by Claire Luana
The world she saw when she opened her eyes was painful, wrong. Discordant. It grieved her. Burners bleeding and dying under a moonless sky. Tengu feasting on their flesh.
The tears in her eyes now fell for a different reason. Anger. She met the eye of the seishen elder, and understanding passed between them. Make it right.
The roar of the battle was quiet around her as time seemed to slow. Kai stooped down and caressed Quitsu’s soft head, filling him with the magic she had seen, the magic of creation that held the seed of what his ancestors had once been.
Quitsu burst with brilliant radiance and grew in size, transforming before her eyes into a creature of alabaster white that stood taller than she. His teeth and claws shone wickedly, and hard muscle rippled under his snowy fur.
Quitsu adjusted to his new form quickly, diving at a tengu and ripping its head from its body with one jerk of his powerful jaws.
Iska swooped past Kai’s outstretched hand and with a touch burgeoned into the size of a roc, a massive mythical bird of old.
The seishen ran to her, understanding though not understanding the power that had transformed Quitsu and Iska. First Ryu, then Kuma, the seishen swelled into beautiful, fearsome versions of themselves that turned on the tengu with a powerful fury.
Blood poured from a slice in Hiro’s thigh where a tengu had slipped through his guard. But he wasn’t done fighting. In one hand, he gripped his sword and in the other, the tiny vial of light Taiyo had given him. This could be the only sunlight left in the world.
He had seen so many impossible sights that day that he felt little shock when a strange light began to pour from the handprint on Kai’s chest, casting a luminous white across the carnage of the courtyard.
The light pulsed from her, filling her, pouring out of her ears and mouth and fingertips. Her eyes were two fissures of glowing white. And then—she did the impossible. He watched as she transformed Quitsu with a touch into a creature of legend, towering and deadly. He watched as the other seishen flocked to her, his voice sticking in his throat as his Ryu went too. Hiro wanted to call him back, to selfishly protect him from this strange transformation he didn’t understand.
But it was Kai. Even if he didn’t understand what had changed or understand this mystical power she seemed to wield…he trusted her. Loved her. And her power was helping their cause. As long as she stayed alive. Which she seemed utterly unconcerned with. Her sword had fallen from her outstretched hand. Were her eyes even open?
“Protect Kai,” Hiro shouted, dashing towards her, taking out a tengu with horns like a bull on his way.
Colum fell in on the other side of Kai, his tanned face smeared with blood, his curly hair wild in Kai’s light. Hiro nodded at him gratefully.
As the newly transformed seishen attacked, Yukina and Hiei snarled in rage, sending their tengu into the fray.
The mythical seishen clashed with the massive black demons, meeting with fearsome screams and flashing teeth and claws. Iska grappled with one in the air while Kuma and Quitsu snarled and snapped at the bull-headed beast, sending it to the ground. The burners fought furiously against the smaller tengu, Emi and Daarco standing back to back, weapons swinging deadly glory. Even the elder joined in, ripping and rending tengu flesh with his beak and talons.
But Kai continued to stand still, staring through luminous eyes at Tsuki’s crumpled form.
Hiro slashed at a tengu that came slavering towards Kai, taking its jaw off with his sword, as Colum speared one coming from the right. She moved forward towards Tsuki’s body.
“Kai, what are you doing?” Hiro said, gripping her arm. She shrugged him off without looking at him.
“Look out,” Colum shouted.
Hiro whirled around to meet the newest threat. Geisa stood behind them, her face twisted in hatred, her sword whistling down towards Kai’s head.
But Geisa’s blade didn’t find its target. Colum managed to get the staff of his spear up in time, parrying her blow at the last second.
As her steel glanced off his wooden stave, Colum shoved in front of Kai, facing off against Geisa.
“Mesilla?” Colum said, his voice choked. He lowered his weapon, reaching out a hand towards her, the blood draining from his face.
“Colum!” Hiro cried.
Geisa made to swing, taking advantage of Colum’s open guard, but faltered. Her face transformed. Shock, confusion, recognition. “Colum?” she asked.
“Mesilla! It’s really you!” he said. “I never stopped lookin’ for you…I never gave up hope!”
What? Hiro thought.
“That’s not my name anymore,” Geisa said, shaking her head in disbelief. Her sword dropped from her outstretched hand and clattered to the stones. She backed up slowly. “Mesilla is dead.” She turned and ran. Sprinted away from Colum, away from the battle.
He ran after her. “Mesilla!”
Hiro turned from the strange scene to find that Kai had fallen to her knees beside Tsuki. He drew close and stood over her in a defensive stance. What the hell was she doing? She still glowed with an unnatural light.
Kai closed her eyes and put her hands on Tsuki’s wound.
Hiro squinted as her form grew brighter, casting white light across the garish scene of the courtyard. Was she trying to heal Tsuki?
Hiro turned his head from the glare and surveyed the courtyard, trying to identify who was still standing. Daarco and Emi. Ipan. He couldn’t see Stela or Nanase. Bodies littered the ground.
With a heavy sigh, Kai lifted her hands from Tsuki’s still body, the light around her dimming once again.
The moon burst back into existence, hanging low and bright in the sky as if wanting to embrace its weary children.
Tsuki’s eyes fluttered open.
Hiro’s jaw dropped. Kai had healed the goddess. She had set the moon back in the sky.
The moonburners let out raucous cheers and sobs of relief as they threw themselves back into the battle, burning lightning and fire into the attacking tengu, driving them back. He thought the burners outnumbered the tengu now, three of the largest tengu laying still, their bodies broken on the stones. The seishen harried the fourth. It wouldn’t last long. Hiei and Yukina still stood.
Hiei launched himself at Kai, his sword held in both huge hands, but he was knocked sideways by a powerful blow from Quitsu.
Kai stood and turned, gliding like a sleepwalker towards Taiyo. Hiro pulled Tsuki up, supporting her with one arm as he flanked Kai. More burners fell in around Kai now as they realized what she was doing, protecting her as she moved. She stepped over dead and dying on her way to kneel before Taiyo’s body and turned to her task of restoring the sun.
When Taiyo’s eyes snapped open, Hiro let out a shuddering breath of relief. The feeling of sunlight, liquid heat and fire raging over the next horizon, flooded back into him. He wanted to weep with joy, to pull Kai into his arms and kiss her for the miracle.
But Kai wasn’t herself. She stood and turned back to Yukina and Hiei. The two had drawn together, backing up slowly against the far wall of the courtyard. Their robes were torn and Yukina had long, raking wounds down her face and chest. The rest of their tengu army had been dispatched, black bodies lying broken and mangled on the stones.
“You do not belong here,” Kai shouted, her voice echoing through the night with the force of eons.
Yukina turned and seemed to tear the air behind them, ripping the fabric of the mortal world to form a yawning opening. The air around the demons crackled with energy.
“This is not the end, burner,” Hiei snarled. The two demons turned and leaped into the blackness of the rift, disappearing.
Kai started forward after them. Was she crazy?
“Wait!” Hiro grabbed her hand. “What are you doing? You don’t know what’s in there. It could be a trap!”
Kai turned back and shook her head sadly, her eyes glowing with the raw magic of creation. “It’s my path. You have to let me go.”
Hiro hesitated…a
nd dropped her hand.
She leaped into the darkness.
She was gone.
CHAPTER 41
Kai found herself in the upper courtyard at Yoshai, a cool breeze rustling her hair. The courtyard was empty of burners and tengu and bodies. She was in the spirit world. Alone.
She turned back to the rift the tengu had torn, using the creator’s fingers to feel the torn fabric of the seal between worlds. She summoned the pure white power of creation, the sweet nectar that she had come to understand through her visions. She had watched as the creator built the first walls between the realms. She had seen it. She had done it herself. She knew the magic by heart. And so she pulled the threads of the universe together, binding them into a barrier so secure and indestructible that the tengu could never pass. Stronger than last time.
“Kai!” a voice screamed at her.
Kai opened her eyes to see Hiei’s sword swinging at her neck. Kai flickered out of existence as it swung through where she stood, rematerializing a step away. Thanks to the knowledge the seishen elder had imparted, she finally understood the rules of this place. She was the master of this world.
The warning had come from Hamaio, who stood at the far side of the courtyard, her lovely features tight with worry.
Hiei and Yukina faced off against Kai now, bellowing. They attacked in tandem, striking at her with deadly weapons and savage fists.
Each blow, Kai simply avoided, flitting about the courtyard like a hummingbird, too fast for them to catch.
The demons howled in frustration.
“You don’t belong here,” Kai said, furrowing her brow. “You have terrorized this realm for too long.”
She took a breath, and with it seemed to grow until she stood even with the two tengu, tall and strong, looking into their strange faces. She reared back and with a mighty blow, hammered the heel of her hands directly into their chests.
As she pushed, she opened a rift into the demon realm, sending them through into the eternal darkness beyond, the empty void that was their home. And just as fast, she sealed the opening behind them, strengthening and fortifying the walls between the spirit world and the demon realm until no demon would ever be able to pass through, no matter what cruel magic sought to aid them.
When her task was complete, Kai stumbled, fatigue washing over her. The sky lightened in the east, the sun dawning. Time had always been strange in the spirit world.
Kai found her way to a chair by the small table at the back of the courtyard, collapsing into it.
Hamaio sat down next to her in the chair Kai herself had once sat in.
“You did it, Kai,” Hamaio said warmly. “He’s very proud of you.”
Kai laughed ruefully, blowing a lock of unruly hair off her forehead. “All I did was clean up my own mess.”
“This mess was fated, even before my time. The tengu had set out on this path many centuries ago. All he could do was hold back the tide until he found someone strong enough to finish it. To make it right again.”
Exhaustion was overtaking Kai as the creator’s intoxicating power drained from her. “Why didn’t he tell me? Explain everything in the beginning? Why put us through all of this?”
“He’s not allowed to directly interfere once the creating is done. It’s one of the immutable laws of this universe.”
“Lending me his power isn’t interfering?”
“He sent you back to the mortal world when it wasn’t your time to die. It’s not his fault if you borrowed a little power on your way back.”
“Borrowed? I didn’t do anything…” Kai began in disbelief but then relaxed as Hamaio winked.
“I wish he would have told me what he wanted of me. So I didn’t have to muddle through and make such a mess of things.”
“He gave you what aid he could and trusted that you would the find the rest of the puzzle pieces when the time was right. The fact that we are sitting here shows that his trust was not misplaced.”
Kai looked down at the handprint. It glowed faintly, strangely warm against her skin.
“It’s ready to find its way back,” Hamaio said.
“What?”
“His power.” Hamaio nodded at the handprint. “It was never yours to keep. I suspect you know that.”
Kai nodded, relief coiling through her. She missed moonlight, silvery sweet and simple and familiar. “How do I…?”
“Just release it. It will do the rest.”
Unsure what Hamaio meant, but trusting the magic to find its way home, Kai closed her eyes, imagining herself standing beside the whitewater rapids of the creator’s power. Thank you, she thought. But it’s time to go now.
The river churned and bubbled in farewell before it vanished, leaving the afterimage of its brilliant course burned in her mind’s eye.
Kai opened her eyes. Between her and Hamaio flapped a soft iridescent moth the size of her palm. It flitted for a moment around Hamaio before rising into the air and flapping into the distance, leaving a trail of light in its wake.
Looking down confirmed what she already knew. The handprint was gone. She sighed with relief. “What now?” Kai asked.
“It’s still not your time,” Hamaio said.
Kai pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, laying her cheek to rest on them. “I don’t know if I can go back,” she whispered. “Everything that happened…so many people died because of me. I led them astray.”
“This is true. But you saved them too. Being a leader doesn’t mean being perfect. There is wisdom in admitting your imperfections and learning from your mistakes.”
“I’m tired of learning,” Kai said. “I’m just tired. I don’t know if I want to do it anymore. I wasn’t even Tsuki’s true heir. What right do I have to rule Miina?”
Hamaio laughed. “Of course you’re not the heir. You’re the queen.”
“What?” Kai asked. “No, Chiya is older; she was supposed to be queen.”
Hamaio pursed her lips as if suppressing a smile. “My husband and I tied the gods’ hiding places and the clue box to our heirs, the sunburner and moonburner next in line for the throne. We knew we might be lost in the battle against the tengu, and we wanted someone who would remain. You are the current queen, the wearer of the lunar crown, so it was your heir whose blood was necessary. The sunburner king, what’s his name, Ozora? He couldn’t have opened it either—only his son, his heir, could.”
A scarlet flush colored Kai’s cheeks. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that Hiro, not his father Ozora, could open the box and Taiyo’s tomb.
“See?” Kai said weakly. “I couldn’t even interpret your riddle correctly.”
Hamaio leaned forward and took Kai’s hands in her own. “He saw something in you, Kai. When you appeared in the spirit world near death but full of light, clinging so hard to life. He saw a chance for this world. Is that woman gone? That spirit?”
Kai didn’t respond. That woman was before Leilu. And Chiya. And bodies crushed by earthquakes and wasted by famine. And mobs at the gate and being tricked by the Order. Before the misery and despair of looking up into a moonless sky and knowing the sun would never rise.
“I suppose you could stay if you truly wished it.” Hamaio frowned. “I will let you think on it. But in the meantime, the creator would like to give you a gift. As a token of his appreciation.”
“A gift?”
“I’ll send it up.” Hamaio stood and left Kai, disappearing down the steps at the far end of the courtyard.
Kai stood and walked to the edge, surveying the shining line of the sea as the sun warmed her face. It felt good to be alone. No worries. No obligations.
But she wasn’t without worry, without obligation. Her mind flashed to the people she loved, their faces conjured up before her. Had others been lost in the battle? What had happened to the seishen when she’d vanished? Did she really want to stay here? Never return? What would happen to Quitsu? What would Hiro think?
“There you a
re, my little fox.”
Kai whirled around at the deep voice, a tight knot forming in her throat.
“Father?” she said, her voice a whisper.
He stood before her, tall and as strong as the last day she had seen him. His short hair was burnished gold now, shimmering in the morning light. He grinned, his white teeth flashing.
She ran to him and threw herself against him, her face buried in the muscles of his chest. Tears sprang to her eyes and she sobbed, wetting the linen of his shirt.
“Shhh,” he said, rocking her in his arms.
She pulled back. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen and I was exposed as a moonburner and everything is my fault.” She buried her face again, sobbing as two years of guilt bubbled forth, a shallow wound that had never healed.
He laughed his deep barrel laugh, and the sound of it was so wonderful that her tears doubled, a waterfall of emotion pouring from her. Gods, the world wasn’t right without that laugh.
When Kai’s tears finally began to subside, her father, Raiden, cupped her blotchy face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “You saved our people from destruction twice over, once from a war where we destroyed each other, and now from an enemy that would have devoured us all. This world owes you a debt of gratitude.”
“But so many have died,” she said. “Because of me.”
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “People live because of you. This world is safe because of you. Everyone who has died fighting this evil did so because they chose to. When you take the blame for their deaths, you diminish their sacrifice. You didn’t force anyone to fight.”
She hadn’t thought of it that way.
“I was sentenced to die twenty years before the sentence was ever carried out. Those twenty years were a blessing from the gods. They were the best of my life because of your mother—and you. I have no regrets.”
His deep chocolate eyes soothed her. “You must put your regrets aside too. Do not let what has passed before cripple the life you have left to live. Every wrong decision was the right one in the end. The creator knew he could trust you. And I’m sure as hell glad he did, or I’d be a tengu sandwich right now. Even the spirit world was overrun.”