The Moonburner Cycle

by Claire Luana

  Pause. “Yes,” Daarco said quietly.

  Hiro thought about saying something to reveal to his friends that he was still awake, but his curiosity won out. He had been wondering what was going on in Daarco’s head for weeks now. Perhaps this would be his chance to understand.

  “You still feel disloyal, even knowing that the tengu are the ones who started the war? That we were being manipulated to hate each other? That makes me want to come together even stronger. To thwart them.”

  “Every time I think about putting it behind me, I see my father’s face. A moonburner murdered him. Robbed me of him. How can I let that go?”

  A pause. “You know the scars on my face? I’ve lived with them for over a year. I was in the hospital for weeks after I was injured. The pain was unbearable while they healed. I lost my ear. Do you think I should forgive the man who did that?”

  “No,” Daarco growled. “When I think about someone doing that to you…I want to rip them apart with my bare hands. Of course you shouldn’t forgive him.”

  “But I have,” she said softly. “Because it was you.”

  “What?” came the strangled word from Daarco.

  “The sunburner attack on the citadel. I was in the dormitories, trying to get the younger novices to safety. I looked out the window and saw a golden eagle swooping towards us. I saw the rider throwing a ball of fire at the building. It was you.”

  “I…I…” Daarco stumbled over his words. “I’m so sorry. How can you even look to me? Talk to me?”

  “There’s something I learned a long time ago. Hatred and regret…these things choke the life from you. Sometimes slowly, sometimes fast. But you wither and die. Forgiveness…breathes life back in. It allows for something to grow in hatred’s place. Love. Purpose.”

  Daarco was silent, but a sniff told Hiro that there were tears in his friend’s eyes.

  “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel guilty or hate yourself, or to earn an apology. I told you to show you that it’s possible to forgive. To forgive your enemies, but also to forgive yourself. It takes more courage than hatred, but it’s worth it. I hope you discover that for yourself.”

  “I hope so too,” Daarco whispered, barely loud enough to hear.

  As Hiro drifted off to sleep, he found that his own cheeks were wet with tears, turning to ice in the cold.

  “Hiro,” a female voice said. He tried to shove the voice away, to descend once again into the comfortable black of sleep.

  “Hiro.” It was more insistent. Someone was shaking him.

  “Hmm?” he said, opening his eyes groggily.

  A heart-shaped face swam into view before him. “Hiro, wake up.”

  “Stela?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. As soon as he sat up, he regretted it, as the cold of the night rushed against his exposed skin. He shivered.

  “I heard something,” she said. “I think there’s something out there.”

  A surge of adrenaline coursed through him, washing away the remnants of sleep. He wriggled out from under the low tent, pulling his gear with him. He quickly hopped into his boots and coat, strapping on his sword and scabbard.

  Stela pulled her hood back up, its white fur framing her face in the moonlight.

  “Human or animal?” Hiro asked.

  “I think…” she said. “Animal. It sounded like footsteps in the snow, but I heard snuffling too.”

  Ryu padded out of the tent to sit in the snow beside him. “I sense…wrongness.”

  They stood very still to listen, their breath fogging the icy air.

  He heard it. A crunch of snow, faint but unmistakable. “It’s moving slowly,” he said. “It could be the Order of Deshi tracking us.”

  “Should we wake the others?”

  Hiro hesitated. The other burners needed their sleep, and if he was wrong, he’d be dealing with four cold, grouchy people. But if he was right…

  Hiro never got to make his choice. Because a white horror exploded out of the snow in front of them, leaping at him with jaws bared.

  CHAPTER 32

  The creature’s huge paws hit him first, knocking Hiro backwards. Hiro and the creature tumbled into the snow, rolling end over end, tangling with the canvas tent, and finally breaking apart against one of the nearby boulders.

  Hiro’s body was numb as he rose to one knee, gasping for breath. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and got his first real glimpse of his enemy.

  It was on its feet before him, shaking the snow from its yellow-white fur. Once, it must have been a bear, like General Ipan’s seishen, Kuma—perhaps an icy northern cousin. Now, it was monster, a bloody symbol smudged onto its forehead. Mindless red eyes burned with hatred above a slavering maw.

  Anger bubbled up from Hiro’s core at the idea of someone creating this monstrosity, perverting this once-proud creature into something evil.

  Instinct took over as the massive beast leaped at him with club-like paws. He dropped to the ground just in time and the tengu overshot its target, scrambling on the boulder behind him, claws screeching.

  As the tengu pulled itself to its feet and rebounded for another leap, Stela shot a blast of fire at it. It twisted to the side, out of the path of the flames, roaring in fury at being attacked. It bounded on all four legs across the snow towards her, its spiny vertebrae protruding from its hunched back.

  “Stela!” Hiro cried out in warning.

  As it leaped for her, Ryu intercepted it with a massive leap, barreling it sideways in the snow. The two creatures scrambled apart and faced off against each other with snarls and flashing teeth.

  A blast of lightning struck the tengu from above, sending it stumbling to its knees. Emi had untangled herself from the mangled tent and stood on the hillside, her chest heaving.

  The blow had dazed the tengu but hadn’t killed it. It stumbled to its feet. Stela scrambled back in the snow as it lashed out at her, hissing and snapping.

  Emi sent another blast of white hot heat into the creature, joined by one from Leilu, who had emerged next to her.

  The tengu snarled and snapped, thrashing and shuddering in the snow.

  “You need to behead it!” Hiro called.

  With a grimace, Emi burned a slice of moonlight that severed through the tengu’s neck. It gave a final shake and lay still.

  Daarco finally threw the remains of the tent to the side, emerging from the canvas with an angry cry. Hiro couldn’t help but chuckle, his relief palpable. “Everyone all right?”

  Stela stood unsteadily, giving the creature a wide berth. “What was that?” she asked.

  “Tengu,” Emi said. “We had the pleasure of making their acquaintance on our last trip.”

  “The Order of Deshi knows we’re here,” Hiro said. “This likely won’t be the only one.”

  “Great,” Leilu said. “At least we won’t freeze to death.”

  “Remind me to stop taking trips with you boys,” Emi said icily.

  Hiro smiled grimly. The sky was lightening in the east, painting an ombre palate of blues over the horizon. “Anyone need more sleep tonight?” he asked.

  “Suddenly feeling alert,” Leilu said. “Let’s get moving. Might as well make some progress.”

  The next day passed in an expanse of white. With the thin air and the thick snow, they moved slowly. But they moved. By nightfall, they were within a stone’s throw of the pass between the two boulders.

  “How are you all feeling?” Hiro asked. The group was sprawled about the snow, resting after their latest push. “Should we try to make it over the pass?”

  “That pass will be more defensible than this open face,” Daarco said.

  “I agree,” Emi said, looking warmly at Daarco. Those two had grown closer the farther they climbed. “If more tengu are headed our way tonight, I’d like to have the high ground. I’m up for a few more hours.”

  “What do you guys think?” Hiro turned to Leilu and Stela.

  “My head agrees with Daarco, but my legs say this
is as good a place as any,” Leilu said with a chuckle. “I think I can keep my head in charge for a few more hours.”

  “Let’s keep moving,” Stela said. “We have to get there one way or the other.”

  A chorus of grunts and groans rang out as they stood on aching feet and shouldered their packs. As they resumed the trudge up the steep slope, even Emi and Leilu’s sarcastic banter died down to sullen, tired silence. Hiro’s muscles ached, quivering with each new step. He couldn’t remember being so tired in his life.

  The monotony of the steps numbed his mind until all he could think of was the fire in his lungs and his legs. When he looked up and realized he had crested the top of the pass, Hiro felt like weeping with relief.

  Atop the pass, they were rewarded by a fantastic panorama—just as the box had displayed. A narrow angling slope leading down into a wide, shallow, snow-covered glacial basin. Cradling the basin was a row of stern peaks majestically clad in granite rock, downy white snow, and turquoise ice. Somewhere under there, Taiyo was waiting for them.

  “Thank the gods,” Stela said with ragged breath as she reached the top behind him.

  “Let’s get to a flat spot,” Hiro said, “and we can make camp.”

  Making camp took all of about four minutes. The tent had been destroyed in the tengu’s attack the night before, so they unrolled their bedrolls in a haphazard circle and flopped onto them, taking off boots and reaching into packs for hard food that could be munched on while horizontal.

  “I’ll take first watch,” Stela said. She was dead on her feet, swaying slightly on exhausted legs.

  “You had first watch last night,” Hiro said. “You should get some rest. I’ll take first, then I’ll tap Emi in.”

  “You had a pretty exciting night yourself,” Stela protested. “You need sleep too.”

  “I’ll take a short watch,” he said. “I’ve got Ryu to stay up with me. I’ll be fine.”

  She clearly didn’t have the energy to protest because she crawled into her bedroll without another word.

  Silence descended over the frozen valley as his friends succumbed to sleep. The heat bubble that Leilu had been burning around each of them began to dissipate. A cold breeze blew across the snow. He shivered and walked for a few minutes towards the center of the valley, trying to warm himself.

  “Never thought we’d be all the way out here,” Hiro said to Ryu.

  The ascent and the cold hadn’t seemed to bother Ryu. He was a creature of spirit, after all. Hiro couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. To be mortal was very inconvenient at times.

  “The life of a burner and seishen is never dull,” Ryu said.

  “That’s the truth,” Hiro chuckled, looking up at the stars. They were so bright and clear here, it was as if he could reach out and touch them. He could see all of the constellations he had learned about as a child: The black tortoise that guarded the northern star. The phoenix standing in the south with the winking red star as its eye.

  “Do the seishen have stories about the stars?” Hiro asked.

  “Of course,” Ryu said. “See that one up there? It looks like a cross, but then two little stars hang down from the bottom star?”

  Hiro searched the multitude of pinpricks in the sky until he saw the cluster Ryu referred to. “I see it. What is it?”

  “It’s the seishen elder,” Ryu said. “The stars in the horizontal line of the cross are his wings, the other his head and body and the two little stars are his legs.”

  “The elder taught you a constellation that looked like him? Why am I not surprised?”

  “He was here for the making of the world,” Ryu said.

  “I wonder what it was like,” Hiro mused.

  “You can ask him from hell,” a quiet voice said behind him.

  Hiro whirled around, almost losing his footing in the thick snow.

  Before him stood Geisa, wearing a look of hatred that chilled him more than the arctic air ever could.

  Hiro tried to shout for the others, but he found he couldn’t speak. His throat was hot and angry. He grasped at his neck, trying to scream, but nothing came out.

  Ryu dove for Geisa with a powerful leap, but a bolt of lightning snaked from the clear sky and hit him, tossing him into the snow. He scrambled to his feet and she hit him with another bolt, and then another.

  Hiro barreled into her, desperate to draw her attention from Ryu. They tumbled together into the snow, but before he could strike another blow, a strange fever fill his body and his mind, turning his vision red.

  She rolled him off her into the snow, kneeling over him so her face hovered above his. “Cooperate, my Hiro,” she whispered, “and I won’t kill your seishen. Try to wake the others, and he dies. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Now,” Geisa said, pulling him to his feet. “Let’s go meet your god.”

  Hiro walked in front of Geisa as if in a feverish dream. She rested the blade of a sword across his shoulder, kissing his neck with the cold steel. Not that she needed the weapon. At this time of night, he was as helpless as a lamb. He schooled himself not to panic and tried to think, his thoughts moving sluggishly through his fevered mind. Was Ryu all right? They had left him lying motionless in the cold snow. And why did Geisa want to free Taiyo? She had no love for the sunburners, or their god. When he thought about the things she had suffered at the hands of the sunburners, in their prisons…he knew her treatment of him would not be gentle.

  “Why do you want to free Taiyo?” he finally asked. His voice was hoarse.

  “I thought I should meet the god who taught his followers such respect for women,” she said. “He’s a model for the rest of us.”

  Hiro pushed down his frustration. “Tell me the real reason. I know you worship the tengu, that you’re a part of the Order of Deshi. Why do you want him free?”

  “So I can kill him, of course.”

  “You can’t kill a god,” Hiro said, his eyes widening in alarm.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, drawing closer to him, taunting him.

  Hiro said nothing. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t even know exactly how he was supposed to free Taiyo. Explanation and facts were Kai’s business. He traded on instinct. Action. Two things that were doing him no good at the moment.

  Geisa chuckled softly. “To come all this way, only to realize that you were the key to the destruction of your god. How delightfully ironic.”

  “Even if you think you could kill Taiyo, which you can’t,” Hiro said, “Kai is still freeing Tsuki while we speak. Tsuki will stop you.”

  “You still don’t see, do you? This has been in motion for a very long time. It has been my task to follow your desperate little mission up this mountain, just as it has been my companion’s task to follow Kai.”

  “You won’t catch her by surprise. She’ll be ready,” Hiro said.

  “Not even your clever Kai will be ready for a threat from the inside.”

  Hiro missed a step, stumbling in the snow. The cold of her blade nicked his neck. One of Kai’s companions was a traitor? Fear for Kai blossomed inside him, and his fevered heart began to hammer. He had to warn her somehow.

  “That’s the thing about flying too close to the sun,” Geisa said, her eyes shining in the moonlight. “You’re likely to get burned.

  CHAPTER 33

  When the tropical sun rose that morning, fierce and bold over the horizon, Chiya flew to the neighboring island and rowed the little boat back to their shore. Colum, boasting of the impressive volume of his lungs, volunteered to dive into the warm water to confirm that Tsuki was in fact waiting for them below.

  After several dives, he emerged from the sparkling sea, gasping that he had found her. Though a welcome development, it didn’t solve the larger problem—namely, how to get Tsuki off the sea floor.

  They had been arguing for hours when Jurou emerged from the forest and sat down, joining their circle.

  “Where have you been?” Kai asked crossly.

>   He smiled pleasantly, picking a rosy fruit off the pile that lay on the canvas of Kai’s flattened pack. “I think better when I’m moving.”

  “Uh huh,” Kai said, watching in strange fascination as he dug his long fingernails into the flesh of the fruit.

  “It looked like she was in a stone burial box,” Colum said. “It had a carving on the top of some sort of figure, though she was tough to see under several hundred years of barnacles. The coral reef has grown around it. It might take hours to break the coral and free the box.”

  “And even then, we haven’t a clue how to retrieve a stone box from the bottom of the sea,” Jurou said.

  “So basically we’re back to square one,” Chiya said, leaning back on her elbows in the sand.

  “We know she’s down there,” Colum said. “That’s something.”

  “Anyone have any ideas?” Kai asked.

  Jurou muttered to himself, as if working through options, but Chiya and Colum said nothing. Eyes averted, hands drawing circles in the sand. Kai didn’t have any ideas either.

  “Let’s take a break,” Colum finally said.

  Kai rolled her eyes, but it wasn’t a half-bad idea. Her brain had been spinning in circles for hours.

  “Fine,” she said. Kai walked down to the shore and sat in the sand, looking out over the waves at the spot where Tsuki lay.

  “Mind if I join you?” Chiya asked, standing uncertainly on the sand behind Kai.

  “Please,” Kai said.

  Chiya sat down next to her, hugging her knees against her chest. She looked vulnerable for a moment, despite her muscled form. “She’s so close,” Chiya said. “I can almost feel her.”

  “Me too,” Kai said. “I wish I could figure out how to get her up here.”

  “We will,” Chiya said. “It’ll come to us.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Kai said, wishing she could explain to Chiya the camaraderie she had begun to feel for the other woman.

  “Me too,” Chiya said. “This is the sort of mission I imagined I was signing up for when…well, you know. Last time.”