by Jay Kristoff
“In me?”
A nod.
“In you.”
* * *
She wandered the palace halls, listening for his voice.
Past guardian statues of Fox in every doorway, coiled upon his nine flowing tails, stone eyes bright and laughing. In the days when Shima’s kami walked the land with earthly feet, each had blessed their people with a touch—a gift from the spirit realm. Tiger had bestowed ferocity, Dragon gave courage, Phoenix an enduring vision and artistic spark. Fox had given his people the most capricious gift of all—the gift of uncanny good fortune. Imagining the army stomping over the deadlands toward Kitsune-jō, Hana wondered how long their luck would last.
She padded through granite halls, past the tapestries depicting Shima’s myths: Lady Izanami’s death; her husband’s failed search through the Yomi underworld; his wife’s vow to kill one thousand of Shima’s residents every day. In the legend, Lord Izanagi had replied, “Then I will give life to fifteen hundred.” Whenever she’d heard the tale, even as a little girl, Hana had always thought Izanagi’s vow would be poor comfort to the thousand who’d already died that day.
So much death. Was this war the work of the gods, as Michi said? Were the hands of the Maker and the Endsinger behind this unfolding catastrophe? Was the gaijin Goddess somehow inside her, as Piotr insisted? Were they all just playthings of the immortals? Or was Yukiko right? Were the gods no more involved than the wind or rain?
Clanless as she and Yoshi were, Hana never had a kami to pray to. No Dragons or Foxes watching over her. No desperate prayers for a scrap of food or place to sleep answered.
If there were gods, they were hard to see from the gutter …
She glanced at her wrist, at the pale-blue scrawl just below the surface.
Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.
She wandered the verandahs in the bitter chill, searching the kitchens, snatching up a handful of honeysponge out of habit born of a lifetime’s starvation. Through the barracks, cheeks stuffed and chewing quickly. Listening to the tune of steel and iron, soft murmurs of warriors looking down the barrel at a war they couldn’t win. The percussion of servants’ feet, the courtiers skulking in corners, appraising her with narrowed eyes—this gutter-trash who called herself Stormdancer. A pale shadow beside the girl of pure Kitsune blood who’d slain a Shōgun, ended a dynasty, urged the entire nation to rise.
Pretender, she could almost hear them say.
Counterfeit.
She thought of her brother. Gods knew where. Arms wrapped around herself, wondering if she should bother praying for his safety to gods who’d never answered. Everything moving so fast. She needed something to hold on to. Something strong as mountains.
And then she heard his voice. The baritone rumble sinking to her belly, setting the butterflies free. A smile on her lips, growing as she rounded the corner into the dojo and saw him standing there, surrounded by a forest of training dummies. Tall and scruffy-handsome, his beard fashioned into those ridiculous spikes, deep scars cutting through the Phoenix ink on one massive bicep. Akihito.
Akihito and Michi …
The girl stood before him, a beautiful flush on her cheeks and a pair of training swords in her hands, the dummy in front of her practically weeping with relief at this moment’s respite. She was smiling, ribbons of raven hair plastered to the sweat on her face. Akihito was smiling too, those big hands wrapped around a box of beautifully sculpted pinewood; a scrollcase carved with a relief of cherry blossoms and the kanji for “truth.”
Michi took the box, bowing from the knees and laughing like music. Akihito gave a clumsy bow in return, blushing, and the girl stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek, one hand resting lightly on his forearm. And Hana’s butterflies withered and died, and her stomach fell down into her toes and the smile on her lips faded until there was nothing. There was no one.
No one.
As she walked away, as fast as she could without breaking into a run, she looked down at her wrist. The pulse hidden just beneath the skin.
No one but me.
* * *
She stood in front of the mirror hours later, bleach-burn scratching her eye. The air draped with bathhouse steam, the towel wrapped twice around her body, finger-thin from years of privation. She stared at herself, eyeline drifting up from her feet, over the subtle curve of her thighs and hips, her almost-flat chest. The leather thong around her neck, the tiny stag with the crescent-shaped horns meeting her stare with unspoken questions in his eyes.
A pointed chin in an impish face. Just like her brother’s. Just like her mother’s. A patch of leather over the hole the Gentleman had left behind—the yakuza boss with his dead stare and fistful of pliers. The memory made her tremble. The thought of Daken made her eye brim with tears. Images of Jurou made them fall. Iris softly glowing, the color of rose-quartz, telling the secret of her birthright. Of who she really was.
Stormdancer?
Or Zryachniye?
Finally, her gaze fell upon her hair, plastered flat, dripping wet. Childhood memories of her mother dyeing it burning in her mind. From the time she could talk, she’d been taught to pretend she was something else. Golden locks concealed beneath black ink, milk-white skin obfuscated behind fancies about Kitsune heritage.
Living a lie. Telling it so often she’d begun to believe it herself, so obsessed about hiding her truth she’d never discovered what it really was. Beyond the Kenning. Beyond the “Impurity” Guildsmen would have immolated at the Burning Stones. The truth of her blood, at last stripped of its black veil. She stared at it now; an unruly bob flattened by bathwater’s weight, draped about her high cheeks and framing that eye of glowing rose-quartz.
Beautiful blond hair.
And in her mind, thunder flared. Wings pounding like a heartbeat. A storm-born ferocity, swelling inside her like a hurricane. An intent not just to be a stormdancer’s shadow, not to be the girl others only looked to when Yukiko wasn’t around. All her life, she’d fought. Every breath. Every scrap. The future of the entire nation hung in the balance. And if Piotr spoke truth, she had the power to do something about it. To find out who she truly was.
To see.
She ran her fingers through the natural blond, unveiled at last, staring at the girl staring back at her. A girl she didn’t know. Had never bothered to. But she’d been there all along, waiting for this day. This truth. This moment.
Hana reached out through the storm for Kaiah’s distant thoughts.
You want to fly with me?
- ALWAYS. WHERE? -
She touched the mirror, pressing her hand flat against the glass.
The girl she didn’t know did the same.
Home.
* * *
The walls of Kigen Station echoed with the hiss of pistons, violent sprays of water vapor, bubbling chi-exhaust. The platforms were lined with fresh-faced boys in unscarred armor, new-forged weaponry in hand, coughing in the rolling fumes. Lenses of polarized glass to hide frightened stares. Kerchiefs of dirty scarlet to conceal bloodless expressions. Platoons of brand-new bushimen, recruited from fair Kigen’s slums with the promise of regular meals and a place to belong and a cause so glorious it was worth dying for.
Yoshi watched them as his train shuddered to a stop, shaking his head.
The rail-lines were still running, shipping soldiers northward. But as the engines sped back toward Kigen, the carriages were virtually empty, and some quick coin pressed into a conductor’s palm had bought Yoshi a berth on a fast south-bound. So here he was, stepping onto the platform and ducking through the frontline fodder, pulling a broad, bowl-shaped hat over his head and thanking whatever gods listened it was them instead of him.
“Best of luck, gentlemen,” he muttered, making his way through the forest of spears.
If any of the boys heard him, none replied.
He stepped into the smoke-stained boulevard, tempted to breathe deep but knowing he’d regret it. Staring out over the city where he
’d grown, the alleys where he’d run, the streets he’d ever call home. The ramshackle cesspool of Downside, shrouded in exhaust and sin. The twisted refinery, spattering gray storm clouds black. The pentagonal spire of Chapterhouse Kigen. The Market Square and the Altar of Purity, where Guildsmen filled the skies with the screams of burning children. Yoshi saw posters on every wall, marked with the First Bloom’s seal.
“At weeksend, a one and two-thirds measure of chi and five iron kouka shall be granted to any loyal citizen who walks the path of righteousness and brings forth any Impure for judgment upon this city’s Burning Stones.”
People scurrying to and fro, blades hidden beneath their clothes. An automated Guild crier lying broken in the street, clockwork guts spilled over broken cobbles. Beggar monks wandering amidst smoke and ashes, speaking of comfort and bringing none. Screams from an alleyway, the rhythmic hymn of violence. A hungry child, crying to a world that simply didn’t care anymore.
The heart of Shima. Its mighty capital. This dirty, scab-kneed whore called Kigen.
How he loved her.
Yoshi reached into the Kenning, searching for the legion of flea-ridden vermin crawling her nethers like lice. He sensed them all around, sleek and hungry, their shapes more comforting than an army of thunder tigers. Crawling the gutters, fighting in the filth, chewing on the bones of the dead. Harder than the iron the little soldier boys hid themselves inside. Harder than the walls these men built to cower behind. The city’s eyes, her brood, her very blood, flowing along her alleys and seeing and knowing and feeling everything.
All her secrets.
All her sins.
He closed his eyes, breathed the stink. His voice echoed in their minds.
Old Yoshi is home, little friends.
His smile gleamed like broken glass.
And he’s brought the Nine Hells with him.
25
HARBINGER
Enough waiting.
Enough thinking, debating, doubting. Enough wondering if this was the right way, if he should think of another. Enough images of an old man who’d trusted him with his everything, now probably heaving his last breaths in some lightless cell.
This road was paved with blood. Kin knew that before he first put his foot upon it. That he’d soon be wading knee-, waist-, neck-deep. Trying not to drown. But there was no room for doubt in this arena. His voice couldn’t quaver, his hands couldn’t shake. Too many had given up too much for him to get this far. To stumble now …
Kin shook his head, voice low. Four shadows gathered in a subsidiary exhaust shaft, whispering beneath cycling vents and engine’s thunder.
“We’re three days from Kitsune-jō.” Sweat stung his eyes, and he longed to tear off his helmet and paw it away. “We need to speak with the other rebels. Tell them our plan.”
“I’m trying,” said brother Bo. “Every spare moment I get at the comm-station I’m trawling the Yama frequencies. But First House are jamming the rebel mechabacii. Radio is the only way they’ll hear us, and I can’t speak openly up there.”
“We need to talk to them, godsdammit. Didn’t you plan for this?”
“We didn’t know Chapterhouse Yama was going to be destroyed, Kin-san. When we were assigned to Earthcrusher, the rebels in Yama were still hidden.”
“Don’t fret, Kin-san,” Shinji said. “I’ve converted one of the engine room comm-stations to receive outside transmissions. We just need to jack it into the bridge aerial relay and we can transmit and receive as we like.”
“And I’m doing that tonight,” Bo whispered. “You just worry about yourself. Unless I missed a meeting, nobody put you in charge of us.”
“Peace, brother,” Shinji warned.
“Maseo and I have rigged the engines,” Kin said, keeping his voice even. “There’s a grenade cluster hidden inside the primary venting shaft.”
Bo nodded. “Good. When the battle for Kitsune-jō begins, you blow the primary cooling system and seal off the engine room. Then set the RPMs to redline. Shinji cuts access from bridge control so Commander Rei can’t override, and the combustion chambers will overheat in a few minutes. That’ll set the chi to boiling and blow Earthcrusher sky-high.”
“How much time will we have to get out?” Shinji asked.
“Plenty for us upstairs. For Kin and Maseo, it’ll be closer.”
“Well, we tried to kill you once already, Kin-san.” Shinji laughed. “Once more won’t hurt, I suppose.”
“Nobody else is dying.” Kin looked back and forth between the three rebels. “Enough people have ended already because of this war. Nobody else dies in this story, agreed?”
“Hai,” the rogue Guildsmen nodded, bloody eyes aglow.
“Bo, be careful setting up that comms intercept tonight. Commander Rei is Kensai’s man, and Kensai was no fool. He wouldn’t have let a fool pilot his masterpiece either.”
“Could be worse,” Shinji said grimly. “We could be dealing with Kensai himself. That old bastard is sharp as knives. Can you imagine trying to pull this off under his nose?”
Kin shook his head. “Kensai is still in a coma. The explosion almost killed him. Far as I know, they don’t think he’ll ever awaken.”
“Kensai isn’t our concern,” Bo said. “Keep your eyes open and head down. When the Earthcrusher blows, it’s going to take anything inside a kilometer with it. We can decimate the Tora infantry before the battle begins. We can win this war. But we must focus. We cannot fail.”
Nods around the circle. Clasped hands, brass grinding brass. The shadows parted, heavy footfalls fading into the sea of engine noise as they drifted away, leaving Kin alone. Thinking of an old man who’d trusted him with his everything. Thinking of pale skin and long black hair like a ribbon of midnight, surrounded by Iishi perfume. Putting her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoes, eyelids fluttering closed.
“Kiss me,” she’d breathed.
He closed his eyes. Hung his head. His whisper drifting in the air on crippled wings.
“Yukiko…”
* * *
Bo stepped onto the Earthcrusher bridge with his heart in his windpipe.
Swallowing hard, he peered around the chamber. Commander Rei was in his pilot’s harness, accelerator stirrups at half-pressure, Earthcrusher plodding slow enough that the swarm of shreddermen at its feet could keep pace. The impact of each colossal step sent a tremor through the vessel, but Bo was accustomed to it. When the army bedded down for the evening and Earthcrusher came to a halt, it took him hours to find sleep. The silence seemed unnatural after a day of earth-shattering percussion.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
The instrumentation lining the walls spat and chattered, gauges and levers and dials, speaking with the stuttering voices of countless punch-card interfaces. Greasy air, smeared thin over every surface, dampening color to a washed-out palette of grays and drabs.
Bo stood before the pilot harness, bowing low.
“Have you need of anything, Commander?”
Rei didn’t turn his head. “I abide, brother Bo. See to your station.”
“Hai.” Bo sat at the communications hub, conscious of the signal splitter tucked into his belt. After a few moments, he allowed frustration to creep into his voice, turned to Rei.
“Commander, we are receiving inordinate background static on internal frequencies. The personnel decks are virtually inaudible.”
Rei’s head turned slightly. “The cause?”
“Apologies, Commander, I do not know. With permission, I will perform a diagnostic?”
“Swift as the wind, brother.”
A shatei appeared at Bo’s side, as if he’d coalesced from the greasy air.
“Can I offer assistance, brother?”
Bo nodded, kept his voice calm. “Can you head to the personnel deck and check if there is a problem at their end? It may not be the bridge hub.”
“Hai.” The Shatei marched into the elevator, doors ratcheting closed b
ehind him.
Bo glanced around the bridge, looking for curious eyes. But every other Artificer seemed intent on their tasks. He unscrewed the communications hub faceplate, handfuls of insulated wire spilling out as if from an eviscerated belly. He searched spools of dirty reds, greens, blues, and reaching to his belt for the signal splitter, began splicing the device into the reception array. He was halfway through the installation when the Shatei on the personnel deck radioed in, reporting he could find no fault. Bo signaled thanks, licking sweat from his lips.
Glancing over his shoulder at Commander Rei. The other brethren. Listening to the elevator bringing back the Shatei from his fool’s errand. Clipping wire, reconnecting, clamping circuits shut, hands definitely shaking now. If someone were to pass by, to glance over—
A metallic bang from the fuel gauges. A curse, rasping and metallic.
Rei’s voice, demanding explanation. A hasty apology from the Artificers, one stooping to retrieve the tool he’d dropped. Bo gritting his teeth. Elevator doors opening. Heavy footsteps. Rasping breath. Engaging. Faint whispers of static. The brother’s voice in his ear.
“Shatei Bo?”
Done.
“I found the problem, brother.” Bo lifted the faceplate back into position with a nod, began driving the screws home. “Loose wiring, nothing complex.”
“Always the little things.”
Bo forced a laugh. “My thanks for your assistance.”
“Always.” A bow. “The lotus must bloom.”
“The lotus must bloom.”
A sigh of relief, a quick check to see if his surgery had upset any instrumentation. But no, all seemed in order. The splicer would allow Shinji’s jury-rigged comm-system to piggyback off Earthcrusher’s aerial—with a few hours spent trawling the prearranged stations, they should be able to contact the Yama rebels. The Kitsune could then prepare for the assault without needing to factor in Earthcrusher or the Tora infantry who’d die in the resulting explosion. The carnage would be almost unthinkable. But this was war. Those soldiers were their enem—
