by Devin Madson
The man laughed as others joined him, their eyes gleaming with the same avarice. One stepped toward Malice, spinning a dagger. He licked dry lips, the veneer of his bravado thin.
Malice lunged, gripping the man’s cheekbones. The man did not scream, just dropped in a tangle of heavy limbs like a buckwheat doll. More rushed in, stepping on their fallen comrades in their hurry to bleed us. I stepped. Dodged. Hardly thinking, every instinct was for life. A blade grazed my arm, catching in the fabric, and I dug my nails into skin, filling them with pain.
Laughing, Malice slid his hand into mine, and for a single heart-stopping moment his Empathy sucked life through my fingers. It was nothing to the strength with which Endymion had so nearly ended my life, but he formed the anger with ease. It burst from him, knocking men back. But we were too weak, too tired, and they were up again in a moment.
Death approached on dozens of dirty, reed-clad feet.
Kill him, I said, tightening my hold on Kimiko’s heart. Kill Katashi.
A dagger pierced the flesh of my arm. With gritted teeth, I grabbed its owner’s wrist, locking my fingers around his bones as he drew the blade out. The cry that parted his lips made my breath come fast. Blood soaked my sleeve.
Kill him!
No, Master. The word was like a slap. I will not be like him. I will not harm my own brother.
If you don’t, I will die. Do it!
A face. Lashing out, I made a sharp connect and the man reeled back, replaced by another. Another face, another knife in the suffocating brawl.
‘Kill him!’ I screamed.
‘No!’
Kimiko fell, screams ending on sobs as I crushed her soul in my hand. I could no longer see Malice, no longer sense him or anyone. Even Kimiko was fading from my Sight as fatigue took its toll. I was sinking, the stink of blood and sweat and leather and oil all I could smell, like I was drowning in a soup of soldiers. The world became a blur. I reached for skin, narrowly missing death as steel scraped my arm, my face, my fingers, every cut fuelling me with greater pain.
Another man appeared through the press, sleeveless armour leaving an expanse of bare flesh. My fingers flew for him, pale, skeletal, closing around damp skin. Right hand, ring gleaming, its silver spider splayed upon the metal.
I didn’t see the blade until it sliced through the skin of my wrist, sinking into flesh. Into bone. I could not drag my eyes from the blossoming blood, every moment an eternity as the sword cut through my arm.
The connection died.
Kimiko screamed. The sound filled the tent, and I could not move, could not think.
Grasping my arm, I found a slick stump, hot with blood. Dead men obscured the floor. The soldiers hung back now, Malice there, flexing his fingers as he stood between me and the rest of the world. His chest heaved. And at his feet lay the mangled remains of a burst skull.
Fear stank up the tent. Every eye strayed to Katashi, kneeling before his sister, shaking her, talking, trying anything to cut through the screams. But Kimiko would not stop. Her small hands were ripping hair from her head, dark curls falling to the floor like broken feathers.
‘What do we do, Captain?’ The words arrived as though through a haze. ‘Do we kill them?’
Kimiko’s nails cut into her own skin. Katashi gripped her wrists, fighting to hold her. ‘What are you doing to her?’ he demanded, glaring up at Malice.
‘The pain of love, Great Fish,’ he replied, shoulders shaking with a dry chuckle. ‘The pain of love.’
Love. As a powerless boy of six years old, I had watched my mother die, and thought I understood my blood. An Empath could not love. How else could all those Laroths have risked the birth of girls? And then Kimiko had come, stepping through the wall of my prison. She had loved me against her will and I had let her, lying every day to keep her another minute, another hour, but not a lifetime. With me she would never have a lifetime.
I stepped back, severed wrist clutched to my chest. Kimiko clawed at her brother’s hands, screaming.
Leave, I said, the order seeming to vanish in the crush of sweating bodies. Get away from here and forget me. Your Darius was a lie.
And there was the mark I had sworn never to use.
I let her go.
Her screaming ceased and she slumped forward, a puppet with cut strings. Never again would someone be able to touch her, to hold her as strongly as I had done. If she could fight the man she loved, then she could fight the world.
Still kneeling, Katashi checked her pulse and listened for a breath. He lifted her chin, a hand clasped over bloody curls. ‘Kimiko?’
A breath. Though I had let her go, I could still feel the life in her, but she no longer belonged to me.
Katashi got to his feet. ‘Get out of my way,’ he said, shoving through the press of men. Soldiers stumbled, thrust aside as he advanced toward Malice. ‘You too, Spider.’
‘You’ll have to move me yourself, yes?’
‘I’ll kill you soon, I promise. But he dies now.’ Katashi pointed at me. ‘Hiding behind your brother, Laroth? Afraid of me?’
‘Step aside, Malice,’ I said, holding my injured arm against my chest. The pain seemed to distort the words, every moment a struggle to stand, to breathe.
‘Darius–’
‘Do it!’
Dragging his injured leg, Malice stepped aside, his expression ugly beneath the crackle of dried blood. Behind him, Katashi’s soldiers gathered, their eyes alight, their weapons ready. If Katashi died they would avenge him, ripping our heads from our bodies.
I giggled, cradling my arm. My sleeve was sodden up to the elbow.
Katashi stepped forward. ‘If she dies, I will cut your body into a thousand pieces so the gods never find you,’ he said.
‘Good.’
‘Good?’
‘What else would you like me to say?’ I spread my good arm. ‘Are you waiting for permission? I did, but your sister gave it to me gladly.’
A twitch of his lip gave him away and I stepped as he lunged, my hand raised to catch his fist. His knuckles slammed into my left palm and I let connection flow, but there was no skin, no warmth, just the dark leather of an archer’s glove.
His other hand grabbed my arm, his look of triumph manic, gleeful.
‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’ he said, the words a sneer. ‘What now, Empath? Can’t touch me now.’
Katashi drew his dagger, his fingertips digging into my arm. I watched him, watched his hand, his face, his eyes, crinkling in the corners when he smiled. His eyes flashed to my throat in an instant.
He was too skilled a fighter to trick, my body too riddled with fatigue. All I had was Empathy.
I needed skin.
Gritting my teeth, I lashed out with my stump, smacking my arm into his. Pain was all I knew. The tent spun, and Katashi tightened his grip, his eyes laughing like the flames of the furthest hell.
All it took was an instant, an instant to pull him toward me, to lean in. Our lips met. And in the space of a breath, I forged the connection with a kiss.
Chapter 22
The kiss lingered.
Blood soaked the reeds at Darius’s feet. He and Katashi stood frozen amid the carnage, dead soldiers fanning out around them like gruesome petals.
Everyone held their breath. Wide eyes watched from fearful faces, every guard’s advance halted mid-step, weapons quivering. I waited, listening to the terrified tattoo of my heart, every moment a lifetime. Why did Katashi not move? Why did he not fight?
Malice was breathing heavily, fists clenched, such anger in his gaze that he looked crazed. He took a step forward, dragging his leg, just as Katashi slowly peeled his lips from Darius’s, space opening between them.
Still not turning, Katashi flexed his fingers. He rolled his shoulders.
And in front of him, Darius nodded, smiling through blood-crusted lips.
‘Majesty?’
Katashi turned, his lips a brighter red, a slitted smile. ‘Yes?’
The soldier stepped back a pace. ‘What… What are your orders, Your Majesty?’
‘My orders?’ His gaze slid toward me, burning trails across my skin. ‘We take Kisia. From now on, anyone who will not bow to me, burns. Send the order to Roi to attack. We ride for Kin.’
‘And the freaks?’
Katashi rolled his eyes back upon the unfortunate soldier. ‘Freaks?’
‘Lord Laroth–’
‘Lord Laroth requires a surgeon. Fetch Master Hevesen.’
‘But… Captain–’
‘Lord Laroth is our friend and ally,’ Katashi said quietly, holding every gaze. ‘If anyone harms him, they will find themselves staring at the tip of an arrow as it enters their eye.’
Malice started to laugh, a dry little chuckle.
The blade that had come so close to ending Darius’s life slid soundlessly into its sheath. ‘What are you all waiting for?’ Katashi demanded, spreading his great wingspan. ‘Vengeance waits for no man. Burn them all and we’ll take The Usurper’s head!’
Knowing that voice of old, the Pikes cheered. Energy pounded through the mass of men. They clapped their open palms upon their thighs, the slap of leather rising like thunder. The dead were forgotten. Even Darius was forgotten, falling to his knees at the far end of the tent, his closed eyes turned toward the heavens. Katashi’s pull was stronger than ever.
‘Kisia is ours!’
I could see Kimiko’s ragged curls through the crowd of legs, her small figure huddled at knee level. No one was paying her any heed, the pair of us invisible as the soldiers began to chant: ‘Monarch! Monarch! Monarch!’
‘The empire will bow to us!’
He lifted Hatsukoi into the air and they pushed forward as one crazed mass, each desperate to be the one to touch her smooth curve and receive her blessing.
I crawled across the blood-soaked reeds. Around me, men chanted, in thrall to their emperor, their lust for battle rising like a relentless tide. Kimiko seemed not to hear it, not to hear me as I hissed her name. Shaking her shoulder achieved nothing beyond sending her head lolling; the only sign she lived, the rising of her chest with each shallow breath.
A hiss of anger was soon drowned by shouts. Someone had tapped, climbing over their comrades to reach Hatsukoi. Tika and Bei were in the crowd, teeth bared, eyes alight as they pumped their fists into the air.
Gripping Kimiko’s hand, I dragged her toward the table, dodging stomping sandals. I rolled her beneath it and followed on my stomach. ‘Kimiko,’ I said, shaking her more fiercely. Her scalp was speckled with blood from patches of missing hair. ‘Kimiko?’
‘As Vengeance we ride!’ Katashi cried.
The Pikes cheered, the sound filling the tent. Pressing my hands to my ears, I edged forward, peering up to see manic grins splitting stained teeth. And there was Wen. He must have felt my gaze for he turned, lips parted as though he would make himself heard over the pack. I pulled back. ‘We have to get out of here,’ I hissed, gripping Kimiko’s hand. ‘Please wake up.’
She did not move.
‘Kimiko!’
‘It hurts,’ she moaned softly, curled upon herself like a sick child.
‘I know it does,’ I said. Beyond the table a sea of feet were stampeding past, shadows flickering across the matting. Outside, cheers rose to the night sky. ‘Come with me and we’ll make it stop.’
I pulled her toward the tent wall, but she was little more than dead weight.
‘Through the silk,’ she whispered. ‘Go through the silk.’
She had walked through the wall at Koi.
Hooking an arm beneath her shoulders, I hoisted her up, struggling to support the weight of such a fragile creature. Behind us the last Pikes were disappearing into the night, only Malice and Darius left, two crumpled creatures lying side by side on the matting, breathing heavily.
‘Just walk,’ Kimiko managed to say, lifting her head for a moment. ‘I’ll do the rest.’ She gripped my hand, and having no time to question her, no time to think, I squeezed my eyes closed and stepped forward.
I shivered, hairs rising along my arms and down my legs, and then I was breathing the warm night air, scented with storms. My eyes snapped open. We were on the other side of the silk, but she was slipping; slipping from my hold and slipping from the world, her eyelids weighted shut.
‘Monarch! Monarch! Monarch!’
The Pikes were marching. I could hear orders cutting across the chanting, a thousand milling steps like thunder. This was what they had been preparing for all night and now the time had come. I had to get out of here, had to make it to Kin before it was too late.
‘Going somewhere, dearest Hana?’
I stepped back into the shadow of the great tent, struggling to hold Kimiko as I pulled her with me. Heavy steps sounded on the grass, and Katashi appeared, half bathed in moonlight. With Hatsukoi towering above his head, he looked gigantic, every muscle bulging with a new fervour.
‘I think it’s time we stopped playing games, Hana,’ he said, taking a slow step toward us, my pulse drumming in my ears. Kimiko’s weight was awkward, and all I could do was shuffle sideways, unable to pull my eyes from him.
‘I’m not playing games.’
‘No? Then you will marry me. Together we can conquer the empire. We are Otakos. We will make it bleed.’
Dragging Kimiko with me, I took a full step back, but he kept advancing, clenching and unclenching his fists. The smile that had always laughed at the world now jeered.
‘No,’ I said, willing Kimiko to wake.
‘No?’
Backed against the tent, I was running out of options. The silk felt solid, Kimiko’s strange ability no longer available without her consciousness.
‘No.’
Another step brought him so close I could taste him. My fingers dug into Kimiko’s ribs as she slid lower, her weight straining my arm.
Katashi forced his hand between my legs. His skin was hot, so hot I could feel it through my breeches. And there the tantalising scent of leather and wax, a trace of the man I had thought I knew. He tightened his hold, smiling as desire shocked through me. He had been my ideal for too long, the memory of his body still raw in my mind — beneath that robe his broad, rippled back and a long valley carved the length of his spine...
Kimiko slid from my hold, crumpling onto the grass. Katashi didn’t notice, didn’t care, just pressed his body against mine.
‘Ride with me,’ he said, his breath hot on my cheek. ‘Be my empress and we will take back what is ours.’
‘No.’ I turned my head away, trying not to breathe him in. Everything about him was intoxicating and it was dulling my mind.
‘No? I am the head of your family. You belong to me.’
‘I don’t belong to anyone!’
I dug my feet into the grass and shoved him away, ducking under his arm as he lunged forward with a snarl. He tried to snatch at my sash, but he did not see Kimiko and tripped, his great weight falling against the taut silk. Hands thrown out, they connected with the tent, and after a moment of sucking silence, it burst into flames.
The rush of hot air blasted into my face and I lunged forward. Grabbing Kimiko’s robe, I hauled her back, stepping on her singed curls, the stink of burning hair making me gag.
Lit by the flames, Katashi began to laugh.
‘You’re mine, Hana,’ he said, following us into the shadow of the next tent. ‘Or you burn, too. I will not let you go to him.’
‘You’re a monster, Katashi! Don’t you dare touch me.’
‘I am your emperor—’
The hilt smacked into the side of his head with a crack and he went over, the great Katashi Otako hitting the ground like a felled tree.
Silence filled the world.
Wen stood in the moonlight, breathing heavily. He adjusted his grip on the sheathed blade and licked his lips, unable to draw his gaze from the still form of his captain, face down on the grass.
‘Thank you,’ I said, clenching my fists to keep my hands from shaking. The tent was no longer burning, but men were yelling, running steps drawing close to the charred hole his hands had left.
‘Quick,’ I said. ‘Move him.’
The order seemed to snap sense back into Wen and he dropped the sword. With handfuls of Katashi’s crimson surcoat, he took his captain by the shoulders and dragged him into the shadows. Wen grunted with the effort, the sound of voices drawing near doubling his strength.
‘Are you all right, my lady?’ Wen whispered breathlessly as he crouched beside me in the shadows. The loud voices of Pikes sounded from the other side of the tent.
‘What set it on fire?’ one asked.
‘I wouldn’t put anything past those freaks.’
‘You think Captain Monarch is really going to keep them?’
‘Shh!’
Wen touched my shoulder. ‘My lady?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’ I looked down at Katashi. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Honestly, my lady, I’m not game enough to check.’ Wen looked pale, his teeth set hard. ‘Are you?’
I shuffled out and pressed my fingers to Katashi’s hot skin. A thundering pulse beat beneath them, as rapid as galloping hooves. ‘Not dead,’ I said.
‘Good.’
‘It would be better if he were dead.’
He stared at me, mouth agape. ‘What?’
‘You saw what he did! You should have killed him.’
Wen shook his head. ‘I should not have even hit him!’
‘Then I will do it.’
