by Jay Kristoff
“Would it make you happy to be on my arm in public, Michi-chan?”
“Of course.” She sat up straighter, bedclothes clutched about her. “But I’m not certain that should bring any comfort, considering I’d walk on the arm of the Endsinger herself to escape these rooms.”
Ichizo leaned back, searched her eyes. “Would you rather still be in prison?”
She lowered her gaze. “A cage with silken sheets is still a cage, my Lord.”
“I am trying. It will take time.” He touched the old scar fading on her cheek. “I know how you suffer.”
“But do you?” The small dark line Ichizo had begun to hate appeared between her brows. “No charge has been brought against me, and still my honor is in question. The Kitsune traitor who slew Yoritomo tried to kill me too. I have the scars to prove it.”
“I know.” He ran a finger across the top of her breast. “I’ve seen.”
“You declare affection in the same breath you make jest of my disgrace?”
“These things take time, Michi-chan.” He straightened with a sigh. “Lord Hiro is about to broker deals with both of his political rivals. Yoritomo’s old bodyguard have thrown in with him to a man. The Guild already back him. The Daimyo’s chair will be his by weeksend. The plight of Lady Aisha’s ladies means very little to him right now, I’m afraid.”
“And how is my Lady?” Michi met his eyes again for just a heartbeat. “I’m not allowed to see her. Though she betrayed our Shōgun, she was my friend as well as my mistress. I loved her, Ichizo.”
“Precisely why you should stay away from her. If you wish to prove your fidelity, consorting with a traitor is the last thing you should do.”
“Lord Hiro is your cousin. Who can convince him of my innocence if not you?”
“My cousin is a complicated man, love…”
“Promise me.” The furrow in her brow deepened. “Promise you’ll get me out of here.”
“I will try.”
She sighed, wiped at her eyes. “Trying is not doing.”
“All right, all right. Izanagi’s balls, woman. I promise.”
A smile, bright as sunlight slipping out from behind the clouds. She grabbed his hand, kissing his fingertips, one after another.
“Oh, my Lord,” she sighed. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done. Your kindness … I can think of no way to repay it.”
“I am sure we can remedy that when I return.” He straightened again, backed away to the door. “But now I must go, or Hiro will have my life and all will be for naught.”
She planted a feather-light kiss onto her fingertips and blew it to him. “I’ll miss you.”
“I will return, fear not.”
He slipped from the room with his serving retinue, leaving her alone amidst the fading footsteps. He did not see the smile fall from her lips like a mask at the end of a kabuki play.
He did not see her wipe his taste from her lips.
He did not hear her whisper.
“I fear nothing.”
* * *
She was six years old when the Iron Samurai came to Daiyakawa. She remembered the sound their armor made, like a snake pit full of twisting metal, heavy boots drumming on the sun-cracked road. The bushimen came behind, so many that the dust in their wake was as tall as a tsunami. But really, the Iron Samurai would have been enough. The other soldiers were present for show; the feathers of a peacock spread to impress his rivals.
The morale of the Daiyakawa men was worn paper-thin, courage hanging by a thread. It was rage that had given them the strength to defy the government and sow their fields with whatever crops they saw fit, plant the magistrate’s head on a spike along the Kigen road. But rage soon gave way to fear; to realization about what they’d done and where it must inevitably lead. Michi was only a child at the time, but in later years she would understand the listless steps and hollow eyes: the look of men who believe they are already dead, and are simply waiting for the world to confirm their suspicion.
But her uncle was a man of courage. He spoke with the voice of a tiger, the voice of a man whom other men would follow. Urging them to resist to the last. That if this was to be their end, then it should be worthy of remembrance. But the Iron Samurai cut through their overturned wagons and pitiful barricades without pause, sheared through leather armor and pitchfork spears like torchlight through shadow. And as they dragged her cousins and aunt into the street and executed them before him, Michi saw her uncle’s spirit shatter like glass. In that last moment, in that final breath before they bid him plunge his own knife into his gut, she knew he was broken. And the world knew it too.
She looked at the samurai captain, into cold steel-gray eyes behind his tiger mempō, and vowed she would never share her uncle’s fate.
Hard years followed, as Daiyakawa’s farmers tried to rebuild their lives, forget their exhilaration as the guardhouse went up in flames; their tiny moment of infinite possibility. The memory was a curse to most, a leaden weight on their backs, doubling the burden of the Guild yoke retied around their necks. And if they spoke of the riot at all, it was with hushed voices in darkened corners, shoulders slumped and tongues bitter with the taste of regret.
Michi’s parents had passed when she was five, and now without family to care for her, she felt like a burden and was treated as one. She longed for the day she would be old enough to find her own way. To leave Daiyakawa and the hungry ghosts haunting its streets far, far behind.
And one day a samurai came to the village. Old-fashioned swords were crossed in his obi, gilt cranes taking wing across the lacquer. He wore black cloth, like a man in mourning, a broad, bowl-shaped shappo on his head. A young girl walked beside him, covered in the dust of the road, long fringe and a black kerchief obscuring her features. And as they stood in the village square and the man tilted the hat away from his face, Michi recognized his eyes. The same eyes that had watched from behind an iron tiger mask as his men carved her kin to pieces.
Their captain.
She had screamed then; snatched up a switch of wood and charged, swung it with all the might a nine-year-old could muster. And he caught her up and held her tight against his chest, held her as she screamed and kicked and thrashed and bit, calling down the curses of all the gods upon his head. Held her until there was nothing left inside her, until she sagged, broken-doll limp in his arms.
And then he spoke. Of regret. Of guilt’s burden. Of the falsities of the Way of Bushido, and the crimes he had committed in the name of loyalty and honor. Of a group to the north who saw the truth, who had vowed as she had done, never to kneel again, and never to break.
He spoke with the voice of a tiger. A voice other men would follow.
“My name is Kagé Daichi,” he said.
And in that moment, she knew she would follow him too.
18
CONTOURS
Ayane was starting to look like a human being.
Her stubble was a shadow across her scalp, black as the water in Kigen Bay. Even inside her cell, the mountain air had done her good, and the few supervised moments the Kagé allowed her in the dappled sunlight had given her skin just the slightest hint of color. Fresh fish and wild rice had filled out the flesh on her bones, and when she laughed, her eyes lit up like kindling-wheels on Lord Izanagi’s feast day.
Kin was seated outside the bars of her cell, a sheet of rice-paper and some charcoal sticks spread out before him. The girl sat opposite, legs crossed, spider limbs curled at her back.
“You look better with eyebrows,” he smiled.
“They feel strange.” Ayane rubbed her forehead, frowning.
“Well, they suit you. Very distinguished.”
When she stuck out her chin and wiggled an eyebrow in dramatic fashion, they both laughed. Just like real people.
“I had a dream last night,” she said. “It is the first one I have had aside from my Awakening in as long as I can remember. Has that ever happened to you?”
“No.”
A small shake of his head. “I only have the one. Over and over.”
“Awful is it not?”
“I’m used to it.” A shrug. “What was your dream about?”
The girl stared down at the fingers entwined in her lap. A faint blush lit her cheeks.
“You,” she said.
Kin was unsure where to look. He cleared his throat, lips twisting into something between a grin and a grimace, feeling his own cheeks flush. Embarrassment stole over Ayane’s face and she gave a short, uncomfortable chuckle, eyes searching the room, finally seizing on the paper spread out at his feet.
“So … this is your infamous defense perimeter?”
“Ah, it is…” He nodded, lunging toward the new topic as fast as his lips would take him. “A schematic, anyways. The real thing is almost complete. We salvaged seven heavy shuriken-throwers from the ironclad ruins, set them up near the pit traps. I’ve modified the feeders to work on hand-cranked power, but we’re still getting pressure loss in the firing chambers.” A shrug. “I can’t figure it out.”
“I do not know why you are asking me.” Fingers curled beneath her chin, earth-brown eyes scanning the drawings. “You are Munitions Sect. I am just a False-Lifer, remember?”
“You were a False-Lifer.”
Bumblebee lips curled in another small, embarrassed smile. “I confess I am still getting used to thinking like that.”
“Another set of eyes always helps. Besides, you have a way with machines. I can tell.”
“It would be easier if I could see the modifications firsthand. Instead of just plans.”
“I’m working on it,” Kin shrugged. “The Kagé have other things on their minds.”
“Arashi … I mean, Yukiko?”
“It’s been eight days. She should be back by now.”
Ayane looked at him through the bars, head tilted. “Are you concerned?”
“A little.” A sigh. “But she’s with Buruu. He’ll take care of her.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, just…” Ayane sucked her bottom lip. “Just the way you speak about her, is all. I thought perhaps she was special to you.”
“Would you mind if we didn’t talk about this?”
“I am sorry.” She reached through the bars and placed a gentle hand upon his knee. “I am certain she is all right.”
Kin gave her fingers a soft squeeze, turned his eyes to the blueprints.
“Isn’t this a pretty picture…”
Ayane started at the voice, Kin turning more slowly, cold fear greasing his insides. They were standing in the doorway—three boys around his age; sword-grip hands and battle-hard stares. He felt a surge of adrenaline, the instinctive reaction of a trapped animal, flight and fight tumbling over one another inside his head.
He pulled himself to his feet, jaw clenched, staring at each boy in turn.
“Hello, Guildsman.” Isao ran a hand along the thin stubble on his chin, up through the topknot of long, dark hair. His face was angular, cut rather than molded by the Maker’s hand. Short sleeves showed burns where his irezumi used to be, hard muscles and tanned skin.
Two other boys crowded the doorway behind him. Kin knew their names: small and wiry Atsushi, the boy who’d found Ayane in her pit. His big crooked-faced cousin Takeshi, who’d interrupted Yukiko’s kiss in the graveyard. Arms folded, jaws set, goggles hiding the flint and steel in their eyes. Both growled salutations ending with the word “Guildsman.”
“My name is Kin,” he said.
“Your name is shit,” Isao spat.
“What do you want, Isao-san?”
“You gone, whoreson,” Atsushi growled.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Isao stepped forward, fists clenched. He was a little younger than Kin, but bigger. Weatherworn and battle-tested.
“You’re going to the Yomi underworld for what you’ve done to these islands. You and this little spider-legged bitch.” He gestured at Ayane, pale and wide-eyed with fright. “You and all your kind are poison.”
“They’re not our kind, Isao.” Kin licked his lips, tried to keep the anger from his voice. “You have no idea what it cost us to be here. You don’t know anything about us.”
“I know you’re a traitor.” Isao took another step closer, just a few feet away now. “A liar who sold out his own kind. And now you’re up here spreading your cancer among my family. The little toys you make for the children. Your marvelous machines spitting poison into—”
“They’re not chi-driven, you imbecile,” Kin spat. “The shuriken-throwers are just hydraulics and gas-power. You don’t need to burn lotus to—”
“What did you call me?” Isao’s lips pulled back from his teeth.
“You heard.”
“Please…” Ayane began. “We want no trouble.”
Isao spit on the decking, glaring at the girl. “My mother and father both died of blacklung from the poison your machines shit into the sky. Takeshi’s mother was executed for sedition when he was six. Atsushi’s sister was burned at the godsdamned stake by your bastard Purifiers.” He narrowed his eyes. “You think we give a shit what you want?”
“We’re going to hurt you, Guildsman.” Takeshi scowled at Kin, crooked jaw, cracking knuckles. “Until you squeal.”
“And we’re going to keep hurting you until you see you don’t belong here,” Isao said. “Until you and this bitch crawl back to your five-sided pit and leave us the hell alone.”
“Stay away from us.” Kin kept the tremor from his voice, raising his fists. “I mean it.”
Isao laughed, looked at the other boys. “Look out, he means—”
Kin’s strike took him on the jaw, rocked his head back on his neck. A bone-hard ball of knuckles, landing heavy enough to split the younger boy’s lip. Isao staggered back as Kin grabbed his collar, swinging wildly with his free fist. He got in another solid hit to Isao’s temple, knocking his goggles askew before the others tore him off.
The gut punch knocked his breath loose, and his legs were swept out from under him. He fell back, cracked his head on the bars, bright stars bursting in his eyes. Ayane screamed as two kicks thudded against his ribs, curled him into a ball. He lashed out blindly, caught one of the boys on the shins.
“A little fight in you, eh?”
Isao rolled Kin onto his back as Takeshi grabbed his feet, held them in place. The younger boy sat on his chest, pinned Kin’s arms with his knees. Blood from his split lip spattered against Kin’s cheek. Isao drew a blade from his obi, tore Kin’s tunic open, pressed the knife-point into the bayonet socket beneath Kin’s collarbone. Kin felt the cable move beneath his skin as Isao twisted his blade. The metals made an awful sound as they kissed.
Skrrrritch. Skrrrritch.
“Stop it!” Ayane screamed. “Please!”
“You’re going to pay for that.” Isao licked his busted lip. “And maybe when we’re done, we’ll unlock this cage, play with your little sister here? You think she’d like that, Guildsman?”
A mouthful of spit sprayed into Isao’s eye.
“MY NAME IS KIN!”
“You boys!” A woman’s shout. “Leave him alone!”
Kin heard sandals slapping against the floorboards, felt the weight on his chest ease. Isao stood and sheathed his tantō, wiped the spittle from his face. His cheeks were flushed with rage, breath coming in quick, heaving gasps. The blood on his mouth was red as the wounded sky outside, bottom lip already swelling.
Kin rolled to his knees, dry retching and clutching his collarbone. Through the blur of sweat and pain, he saw Old Mari standing in the doorway, brandishing a cane as ancient and gnarled as she was.
“Get away from him.” The old woman’s voice was hoarse with indignation. “Go on, off with you. Three against one? You shame yourselves.”
The boys muttered and shuffled toward the door. Isao straightened his goggles, lips curled into an upside-down grin. He pointed at Kin, spit blood at
his feet.
“See you tomorrow, Guildsman.”
Old Mari shoved through the boys as they loped out, smacking Takeshi on the behind with her walking stick. Ayane reached through the bars, clutched at Kin’s hand.
“First Bloom, are you all right?”
It took a minute or two for him to catch his breath, crouched with one palm planted on the floor. He touched his ribs and winced, straightened with a groan.
“I’m all right…”
“Disgraceful.” Mari clapped her cane upon the boards, scowling after the boys. “What matter if Isao and Takeshi are oni killers? You’d think before teaching them the sword, Sensei Ryusaki would teach them some damned courtesy.”
Kin looked at the old woman, tried to twist his grimace into a smile. She was a good foot shorter than he, stick-thin, back bent as if she carried the world upon her shoulders. One hand clasped her walking stick, the other a basket laden with fish and rice. Her skin was like leather, gray hair bound in a widow’s bun, rheumy eyes pouched in bags so heavy Kin wondered how she could see at all. She was in charge of the Kagé infirmary, had cared for Kin as he recovered from his trek to the Iishi. Her bedside manner was as pleasant as a flying kick to the privates, but she’d patched him up well enough.
“That was damned foolish of you.” She looked him up and down, her scowl undiminished. “Taking on three at once. Who do you think you are, Kitsune no Akira? The old Stormdancers usually had thunder tigers with them in battle.”
“They cornered us.” He touched the input jack at his collar, wincing. “I’ve done all the running I’m going to do. A man faces his enemies.”
“Oh, so you’re a man, are you? Ready to take on the world alone?”
“Ready to stand up for myself, at least.”
“The best thing you can do is tell Daichi.”
“No.” Ayane looked at the old woman with pleading eyes. “I do not wish for there to be any trouble on my account.”
“Daichi won’t care, Mari,” Kin sighed.
“Remain a fool, then,” Mari shrugged. “But if Yukiko were here, she’d—”
