Lavinia had moved like no one Michiko had ever seen, truly inspirational in her speed, her skill, and her cunning.
And Michiko would have the chance to study with her, under Kensuke’s supervision. The thought of training with Warder Junius made the day’s tedium fly by.
Lavinia took the stage. “Friends, colleagues, and fellow subjects of the Mertikan empire, I bid you welcome. Tonight Mertika gives its Kakute subjects the gift of freedom once more, from the barbarism of the warlords who once ruled them in endless conflict. With the death of their former warlord, the people of Kakute may renew their oaths to the empire. And to all others, let this serve as a reminder of Mertika’s justice.”
Four armed soldiers brought out the Golden Lord and set him down on the executioner’s block. He looked surprisingly at peace for a man about to face his death. He’d been born to the blade, and would now die by it.
Lavinia drew the greatsword from its sheath, held it aloft to catch the fire of the fading sun, then brought it down in one powerful stroke.
So it was done. Michiko felt a weight lift from her shoulders.
Chapter 10
Michiko
The Kakute quarters in the embassy were filled with new furniture. Not truly new, but still smelling of lacquer and polish and bereft of smudges. Generationally new, decades old instead of centuries. Michiko imagined that in generations past, when the late Golden Lord’s warder served here to defend their people’s warlike ways, the quarters would have been very different. But here, everything was fashioned in the Mertikan style.
The one place in the quarters that still looked more Kakutan than Mertikan was the ancestor shrine. The altar was two yards across, with statues of family heroes and small banners occupying two-thirds of the space. They’d made room for her here, spiritually as well as physically.
Kensuke knelt at the altar, speaking in soft tones. Michiko stood beyond earshot to leave him with his privacy. His family matters were his own. Moments later Kensuke snuffed the candles and stood. Like her, he was dressed in traditional Kakute robes here and here only—crossed collars and draping sleeves instead of the belted tunics of Mertika.
“Good night, Michiko. Sleep well, for tomorrow will be a long day.”
She imagined they might all be long days for some time now.
Kensuke departed, and Michiko knelt in front of the shrine. She set down her lacquered box and opened the lid. She pulled out candles, paintings, incense, beads, and a small banner of her family crest, arranging them on the altar. She was far from her home, but with these, her ancestors could still find her, still guide her so that she might remember the lessons of the past.
Michiko lit the candle, then the incense. She wrapped the beads around her hands and began the incantation of remembrance to open her heart so that her ancestors could find her.
The first voice was familiar, gravelly but kind. Her great-aunt Aiko. “You are far from home, child. How fare the skies?”
“We were attacked by a trio of manaks, but no one was killed.”
“Manaks were not so bold in my day. Though I did not travel as much as you do, and will.”
“I suppose that will depend. The empire might need me here, to stay on Twaa-Fei. But perhaps I will travel.”
“They’re treating you well?” she asked, sadness in her voice.
She flashed to Lavinia’s intimidating gaze, Bellona’s cloying manner. But also to Ojo’s smile, Kris’s laugh. To the sights of the city.
“Well enough. A lot is different, but I will find my footing.”
Her great-aunt receded in her mind, and her uncle Hiroaki pushed forward. “Are you doing what you’re told? Your generation will prove to the Mertikans that we are worthy, that we should be welcomed as equals.”
“Yes, Uncle. I am doing my best.”
Another presence stormed into her mind, forceful, barely controlled. And foreign.
“Equals? Equals! The imperialist fiends ravaged our lands, stole our children, and dashed our people’s history on the rocks, child! Why do you serve them so slavishly?”
This new spirit shared visions with her, not as vivid or clear as sitting in front of a painting or sculpture, more like flashes or as dreamscapes. But these were nightmares more than dreams.
Fields on fire. Airships in formation raining death upon a village. A squadron of cavalry with a Kakutan bladecrafter at its head, charging down the hill at a Mertikan convoy. But the convoy did not carry goods. It carried Kakutan people, manacled and chained.
This was all wrong. The Mertikans had saved Kakute from itself, ended the ceaseless wars through diplomacy, fought only when attacked, and brought stability to her people.
Everything she knew said this was wrong, but the feelings and memories shared by ancestors could be nothing less than unvarnished truth.
“Who are you?” she asked, voice shaking as her mind and spirit were assailed by the images from this new voice.
“I am Golden Lord Nobu, Son of Golden Lord Hitomi. I fought the empress to a standstill on the ramparts of Fortress Loyalty. I fought to keep our people free, to rescue the children taken, to avenge the temples smashed. And now you serve as their lapdog? My own granddaughter? I will not have it. If my death means that I can guide you back to the path of righteousness, then I am glad to be free of that prisoner’s life.
“We have much to do, Granddaughter.”
Michiko’s voice caught in her throat. The walls pressed in on her, her hands shaking.
“Great-aunt?” she choked out, her voice shaking. “Uncle? Is this true?”
But how could it be otherwise? Spirits could only speak with their descendants. Her breath came quick and shallow, as if a great metal boot were crushing her chest.
The Golden Lord cut Michiko’s family off. “You are Oda no Michiko, daughter of Oda no Genzo, the son of Takeda no Achie. Achie, who was my lover in the early days of the Mertikan invasion. I spirited her away, told no one that the child she bore was mine. Achie hid among the courtesans, raised her son without knowledge of his father. She kept the secret so well that the Mertikans never found her, never found him, and now have no idea who you truly are. They do not know that they have invited a Golden Lion into their den, who has the claws of bladecraft and the keen mind to use them to strike at the heart of the imperialist scum who stole our country from us.”
Another image, that of the Mertikan empress, eyes red with rage, lunging. Her blade pierced the Golden Lord’s defenses, then his chest. And then the memory went black.
“I failed to protect Kakute, and suffered forty years of humiliation for it. But you can restore our family’s honor, and that of Kakute. Free our people, Michiko. It is what you were born to do.”
And then he was gone. Her other ancestors rushed forward to comfort her, sharing memories of comfort, of love. She caught her breath, the pressure gone.
Her mind was a sloop tossed in the deadly winds of the Maelstrom. She’d begun the day excited, confident, bursting with pride and ambition. Now she could barely stand, her mind racing, no longer certain of anything.
Anything at all.
Michiko dropped the beads. Heard them skittering across the wood floor. She reached out and snuffed the candles, breathing in the dark smoke of the slaughtered flame.
Episode 2
Fault Lines
By Marie Brennan
Chapter 1
Michiko
Bellona’s sword whipped around and caught Michiko a stinging slap on the forearm, nearly making her drop her own blade.
“You see?” Bellona said, retreating out of reach. “Your simple bladework is out of practice. You don’t want to be like Takeshi, do you? His craft is beautiful—even I have to admit it—but ask him to carve sigils while actually fighting, and he’s almost useless. Would you have been able to capture the Golden Lord, if Lavinia hadn’t been with you?”
Michiko’s breath caught. She shook out her fingers and bowed her head to conceal the reaction. “I would have
done my best,” she said. That much, at least, she could be sincere about. It wasn’t until after his execution that she’d discovered he was her grandfather—along with all the other things his spirit had claimed were true.
“It’s a pity I wasn’t there,” Bellona mused. She returned her practice blade to the rack and began stripping off her padded armor, shaking out her short, sweat-soaked hair. “I know he hadn’t used a blade in forty years, so defeating him wouldn’t have been an impressive feat of arms . . . but still, think of the glory! And it would have been so symmetrical.”
Michiko thought she knew Mertikan idioms inside and out, but if “symmetrical” was slang for anything, she hadn’t heard it before. “What do you mean?”
Bellona’s smile was toothy. “With my previous life.”
What would it be like, remembering past lives? Feeling the weight not only of your ancestors’ expectations, but your own past examples? Whether you remembered success or failure, the weight of it would drag you down. She preferred having her memories fade in between lives.
If only a certain ancestor would do the same.
You should tell her.
Mertikans sneered at the Kakutan birthright, seeing ancestor communion as backward-looking instead of a spur to future accomplishments. Because of that, Michiko kept quiet about her own rituals, especially around true Mertikans like Bellona. But this connection to the Golden Lord . . . she ought to report it.
One glance at Bellona, though, told her now was not the time. Bellona had drawn herself up to her full height, chin tilted so she could look down at Michiko. An instant’s thought showed Michiko her mistake. “What did you do in your past life?” she asked dutifully.
Bellona nodded in satisfaction. “You’ve heard about the Battle of Daigyo? I was the bladecrafter with the Fourth Cloud Legion. New to my posting, and nobody expected anything of me—but I broke the shield over the enemy command post and used the Eagle’s Talon sigil to drag their leader out onto open ground.”
The Battle of Daigyo. Where the Golden Lord’s youngest sister Ishihime had blocked the Mertikan advance on the Kakutan capital . . . until a young Mertikan bladecrafter killed her and the army splintered in panic. Michiko remembered Ishihime’s body, crusted with blood from the fatal wound, because she had demanded to see her sister before the priests began the funeral preparations—
Bile rose in Michiko’s throat. Not my sister. His. The Golden Lord’s. Just like the memory wasn’t hers.
But the pieces clicked into place. Bellona . . . she was Aelia Tullus, the bladecrafter who broke the Kakutan resistance at Daigyo. It wasn’t the end of the war, but some said it was the moment when the end became inevitable.
Michiko had gone rigid, her practice armor only half-removed. Clearly disappointed that her tale hadn’t gotten the admiration she expected, Bellona peered in annoyance at Michiko. “What is wrong with you today?”
“I—I have to go,” Michiko stammered. Without even pausing to shed the rest of her armor, she fled.
Chapter 2
Ojo
Once more the flags flew and the attendants stood in uniformed ranks at the docks, waiting to welcome another new arrival. This time, however, the warder at Ojo’s side was not Kensuke but Penelope, splendid in a long gown of Vanian blue.
She raised one calloused hand to shade her eyes, watching the Whitewing Ibis approach. Twaa-Fei was passing below a scattering of minor islands too small for habitation, and the light kept shifting as the city drifted in and out of shadow. “You said that you know this young man?” she asked.
Ojo nodded, tipping his face up to the sun. “We even come from the same town. Our families have been friends for more than a generation.” He hadn’t expected, when the Bright Chamber reassigned his previous junior warder to Tsukisen, that they would send him someone familiar as a replacement. With any luck, Adechike might even do well enough to stay on in Twaa-Fei and become Ojo’s eventual successor.
You’re getting ahead of yourself. “I haven’t seen him since he was a youth, though,” Ojo added, as much to himself as to Penelope. “Not since my last visit to Quloo.”
He meant the words to be neutral, but Penelope knew him too well. “It’s difficult, being away from home for so long.”
True—but at the same time, he would miss Twaa-Fei when the time came for him to retire. He had built so much of his life here: Penelope, Shun’s teahouse, playing stone chase with Yochno. “I will have to get Adechike to share all the news. Chigozie only gives me dull political reports, not the things I want to hear. Like who the kura champion is this year, or whether my niece’s goats have succeeded in eating the entire herb garden, the way my brother keeps predicting they will.”
“Someday,” Penelope said with a smile, “you will have to teach me how to play kura.”
Ojo laughed. “Oh, no. A battlemistress like you? You’ll thrash me. And Adechike will write home about it, and I’ll never be able to show my face on Quloo again, with everyone knowing a Vanian beat me at our national sport.”
Whatever Penelope might have said to that was drowned in the blare of trumpets as the Whitewing Ibis floated into position alongside the dock. Waiting at the rail was a broad-faced young man, who broke into a dazzling smile when he saw Ojo standing below.
He had grown at least a foot since their last encounter, but lost none of the easy charm the gods had blessed him with. No sooner had the gangplank settled into place than he bounded down it, the loose corner of his green and gold wrap fluttering in the wind. But he received Yochno’s formal greeting without a hint of impatience, thanking the seneschal with a kiss to each cheek, and only when that was done did he turn to Ojo. “Uncle! You’re looking well!”
“And you’re a liar,” Ojo said, amused. “I’ve aged a century since you saw me last, and I know it. You ought to be calling me ‘Grandfather’ instead. Penelope, this flatterer is Adechike Ekutu. Adechike, Penelope Kyrkos. If you ask a Twaan scholar to tell you what a Vanian battlemistress is, they’ll simply point you in her direction.”
Adechike laughed, and they kissed cheeks. “Come,” Ojo said when this was done. “Official business will start soon enough, but before we get to that, I thought the three of us might have lunch together. There’s an excellent Quloi restaurant on the middle island that I frequent when I get homesick. Don’t tell your mother, but their matoke is even better than hers. Or would you prefer something different for your first meal here?”
“What is Vanian food like?” Adechike asked Penelope.
“Haven’t you heard?” she said dryly. “We eat Mertikans for breakfast, and their blades for lunch.”
Adechike stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded. Then a peal of laughter burst from him, and the three of them headed for one of Twaa-Fei’s lifts.
•••
The staff at the restaurant knew Ojo well enough that he didn’t even have to order. Even as they sat down, a waiter delivered a tray of tea; Adechike beat him to the pot and began pouring for his elders. “So, fill me in on the news. What did I miss while I was a-sky?”
The question dimmed Ojo’s good mood like an island passing between him and the sun. Penelope said bluntly, “The Golden Lord is dead.”
Adechike almost overfilled his own teacup. Ojo wouldn’t have led with that news; he didn’t want to cast a pall over Adechike’s first day on Twaa-Fei with such unpleasant matters. But he would have found out soon enough, and so Ojo told the story, confining himself to the basic details. And he made sure to reference Kris, knowing that would catch Adechike’s attention.
The ploy worked. “Are they the bladecrafter challenging to become the first Rumikan warder?” Adechike asked. At Ojo’s nod, he said, “I’d like to meet them. Do you think they stand a chance?”
“They have quite a reputation as a bladecrafter,” Ojo said. The waiter returned, this time bearing blocks of boiled cornmeal and clay pots of various stews to ladle over them. “Manaks attacked their ship on the way here, and if the sailors are to
be believed, Kris slew one all on their own.”
Penelope frowned. “A fight in the sky is one thing. Dueling to become a warder is quite another. I have yet to see a manak as formidable as Lavinia.”
Mertika’s senior warder was a mist-fiend, not a manak: a savage force capable of destroying entire ships, and almost impossible to defeat. Ojo said, “The Gauntlet is as much about politics as dueling, and Kris doesn’t need Lavinia’s support to get a seat on the council.”
“I won’t go easy on them,” Penelope warned him.
Of course she wouldn’t. Vanians were no more inclined than Mertikans to do less than their best—and although Penelope was more open-minded than many of her fellow countrywomen, he knew she found Rumikan ways unsettling. On Vania, women and men had very separate and well-defined roles. They didn’t require a person’s gender to match their body, but they did require it to stay put. Shifting, as the Rumikan birthright allowed, was a challenge to the entire structure of Vanian society.
Adechike dug into his meal with enthusiasm. Ojo hadn’t been a-sky for quite some time, but he remembered shipboard meals being less than satisfying. At least Adechike had the manners to swallow before he asked, “If they become a warder, what will that mean?” Then his gaze slid to Penelope. “Unless—I’m sorry. Is it all right to talk politics like this?”
“Vania’s no more a friend to Mertika than Quloo is,” Ojo said. That was a bit of a stretch; Vania had so far remained relatively neutral, not committing to either alliance or opposition. But he knew Penelope’s mind inside and out. “I’m hoping for friendship with Rumika, of course. Together we would be more than strong enough to resist the imperials, and trade with Rumika would be of great advantage to us.”
The Complete Season 1 Page 5