by eden Hudson
Cold Sun might know. Failing him, she could ask Lysander. If she and the foreigner could keep from fighting long enough to have a conversation. Their mutual concern for Hush seemed to have been a small step toward lowered hostility.
As Koida stepped out of the sleeping quarters and into the passageway, a tall, slender figure appeared. Her heart raced and she stopped suddenly, just managing to stifle a gasp. The living lavaglass in her left arm responded instantly, surging to the surface. Her arm began to shift, flattening, widening.
Captain Singh stepped out of the shadows and dipped his head to her. Trembling slightly from the sudden fright, Koida hid her arm behind her back and reinforced her Stone Soul, wrestling the eager lavaglass back under her skin. When it was under control, she pressed her palm to her fist and gave the captain a respectful bow.
“Rila tells me that she warned you about stealing rations for your friend,” he said.
Koida swallowed. “Apologies, esteemed Captain, but I didn’t steal that rusk. The foreigner, Lysander, gave it to her from his breakfast ration. I only delivered it for him.”
Singh scrutinized her, his eyes combing her from head to toe. She fought the urge to look down or clasp her hands behind her back. She’d done nothing wrong. Surely he wouldn’t see a lie where there was only truth.
Finally, face unreadable, he returned his gaze to meet hers.
“Rila won’t like that, either,” Singh said. “A sailor who eats less works with less vigor.”
“But Hush—my sick friend—she’ll only grow weaker if she doesn’t eat,” Koida insisted. Was everyone on this ship trying to starve Hush? “I don’t face the same intensity of labor as Lysander does. She could have some of my rations.”
Singh grunted softly. “Ship’s boy is a demanding position. You’ll need your strength. I’ll speak to Rila.” Without warning, the captain turned and strode up the passageway. “We took on enough rations for every person who boarded this ship. We should be able to feed one seasick wisp of a woman.”
Singh was nearly to the ship-neck stairs when Koida’s reeling mind caught up with his inexplicable change of heart.
“Gratitude, generous Captain,” she called after him.
Singh gave an indifferent wave without bothering to look back.
Thoroughly uncertain what to make of the captain, Koida hurried up the corridor and made her way back to the galley for her next task.
Chapter Seventeen
LAND OF IMMORTALS
“None of us liked you,” Kitsu explained, chopping into an enormous akane and filling the air with the stink of frying fat and burning leather. The guai-ray senses couldn’t identify the weapon the white fox twin was using—it was neither Ro nor metal—but Raijin had no trouble smelling the results.
Tsune ran up the wall of the tunnel and leapt over the sizzling creature, slicing its head from its body with an identical mysterious weapon and landing gracefully on the other side.
“All immortals in the heavens, not just us,” Tsune added. “Dislike of the Thunderer was one of the few things we all held in common.”
Raijin spat the blood of the man-sized akane he had killed onto the tunnel floor and let the creature drop. The twins’ mysterious weapons blinked out of existence, confusing the guai-ray senses further.
“Because I enforced the law,” Raijin said. “I have some memory of that.”
Tsune turned back to their trek through the tunnels, taking the lead. Raijin was glad to let one of the twins take the lead for a while. So far, they had been leaving Raijin to do most of the fighting and only stepping in when he was about to be killed or overwhelmed, as they had with the last pack.
Kitsu fell in beside Raijin. “Where Tsune and I saw you as a bit of an annoyance, however—”
“Almost a challenge.”
“—the rest of the immortals held far more contempt for you.”
Tsune dragged one hand along the wall idly. “Eternity is a very long time.”
“And immortals tend to want to spend it in whatever way we wish.”
“Without rules.”
“We did make it to immortality, after all,” Kitsu said. “We deserve to do anything we want. We’ve earned the right.”
Raijin opened his mouth to protest that assertion, but Tsune cut in.
“Which is what the Whisperer told us all. That’s why we liked her.”
“It’s very easy to like someone who agrees with you.”
“She fanned the flames of their scorn into open hatred and rebellion.”
“And because it was something new and chaotic, we tagged along for the ride.”
Tsune stopped at an intersection. The guai-ray senses picked up confusion until Kitsu stepped forward and sniffed in each direction.
“This one,” Kitsu said. “After you, Thunderer.”
The passage the twins had chosen was smaller. Raijin had to duck his head to traverse it.
An approaching predator lit up the guai-ray senses. Lumbering and four-legged, the akane was as large as a natural bull. The white fox twins quickly made themselves scarce.
Raijin let the demon ray take over. The kill was relatively simple, as the four-legged akane was too large to maneuver easily in the narrow passage. When it realized all was lost, it attempted to retreat, but the guai-ray was too deep in the bloodlust to let it go. This creature had come for him, and it would suffer the consequences.
As the four-legged akane’s Ro filtered into Raijin’s heartcenter, he came fully back to himself and wiped the gore from his face. It did little good. His hands and forearms were covered to the elbow.
With the akane dead, the twins turned back down the small tunnel and started walking again. Raijin caught up to them.
“Was I unfair in enforcing the law?” he asked.
“You would have been much more interesting if you were corrupt,” Kitsu said.
“Unfortunately, you were skull-shatteringly dull,” Tsune said.
“We imagine that’s how you obtained the Corona of Falling Stars.”
“What is that?” Raijin asked.
“You receive it when you reach the final tier of the Immortal Path,” Tsune explained. “It gives you power over the laws of the universe.”
“To bend or break them as you see fit,” Kitsu said.
“The fact that you were the only one to ever achieve that level of power was either a galaxy-sized irony—”
“Or proof of just how prudent the Immortal Path is in its rewards.”
“Because the Thunderer would never break any law, let alone a universal one.”
Raijin nodded. He had heard much the same complaint from Ha-Koi in the dreams.
Kitsu turned them down another tunnel. The ceiling was just high enough for Raijin to stand up straight again. The guai-ray senses reached out, searching for predators, but felt nothing. Most likely, that was why the twins were leading once more.
Tsune continued, “As you can imagine—”
“He probably can’t,” Kitsu interrupted.
“—the only thing the heart wants more than to achieve all glory and honor and power for itself is to see the one who has achieved that glory fall.”
“The harder the better.”
“And so we come to the Sisters of Destruction.”
“The Dragon and the Whisperer.”
“I remember them,” Raijin said. He stopped the twins. “I saw Ha-Koi in the Passage to Eternity when I met you in the Dead Waters Kingdom, but she and I were both mortal in that vision. If you sent me to the Passage in the hopes that I would see the truth of who I was, then why didn’t the waters show me anything about my immortal past?”
Kitsu gave a scornful snort. “You can’t see into immortality from there.”
“Are there other pools like the Passage to Eternity in the mortal world where one can see into the past?” Raijin asked. “Or could the Passage to Eternity show only our immortal selves in that variation instead of our mortal lives? Does it change with each variati
on?”
“Neither,” Tsune said. “Both. Somewhat. In truth, that’s not important.”
“Knowledge like that comes and goes with mortals,” Kitsu agreed.
“One life they figure it out, the next they have no idea.”
“What matters is the Sisters of Destruction.”
Raijin frowned. “Misuru is the Whisperer and Ha-Koi was the Dragon.”
“Both equally destructive,” Kitsu said.
“Though we didn’t realize that until it was far too late,” Tsune said.
“All of the immortals thought the Dragon was the one to worry about.”
“Seeing someone that unpredictable with that level of immortal energy made the rest of us immortals uncomfortable.”
“Understandably so, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
Raijin thought back to the dream of Ha-Koi burnt by her own destructive power. “I don’t think she could control it.”
“Even so, that level of power caused us to overlook Misuru until it was too late.”
“She attacked us,” Raijin said. “I mean, Misuru attacked Jin-Rammael and Ha-Koi.”
“That’s what they wanted you to think,” Kitsu said.
“Don’t skip ahead,” Tsune complained. “You’ll leave out our cleverness.”
“I still am not certain it was entirely our cleverness that did it,” Kitsu said.
“Then I’ll tell the story.” Tsune began walking again. “After the Dragon destroyed the Lunar Sea of Star Folk, the whole land was in an uproar.”
“Everyone was searching for a way to muzzle her.”
“So Kitsu and I told them that we had a way to cage the Dragon for good.”
“As usual, we succeeded. Perhaps a little too well.”
“We came to you,” Tsune said. “We told you she needed to be stopped before she destroyed the entire Land of Immortals.”
“Predictably, you looked into her crimes and said that she hadn’t broken the law—a technicality to do with the Lunar Sea King attacking her first—and you refused to cast her out or Unmake her on just the possibility that she might one day attack unprovoked.”
Raijin nodded. “It wouldn’t make sense to punish someone for crimes they hadn’t committed.”
Kitsu let out a long groan. “Get on with it, Tsune, before he says something about responsibility or bettering yourself.”
“Our next move was to drop the news that you were holding a trial nearby, knowing that she would go, and you would meet. A century later, you were training together. It took another few centuries, but eventually you quit playing the noble master who would never take advantage of his student’s hot blood and agreed to marry her.”
“She asked me to train her,” Raijin said. “I remember that. Are you telling me that you somehow affected her decision?”
“We set the landslide in motion, knowing how it would turn out,” Tsune said.
“You can’t have known that,” Raijin said. “We might have hated one another. Or been completely uninterested.”
“We weren’t fooled by your act, Thunderer,” Kitsu said. “An eternity is a long time to exist alone as the cold, emotionless sword of the law. All we had to do was sit back and watch our scheme come to fruition from afar.”
In spite of the confidence in Tsune’s tone, Kitsu’s signature suddenly began to crawl with uncertainty.
“What is it?” Raijin asked the white fox.
“We thought we were throwing you on the fire,” Kitsu said, “distracting you from your single-minded defense of the law and stifling her destructive power all in one blow.”
“But you don’t think so anymore,” Raijin prompted.
“The Great Treachery makes me wonder.”
“Not me,” Tsune said. “Call her crafty Ha-Koi all you like, but I still say she was sincere and Misuru turned her at the last moment. The Dragon was changeable enough for that to be not only reasonable but likely.”
Raijin faced Kitsu’s fluctuating electrical signature. “What do you think happened?”
“The same thing that most immortals believe nowadays,” Kitsu said. “The Dragon wrapped you around her finger like a bendy little vine while she waited for Misuru’s rebellion to ignite.”
“But Ha-Koi fought at the Thunderer’s side for centuries without a hint of duplicity,” Tsune argued. When Kitsu made a disagreeing noise, Tsune waved a dismissive hand and turned to Raijin. “She fought so savagely for you that we all thought you were going to win. Kitsu and I even slipped off to the mortal world for a few centuries so we wouldn’t get caught up in the inevitable wave of retribution you were sure to enact when the dust settled.”
“We were long gone before the Great Treachery,” Kitsu said. “But those immortals who stuck around told us what happened.”
“You finally came face-to-face with the Whisperer, but before you could strike a blow, Misuru knelt and raised her hands to surrender.”
“While you sentenced Misuru for her crimes, your back was to Ha-Koi.”
“The Dragon shattered your heartcenter, scattering your accumulated immortal energy to the winds.”
The words hung in the air for a moment, as if even the white fox twins were not thoughtless enough to break free of their gravity.
In sharp contrast to the twins’ usual cavalier attitude, Kitsu continued gravely, “Tsune believes it was all down to our cleverness, but I think netting the two of you together was far too easy. We were blinded by our own success and didn’t see how neatly your marriage to Ha-Koi served the Sisters of Destruction’s purposes until you were defeated and they came to power.”
A weight settled on Raijin’s chest as Ha-Koi’s teasing drifted back to him, insisting that the Thunderer always fell for her cry of distress. Had the day the Thunderer saved the Dragon from burning in her own uncontrolled immortal energy been no more than a larger version of the same trick, this one meant to gain his trust so she could get close enough to strike the decisive blow?
“Either way, I agree that we underestimated Misuru,” Tsune said. “A dragon is deadly, but a whisper in the right ear can destroy eternities.”
“You admitted that neither of you saw Ha-Koi land this strike,” Raijin said.
“Every other immortal and akane fighting at the time did.”
“And they are far more reliable sources than we are.”
“Why?” Raijin asked. “What did they gain from defeating me?”
“Control over the Land of Immortals.”
“An eternity without the law.”
“The fealty of all immortals who didn’t want to be defeated and imprisoned.”
“Scads of akane to do their bidding.”
“Utter chaos.”
Raijin shook his head. “But if that’s true, then why isn’t Ha-Koi ruling now? How was she cast out of the heavens? Did I escape from this pit and banish her?”
Tsune barked laughter. “Not in the state you were in.”
“The sisters ruled together for three centuries,” Kitsu said. “Over that much time, anyone is bound to start thinking they’re above sharing power.”
“Especially when the one they have to share it with is their sister.”
“We heard Ha-Koi had been stealing your immortal energy back from the winds.”
“It seems she was gathering power to overthrow Misuru and rule alone.”
“The Whisperer must have realized this before the Dragon finished, however, and confronted her.”
“Soon Ha-Koi had disappeared—and Misuru’s eyes with her.”
“Misuru began to spread the word that Ha-Koi had been cast from the heavens for plotting against her.”
Their account whirled through Raijin’s head like warrior artists in battle. He didn’t want to believe it, yet it resonated in his bloodstained heartcenter. Betrayal. Destruction. Retribution. The prophecy of the Thunderer and the Dark Dragon, played out in the Land of Immortals long before it ever reached Earth. Some hidden part of him remembered it. Remembered and stil
l felt the bewildered hurt and anger.
He tried to push it away. Koida couldn’t be held responsible for what her immortal self had done. Raijin, however, had repeated the mistakes of his past. As the Thunderer, and again in the Sun Palace, he had let himself be blinded by infatuation, so puffed up by her admiration for him that he’d nearly forgotten his purpose for finding her in the first place. It was no wonder that he had failed to recreate the correct variation.
The hotter his anger at himself grew, the more his Ro boiled and surged. It crackled to the surface, covering his flesh with rolling electricity and leaving his heartcenter empty.
The white fox twins stepped back.
Whispering filled the tunnels.
“Ah, it sounds as if it’s your turn to take the lead, Thunderer,” Tsune said.
The guai-ray senses picked up a pack of lumbering four-legged akane approaching. A horde larger than any pack he had faced yet, with or without the white fox twins.
Bloodred Ro crackled along Raijin’s skin, a rolling, arcing layer of deadly electricity that matched the pain and anger building in his chest. He broke into a run.
This time, it wasn’t only the guai-ray who took pleasure in the battle.
Chapter Eighteen
MORTAL LANDS
As Koida settled into her new routine of life on the ship, days passed, one after the other, in a haze of mind-numbing but predictable drudgery. The captain kept his word about speaking to Rila, and the quartermaster begrudgingly rescinded her ban on Hush’s rations. The hairless woman’s grudge seemed to lift a bit when, on their fifth night at sea, a sailor fell from the sail beam and broke his shoulder. A very weak Hush struggled up onto deck—presumably woken by the injured sailor howling blood and death—then proceeded to heal the screaming sailor. After that, Koida felt significantly less glare aimed at her back when she went below to take Hush a bit of food.