by Jay Kristoff
Michi cried out, Misaki’s silver arms flaring wide. And in a blinking, the man stood before Yukiko, solid as the walls around them, lashing out almost too fast to see.
It was Michi who saved her, dragged her away and spun her around, wearing the kick across her shoulder blades. Yukiko felt as if she’d been hit by lightning, slamming her and Michi out through the cell door and into the wall opposite.
She heard a wet crunch, a ragged scream, blinking the tears from her eyes as the Inquisitor smashed a samurai into the floor as if he were made of rags. Another samurai threw his arms around the Inquisitor’s throat, and again there was only smoke, roiling and midnight-shaped, slipping through his grip, past Misaki’s gleaming razors and out into the hallway. And there he stood again, all too real, eyes shot through with bloody red, reaching toward Yukiko like something from a nightmare.
“Yōkai-kin,” he breathed. “She awaits…”
Michi’s foot connected with the Inquisitor’s groin like a redlining goods train. It was the kind of kick that made one’s testicles throw up their hands and move to a monastery in the Hogosha mountains. It was the kind of kick that made orphans of a man’s grandchildren.
Her elbow spun him, knocked the breather from his face. He staggered, the girl’s knuckles passing clean through the place his throat used to be, only vapor remaining. The Inquisitor coalesced behind her, hands reaching for her neck quick as lies. And Yukiko pulled herself up the wall, blood spilling from her nose as she reached inside his head.
And she squeezed.
The Inquisitor gasped, the last of his lungful drifting from his lips as he clutched his temples. General Ginjiro barreled through the cell door and collided with him, pistons and gears whining as his fingers closed about the man’s wrists. The Inquisitor thrashed, tried to break the hold, twisting and kicking as his form shivered. The little man looked down at his breather swinging loose, wailing as Ginjiro wrapped him up in a bear hug.
“Don’t let him breathe any more smoke!” Yukiko cried.
The Inquisitor slammed his head into Ginjiro’s, face-first onto the jagged tusks of the oni mask. There was a sickening crunch, a spattering sound. The little man smashed his head into the iron mask again, its tusks painted with red and tiny fragments of bone. Yukiko put her hands to her mouth, Ginjiro crying out as the Inquisitor cracked his head a third time, a fourth, bone crunching, blood spraying. Other samurai seized the man’s head to stop him inflicting further damage on himself, the hallway now filled with the smell of blood and awful, wet screaming.
The Inquisitor had put out his own eyes.
“Gods above,” Michi breathed.
“I will see you there, Yōkai-kin!” The Inquisitor spat blood. “I will wait for you!”
“Izanagi’s balls, get her out of here!” Ginjiro bellowed.
Michi and Misaki each grabbed an arm and hauled Yukiko away. She felt sick, head swimming, nose bleeding, ears ringing with the Inquisitor’s screams. Ruined eyes, face torn and cracked, twisted with madness. She found herself reaching out with the Kenning, feeling for the two sparks of warmth in her belly. Reflexive, terrified, her thoughts echoing with his words.
“The little ones are already here, after all.”
She tried to swallow, her mouth dry as ash.
“Perhaps they can play with yours…”
15
SEED
The looking glass saw right through her.
Yukiko stood naked before it, lost in her own reflection. Skin as pale as Iishi snow, long slender limbs, black hair spilling in soft rivers over her shoulders. Turning sideways, she searched the profile of her belly as if it contained the answer to every riddle, every question. She ran her hand down her stomach, feeling the curve of skin and muscle. It was beginning to swell.
She could see them now, as well as feel them.
A tiny island of herself, locked behind the wall she’d constructed in the Kenning. A fire inside her, waiting outside the barrier in her head. She lowered it now, pain flaring, like a flaming ice pick rammed into her skull. But in the midst of it, she could feel everything. Swallows in the midnight garden, vermin crawling the sewers, Michi’s puppy dreaming. Buruu nestled on the rafters above her head, a growing guilt gnawing his insides. Kaiah soaring overhead, praying for thunder, her head filled with tears and portraits painted in blood. Little broken shapes. Black feathers and screams.
The people. So many people. Guards nodding at their posts and generals muttering over maps and blacksmiths sweating at forges and peasants filling sandbags and mothers comforting children. Daimyo Isamu, Yoshi, Akihito, Hana, all tangled and confused and impossible, but different enough for her to recognize their shapes. And finally, the little ones inside her. No thoughts to speak of, just the heat and pulse of womb’s dark. Their whole world. In her.
In me.
So many. Too many. Her head throbbing, warmth and salt on her lips.
Stop.
She closed it off, slammed it shut, too much, too much. The face in the mirror was smeared to the chin in blood, overflow spattering on the floor. Running her hand down her stomach again, she could feel it. She was certain. A tiny curve. Too enormous to be real.
Was this what it should be like? Was this how it was for every yōkai-blooded woman whose children also carried the gift? She had no one to ask. Blundering in the dark, unsure and afraid, ever since this whole saga began. Stormdancer. Slayer of Shōguns. Ender of Dynasties.
Gods, if they could see me for what I really was.
But there was nothing for it. Nothing to do but win or die. She knew it, as certainly as she knew her own name. There was no doubt when she thought of the armies arrayed against them, no question she’d stand and fight—and if that was bravery, then she supposed she must be brave. It seemed an easy thing, when the only other option was to kneel and pray.
But to do more than fight and die—to actually fight and win? What little they had wasn’t enough. Not to stop the gaijin and the Tora and the Fushicho and the Earthcrusher. Bravery wasn’t enough to win this war. They needed swords. Swords and claws.
A knock at her door, soft as severed feathers.
“Just a moment,” she called.
She washed the blood away, slipped into her clothes, still mourning black. An obi, wrapped twelve times about her waist. Her tantō slipped in and tied off; all she had left of her father, as comforting as fire in winter’s chill. Daichi’s katana, the blade he named after her rage, all she had left of the man who taught her anger was a gift.
This was all she was. All she had.
And they think me hero.
“Come,” she said.
The door slipped open and Michi stepped inside, light as cats. She held a bundle wrapped in black cloth, bowing like the serving girl she’d once pretended to be. Yukiko could see her like it was yesterday: stepping into the bathhouse of the Shōgun’s palace, arms laden with silk.
“I’m reminded of the day we met,” Yukiko smiled.
Michi grinned. “Do you remember what I brought you?”
“A dress. Twelve layers and forty pounds of dress. Gods, I hated putting that thing on.”
“You squirmed like a fish.”
“I felt like an idiot.”
“Not so in this, I think.”
The girl padded to Yukiko’s bed, put down her bundle and cast aside the wrapping. Yukiko caught her breath, fierce warmth in her chest, smile blooming on her lips.
“It’s beautiful.”
A breastplate of black iron, embossed with nine-tailed foxes. The metal was polished to a soft gloss, curved to accommodate a woman’s body. The work of a master craftsman.
“I talked to the chief blacksmith when we arrived. Ironically, they don’t usually make breastplates for ladies,” Michi smiled. “But when I told him it was for the Stormdancer, he said he wouldn’t sleep until it was finished.”
Yukiko pointed to the breastplate’s belly, all interlocking plates and straps and buckles, an unspoken question i
n her eyes.
“It’s adjustable,” Michi said softly.
“Oh.”
“It makes it weaker.”
“Does it.”
“But you can wear it as you get bigger.” Michi groped for the words. “I mean, if…”
Yukiko turned away, walking across the bedroom to the balcony overlooking the sleeping garden, the fountain’s soft murmurs lost amidst the thunder. She leaned against the railing, watching lanterns moving across the verandahs below, servants flitting about like fireflies.
Michi stepped out beside her, just a shape in the dark. When she finally spoke, her voice was so soft Yukiko almost couldn’t hear it.
“What Kaori said was wrong. About you.” A wave to her belly. “About them.”
“We were both angry. We both said things we didn’t mean.”
A long pause, heavy with the promise of black rain. “Do you mind if I ask…”
“Hiro.”
“Oh.”
The lanterns weaved below in the dark. If she squinted, she couldn’t see the bearers at all. Just the light, disembodied, like she imagined real fireflies might look. If they existed anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Michi said.
“I’m not sure why you’re apologizing.”
“It can’t be easy. Knowing they’re his.”
“It isn’t.”
“You know there are…” Michi’s voice drifted away, lost in the dark.
“… There are what?”
The girl licked her lips, her voice hesitant. “There are ways of dealing with it. If you don’t want it. You know that, right?”
“It?”
“… Them.”
“And you know these ways?”
“I’ve used them.”
Yukiko turned to look at her friend. “Really?”
“Sex is just another weapon in the halls of power. Aisha taught me that early. I used it to learn the secrets behind Yoritomo’s throne. Used it to escape my prison.” Sadness in her voice, swept away with a shrug. “But eventually the arrow hits the target. Even if the bowman is hopeless, let him fire enough shots, one will strike true. And gods, there are some awful bowmen out there, I assure you. How hard is it, gentlemen? You just aim for the little man in the boat.”
A silence, filled with feeble smiles. Fading slowly.
“I’m not sure I could do that,” Yukiko finally said.
“You drink it. It’s easy. And you’ll still be all right … later, I mean. If you want to start a real family.”
“Real family?”
“With a husband. Someone who loves you.”
“Will they be any less real, if I do it alone?”
“Why would you want to?” A slow frown darkened Michi’s brow. “They’re Hiro’s get. He tried to murder you. Why would you want to bring his children into the world?”
“They’d be mine too.”
“Yukiko, you’re sixteen years old.”
“Seventeen,” she sighed. “It was my birthday last week.”
“Oh.” A weak smile. “Blessings of the Maker to you, then.”
Yukiko smiled back, weaker still. “My thanks, sister.”
“You are my sister, you know. You’re blood to me. I’d die for you, Yukiko.”
“Gods, don’t do that…”
Michi laughed softly. “I’m in no hurry, surely. I need to finish my book, for starters. The godsdamned things don’t write themselves.”
“I love you, Michi.” Yukiko squeezed the girl’s fingers. “And it’s not like the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. Everyone has their own choices, and nobody can say if that’s right or wrong. But I can feel them. Like two candles burning brighter by the day. I don’t think I could make that stop. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s just about me. Does that make sense?”
“I suppose it might,” Michi smiled. “If I were a stormdancer. But I’m just little me.”
“There’s nothing little about you, sister. You stand taller than mountains.”
“You might think differently, when the Earthcrusher and the gaijin come. When we look over Yama’s walls and see iron and smoke all the way to the horizon, you might want for something more than one girl and her chainswords.”
“If there were one girl in all the world I’d want beside me, it’d be you.”
“Talking to that Inquisitor today, the way he spoke to you … Something else is coming. I feel it in my bones. We don’t need an army of me. We need an army of you.”
Yukiko shook her head. “I’m nothing without Buruu. And to win this war, we don’t need an army of Yukikos. We need an army of thunder tigers.”
“A pity there’s only two arashitora left in Shima. Although Buruu and Kaiah are male and female. Where do little thunder tigers come from? Maybe we get some romantic music—”
“Oh my gods,” Yukiko whispered.
“… What?”
“My gods, I’m an idiot…”
Yukiko turned to Michi and embraced her, grinning to the eyeteeth.
“What?” Michi blinked.
“Where do baby thunder tigers come from?”
“How the hells should I know? Eggs?”
Yukiko dashed from the room without another word, the percussion of bare feet on mahogany loud enough to wake the rest of the guest wing. Michi was left alone in the gloom, confusion and concern vying for control of her expression.
Crawling into bed ten minutes later, there was still no clear winner.
* * *
The groan of a storm wind and the scent of faint sweat woke her in the dark, heart lodged somewhere in her throat without quite knowing why. Hana sat up in the gloom, squinting at the figure on the edge of her bed. He was outlined by lantern glow filtered through rice-paper walls—shoulders broad as palace eaves, biceps carved from solid granite.
“Akihito?” she whispered.
“Hana.”
“What time is it?”
His voice was sweet and dark as sugardew. “Time I stopped lying to myself.”
“About what?”
“About why you look at me the way you do.”
Sitting up straighter, she felt her pulse coming quicker, a stutter-step beat beneath bare skin. She was acutely aware of how thin her silk nightshift was, what the chill was doing to her body. Goose bumps all over. Her first thought was to fold her arms, cover her breasts, but the sight of him, the realization of what his presence might mean chased that thought away. Replaced it with butterflies.
“You’ve been looking at me, too,” she whispered.
“… I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m too old for you.”
“I’m eighteen next month.”
“You’re still a girl, for gods’ sakes.”
“You can change that…”
He looked at her then, and she could feel his stare as she sat up straighter, pushing out what little there was of her chest, wetting her lips slowly with the tip of her tongue. She leaned forward, the loose collar of her nightshift slipping down over her shoulder.
“Come here,” she breathed.
“I shouldn’t.”
“Then why are you in my bedroom?”
“I don’t know…”
She swallowed hard, mouth dry as ashes. And then she drew herself out from under her blankets, ever so slow. She prowled across a plain of tumbled silk, his features lit with the soft pink glow of her iris. Her face inches from his now, lips just a feather’s breadth apart.
“I do,” she whispered.
She drew her fingers down his face and he closed his eyes, sighed from the depths of his chest, stoking the fire building inside her. And then she kissed him, long and slow and deep, his mouth open to hers, her tongue seeking his as her hands descended, took his own, pressed them against her. She moaned, biting his lip, tasting blood. And as he drew back, pupils dilated, struggling to catch his breath, she could see he wanted this, every bit as much as she.
“Sis,” he said.
“… What?”
His hand gripped her shoulder, shook her back and forth.
“Hana,” he said. “Wake up.”
Her eyelid opened a crack, letting in the garish lantern light. Yoshi loomed over her in the dark, shaking her. She woke fully, drawing her blankets up around herself and hissing.
“Izanagi’s balls, what the hells are you doing in here?”
His face was creased with what passed for his smile nowadays. “Good dream?”
“What do you want, Yoshi? It must be fucking Cat’s hour by now.”
“I’m ghosting.”
“You’re what?” The phantom press of Akihito’s hands faded as a chill slipped into her bones. “You’re lighting out? For where?”
“Midlands.” A shrug. “Then fair Kigen.”
“You’re going back to Kigen? Are you smoke drunk?”
“I can’t do this anymore, Hana. It won’t let me be.”
She knew instantly what he was talking about—the shadow hanging about his shoulders like a shroud ever since they left Kigen. Every day between now and then had simply been a countdown. Fuse wire and spitting sparks.
She realized he’d shaved his head. Chopped off those long, gorgeous locks and trimmed the stubble back to his scalp. He was handsome as a fistful of devils, her brother. But it made him look older somehow. Harder.
She swallowed thickly, unsure where to begin.
“Yoshi, what happened to Jurou—”
“They threw a hammer party on him, Hana. Tore off his fingers. Took his…” Yoshi winced as he swallowed. “Well, you saw what they did…”
“I did.” She took his hand and squeezed. “And I’m sorry, Yoshi.”
“Motherfucker kills my boy? Lays claim on your eye? And then just walks free and clear?” Yoshi shook his head. “Hells no. Not while old Yoshi still got a pair. Not ever.”
“You think you can take the Scorpion Children on all by yourself?”
Yoshi smiled crooked, reached into his obi and produced a familiar lump. Snub-nosed. Lopsided. A handful of death, handle carved with laughing foxes.
