by Claire Luana
“Nothing,” Kai told the rest.
Quitsu and Tanu emerged from the forest, revealed by the glow of the fire.
“We spoke with some wild koumidi who live here,” Quitsu said. “They’ve never seen any sign of man on the island.”
“We have to find her,” Jurou said with a strange fervor, firelight glinting in his eyes. “We must have missed something.”
Kai massaged the bridge of her nose, trying to think of what to try next.
“Sometimes it’s best to start at the beginning,” Colum said.
“What do you mean?” Kai asked.
“The box. A detail we’ve missed.”
“We didn’t bring it,” Jurou said. “Kai made us leave it behind.”
She recoiled slightly at the weight of his accusation but pushed down her frustration. After the seishen elder’s warning, she had been adamant about leaving the box in the safety of the treasury. Jurou had argued long and hard that they should bring it with them.
“Queenie was right not to bring it,” Colum said. “Who knows what could happen to it out here. Besides. We don’t need it. We’ve all seen the image. Use your memories.”
“Eyewitness recollection is notoriously faulty,” Jurou grumbled.
“It can’t hurt,” Kai said. “We aren’t going anywhere until we figure this out. Chiya, why don’t you tell us what you remember?” Perhaps Chiya’s connection as Tsuki’s true heir would give her some edge—some ability to see what the rest of them had missed.
Chiya sighed but recited the vision, including every image in painstaking detail. “It ends with rowing the boat to this island. We know it’s this island. I recognize it. Even the boat is right over there,” she said, pointing to the other island across the dark stretch of water.
“Did you ever get to this island?” Colum asked, looking thoughtful. “In the vision. You didn’t reach it, did you?”
“No,” Chiya said. “It cut out right before the viewer gets here. With the phosphorescence.”
“We’ve assumed that Tsuki is on this island. But what if she isn’t?” Colum asked.
Kai’s mind whirled. “Tsuki is connected to the sea. You think…she’s underwater?”
“Why not?” Jurou chimed in, his excitement growing. “It’s the perfect place to hide her. No one would happen upon her. And it’s not like she has to breathe. She’s a goddess.”
“The phosphorescence,” Chiya said. “In the vision. Maybe…I don’t think it led across the whole stretch of water. What if it’s a marker?”
“Let’s get a koumori and check it out,” Kai said.
“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” Colum asked. “If she’s truly underwater, how in the gods’ names are we going to free her?”
“One problem at a time,” Kai said. “We find her first. Then we can worry about how we free her.”
Kai walked into the trees and whistled for the koumori. One of the females swept down onto the soft sand. Kai made quick work of harnessing her up and hopped on.
As soon as she was airborne, Kai saw what they had been missing. Of course Tsuki would reveal herself at night. The phosphorescence stood out below Kai in stark contrast to the dark waters of the ocean. A circle of shimmering white light pulsed towards a central point.
A veritable bullseye showing them their target.
The flight to the Akashi Mountains was long and dark. As they neared the mountains, the cool air of the foothills washed over them, a relief after the hot and sticky city night. But as they traveled farther and higher into the mountains, Hiro began to shiver.
He let out a teeth-chattering sigh of relief when the two peaks came into view. They cut a forbidding figure in the moonlight—guarding the pass with twin faces of jagged rock and ice. Hiro directed his koumori to land near the top of the pass, but it refused, fighting his commands and twisting at the reins. With a grunt of frustration, he allowed it to sweep down and land on a flat spot below the two peaks.
The others landed around him, dismounting and rifling through their packs to pull out hats, gloves, and coats. One of the moonburners wrapped him in heat and he sighed as the tension in his body unraveled.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re very welcome,” Stela said.
Hiro unstrapped Ryu from the golden eagle harness and his seishen leaped to the ground, letting out a huge teeth-baring yawn.
“We’re headed up between those peaks.” He pointed. The rugged crags looked even more imposing from below, the way up more treacherous. “It’s going to be tough going, but we’ll take it nice and slow. Let me know if you need a break. Now let’s eat a little something and get moving.”
They crouched in the snow, pulling out packets of dried meat and cheese. Everything was cold and hard; Hiro had to let a bite thaw in his mouth before he could chew it. He tried not to think of the idyllic tropical island from Chiya’s half of the box.
When they were finished, they took out the rest of their gear, proceeding with much trial and error to strap sets of sharp spikes onto their boots.
“What’s all this stuff for?” Leilu muttered, examining a fine-pointed axe that Nanase had insisted they would need.
“I reckon we’re going to find out,” Hiro said.
The air was thin; Hiro’s team couldn’t move for more than thirty minutes before resting. Hiro pushed his frustration down and concentrated on setting one foot in front of the other. He thanked Taiyo that the sky was clear and that they didn’t have snow or bad weather to contend with. This was tough enough. They walked in silence. No one had extra breath left for talking.
As the sun rose, the landscape changed dramatically. Hiro and Daarco took over the job of warming their group, keeping protective layers of heat wrapped around each of the moonburners as they moved. The sun shone powerfully against the white snow, turning the landscape into a blinding mirror.
The day passed at a glacial pace. Just after the sun set, Hiro’s team reached a cluster of boulders. The stark gray monoliths were the most defensible position he’d seen all day and would shield them from the wind.
“Let’s make camp here,” he said, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
The group trailed in, dropping packs and collapsing in the snow. No one moved for a few moments, relishing the brief reprieve for heaving lungs and aching legs. Only Ryu seemed unbothered by the day’s exertions.
“Emi,” Hiro called. “Will you get a fire going and start cooking some food?”
“Why me?” Emi snorted. “Because I’m a woman and belong in the kitchen?”
Hiro rolled his eyes. “No, because you’re a moonburner, and you have most of the food in your pack.”
“I don’t know,” Emi said. “Still seems a little sexist.”
“I’ll help you,” Daarco growled, getting up with a groan and dusting the snow from his pants.
Hiro raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“What would you like us to do?” Stela asked.
“Gather some snow to boil for water,” Hiro said. “I’ll work on setting up the tent.”
“Snow?” Leilu asked, hands on her hips. “You sure we’ll be able to find any?”
Hiro stifled a sigh. He supposed sarcasm was a good sign. He would need to worry when they lost their spirit entirely.
Despite her comment, Leilu walked over and helped Hiro set up the tent.
“Will you hand me that stake?” Hiro asked. “Leilu?”
She started, looking at him, mouth open. “Look,” she said, pointing up the mountain.
Up the darkened face of the snowy slope, above where the two peaks touched the sky, danced the ribbon of light the box had shown them. It undulated and flickered in shades of green woven with streaks of indigo and gold.
“It’s beautiful,” Emi breathed. They all stared, eyes wide like children at their first solstice festival.
“Taiyo is up there,” Hiro said, a sureness settling into his bones.
“And it look
s like he wants to be found,” Leilu said.
They ate quickly and in silence, methodically chewing hard slices of dried meat and stale crackers before washing them down with metallic-tasting snow-melt. They collapsed into their bedrolls minutes later. Hiro heard snores before he could even assign Stela the first watch.
Though Hiro’s body was exhausted from the demands of the day, he couldn’t quiet his mind enough to sink into sleep. It seemed he was not the only one. He heard Emi’s whispered voice.
“Are you glad you came?” she asked Daarco, whose bedroll lay next to hers under the low tent.
“When I’m hours into trudging up a blinding, icy hill, I begin to doubt,” Daarco said quietly with a low chuckle. “But yes. Hiro’s had my back since we were kids. I owe him the same.”
“Loyalty,” she said. “It’s a good trait. But it can be a shackle. Do you feel disloyal because you are allying yourself with moonburners?”
Pause. “Yes,” Daarco said quietly.
Hiro thought about saying something to reveal to his friends that he was still awake, but his curiosity won out. He had been wondering what was going on in Daarco’s head for weeks now. Perhaps this would be his chance to understand.
“You still feel disloyal, even knowing that the tengu are the ones who started the war? That we were being manipulated to hate each other? That makes me want to come together even stronger. To thwart them.”
“Every time I think about putting it behind me, I see my father’s face. A moonburner murdered him. Robbed me of him. How can I let that go?”
A pause. “You know the scars on my face? I’ve lived with them for over a year. I was in the hospital for weeks after I was injured. The pain was unbearable while they healed. I lost my ear. Do you think I should forgive the man who did that?”
“No,” Daarco growled. “When I think about someone doing that to you…I want to rip them apart with my bare hands. Of course you shouldn’t forgive him.”
“But I have,” she said softly. “Because it was you.”
“What?” came the strangled word from Daarco.
“The sunburner attack on the citadel. I was in the dormitories, trying to get the younger novices to safety. I looked out the window and saw a golden eagle swooping towards us. I saw the rider throwing a ball of fire at the building. It was you.”
“I…I…” Daarco stumbled over his words. “I’m so sorry. How can you even look to me? Talk to me?”
“There’s something I learned a long time ago. Hatred and regret…these things choke the life from you. Sometimes slowly, sometimes fast. But you wither and die. Forgiveness…breathes life back in. It allows for something to grow in hatred’s place. Love. Purpose.”
Daarco was silent, but a sniff told Hiro that there were tears in his friend’s eyes.
“I didn’t tell you that to make you feel guilty or hate yourself, or to earn an apology. I told you to show you that it’s possible to forgive. To forgive your enemies, but also to forgive yourself. It takes more courage than hatred, but it’s worth it. I hope you discover that for yourself.”
“I hope so too,” Daarco whispered, barely loud enough to hear.
As Hiro drifted off to sleep, he found that his own cheeks were wet with tears, turning to ice in the cold.
“Hiro,” a female voice said. He tried to shove the voice away, to descend once again into the comfortable black of sleep.
“Hiro.” It was more insistent. Someone was shaking him.
“Hmm?” he said, opening his eyes groggily.
A heart-shaped face swam into view before him. “Hiro, wake up.”
“Stela?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. As soon as he sat up, he regretted it, as the cold of the night rushed against his exposed skin. He shivered.
“I heard something,” she said. “I think there’s something out there.”
A surge of adrenaline coursed through him, washing away the remnants of sleep. He wriggled out from under the low tent, pulling his gear with him. He quickly hopped into his boots and coat, strapping on his sword and scabbard.
Stela pulled her hood back up, its white fur framing her face in the moonlight.
“Human or animal?” Hiro asked.
“I think…” she said. “Animal. It sounded like footsteps in the snow, but I heard snuffling too.”
Ryu padded out of the tent to sit in the snow beside him. “I sense…wrongness.”
They stood very still to listen, their breath fogging the icy air.
He heard it. A crunch of snow, faint but unmistakable. “It’s moving slowly,” he said. “It could be the Order of Deshi tracking us.”
“Should we wake the others?”
Hiro hesitated. The other burners needed their sleep, and if he was wrong, he’d be dealing with four cold, grouchy people. But if he was right…
Hiro never got to make his choice. Because a white horror exploded out of the snow in front of them, leaping at him with jaws bared.
The creature’s huge paws hit him first, knocking Hiro backwards. Hiro and the creature tumbled into the snow, rolling end over end, tangling with the canvas tent, and finally breaking apart against one of the nearby boulders.
Hiro’s body was numb as he rose to one knee, gasping for breath. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and got his first real glimpse of his enemy.
It was on its feet before him, shaking the snow from its yellow-white fur. Once, it must have been a bear, like General Ipan’s seishen, Kuma—perhaps an icy northern cousin. Now, it was monster, a bloody symbol smudged onto its forehead. Mindless red eyes burned with hatred above a slavering maw.
Anger bubbled up from Hiro’s core at the idea of someone creating this monstrosity, perverting this once-proud creature into something evil.
Instinct took over as the massive beast leaped at him with club-like paws. He dropped to the ground just in time and the tengu overshot its target, scrambling on the boulder behind him, claws screeching.
As the tengu pulled itself to its feet and rebounded for another leap, Stela shot a blast of fire at it. It twisted to the side, out of the path of the flames, roaring in fury at being attacked. It bounded on all four legs across the snow towards her, its spiny vertebrae protruding from its hunched back.
“Stela!” Hiro cried out in warning.
As it leaped for her, Ryu intercepted it with a massive leap, barreling it sideways in the snow. The two creatures scrambled apart and faced off against each other with snarls and flashing teeth.
A blast of lightning struck the tengu from above, sending it stumbling to its knees. Emi had untangled herself from the mangled tent and stood on the hillside, her chest heaving.
The blow had dazed the tengu but hadn’t killed it. It stumbled to its feet. Stela scrambled back in the snow as it lashed out at her, hissing and snapping.
Emi sent another blast of white hot heat into the creature, joined by one from Leilu, who had emerged next to her.
The tengu snarled and snapped, thrashing and shuddering in the snow.
“You need to behead it!” Hiro called.
With a grimace, Emi burned a slice of moonlight that severed through the tengu’s neck. It gave a final shake and lay still.
Daarco finally threw the remains of the tent to the side, emerging from the canvas with an angry cry. Hiro couldn’t help but chuckle, his relief palpable. “Everyone all right?”
Stela stood unsteadily, giving the creature a wide berth. “What was that?” she asked.
“Tengu,” Emi said. “We had the pleasure of making their acquaintance on our last trip.”
“The Order of Deshi knows we’re here,” Hiro said. “This likely won’t be the only one.”
“Great,” Leilu said. “At least we won’t freeze to death.”
“Remind me to stop taking trips with you boys,” Emi said icily.
Hiro smiled grimly. The sky was lightening in the east, painting an ombre palate of blues over the horizon. “Anyone need more sleep tonight?” h
e asked.
“Suddenly feeling alert,” Leilu said. “Let’s get moving. Might as well make some progress.”
The next day passed in an expanse of white. With the thin air and the thick snow, they moved slowly. But they moved. By nightfall, they were within a stone’s throw of the pass between the two boulders.
“How are you all feeling?” Hiro asked. The group was sprawled about the snow, resting after their latest push. “Should we try to make it over the pass?”
“That pass will be more defensible than this open face,” Daarco said.
“I agree,” Emi said, looking warmly at Daarco. Those two had grown closer the farther they climbed. “If more tengu are headed our way tonight, I’d like to have the high ground. I’m up for a few more hours.”
“What do you guys think?” Hiro turned to Leilu and Stela.
“My head agrees with Daarco, but my legs say this is as good a place as any,” Leilu said with a chuckle. “I think I can keep my head in charge for a few more hours.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Stela said. “We have to get there one way or the other.”
A chorus of grunts and groans rang out as they stood on aching feet and shouldered their packs. As they resumed the trudge up the steep slope, even Emi and Leilu’s sarcastic banter died down to sullen, tired silence. Hiro’s muscles ached, quivering with each new step. He couldn’t remember being so tired in his life.
The monotony of the steps numbed his mind until all he could think of was the fire in his lungs and his legs. When he looked up and realized he had crested the top of the pass, Hiro felt like weeping with relief.
Atop the pass, they were rewarded by a fantastic panorama—just as the box had displayed. A narrow angling slope leading down into a wide, shallow, snow-covered glacial basin. Cradling the basin was a row of stern peaks majestically clad in granite rock, downy white snow, and turquoise ice. Somewhere under there, Taiyo was waiting for them.
“Thank the gods,” Stela said with ragged breath as she reached the top behind him.
“Let’s get to a flat spot,” Hiro said, “and we can make camp.”
