by Jay Kristoff
“Stormdancer,” whispered Isao.
Yukiko glanced at the boy as he covered his fist and bowed, eyes turned to the ground in reverence. She looked around at the other Kagé as they repeated the gesture, bowing one after the other in the pouring rain. She felt the hair on her arms and the back of her neck rise, a thrill of fear surging in her gut, tightening her throat, the word rippling among them like the forest wind through the liriope grass.
“Stormdancer.”
She knew what she must look like. Spattered with demon blood, knife clutched in one white-knuckle fist, the arashitora beside her spreading the saw-toothed fan of his wings and roaring at the storm above. She felt Buruu’s triumph rising in her chest, and it was all she could do to stop herself from screaming with him again, to hold onto some small part of what she’d been, and see in Daichi’s eyes a stark reflection of what she was becoming.
“You are yōkai-kin,” he repeated.
“I am yōkai-kin,” Yukiko nodded, breath still burning in her lungs. “I hear the voices of beasts in my head, can speak to them as easily as I speak to you now. Do you really think the Shōgun would send one of the Impure to spy on you, Daichi-sama? When Guildsmen burn others like me on pyres in the Market Square for sport? Do you think Yoritomo would be stupid enough to brand an infiltrator with his own irezumi before sending her up here?”
The old man stood silent for a handful of heartbeats, amidst the clawing wind and shapeless white noise. With agonizing slowness, he finally shook his head.
“No. I do not.”
Yukiko ran her hand across Buruu’s flank, smearing the blood through his fur. “So where does this leave us?”
Daichi looked around at his men. Some still stared at Yukiko, but a few were busy slinging the bodies of their fallen comrades over their shoulders. Two others had begun the grisly task of dismembering the oni corpses so they could be disposed of elsewhere. The rain washed the blood from their flesh, down into the earth, soaking into hungry roots and sodden mud. All so transient. Soon there would be little to show that they had ever been here at all. Nothing but the shadows they left behind.
“We must talk, Kitsune Yukiko.” Daichi nodded in the direction of the village and turned to walk away.
Yukiko’s voice pulled him up short, “Talk about what?”
The old man looked over his shoulder, a strange sadness in his eyes.
“Murder.”
Yukiko tried to swallow the cold lump in her throat, ignore the dread in her belly.
“Murder and treason.”
* * *
Fire seethed across the maple logs, greedy fingers lapping on dry bark, breaking the wood into glowing cinders. Yukiko cupped a warm bowl of broth in both hands and nestled closer to the blaze, hair hanging in a tangled curtain about her face. Buruu sat outside by the open door, preening his feathers, watching the blood run from his fur beneath the chattering rain.
The battle with the demons seemed like a distant memory now; the dim recollection of a dream in the cold light of morning. She could recall the bloodlust in her veins, the haze of red that clouded her eyes. The feeling of her wings at her shoulders, slicing through the air and failing to find purchase, the joy she felt at the roar of the storm above. Watching Buruu preen in the rain, she knew none of this was hers; that he was leaking into her as surely as she was into him.
What am I becoming?
Daichi and Kaori sat beside Yukiko around the fire pit, cross-legged on thin hessian cushions. Kaori was watching Yukiko with that same awed expression, her father was staring at the blaze, at the smoke writhing up the chimney. The smell of wisteria drifted in through the open windows, entwined with the song of the storm.
“Our scouts have reported a Guild-liner in the skies above the crash site of your ship,” Daichi murmured. “They are looking for something.”
“Kin-san,” she said. “He told me they could find his suit. I hid it in the rocks upstream.”
“So. Escape beckons. Do you wish to leave this place? Take Yoritomo his prize?”
Yukiko clawed the hair from her eyes, tucked it behind her ears. Her voice sounded like it came from a thousand miles away.
“I want to know my friends are all right. That they escaped the crash in one piece.” She stared through the open door at Buruu, pained and weary. “But I don’t want to hand Buruu over to that maniac. I don’t care about what was promised to him. I don’t care about honor. Honor is bullshit.”
Daichi heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the tips of his toes.
“I envy you, Yukiko-chan.” He stared at her across the pit, flame glittering in the steel-gray of his eyes. “It took me forty years to learn that lesson. For the longest time, from the day I first held a wooden sword in my hands, I thought honor was defined by servitude. By carrying out the will of my Shōgun, and living by the Way. I thought I was a man of courage, to do what others would not. But I know now that this kind of loyalty is cowardice. That the nobility of this country have abandoned the Code of Bushido, paying it lip service at best. To be a servant can be a noble thing, but only as noble as the master served.”
He wrung his hands, staring hard at calloused flesh.
“These hands of mine drip with blood. It will never wash away. I have killed women. I have killed children. I have killed the innocent and the unborn. And though it was my Lord that commanded it, it was I who wielded the blade. I know this. I know I will answer for it one day to Enma-ō, and the great judge will find me wanting. A demon lives inside my mouth, and speaks to me in quiet moments with blackened tongue. Wresting me from peaceful slumber and waking me sweating in the night. Two words. Over and over.”
He swallowed, shook his head.
“Hell-bound.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Yukiko watched him through her lashes, uncertain, afraid without quite knowing why.
Kaori squeezed her father’s hand, shook her head fiercely. He stared at the fire for what seemed like hours, watching the logs blacken and char. Finally he looked at Yukiko.
“I would have you do something for me. For all of us. I would have you free this land.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Kill the Shōgun.”
Yukiko dropped the bowl with a clatter, broth splashing across the boards. She could swear her lower jaw was sitting in her lap.
“Wh— you want me…”
“Hai,” Daichi nodded. “I want you to assassinate Yoritomo.”
“But I’m not … I’m just a…”
“Yoritomo is childless. For all his rape and geisha, he has not sired a single heir. The line of Kazumitsu dies with him. Without a figurehead, the Tora clan and its government will splinter. One of the Kazumitsu Elite might have the strength to take control of the Tiger army if Yoritomo dies, but none of them is strong enough to seize power over the entire country. The Daimyo have their own troops, and each will resist any attempts by other zaibatsu to place their own man on the throne. There is no love lost between the clan lords, nor their generals.” He sighed again, seemed suddenly too old for his skin. “I know how their world works. I was part of it for forty years.”
“You’re talking about … you want to start a civil war?”
Daichi shook his head.
“I want chaos. Formlessness.”
Kaori spoke, her voice soft, a snatch of verse from the Book of Ten Thousand Days.
“Our prelude was Void. The vast possibility, before life drew breath.”
Daichi nodded his head.
“And within this void, the people of Shima will find their voice. We will show them how. Show them that their addiction to lotus is killing them, killing everything around them. Show them that the only power governments wield is the power given to them by the people. And now, they must take that power back.”
“I’m not a killer,” Yukiko said.
YOU KILL ONI.
That’s different, Buruu.
HOW?
Oni are demons. Hellspawn. We�
�re talking about a man of flesh and blood here. A real person.
RAPIST. SLAVER. LORDING OVER A DYING LAND, AND HE ITS MURDERER …
I am not killing anybody, Buruu!
Daichi watched her carefully, hands steepled under his chin.
“There is a place, and a time, for all endings to begin—”
“The Shōgun might be the most evil man in the world,” Yukiko glared across the fire, sudden anger flaring in her eyes, “but I’m no assassin. What the hells makes you think I’d kill someone for you?”
“Because I know what Yoritomo has done to you. You and the Black Fox.”
“Yoritomo never touched me, wha—”
“He killed your mother.”
A perfect, absolute silence. A stillness inside her, complete and untouchable, as her entire world fell away and tumbled down into the dark. Cold sickness in her belly, a lump of frozen lead in her throat, tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth as lightning licked the sky, turning all to horrid, lurid white.
“What did you say?” A whisper, barely a breath.
“He killed your mother.” Daichi’s voice was flat. Dead. “Or rather, I killed your mother. Your pregnant mother. At Yoritomo’s command.”
“My mother isn’t dead. She left us when—”
“No.” Daichi shook his head. Palms upturned, calloused and scarred, stained to the bone. “She left this world. My hands. Yoritomo’s word. A warning to your father.”
Yukiko glanced from the old man to his daughter, saw awful truth gleaming between the tears in the woman’s eyes. Buruu was on his feet, growling, hackles rippling down his spine. A splinter of his rage broke through the rime of disbelief and Yukiko found her hand wrapped around her tantō. She could feel the wood grain beneath the lacquer, fingertips running over the faint undulations; a Braille mantra repeating over and over inside her head. She was on her feet before she knew it, one hand wrapped in Daichi’s collar, the other holding the knife to his throat.
“You’re lying,” she hissed. “You’re a liar.”
“I am many things.” Daichi met her stare, calm, accepting. “Assassin. Firestarter. Murderer of the innocent and the unborn.” He shook his head. “But never a liar, Yukiko-chan.”
She pressed her blade against Daichi’s flesh. He tore his uwagi open, exposing chest and abdomen, the awful scars left in the wake of his tattoos.
“Here.” He slapped his belly, the sound of flesh drumming against mahogany. “Strike here. I deserve no cut throat, no quick kill. A death by sepsis. A screaming, coward’s end. But before you strike, promise me you will give the same to Yoritomo. That is all I ask. Give us both everything we deserve.”
Kaori wore a look of horror, hands clenched at her sides, tears tracing the line of her scar. She dropped to her knees, pressed her forehead against the floor. Her voice was faint; tiny and pale and fragile.
“Please, Yukiko-chan, mercy. Mercy.”
KILL HIM.
Yukiko clenched her teeth, lips peeling back in a snarl, bubbling in the depths of her throat. Tears blurred her vision. Daichi was still as stone, unafraid, listening to the simmering grief threatening to spill over into a scream. Yukiko pressed the knife against his throat, blood welling under the blade’s edge and spilling down his chest.
Daichi stared into Yukiko’s eyes, his voice as hard as the steel in her hand.
“There is a place, and a time, for all endings to begin. If not here, then where? If not now, then when?”
Yukiko gasped, short of breath, spit hissing from between her teeth. Blinking. Blinded. She clutched Daichi’s collar as the world rolled beneath her feet, knuckles clenched white in the cloth and on the handle of her knife.
“Promise me.”
HE HAS TAKEN FROM YOU.
She blinked the tears from her eyes.
I …
HE BEGS FOR IT, YET YOU FALTER.
Buruu glared from the darkness, eyes of polished glass. She felt his rage swelling inside her, a black cloud of frustrated bloodlust and hate. She struggled to push it away, to find some kind of clarity, a moment’s silence to seize on the thought that held her back.
KILL HIM.
The tantō was as heavy as lead in her palm. She looked down at the blade, remembered the glint of steel falling between the raindrops. The sound of tearing paper. Severed feathers on the Thunder Child’s deck. Kaori’s sobbing drowned out the rumble of the storm above her. Yukiko glanced at the woman, head pressed into the boards, shoulders heaving.
“Mercy,” she whispered.
My father …
WHAT?
She could feel her pulse pounding behind her eyes. Cold sweat on her palms.
When he took your wings, did you hate him, or the nagamaki in his hands?
The arashitora fell still, a cold sliver of logic breaking through the animal rage.
THAT IS NOT …
Did you hate the weapon, Buruu? Or did you hate the hand that wielded it?
Yukiko tightened her grip on Daichi’s collar, face twisting, a single tear spilling down her cheek. The world was too loud, the firelight too bright, reflected in cold folded steel and painted blood-red.
The old man grabbed her wrist and squeezed, stared hard into her eyes.
“Promise me!”
The words spilled from her lips. Reluctant. Metallic.
“… I promise.”
The knife fell from her grip, plunged point-first into the wood between Daichi’s legs. Blood ran down the patterned blade, pooling around the razored edge and soaking into the grain. She loosened her grip on the old man’s collar, shoved him backward, breath spilling over trembling lips. Her hands were shaking, mouth dry, chest heaving. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.
Daichi lay sprawled where she had pushed him, looking up at her with something close to bewilderment in his eyes. He touched the wound at his throat, the thin line of red that welled and spilled down his chest. Deep enough to remember her by. But not deep enough to end him.
“Why?”
YES. WHY?
“Yoritomo.” Yukiko curled her hands into fists to stop them trembling. “He is the one. He ordered you to kill her. And if you had refused, you would be dead, and the Shōgun would have just commanded someone else to do his bidding. You’re just a tool. A weapon. And a broken one at that.”
Kaori crawled across the floor, threw her arms around her father’s neck. Yukiko couldn’t read the old man’s expression through the tears in her eyes. Relief? Disappointment?
“You deserve it for all you’ve done.” Yukiko looked from father to daughter. “But she doesn’t deserve to see it. And in truth, Daichi-sama, your death won’t avenge my mother.” Her voice cracked, almost broke. “You’re the one who took her life, but you’re not the one who murdered her.”
… YORITOMO.
Yes.
HE IS THE HAND.
Yes.
Yukiko stooped and retrieved her tantō from the small puddle of cooling blood. Thunder crashed in the skies above her head, a rumble that shifted the world beneath her feet and settled in her bones. She slid the blade into the scabbard at her back and wiped the tears from her eyes.
It’s time someone cut it off.
PART 3
BLOOD
We who yet remain;
Clans born of water, fire, mountain and blue sky,
We with beating hearts, cursed by dread Izanami; hater of all life,
To the Maker God, to Bright Moon and Lady Sun, our voices are raised,
To the God of Storms, to any who hear, we pray;
Great Heavens, save us.
The Book of Ten Thousand Days
24
BRETHREN
The girl stood on the sky-ship’s deck, holding her mother’s hand. Eyes bright with wonder as they stared at the city beneath them, wet with the sting of chi smoke. It hung in a pall over the city streets; a blanket covering the dozens, hundreds, thousands of people that scurried back and forth, a flood of sight
s and sounds, underscored with that oily, rancid smell. Kigen city was a living, breathing thing, a beast with a constantly writhing hide, people clinging to its flanks like an army of ticks. She had never imagined anything like it in all her life.
From above, it was intricate, beautiful and terrible, a winding maze of squeezeways and alleys twisting between the cracking sores of bleached buildings. The broad square of brick at its heart, cobbled arteries worming off in labyrinthine patterns that mimicked a maniac’s scrawl. A great cluster of broad, grand roofs on the hill, red flags crowing among its stunted gardens. A five-sided fist of yellow stone amidst a growth of hunchbacked, abandoned slaughterhouses, the great nest of pipes and tanks and vomiting chimneys that must be the refinery, a rusted length of intestine spilling from its bowels and leading off north toward First House. Winding serpents of filthy river water, spilling out into a bay of char and floating refuse, shoals of garbage drifting on a dirty sea breeze. The streets were choked with a black-tongued haze, a dirty stain smeared across the skies, hovering over the crust of concrete and brick on the harbor’s skin.
The ship kissed the sky-spire as gentle as the summer rain. Cloudwalkers lashed them tight; thick rope knotted on corroded couplings. Yukiko climbed onto her father’s back, breathless with excitement as he descended the rungs. Her new goggles slipped down her nose, and she tightened the strap behind her head. She looked up at her mother climbing down after them, swift and sure, the fox tattoo on her arm proudly displayed for all to see.
“Mother,” Yukiko called. “Do you see all the people?”
“Hai, Yukiko,” she smiled down at her daughter. “I see them.”
“Father, why are there so many?”
“This is the capital of Shima.” He smiled, ruffling her hair as his feet touched the ground. “People from all over the Empire come here. Brave warriors, traders, priests. Sooner or later, every man turns his feet to Kigen.”
Masaru helped Yukiko scramble up onto his shoulders. She peered at the throng, face alight with wonder. Her mother stepped down beside them, wrinkled her nose.
