Endsinger: The Lotus War Book Three

by Jay Kristoff

  “I love you, Yukiko,” he whispered in the dark.

  And in the dark, she whispered back.

  “I love you too.”

  * * *

  How do, Mockingbird?

  Buruu sat perched on the rooftop of the Kitsune fortress, staring over the ruined city. He’d heard the boy climbing up, swift and sure, now crouching on the eave beside him. A thin carrion bird, looking over the leavings of a day’s war. The wind was a howling, open mouth, teeth of frost, and the boy pulled his cloak tighter, eyes narrowed against the chill.

  COLD OUT HERE, MONKEY-CHILD. YOU WILL CATCH YOUR DEATH.

  Only if I chase it.

  Buruu rested his head on his forelegs, sighed deep. The remainder of his pack were scattered across the rooftops, Shai curled up against a chimney close by. The snores and fitful growls of the few remaining bucks shivered the cedarwood tiles beneath them.

  HOW IS YOUR SISTER?

  Bleeding. Real bad. Yours?

  He could feel her in the distance, asleep in Kin’s arms. The thought filled him with a smile, momentarily banishing the dread he felt when he considered what lay before them.

  SHE SLEEPS.

  She still pondering her legendary charge? Down into the hellgate and whatever lies beyond? Fixing to be another story for the ages?

  SHE WILL HAVE TROUBLE WITH THAT. UNLESS SHE GROWS WINGS.

  Not keen on the idea of her ending?

  TO FLY HER AND HER UNBORN CHILDREN INTO YOMI? AFTER ALL I HAVE BEEN THROUGH TO KEEP HER SAFE? YOU WOULD BE AS MAD AS THE ENDSINGER TO THINK IT SO, MONKEY-CHILD.

  Yoshi nodded, spit through his teeth out into the darkness. They sat in silence for a few moments more, flakes of black snow curling in the air between them.

  You were right, you know. What you said about revenge.

  YOU KILLED THEM, THEN. YOUR FOES IN KIGEN.

  Doubtless.

  AND WHAT IS DIFFERENT?

  Not a thing.

  I TOLD YOU. ALL THINGS FADE WITH THE SEASONS. PAIN IS NO DIFFERENT. ALL THINGS DIMINISH WITH TIME.

  Time isn’t something we have a barrel of anymore, Mockingbird.

  WHY ARE YOU HERE, MONKEY-CHILD?

  Need a ride.

  WHERE?

  Out to the deadlands.

  WHY?

  Test a theory.

  WHAT THEORY?

  Never tell a story when you can put on a show.

  The boy stood with a lopsided smile, brushed his palms on his hakama legs.

  Come on. Let’s fly.

  * * *

  Yoshi slipped off Buruu’s back, snow crunching as his boots hit earth. The stench of blood and iron hung thick in the air. The fires of the gaijin encampment were a flickering glow in the eastern foothills, distant drums underscoring the thunder’s tune. Drawing close to the deadlands pit, Yoshi swore he could hear singing: a broken clockwork rhythm eating itself and spilling metal crumbs from a blacktooth grin. The stink of burned hair stabbed his nostrils, the oily haze hanging over the tortured earth barely rippling despite the howling gale.

  PUT ON YOUR SHOW, THEN. AND LET US BE AWAY.

  Yoshi pulled up his kerchief, wincing at the nagging ache of his severed ear.

  Patience, Mockingbird. Not exactly sure how to play this tune.

  WHY ARE WE HERE? WHAT IS YOUR MIND?

  Purifiers in Kigen. They were burning folks at the Stones, even up until a few days ago. I don’t know what forced them out of the chapterhouse, but they were conducting their purity testing in the open. Not exactly in plain sight, mind, but I had eyes to see it.

  AND WHAT DID THEY TEST?

  Yoshi pulled his cloak around him, shoulders hunched against the wind.

  Some old fellow. Bled him and dripped the gravy into an iron box.

  WHAT WAS INSIDE IT?

  Yoshi nodded to the deadlands.

  Looked like ashes. Except when this old fellow got bled on them, the ashes popped their cork. All violent, like. Split the box apart. And what I saw spilling out wasn’t ashes anymore.

  I AM WEARY OF BEING THE AUDIENCE IN YOUR SHOW. SPIT IT OUT, BOY.

  It was dirt. Just regular dirt.

  Yoshi spit into the deadlands, watching the fumes roll and eddy like a full moon tide.

  Got me to thinking. The Guild is run by the Inquisition. They set the policy on yōkai-kin, order the Purifiers to burn folk with the Kenning. But they’re also the ones trying to split the island down to the Hells. So what if those purposes dance hand in hand? What if this vendetta against “impurity” was just a grift to stitch the only folks who could stop them for real?

  Buruu watched the boy, eyes narrowed, saying nothing.

  You heard of Tora Takehiko?

  A STORMDANCER.

  That’s right. Flew inside the hellgate during the last war, sealed it closed.

  AND?

  Doesn’t it make sense every stormdancer had the Kenning? How else could they tame thunder tigers? Ride them to war?

  SO?

  So watch.

  Yoshi reached to his hip, to a tantō he’d lifted from one of the bushimen. He drew the blade, gleaming with the distant city flames, then glanced at Buruu.

  Best to step back. Not sure how impressive this is going to be.

  The thunder tiger growled, stood his ground. With a small smirk, Yoshi pressed the knife to his forefinger, a few drops of blood pearling on the blade’s edge. And running his hand over the stubble on his scalp, he lifted the tantō and flicked the scarlet into the wind.

  The blood glittered as it fell, a dark, somber red in the bitter night. It sailed five or six feet, fell through the fumes hanging above the scar and hit the ashen earth.

  Nothing.

  Yoshi scowled, praying under his breath.

  YOUR SHOWMANSHIP NEEDS—

  White noise.

  That same inversion of sound, as if someone had reached inside his skull and turned it inside out. Yoshi put his hand up to what was left of his ear, gasped, the thunder tiger staggering as if someone had king-hit him. Yoshi felt a fist in his stomach, spitting breath, the stink of char and ash on the back of his tongue. Blinking hard. Shaking.

  The earth trembled; a tiny earthquake for his feet only. And with that same utterance that was not so much a sound as an absence of it, the deadlands exploded.

  Not enough to split the island apart to be sure, but enough to knock him off his feet, send him sailing back into Buruu, colliding with the arashitora’s broad chest and tumbling earthward in a knotted heap. White smoke snaked up from the deadlands, filling his lungs with that same momentary sweetness—as if the spring breeze were reborn in winter’s depths. Black fumes peeled away, a rumbling seeping from ashen earth. Yoshi staggered to his feet, a soft growl uncurling in Buruu’s throat.

  The pair stood awestruck, mouths agape as they stared at the deadlands. A circle of good, dark earth lay where once there had been only smoking, scarred soil. An impact crater, ten feet in diameter, forged by a single drop of Yoshi’s blood.

  IT IS TRUE.

  The boy nodded.

  The Way of Purity. The Burning Stones. All of it created to wipe out the blood of yōkai—the one weapon we can use to alley-fuck the Serpent’s soiree.

  MAKER BE PRAISED.

  Not ready to praise him just yet. But I might stop swearing about his balls for a while.

  Buruu blinked, the frost wind ruffling feathers at his brow. He tilted his head, looked the boy up and down, understanding dawning in his mind.

  THEN TORA TAKEHIKO …

  Now you’re starting to see, Mockingbird.

  Buruu looked back at the distant lights of Yama city. The thousands of lives within those walls, his Yukiko and her unborn babes among them.

  NOW I SEE.

  Yoshi stared back at the deadlands scar, licked the ashes from his lips and spit.

  Doubtless.

  * * *

  Patient as cats and quiet as mice, he waited in the dark for his mistress to return.

  Curled up
in the blankets, still rich with her scent. His belly was growling, his bowl was empty. But he knew if he waited long enough, and quiet enough, she would come. She liked it when he was quiet. When she knelt by the wooden thing that was not a tree, and put black marks on the flat thing that smelled like rice but was not food. He didn’t understand it. But he understood she liked quiet. So he stayed quiet and waited. Hoping she’d come soon.

  He heard footsteps outside her door. Too heavy to be hers. But still, it was someone, and he’d waited in the dark and the quiet for so long. So he pounced from beneath the blankets and ran to the doorway, dancing in delighted little circles as it was dragged wide. And he stared up at the man who was not his mistress, and growled with his little puppy voice.

  The man was big. A beard like a bush. He’d been here this morning, had taken his mistress away. And Tomo growled, unsure of himself, but knowing all gooddogs growled at strangers. But then the man knelt and scruffed his ears, and made sounds that were not speakings in a soft voice, and Tomo flopped onto his belly and allowed the big man to scratch him, his little legs kicking as the man found the spot he liked best, right under his left shoulder.

  The big man stood finally, and Tomo rolled over, walked with him toward the wooden thing that was not a tree, tail wagging, because the big man was carrying a flat white thing that smelled like fish, and fish was his favorite. The big man put the white round thing down on the floor and yes, it did have fish, and Tomo scoffed it down as quick as he could, licking the top and sniffing beneath in case more was hidden underneath (there was never any hidden underneath).

  The big man knelt and made fire on the burning things, which made the light by which his mistress used to see. And Tomo watched the big man unroll the flat thing that smelled like rice (but wasn’t) on top of the thing that was not a tree (though Tomo had used it like a tree once and his mistress had been very cross), and he picked up the thing that made the marks and dipped it in the black water that was not water (it did not taste good at all) and he heaved a sigh louder than the wind.

  Tomo watched, one ear cocked, head tilted.

  The man began making marks. Many marks, on the thing that was not food.

  Tomo looked to the door, hoping his mistress would come soon.

  He climbed onto the bed where it was warm, and he watched the man making the marks and stopping occasionally to wipe at his eyes as if they hurt him. And he thought the big man was nice, and that the big man could watch for his mistress to come back (it must be soon) and so it wouldn’t matter if Tomo closed his eyes for just a little while.

  The puppy licked his lips (lovely fish) and snuggled down in the blankets.

  He could hear the big man scratching with the thing that made the marks. It reminded him of the sound in his mistress’s chest, her heart beating at night as he curled up beside her.

  And hoping she’d come soon, the puppy closed his eyes and slept.

  49

  OR NOTHING AT ALL

  The entire city seemed to wake before the sun.

  Smithy fires burning bright, the chime of hammer upon iron and the burn of coal smoke. The Everstorm pack was outfitted with the same barding Kaiah wore, breastplates and helms with eyeholes of black glass. They soared above Yama, filling the dispirited populace with wonder. Yukiko rode at the lead, bringing supplies to the dispossessed, assuring all would be well. And if the people were shaken to their bones by the shifting of the world beneath their feet, they took some heart in her words, the Kitsune ink bared on her arm despite the freezing cold, this daughter of foxes who now carried the future of their nation in her hands.

  The gaijin wounded were moved from the Kitsune fortress, ferried back to their people on the opposite shore of the Amatsu. Hana oversaw their deportation from astride Kaiah’s back, ensuring neither side attempted violence. The wounded were met with fierce hugs from their countrymen, wondering stares at the girl and her thunder tiger. Hana’s face was stone, her eye cold behind polarized glass, belying the heart bleeding within her chest.

  Kaori spoke with the remaining Kagé, and Misaki of the rebellion. She oversaw funeral preparations for the slain Kagé—Michi, Akihito, and her father Daichi, along with the other brethren who had lost their lives. But in quiet moments, she sat in the garden, Piotr beside her, and the pair spoke of tiny unimportant things in the face of the chaos around them.

  Things that sometimes made her smile.

  The Blackbird sat in Michi’s chambers, emerging only to make polite requests for food or drink. A puppy lurked at his heels, tail wagging constantly. The Blackbird’s fingers were stained with ink. So were the puppy’s ears.

  The Earthcrusher crew were given their skins back, minus their mechabacii, and asked to muster in Chapterhouse Yama’s ruins. Each was free to walk away if they wished. Only Kensai remained under guard, the self-proclaimed First Bloom locked in a guest room in Kitsune-jō.

  And Yoshi.

  Yoshi crouched on the rooftops, a bottle of expensive saké unopened beside him. Despite the motion all around, his stare was fixed on the dark gathered across the southern horizon.

  His thoughts were of a beautiful boy, and simpler days.

  His hands were fists.

  * * *

  Pain lancing his chest with every breath. Soft carpet beneath him, a bed with silk sheets—his one real indulgence. A cage with art on the wall, guards at his “guest room” door. The bayonet fixtures in his flesh like mouths, hungry for input. The silence in his head as black and terrifying as any he’d ever known.

  Alone. For the first time in a long time.

  Utterly alone.

  “Uncle.”

  The voice pulled Kensai’s eyes open, chased away the muddy dreams in his skull. No visions of greatness from his Awakening anymore. Confusing, twisted nonsense; a tumult underscored by a tuneless hymn, a horror too vast to look at with his mind’s eye …

  “Uncle.”

  Kensai wheezed, sat up in his bed. “I heard you, Kioshi-san.”

  “… That is not my name.”

  Kensai peered at the boy in the doorway, thin and pale and blurred, eyes sunken in gray hollows. Wrapped in bandages, shoulders slumped, pupils dilated. If he did not know better …

  “Forgive me, Kin-san. Old habits perish reluctantly. As do you, it seems.”

  “You keep calling me by my father’s name.”

  “It is your name. Given when your father died. An honorable son—”

  “Would wear it with pride. I know.”

  “But you are not an honorable son, are you? You are a cur who betrayed his family for the love of an impure whore. If Kioshi could see you now…”

  “I did not come here to fight with you, Uncle.”

  “Why then? To caper? To crow?”

  “To tell you the truth.”

  “You know not the meaning of the word.”

  “I know I warned you not to trust the Inquisition.”

  “You did come to gloat, then.”

  “The deadlands, Uncle. The deadlands we helped create. Planting lotus in every corner of this land. Poisoning the soil, splitting it wide. Watered with innocent blood. All part of the Inquisition’s plan. First Bloom also. We were deceived, all of us.”

  “It is you who—”

  “The Guild was founded by the survivors of the Serpent clan. All of us—you, me, the Inquisition—we are of Serpent blood. But only the inner circle knew the full truth. Did you not wonder why you were never brought fully into Tojo’s trust?”

  Kin shook his head, ran one bandaged hand over his eyes.

  “They were disciples of Lady Izanami, Uncle. As our ancestors were. Determined to bring about the rise of the Endsinger and the death of this world.”

  “Are you crazed, boy?” Kensai spat. “Serpents and Dark Mothers?”

  Kin turned, nodded to someone beyond the door. “Come in.”

  Two men with close-cropped hair and bayonet fixtures at their wrists entered the room, dragging a body between them. A thir
d followed, carrying a stained hessian bag. The men lay the corpse on the carpet, placed the stained bag by the boy’s feet. Each favored Kensai with a poisoned stare as they left.

  The corpse was reasonably fresh, parts of it crushed to pulp. Kensai could see its skin was the gray of a smoke addict.

  “You bring a lotusfiend’s corpse in here to frighten me?” Kensai sniffed. “If this is a threat, it falls far short of the mark, boy.”

  Kin leaned down with a wince, tore the corpse’s uwagi away. Kensai saw its chest was dotted with the bayonet fixtures for mechabacus input. Trailing down its battered right arm was a beautiful tattoo, coiled and deadly—a serpent inked into the gray chalk of its flesh.

  “This is the corpse of an Inquisitor captured in the fall of Chapterhouse Yama. The Kitsune burned the corpses of two more after the schism. All marked with this same irezumi. Serpent clan. Servants of Lady Izanami. All of them, Uncle.”

  “One corpse does not a legion make.”

  Kin reached down to the hessian bag, upturned it with a flourish. A severed head rolled across the carpet, upside down and grinning. Skin of midnight blue, a serrated freakshow grin, rusted iron rings through its broad, flat nose and pointed ears. Kensai had seen the same visage on the faceguards of every Iron Samurai in the Shima legions. A demon of the deep hells.

  “Oni…” he whispered.

  “With the drama aboard the Earthcrusher, you would have missed it, but this monster crawled from the Kitsune deadlands, along with a dozen of its fellows. Each put down by the Impure whore you so despise. The cracks tore wide when First House exploded, the Stain tearing wider still. Only the gods know what crawls now from the pit.”

  Kensai stared at the demon’s head, saying nothing.

  “We have been raised on a lie, Uncle. Every moment of your life has been a lie. Purity. The Guild. Skin is strong, flesh is weak. All a ploy to bring the Endsinger back to Shima.”

  Kensai frowned, shaking his head. “My vision…”

  “The What Will Be?” Kin sighed. “I don’t know. I think there is a kind of truth to be found in the Chamber of Smoke. I think those who saw too far, who saw what would come at the end of all this—they were the ones who went mad during the Awakening. The ones the Inquisition would boil in the vats before they could speak of what they’d seen.”