by Jay Kristoff
“My father’s name was Masaru.”
And then she stood, chest heaving, breathless. Knuckles white on her katana’s grip, she thrust it into the ground beside his head, left it quivering point-first in the snow. Without another word, she turned and stalked back to the beast, leaping onto his shoulders, her hair a long ribbon of black. The rabbit put his arms around her waist, leaned against her back. And with a rush of wind and that awful sound of breaking thunder, they dropped out into the void, soaring away on sweeping thermals, a swirling trail of ashes in their wake.
Jubei watched the three of them fly away, growing smaller and smaller on the smoke-stained horizon. And when they had disappeared from sight, when all he could see was red sky and gray cloud and distant fumes, he glanced at the sword beside his head, a faint smear of his own blood running down the steel.
He closed his eyes.
Lowered his head into his hands.
And he wept.
2
DROWNING
Slow flames danced in the light’s decline.
Her tantō rested near the fire pit’s edge, thrust tip-first into burning embers. Dark ripples coiling across the metal gave the impression of the grain in polished wood, or whorls at a finger’s tip. The blade was not blackened or smoking, nor incandescent with a forge’s heat. But a wise man might have noticed the way the air about it rippled, and like any man once burned, he would have left well enough alone.
Yukiko had watched the blade waiting on the glowing coals, no light in her eyes. The cedar logs crackled and sighed, oppressive heat smothering the air; a weight in her chest to match the one on her shoulders. She’d seen the air shivering around the steel and realized she was almost looking forward to it. To feeling again.
To feeling something.
“You do not have to do this yet.”
Daichi had watched her across the fire pit, eyes underscored by the flames.
“If not here, then where?” she asked. “If not now, then when?”
The old man’s skin was worn; leather browned too long beneath a scalding sun, his biceps a patchwork of burns. Long moustache, close-cropped hair, just a blue-gray shadow upon a scalp crisscrossed with scars.
“You should sleep. Tomorrow will be a hard day.” Daichi groped for the words. “Watching your father put to the pyre…”
“What makes you believe I’ll watch?”
The old man blinked. “Yukiko, you should attend his funeral. You should say good-bye.”
“It took us five days to fly here from Kigen. Do you know what this heat does to a body after five days, Daichi-sama?”
“I have a notion.”
“Then you know what you burn tomorrow is not my father.”
Daichi sighed. “Yukiko, go and sleep, I beg you.”
“I’m not tired.”
The old man folded his arms, his voice as hard as the steel gleaming on the embers.
“I will not do this.”
“After all I’ve done for you. After all you took from me.”
She’d glanced up then, and her expression had made the old man flinch.
“You owe me, Daichi.”
The Kagé leader had hung his head. Breathing deep, he coughed, once, twice, wincing as he swallowed. She could see it in his eyes as he stared at the callused hands in his lap. The blood that would never wash away. The stain of the child forever unborn. The mark of the mother who would never again hold her daughter in her arms. Her mother.
He spoke as if the word was bile in his mouth.
“… Hai.”
Daichi had picked up the jug of red saké beside him, rose like a man on his way to the executioner. Kneeling beside her, he retrieved the tantō from the flames.
Yukiko hadn’t looked up from the fire. She loosened the sash at her waist, shrugged her uwagi tunic off her shoulders, covering her breasts with her palms. Her irezumi gleamed in the firelight; the beautiful nine-tailed fox tattooed upon her right shoulder to mark her clan, the imperial sun across her left marking her as the Shōgun’s servant. She’d tossed her head, flicked her hair away from Yoritomo’s mark. A few stray strands still clung to damp flesh.
As he held the knife up, the air between them had rippled.
“Are you certain?”
“No lord.” She swallowed. “No master.”
He placed the saké jug on the floor between them.
“Do you want something to—”
“Daichi. Just do it.”
The old man had breathed deep, and without another word pressed the tantō to the ink.
Every muscle in her body seized tight as the blade touched her skin. The air was filled with the spittle-hiss of fresh fish upon a skillet, the sizzling tang of blackening meat and salt overpowering the scent of burning cedar. A long moan shuddered over her teeth and she closed her eyes, fighting the scream seething in her chest. She could smell herself burning.
Searing.
Charring.
She’d reached out with her mind, to the flood of warmth waiting just outside the door. Feather and fur and talons, wide amber eyes, his growl shaking the floorboards beneath him. The thunder tiger she’d found amidst storm-torn clouds, and now loved more dearly than anything beneath the sky.
Buruu …
YUKIKO.
Gods, it hurts, brother …
HOLD ON TO ME.
She’d clung to his thoughts; a mountain of cool stone amidst a flaming sea. Daichi peeled the steel from her shoulder, bringing ashen layers of tattooed skin with it. The blade that had killed her lover, Hiro. The blade that had been in her hands as she ended Shōgun Yoritomo, as the shot rang out and took her father away. Five days and a thousand years ago. She’d gasped as the agony receded to a dull ebb, and for a second, the urge to turn to Daichi and beg him to stop was almost overpowering. But she set her back against the thunder tiger’s strength, forced it down, far easier to swallow than the thought of that bastard’s mark still inked on her skin.
Anything was better than that.
She looked at the saké bottle on the floor beside her. Buruu’s thoughts washed over her like a summer breeze.
YOU HAVE BEEN STRONG ENOUGH FOR ONE DAY, SISTER.
Reaching for the bottle with trembling fingers, she gulped a mouthful of liquid fire, cooler than the steel in Daichi’s hand. The liquor rushed down her throat, burning her tongue, promising a return to the oblivion she’d been so eager to escape just moments before. The choice between agony and emptiness. Between living or existing.
It had been no choice at all on a night that dark.
“Do you want me to stop?” Daichi had asked.
She’d swallowed another mouthful, blinking back her tears.
“Get it off me,” she whispered. “Take all of it away.”
* * *
Yukiko closed her eyes, bloodshot and throbbing in their sockets.
The ground was a blur beneath them, falling leaves filling the spaces between each beat of Buruu’s wings. The air had the vaguest hint of chill, autumn’s pallid touch creeping through the Iishi wilds. The towering trees around them were fading; a subtle shift from gowns of dazzling emerald to a brief and brittle lime, their hems beginning to curl and rust.
They flew above it all. The pale girl swathed in mourning black, long hair flowing in the piercing wind. The boy with his dirty rags and dark, knowing eyes. The majestic beast beneath them, twenty-five feet of clockwork wings, cutting effortlessly through the sky.
Kin was perched behind her on Buruu’s back, one arm wrapped about her waist, the other hanging bloody at his side. He was obviously exhausted, shoulders slumped, head hung low. Yukiko could feel the heat of him through their clothing, hear the faint catch in his breath. Her mouth dry, stomach curdling with fading adrenaline. It’d been nearly two months since she’d seen him last—this boy who’d saved her life, who’d given up everything he was to see Buruu freed. In the chaos after Yoritomo’s death, the riots, her speeches, the threat of civil war, she’d spent e
very spare moment searching for him; urging the Kagé city cells to be on the lookout, patrolling the Iishi’s edge for hours on end in the hope of catching a glimpse. They’d owed him that much. That much and more. And now, to find him at last …
“Are you sure you’re all right, Kin-san?”
Yukiko spoke over her shoulder, concerned eyes hidden by polarized glass.
“Well enough,” he breathed. “My arm is bleeding…”
“We’re still an hour or so from the village. Can you hold on until then?”
A slow nod. “It took me over a month to get this far. A few more minutes won’t kill me.”
“Wandering the Iishi alone might have, though,” Yukiko said. “You were traveling the wrong way. Headed right toward Black Temple. You could have run into an oni, or gods know what else. The Kagé village is northeast of here.”
“I know,” he nodded. “Once I realized the ironclads were on my trail, I tried leading them away from the stronghold. I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.”
Yukiko smiled, reached down and squeezed Kin’s hand. She should have known. Just as selfless as always. His own safety ever a distant second. Her thoughts were all a-tumble, emotions jostling for position in her chest; joy they’d found him, guilt it had taken so long, genuine fear at how close he’d come to death. Underscoring it all, the feel of his body pressed against hers, his hand about her waist, the tumult of confusion and adrenaline and Buruu’s fading bloodlust thudding in time with her own racing pulse.
She drew one shuddering breath, let it out slow.
“Try to get some rest, Kin-san. You’re safe now.”
They flew on toward the Kagé village, the smoke of the ironclads they’d torn from the sky still hanging in their wake. Kin rested his head against her back and closed his eyes, his breath slowing, exhaustion getting the better of him. Buruu’s muscles seethed beneath them, his eyes narrowed, amber and gold, glittering like embers in a forge’s belly. Sleek feathers and thick fur, the color of melting snow on the Iishi’s highest peaks, his hindquarters wrapped in long, snaking bands of deepest jet. Thunder tiger. Arashitora. The last of his kind in all of Shima.
His thoughts were intertwined with hers, images echoing in each other’s skulls, the pair of them linked by a bond deeper than blood. Yukiko and Buruu. Buruu and Yukiko. Harder and harder to tell where one ended and the other began these days. The ability to speak to the minds of beasts was called the Kenning in old folklore, but to even give it a name seemed to lessen it now. The truth was, it was more than a thing of weak and clumsy words. It was her father’s legacy, his gift to her, forging a friendship that had defied a Shōgun, ended an empire.
It was a reminder. A birthright. A blessing.
A curse?
THE BOY IS LUCKY WE FOUND HIM BEFORE ANY DEMONS DID.
She winced as Buruu’s thoughts filled her own, just a touch louder than they’d ever been before. The sky seemed a little too bright. Her skull a fraction too small.
I know. The western slopes are crawling with them lately.
FOOLISH OF HIM. STILL, I AM GLAD HE IS SAFE.
You must be. You didn’t even call him “monkey-child.”
WELL, DO NOT TELL HIM THAT. I HAVE A GRUFF DEMEANOR TO MAINTAIN.
Laughter died on her lips almost as soon as it had begun. Yukiko pushed up her goggles, pressed her fingers into her eyes. Pain throbbed at the base of her skull, the echoes of Buruu’s thoughts sending barbed tendrils up and across her temples. Ice-cold and burning.
YOUR HEAD STILL HURTS?
Only a little.
YOU ARE A TERRIBLE LIAR, GIRL.
There are worse character flaws. All things considered.
THIS PAIN HAS LINGERED FOR WEEKS. THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
I have more important things to worry about than headaches, Buruu.
FORTUNATE THEN, THAT I DO NOT.
You fret too much.
AND YOU NEVER ENOUGH.
You know what they say. Kitsune looks after his own.
Yukiko pressed against the mighty beast beneath her, felt the blood-red percussion of his pulse, the smooth motion of his flight. She ran her hands through the arashitora’s feathers, following the glass-smooth lines down his shoulders until her fingertips brushed the metal framing his crippled wings. The feathers clipped by a madman, barely a month in his grave.
At least now Kin is back and he can adjust your wings for you. This contraption looks ready to fall apart. How long until you molt?
YOU CHANGE THE SUBJECT AS ARTFULLY AS YOU LIE.
You’re becoming quite the master at avoiding questions, though.
The thunder tiger growled in the back of his throat.
I WILL HAVE NO NEW PLUMAGE FOR MONTHS. NOT UNTIL MY WINTER COAT GROWS IN.
Yukiko curled her fingers through sleek feathers, right where neck and shoulder met. His favorite spot.
And then what?
I DO NOT TAKE YOUR MEANING.
I mean what will you do after you can fly again under your own power?
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?
I don’t know. Go home, maybe? Leave this place behind.
LEAVE YOU, IS YOUR MEANING.
… Yes.
AFTER ALL WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH?
This isn’t your fight. This isn’t your home. You could fly away right now and forget any of this ever happened.
YOU KNOW THAT IS A LIE.
Do I?
YOU KNOW ME. AS YOU KNOW YOURSELF.
I don’t know anything, Buruu.
THEN KNOW THIS. BETWEEN AND BENEATH AND BEYOND ANYTHING ELSE I MAY BE, I AM YOURS. I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU. NEVER FORSAKE YOU. YOU MAY RELY UPON ME AS YOU RELY UPON SUN TO RISE AND MOON TO FALL. FOR YOU ARE THE HEART OF ME.
She rested her head on his neck, wrapped her arms around him and breathed. The burn scar on her shoulder was a distant, nagging ache. The last few weeks with Buruu had been like something from a dream—flying to the clan capitals and speaking to the people, watching the fire grow in their eyes as she spoke. In Kigen, the citizens had laid out hundreds of spirit stones in the place where her father died. In the Dragon capital of Kawa, their arrival had kicked off five days of rioting. In Yama city, home of her own clan, the Kitsune, they had been treated like heroes. The whole country felt ready to rise. To throw off the shackles of the old Imperium and forge something new.
And still, the memory remained. Grief turning to slow and smoldering rage. Her father’s death. His blood on her hands. Dying in her arms. She hadn’t attended his funeral pyre. Hadn’t watched the flames consume the swollen, bloated thing his body had become. Hadn’t visited his grave in the days since, to burn incense or pray or fall to her knees and weep.
She hadn’t shed a tear since the day he died.
She glanced over her shoulder at the boy pressed against her, his breath soft, eyelashes fluttering against smooth cheeks. One hand seeking his, the other pressed to Buruu’s feathers. Surrounded by those who cared for her. And still …
And still …
Part of me feels like I’m still trapped in Kigen, you know. I can see Yoritomo looking at me over the barrel of that iron-thrower. Hands stained with his own sister’s blood. It makes me want to scream. To reach inside his head and kill him all over again.
YORITOMO CAN HURT NO ONE NOW. HE IS DEAD. GONE.
He’s still all around us. In red skies and black rivers. In soldiers’ graves and blood lotus fields and dying soil. The Kazumitsu Dynasty is shattered, but even without a Shōgun, there’s still the Lotus Guild. They’re the cancer at this nation’s heart.
She shook her head, felt the warm swell of rage in her breast. Sudden and seething, curling her hands to fists. Remembering the heat of conflagration on her skin, the screams of dying Guildsmen as the sky rained ironclads. Because of them. Because of her.
And it felt right.
Daichi and the Kagé speak the truth. The Guild needs to be burned away.
AND YOU WILL BE THE SPARK? A HANDFUL OF WEEKS
AGO, THE ACT OF TAKING A SINGLE LIFE WAS UNTHINKABLE FOR YOU. AND NOW—
A handful of weeks ago, my father was still alive.
THERE IS BLOOD DOWN THIS ROAD, SISTER. BLOOD LIKE A RIVER. AND THOUGH I SWIM IT GLADLY, I DO NOT WISH TO SEE YOU DROWN.
He bled out into my arms, Buruu. You don’t know what that’s like.
I KNOW THE SHAPE OF LOSS, YUKIKO. ALL TOO WELL.
Then you know what I have to do.
The thunder tiger sighed. His stare fixed on the ancient forest below, glazed and distant, staring into a future stained a deeper scarlet than the poisoned sky above.
WHAT WE HAVE TO DO.
We?
ALWAYS.
Buruu banked down into murmuring gloom.
ALWAYS.
* * *
Her bedroom trembled in the midnight hush, candles flickering on the walls like dawn through rippling autumn leaves. Yukiko watched the shadows play through the blur of her lashes, eyelids made of lead, the same blood-drenched pain that had plagued her for weeks pounding inside her skull. Fists to temples, breathing deep. Teeth clenched, focusing on the aching scar at her shoulder to stop her mind drifting back into the dark. The place where her father lay, cold and dead, the ashes of his funeral offerings caked on his face. The place where she was helpless. The little one. The frightened one.
She drew the back of her fist across her mouth.
Never again.
Buruu’s low growl dragged Yukiko from the throb inside her head, the ache in her body. She closed her eyes, tried to look through the Kenning to see what he was grumbling about. But as she reached inside his head, the world flared bright and loud, screeching and clawing—the thoughts of a hundred tiny lives out in the gloom flooding her skull. An owl soaring through the velvet dark (seekkilleatseekkilleat), a tiny furtive thing of fur and pounding heart hiding in long shadows (stillstillbestill), mockingbirds curled in their nests (warmandsafesafeandwarm), a lone monkey howling (hungreeeeeeee). So many. Too many. Never in her life so impossibly loud. Gasping, she closed off the Kenning, as if locking a disobedient child in an empty room in her mind. Breathing hard, she dragged her eyelids open, squinting out to the landing.
A figure stood in the shadows.
