain on a windowpane.
But it wasn’t the demon’s form in all its strangeness that drew Hiro’s eyes. Flanked on either side of the two tengu were four massive black beasts. They stood three times as tall as a man on sinewy legs and with long arms ending in curved talons. Their faces were sick corruptions of the visages of different beasts—a falcon, a wolf, a bull, a bear. Massive wings covered with sickly black skin protruded from their shoulders. They were truly demons from hell.
But then, Hiro saw something that filled his mouth with bile, a sight more horrible to him than these demons could ever be.
“Jurou?” Hiro whispered.
Strolling between the two demons came Jurou, his father’s historian. Jurou, who had taught him history when he was no taller than the man’s waist. Jurou, who’d brought books to the dinner table when everyone else had feasted and danced in the throne room. Jurou, who had been intimately involved in every aspect of his father’s kingdom and military campaigns for the last two decades. He didn’t look meek or bookish now. He looked triumphant, his head high, his eyes burning in the red light of the sickly sun. An unconscious woman was cradled in his arms. Not a woman. A goddess. Tsuki.
“Jurou, you traitor!” Ipan shouted. “What in Taiyo’s name do you think you’re doing?”
“Retreat,” Hiro hissed at the fighters before him. “Retreat n
ow!” They began to slip behind Hiro and Ipan through the doors. If Ipan could keep talking long enough for them to retreat, they could barricade the doors and regroup.
“It looks like I picked the winning side this time, Ipan,” Jurou sneered.
“You’re a burner! You must know what they plan! Why would you agree to help destroy the source of your own power?” Ipan said, genuinely lost.
“I’ve never been more than a second-class citizen to you and Ozora!” Jurou shouted. “Not good enough for a seishen, not good enough to be a warrior. In the new order, I will be first! You will bow to me! If you live long enough.”
Most of the men were inside now. “Go,” Hiro whispered to Emi with a twitch of his head towards the door. She grimaced, clearly torn about abandoning him. But she relented, disappearing inside.
“Where’s Kai?” Hiro asked, his voice low.
“Never fear. I left her quite safe and sound. Although without food or water, she won’t be safe for long—”
“Enough,” Yukina bellowed, its voice reverberating through his body. “Give us Taiyo, little burners, and perhaps we will spare you. You are clearly outmatched.”
“I sent for backup from the citadel,” Ipan whispered to Hiro.
“So we need to stall,” Hiro breathed.
“Yes,” the General said.
“What about Tsuki?” Hiro asked.
“Triage,” Ipan murmured back. Hiro understood. Sometimes, a sunburner had to make impossible choices on the battlefield. To abandon a gravely-injured soldier to save one that could be kept alive. They had little hope of rescuing and saving Tsuki out here in the open with dozens of foes set against them. But Taiyo… Perhaps they could still save him.
“We will consider your proposal,” Hiro said loudly with a curt nod to Ipan. The two men and their seishen turned and darted through the great hall doors, slamming them closed against the monsters in the courtyard. They heaved a massive hewn beam down across the door, barricading it before retreating farther into the armory.
“We have minutes before they break through,” Hiro said to the others. “If we’re lucky.”
