by Jay Kristoff
“What if he is?” she said.
“Will not wear for the cripple body.” The gaijin shook his head. “No strength. No prize.”
Her heart skipped a beat. A glimmer of hope. She nodded to Danyk.
“He’s a cripple.”
Danyk gritted his teeth, spat what sounded like a vicious curse. He waved the younger gaijin aside, commanded a pale black-haired fellow to step forward. The man was broad, jaw like a brick house dusted with black stubble, eyes of blue glass. He drew a long, double-bladed axe from his belt.
“What are you doing?”
Yukiko’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Piotr dragging her away.
“No, why would you kill him? Stop! Stop it!”
BURUU, WAKE UP!
“Kak zal,” Danyk said, watching the soldier raise the blade above his head.
“NO! NO!”
Yukiko reached toward Piotr, slammed into his mind with everything she was. The round-eye released his grip on her arms, fell to the ground, senseless and mute, nose and ears gushing. Turning on the axeman, she seized hold of his mind and squeezed as hard as she could, two bloody handfuls, tearing side to side like a wolf worrying a piece of meat. The gaijin made an odd, strangled sound and staggered as if she’d struck him, dropping the axe and clutching his temples. She screamed, lips peeling back from her teeth as she felt it rise up inside her, the heat of a collapsing star, the roar of a thousand hurricanes. And with blood pouring from his ears, nose and eyes, the gaijin crumpled to the stone.
She whirled on a third, smashing into his skull with everything inside her own, his head flopping about as if she’d broken his neck. And with a roar, Danyk seized her by a handful of sodden hair, pulled her back as she screamed and cursed and kicked and spat, nails and teeth and fists, mouth agape, eyes rolling in her head. Madness had taken her, a rage so deep it was suffocating, stealing away everything she was and leaving a shell behind; a burning, shrieking thing wearing her skin. She bucked in his hands, tore lose from his grip, a handful of hair clutched in his fist as she reached out to crush his mind like eggshells.
He punched her; a hook to her jaw that rocked her sideways, lit a fire at the base of her skull. And then, with almost casual brutality, he hauled back and buried his fist deep in her belly.
Pain.
Awful. Wet and tearing.
PAIN.
A scream, somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded like her own. A burst of light in her head, flaring bright as the world fell perfectly still.
She could feel it. All of it. The men gathered around her, each a tangled thread, a thousand knots thick—so intricate it hurt just to look at them. Buruu at her feet, a shape she knew as well as her own, a distant pulse still struggling toward consciousness, flickering with the taste of stolen lightning. Skraai’s shell, just a shadow of lingering heat in his bones as all he was escaped into the ether. The dragons in the snarling ocean around them, swaying with the current, cold as the lightless depths of the sea. High above, the female, circling in the blood-scent, the knowledge she should protect her kin burning bright in her mind, overshadowed with a rage born of heart-deep grief; a severing so terrible it hurt her to even begin remembering.
What she had lost.
What he had taken from her.
And in Yukiko’s belly, where the knuckles had been buried in her flesh, nothing but pain.
She slumped to her knees, gasping, screams growing louder in her ears, feeling the pulse of the world and knowing something was terribly, terribly wrong.
What’s happening to me?
Danyk placed his boot on her chest and shoved. She fell backward, curled up, fetal and tiny beneath the storm. Blood spilled from her ears, her nose, filmed her eyes with scarlet. She reached for Buruu with bound hands, groping along the gleaming black glass to find his claws, fingertips barely touching. Danyk drew Yofun from his belt with a gleaming, silver sound, folded steel glittering with sea spray, rain skirting the katana’s razored edge.
It can’t end like this.
The gaijin raised the blade above his head, took aim at her throat.
Buruu, I love you.
The sword began to fall.
Buruu …
A white shape, plummeting from the sky.
A scream of outrage, the sound of thunder and lightning and a tempest unleashed.
Danyk looked up toward the sound, jaw slackening. And then he simply wasn’t there anymore. A pale blur, a moment of impact, shattering bone. The katana spun end over end as it descended, ringing bright as it hit the stone beside Yukiko’s head.
Tearing sounds from above.
Red rain.
The gaijin cursed, fumbling weapons from their belts, swords and lightning-throwers, eyes upon the sky. She fell on them like a shadow, swooping from behind, silent beneath the roar of the storm. Wet crunching sounds, screams of pain, one man’s torso falling away from his legs, another clutching the bloody stump where his head used to be as his body toppled backward and spilled on the stone. Flashing blades touched snow-white fur and the female screamed in pain, bounding into the air as the space between her and prey became blue-white, bright arcs spitting from the mouths of their lightning-throwers.
But the little monkey-children and their silly toys didn’t know her for what she was; a daughter of thunder, Everstorm-born, swimming in bolts of brilliant blue-white since first she took to the wing. Without earth beneath her feet to ground her, the current spilling from their trinkets was a cooling shower, a delightful prickle over feathers stained blood-red. They screamed as she swooped low, running for the cover of their crooked metal dragonfly. And she in her rage, drunk with the taste of them, alighted atop the flimsy tin can and peeled it open like ripe fruit, disassembling them as they screamed, one by one by one.
Except the one she’d missed.
Ilyitch had ducked low as she swooped for the kill, pressed against the butchered nomad, drenched in his blood. And she, so intoxicated with her fury, had failed to see him, his scent lost in the male’s ruins. Now he rose from the cover of bloody wings, reaching out with his stolen lightning and blasting her from the flying machine with a shriek of superheated vapor.
She crashed earthward, steam rising from her feathers, dazed and senseless.
Ilyitch lowered the lightning-thrower, its charge spent, dropped it on the ground with the brittle sound of smashing glass. With a hissed curse, he drew the butcher’s knife from his belt, still wet with arashitora blood, and knelt behind Yukiko’s head.
She blinked, eyes rolling, the ache in her belly receding to a dull ebb.
He grabbed a handful of hair, pressed the knife to her throat, spitting a curse.
The katana slipped out through his chest with barely a sound. Just a hollow clip of breath and a tiny metallic rasp as it disappeared back through the hole it had made. Ilyitch’s eyes grew wide as the pain registered inside his skull. The blade punched out through his chest again, blood bubbling on his lips, oxygen slurping through the hole between his ribs, emerging from his mouth as a sodden cough. And with a gurgling whimper, the boy slumped onto the stone, as dead as the thunder tiger beside him.
Piotr stood over him, blind eye gleaming white, wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve, katana clutched in both hands.
“Promise,” he wheezed. “Promised.”
39
FRAGILE
Each raindrop was a whisper.
Not the gentle whisper of a lover in Kin’s ear, she in his arms, he entwined with her hair’s perfume. He didn’t know what that whisper might sound like. And not the whisper of father to son, looking upon a world of metal and rivets and iron teeth as he leaned down and said, “All this, I give to you.” That lay too far back in his life to even remember now. Not the whisper of the earth, the breath of this great thing beneath our feet that holds us close from cradle to grave, opening at the last to keep us in her arms as we forever sleep.
No, it was the whisper of the machine.
He co
uld hear Kaori’s voice as he raised his hand outside Daichi’s door, low and urgent, no pause for breath. He could smell peppermint and cedar, the faint scent of wisteria. And his hand fell still, hovering just a breath away from the knock that would change it all forever.
He looked around the Kagé village; this tiny knot of life carved in the deepest wild, this cluster of insurgency threatening to bring down a nation. He saw the will it had taken, to shape it from raw wood and empty boughs, to walk out here alone, away from everything and everyone, to be the first to cry “enough.” But most of all, he saw the people, with their little lives and their fragile dreams, their hopes for a better future, for their children and children yet unborn.
It is not too late to stop. You don’t have to do this.
He thought of the girl waiting in Yukiko’s room, huddled in a corner, breathing fear like a fume. He thought of her lips on his, gentle hands and a sad smile. Blood on her skin. Weeping. And he gritted his teeth and made his heart a flint-black thing inside his chest, curled his fingers into a fist and smacked it sharply against the doorframe.
Yes, I do.
“Come,” Daichi said, his voice like sandpaper.
He pulled the door aside, stepped through, blinking in the gloom. The old man sat by the fire, looking thinner and paler than Kin could remember. Chest still bound in bandages, bruises upon his skin and smudged beneath his eyes. Kaori knelt beside him, face hidden behind a curtain of hair. Her father’s hand sat in hers, smeared with black fluid. When she spoke, he could hear tears in her voice, anger so terrible it threatened to choke the life from her.
“What do you want, Guildsman?”
“Kin-san.” Daichi swallowed with a wince. “This is not the best time—”
“Yukiko isn’t coming back.”
Even as he said the words, he couldn’t believe them. They were heavy in his mouth, falling from his lips rather than spoken, clumsy and cold.
“What makes you—?”
“She’s gone, Daichi.” He shook his head. “She’d never leave us like this, something has happened to her. We can’t rely on her to save us, we don’t have time. Hiro will wed Aisha and cement his claim, the Earthcrusher will march upon the Iishi, and these islands will fall into a darkness no sunlight will end. But I can see a way through. A way to end it all.”
The earth shuddered beneath their feet; a faint tremor deep within her bones, underscoring Kin’s words.
“Do you remember our chess game?” Kin stared at the old man across the embers, the fire burning in tired, steel-gray. “What you told me?”
Daichi stared, unblinking, cold and reptilian. Wheels within wheels, weather-beaten and aged, weighed down by guilt and responsibility and the lives of those who needed him. Now more than ever. Now, when he was at his weakest.
A slow nod, black stains on his lips. “I do.”
“Then we need to talk.”
He nodded to the old man’s daughter.
“Alone.”
40
FODDER FOR THE JUDGE
Her dreams were of broad, strong hands.
Drenched in blood.
Fingers broken.
Tears.
Yoshi was waiting for her when she dragged herself from her bedroom. He was slumped at the table, bandage across his bare chest, the dazzling new mural of Izanagi and his spear running over hard muscle, shoulder to hip. The iron-thrower was laid out in front of him, a few inches from outstretched fingers. His hair was a knotted curtain framing sunken cheeks and too-pale skin.
Fistfuls of coin covered the tabletop; dull iron amongst the bloodstains. The air stank of sweat and lotus burn, sunset light cutting scarlet through the ash. Their room was practically palatial; a slick suite in an Upside bedhouse, all polished boards and white walls. The overweight steward who ran it had scowled down a flat, spotty nose as they’d walked in from the street, covered in shit and tears and blood. Yoshi had slapped ten iron kouka onto the countertop, demanded the best room in the house. The fat man’s disdain had dissipated like lotus exhaust on a sea breeze; less palpable, but its scent still hanging in the air. He’d handed over the key with a reluctant bow.
Daken lurked above the windowsill, watching as Hana emerged from her bedroom, tail switching back and forth.
… he is in a mood …
What else is new?
“Sleep good?” Yoshi’s voice was hoarse from liquor and secondhand smoke.
“I have to go, Yoshi. I have to leave, now.”
Yoshi stared at the tabletop, eyes losing focus, a faraway place reflected in flint-black irises. A dozen voices skittered in his head, scratching claws and scabbed feet, the taste of waste in his mouth. After a minute, he returned to the here, to the now, frowning at his sister.
“There’s no bushimen coming, what’s the—”
“I have to go back to the palace.”
Yoshi rolled his eyes. “Are you smoking? Don’t let Jurou fool you, that shit will roll you faster than a Docktown manwhore, girl.”
“Listen to me, Yoshi.” Hana’s eye was wide, liquid. “There’s a room in the Shōgun’s palace. Inside it is a Kagé infiltrator named Michi, who’s planning on rescuing the Lady Aisha before her wedding to Daimyo Hiro. I was supposed to get Akihito to carve an impression of the key so she could escape her room.”
“So?”
“So when the bushi’ kicked in our door, I left the mold behind. But without that key, the whole plan goes to the hells. I have to get back in there. Get another mold somehow. Find someone who can make a cast of it. Or find Akihito and get him to carve one for me.”
Yoshi gave her a sour look, rubbing the pale dusting of whiskers on his cheeks. “We’ve run our mouths about this as far as we’re going to, sister-mine.”
“Yoshi—”
“No!” His fist slammed down on the tabletop, setting the bottles and iron-thrower jumping. “Can you hear yourself? You’re talking about ghosting back into that palace? They know your face, Hana! Figuring you’ll just stroll past the gate dogs with that shy little smile? Dragon and Phoenix and Tiger Lords up there and all?”
He kicked back his chair, sent it spinning across the room, adopting a lilting voice.
“Pardon me, noble Lords, I’ll just flip this rebel bitch her room key and help her steal the First Daughter right under your noses. Oh no, don’t get up, I can see myself away…”
“I can’t just leave her in there, Yoshi.”
“Fuck her!” Yoshi shouted. “Fuck all these people. It’s our business like black is white’s. If this city had half an inkling of what we are, they’d chain us to the Burning Stones and set us on fire. If they had the full reckoning, they’d give us an ending the gods would get queasy on. We don’t owe them shit.”
“Where’s Jurou?” Hana stormed toward the bedroom. “Maybe he can talk some godsdamn sense into you.”
“He’s not in there…” Yoshi said.
“He’s not in here.” Hana’s voice trailed out from the bedroom.
“Mm-hmm.”
Hana walked out into the living area, Daken prowling around her legs. “Where is he?”
“Out.” A shrug. “Getting supplies.”
“You just let him go without telling you where?”
“Girl, you seem a good deal confused about the control I have over that boy.”
… hungry …
Hana hefted Daken onto her shoulder. She petted the tom as he purred like a sky-ship engine, sucking her bottom lip.
… he speaks true. no way for you to return to palace …
I have to try.
… so tired of living . .?
I can’t just leave her in there, Daken.
… bored now …
You’re not really being helpful, you know.
… bored and hungry …
Hana sighed, pressed at the ache building in the bridge of her nose. Yoshi was impossible, just stubborn and pigheaded and stupid and she wanted to grab him and shake him and scream—
/> “Even if you had some way of getting back into the palace, you’re not gonna find Akihito anyways.” Yoshi touched his bandaged ribs and winced. “Not unless you’re looking in Kigen jail. He’s fodder for the Judge.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Think he danced away from the bushi’ on that leg of his? Fooling yourself.”
“Shut up, godsdammit!”
Hana slumped amongst the cushions, rocked back and forth, refusing to let it get on top of her. Refusing to think about what might have happened after they left him alone, what might be happening to him right now. To think of the people she was letting down. To cry. Yoshi took a deep breath, ran one hand over his braids. Crossing the room, he knelt beside her, took her hand in his. Daken leapt into her lap, staring back and forth between them, half tail twitching side to side.
… ear itches …
“Listen, I know you think you’re helping.” Yoshi scratched the tom’s ear nubs without thinking. “You’re doing something important. But these people … they’re not worth risking your skin over. You think they’d do the same for you?”
“You don’t get it…” Her face crumpled and she squeezed her eye shut, holding her breath as her shoulders shook. “You just don’t understand…”
“Life’s bad all over.” He wiped her tears away with gentle hands. “But the sun’s gonna shine and the shadows’ll fall, with or without us. Just the way it rides. We need to look out for ourselves. Nobody else is going to. Let the clans fight their wars. Let the Kagé and the Guild scrap in the streets. It’s none of our business, Hana.”
She said nothing for the longest time, just concentrated on holding back the tears until the urge to shed them died. She reached beneath her tunic, took hold of the little golden amulet hanging around her neck, running her thumb over the stag embossed on its surface. A gift from a mother long gone, a memento of a life long over. And then she ran her nose along her sleeve, sighing as she looked him up and down.
“Your roots are showing.” She nodded to his hair. “You need to dye it again.”
“I know. I asked Jurou to get some ink.”
