by Jay Kristoff
“People of Shima,” she said. “Hear me now.”
Yukiko raised her hand, and Sumiko saw the flesh of her palms was covered in scars; hundreds of knife wounds scored across her skin.
“Ten years. Ten years I’ve walked, the length and breadth of this place we call home. I have seen rivers black and choked with corpses. I’ve watched poisoned winds blow across deserts where forests once stood, looked into empty skies where once there were as many birds as stars across the face of night. We came so close to the abyss, you and I. I stood on its edge and looked into its eyes. I heard it speak. I learned its name.
“In the tavern tales, I hear stories of the Endsinger. Of a goddess who sought to swallow the world, and the stormdancers who stood in her way. I hear the honors given to those who paid the steepest price, who gave more than anyone may ask of a brother or friend.”
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“Their sacrifice should live in legend. But that is not the truth of this tale.”
Kin squeezed her hand. She squeezed it back, tight as she dared.
“The truth is, the abyss lives in us. In our greed. In the way we look at things different to us, and see things lesser. In the way we see the smaller, or the weaker, and think them prey.
“It begins with the beasts of the land, the birds of the sky. And in a blinking, we find ourselves seeing our lessers in people with different-colored skins. Different gods. Different creeds. We see them as lessers, and we hurt, and we kill, and we think nothing of it. Because they are different, we think ourselves just. Because we are stronger, we think ourselves righteous.
“That is the abyss in all of us. And we stand close to the edge still. Closer than any can dream. We need but stray for a moment and we will find ourselves back again, staring down into that black. And who will save us? When everything that was different to us is already gone?”
The woman shook her head, her eyes downturned.
“We choose this. This place. This life. What it will be, and how we live it. We are not slaves to gods, or fate, or destinies woven in veils of smoke. We choose the people we want to be, and we choose the shape of the world in which we live. Nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice. There is nothing so easy as swimming with the current, nothing so difficult as being the first to stand up. To say no. To point at a thing wrong and name it so. There are none so brave as those who choose to stand, when all others are content to kneel. None so worthy of the title ‘hero’ as those who fight when there are none to see it. Who choose a life bereft of accolade or fanfare, a life of struggle for the idea that we are all the same. Every one of us. And every one of us has the right to be happy. To know peace. To know love.”
She searched the faces of the crowd, young and old, man and woman and child.
“You can choose this. Right here. Right now. You can choose to be the one who fights to make things better. You can choose to see how close we came to the edge, and how easily we can fall there still. Or you can close your eyes. Go back to sleep. Hope someone else will fight for you. Or you can hope for nothing greater at all.
“It is within all of you.”
As Kin let go of her hand, Yukiko drew her tantō, held her palm aloft and ran the blade down over the old scars. Blood welled, streaming down the whorls of the folded steel. Hana drew a long dagger from her belt, held her palm aloft and did the same, cutting deep. The women pressed their hands together, the blood of Foxes and Burakumin and distant lives across the seas, mingling upon their skin.
Yukiko turned to the crowd, her voice calling high and clear.
“Choose,” she said.
Open palms.
Scarlet droplets, flung into the breeze.
An inversion of sound.
White light.
Silence?
“Choose.”
EPILOGUE
She sat alone on the stage in the dark.
A curtain of storm clouds drawn overhead, shutting out the glow of the smothered moon. The distant lights of Kigen city, the flares from kindling wheel and dragon cannon, fireworks blazing up toward the clouds. Never high enough to reach. Always falling short and tumbling back down in gravity’s hateful grip.
The wound at her palm ached. Just like the wound in her chest. Kin had bandaged it gently, pressed his lips to hers, then left her with her thoughts. As he always did.
She looked at her other palm, made of scars; a thousand marks from a thousand knife cuts to spill a thousand drops and heal a thousand wounds in the earth. But never the one inside her. Never the ache he left behind. She was blessed and she knew it. The love of a wonderful man, beautiful children, a life spent in the making of a brighter tomorrow for the ones she’d brought into this place. She loved them with all she had to give. But it was on nights like this …
Nights like this …
When the storms would roll down from the Iishi, laden with rain’s promise, a deluge so powerful it seemed the God of Storms had been saving it all for her. When Raijin would fill the heavens with his drums and hurl arcs of brilliant blue-white from all corners of the sky. When all was tempest, all was chaos, she’d look above to that rolling sea of black and miss him so badly her chest would ache. Her soul would bleed. Her breath would catch in her lungs and her throat would seize tight and it would be all she could do not to scream, scream at the heavens that it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t right, that it should never have been him.
Never have been him.
She hung her head, sodden hair falling over her face as the rain began to fall, pawing at her breast and the hurt behind it, sobbing from the depths of herself.
“I miss you, brother…”
Thunder across the skies, settling in her bones.
“Gods, I miss you so much…”
Face crumpling like paper beneath the barrage, curled over on herself, forehead pressed to grain, hair strewn in black drifts all around. She could see him, just as she’d seen him on the night they met, a night like this, a sight etched in lightning and snow-white feathers before her wondering eyes. The things they’d done. The places they’d seen. The bond they’d shared. The hole he’d left behind that all the love in the world couldn’t fill.
No victory without sacrifice.
No parade without a funeral.
No heroes dying in their beds.
She rose slowly, the sobs wracking her body, climbing to her feet and staring at the storm above. She watched lightning split the sky, great banks of black clashing like ironclads across the heavens, the thunderous boom of explosions echoing in her memory, shreddermen and Earthcrushers and vast shadows of death, and the voice of a goddess reverberating in her mind.
“Oh my dear, precious girl. You do not know, do you?”
She wiped her eyes.
“What it will cost you…”
And her heart fell still in her chest.
For there, up in the black, etched in brief brilliances by the lightning’s hands, she saw it. A momentary flash, the flare left behind on your eyelid after you stare too long at the sun. The impression of vast, white wings, feathers as long as her arm, broad as her thigh. Black stripes, rippling muscle, a proud, sleek head tipped with a razor-sharp beak. Eyes like midnight, black and bottomless.
“Izanagi’s breath,” she whispered, squinting into the black.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the beast before her wondering eyes.
The impossible.
The unthinkable.
She reached into herself, into the place she’d refused to go since that day, that ending, a decade old and caked in dust. The quiet fire of it, impossibly dimmed since the sparks inside her had been born, walking with lives and minds and dreams of their own. But still she found it, waiting, like an old hearth of char-black stone, cold with the press of years. But still stone. Still strong. Unbreakable. Waiting for the tinder to catch again, to flare bright, to bring warmth where all had been darkness a moment before.
She reached up into the cl
ouds and felt him. A flash of aggression. Curiosity. Wild and vibrant and seething hot, so alive and bright she couldn’t help but laugh for the joy of it, fingers pressed to her lips as it spilled out of her, a bubbling flood from the depths of someplace dark and deep.
So beautiful …
He circled lower, down through the deluge, skimming between the rain. His wings crackling with lightning, set afire with each arc across the skies. Down and down and down, Yukiko leaping off the stage and running out into the mud, splashing through the muck to where he finally set himself down, spattered in black, shaking himself like a soggy hound. She stopped a handful of feet away, stretching out one hand, thinking herself crazed, moon-broken, the grief and loss finally getting the best of her and tipping her down into the black.
And then he roared. Thunderous. Deafening. Pressing on her chest, thrumming in her belly. A roar of warning, of a beast when territory is pressed, hackles raised, tearing at the ground with his talons, tail stretched like a whip. Radiating pride, aggression, a beautiful, imperious will.
She stopped short, fell still.
Perfectly.
Utterly.
Still.
KNOW YOU.
His voice rolled like a thunderclap in her mind, in the place once filled with warm and wonderful thoughts—a love that had borne her higher than the clouds. She ached with the song of it, the fire of it, wrapping her arms around her chest and knowing it wasn’t a dream, not a vision, recognizing him at last. At last.
You’re his son, aren’t you?
She pushed warmth into his mind, the sensation of her cheek pressed against his. The memory of a little bundle of feathers and fur sneezing and snarling at her as she reached out to hug him on Susano-ō’s throne, cub-sharp claws scratching on the stone.
You’re his Hope.
She filled him with a smile.
Little Rhaii.
A snarl, shifting the earth beneath him, rumbling and tectonic.
NOT LITTLE. NO MORE.
He spread his wings, lighting flaring bright.
SUKAA IS GONE. SO IS HIS LAW.
She stepped closer, through the falling rain, smoothing the hair from her face. He was as beautiful as any sight she’d seen in her life. As tall and broad as his father had been, amber eyes ablaze with a rage, a questioning, filling her with the sense she’d come home; stepping into the heat of a well-stoked hearth after a decade of wandering in the dark. The storm raged about them, a song as old as the world itself, the rains washing everything away. Flooding earth and filling sky and waking new seeds in fresh ground. All that had gone before. All that would come after.
RHAII IS KHAN OF EVERSTORM NOW.
She heard cries above, roars akin to the thunder. And looking up, she saw them, sleek and razor sharp, cutting through the skies and filling her heart to bursting, her tears lost in the falling rain. She turned on the spot, crying out in sheer, bottomless, maddening joy, arms outstretched as they soared overhead, more than thirty of them, black and white and gray, buck and dam and cub, filling the clouds with their song.
REMEMBER YOU.
She lowered her arms, stared at the thunder tiger, rain and tears in her lashes. She took one step closer, a smile on her lips, filling him with her joy.
KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
And who am I, mighty Khan?
She felt warmth in him then, the beginnings of a smile deep inside.
He spread his wings.
Bowed his head.
Purred.
YOU ARE YUKIKO.
GLOSSARY
GENERAL TERMS
Arashitora—literally “stormtiger.” A mythical creature with the head, forelegs and wings of an eagle, and the hindquarters of a tiger. Thought to be long extinct, these beasts were traditionally used as flying mounts by the caste of legendary Shima heroes known as “Stormdancers.” These beasts are also referred to as “thunder tigers.”
Arashi-no-odoriko—literally “Stormdancer.” Legendary heroes of Shima’s past, who rode arashitora into battle. The most well-known are Kitsune no Akira (who slew the great sea dragon Boukyaku) and Tora Takehiko (who sacrificed his life to close Devil Gate and stop the Yomi hordes escaping into Shima).
Blood lotus—a toxic flowering plant cultivated by the people of Shima. Blood lotus poisons the soil in which it grows, rendering it incapable of sustaining life. The blood lotus plant is utilized in the production of teas, medicines, narcotics and fabrics. The seeds of the bloom are processed by the Lotus Guild to produce “chi,” the fuel that drives the machines of the Shima Shōgunate.
Burakumin—a low-born citizen who does not belong to any of the four zaibatsu clans.
Bushido—literally “the Way of the Warrior.” A code of conduct adhered to by the samurai caste. The tenets of Bushido are: rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honor and loyalty. The life of a Bushido follower is spent in constant preparation for death; to die with honor intact in the service of their Lord is their ultimate goal.
Bushiman—a common-born soldier who has sworn to follow the Way of Bushido.
Chan—a diminutive suffix applied to a person’s name. It expresses that the speaker finds the person endearing. Usually reserved for children and young women.
Chi—literally “blood.” The combustible fuel that drives the machines of the Shima Shōgunate. The fuel is derived from the seeds of the blood lotus plant.
Daimyo—a powerful territorial Lord that rules one of the Shima zaibatsu. The title is usually passed on through heredity.
Fushicho—literally “Phoenix.” One of the four zaibatsu clans of Shima. The Phoenix clan live on the island of Yotaku (Blessings) and venerate Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun. Traditionally, the greatest artists and artisans in Shima come from the Phoenix clan. Also: the kami guardian of the same zaibatsu, an elemental force closely tied to the concepts of enlightenment, inspiration and creativity.
Gaijin—literally “foreigner.” A person not of Shimanese descent. The Shima Shōgunate has been embroiled in a war of conquest in the gaijin country of Morcheba for over twenty years.
Inochi—literally “life.” A fertilizer that, when applied to crops of blood lotus, delays the onset of soil degradation caused by the plant’s toxicity.
Irezumi—a tattoo, created by inserting ink beneath the skin with steel or bamboo needles. Members of all Shima clans wear the totem of their clan on their right shoulder. City dwellers will often mark their left shoulder with a symbol to denote their profession. The complexity of the design communicates the wealth of the bearer—larger, more elaborate designs can take months or even years to complete and cost many hundreds of kouka.
Kami—spirits, natural forces or universal essences. This word can refer to personified deities, such as Izanagi or Raijin, or broader elemental forces, such as fire or water. Each clan in Shima also has a guardian kami, from which the clan draws its name.
Kazumitsu Dynasty—the hereditary line of Shōgun that rule the Shima Imperium. Named for the first of the line to claim the title—Kazumitsu I—who led a successful revolt against the corrupt Tenma Emperors.
Kitsune—literally “Fox.” One of the four zaibatsu clans of Shima, known for stealth and good fortune. The Kitsune clan live close to the haunted Iishi Mountains, and venerate Tsukiyomi, the God of the Moon. Also: the kami guardian of the same zaibatsu, said to bring good fortune to those who bear his mark. The saying “Kitsune looks after his own” is often used to account for inexplicable good luck.
Kouka—the currency of Shima. Coins are flat and rectangular, made of two strips of plaited metal: more valuable iron, and less valuable copper. Coins are often cut into smaller pieces to conduct minor transactions. These small pieces are known as “bits.” Ten copper kouka buys one iron kouka.
Lotus Guild—a cabal of zealots who oversee the production of chi and the distribution of inochi fertilizer in Shima. Referred to collectively as “Guildsmen,” the Lotus Guild is comprised of three parts: rank-and-file “Lotusmen,”
the engineers of the “Artificer” sect and the religious arm known as “Purifiers.” “False-Lifers” are a sub-sect of the Artificer caste.
Oni—a demon of the Yomi underworld, reputedly born to the Goddess Izanami after she was corrupted by the Land of the Dead. Old legends report that their legion is one thousand and one strong. They are a living embodiment of evil, delighting in slaughter and the misfortune of man.
Ryu—literally “Dragon.” One of the four zaibatsu clans of Shima, renowned as great explorers and traders. In the early days before Empire, the Ryu were a seafaring clan of raiders who pillaged among the northern clans. They venerate Susano-ō, God of Storms. Also: the kami guardian of the same zaibatsu, a powerful spirit beast and elemental force associated with random destruction, bravery and mastery of the seas.
Sama—a suffix applied to a person’s name. This is a more far more respectful version of “san.” Used to refer to one of much higher rank than the speaker.
Samurai—a member of the military nobility who adheres to the Bushido Code. Each samurai must be sworn to the service of a Lord—either a clan Daimyo, or the Shōgun himself. To die honorably in service to one’s Lord is the greatest aspiration of any samurai’s life. The most accomplished and wealthy amongst these warriors wear chi-powered suits of heavy armor called “ō-yoroi,” earning them the name “Iron Samurai.”
San—a suffix applied to a person’s name. This is a common honorific, used to indicate respect to a peer, similar to “Mr.” or “Mrs.” Usually used when referring to males.
Sensei—a teacher.
Seppuku—a form of ritualized suicide in which the practitioner disembowels himself and is then beheaded by a kaishakunin (a “second,” usually a close and trusted comrade). Death by seppuku is thought to alleviate loss of face, and can spare the family of the practitioner shame by association. An alternative version of seppuku, called “jumonji giri,” is also practiced to atone for particularly shameful acts. The practitioner is not beheaded—instead he performs a second vertical cut in his belly and is left to bear his suffering quietly until dying from blood loss.
