The Warrior Moon

by K Arsenault Rivera

  Kaede puffs, but if she has anything else to say, she’s wise enough to keep it to herself. Sakura turns and offers her a quick bow before heading onto the street. Death looming or not, you had to be kind to your elders.

  All her life, the streets of Nishikomi have been packed like salmon roe. Tonight is no exception. Orange light paints the faces of awestruck onlookers. She has to push and elbow her way through the crowd. No one can see that she’s wearing Imperial Gold in the dark. No one would care even if they could.

  “Is that her?”

  “Heard about the Wall, thought Toriko was jokin’…”

  “Who’s she fighting?”

  “Nice to see she’s gotten off her ass for once.”

  The comments and whispers build up the closer she gets to the bay. The shrine isn’t very far to begin with—most of their clientele are sailors. A trip that would take five minutes on any other day is taking fifteen now.

  Things get worse when she reaches the docks.

  That’s where the infantry is waiting, after all—eight companies of the Dragon Guard in their gleaming armor, standing at attention, their spears swaying in the sea breeze. Each company bears a banner with their adopted name and motto. Sakura used to wonder when she was a child what war banners said.

  Now she knows they say things like “Duty is a mountain.”

  The soldiers, of course, are not keen to let her pass. The first step she takes on wood and not dirt is met with a guardsman ramming his spear into the ground before her.

  “By order of Her Imperial Majesty, the Most Serene Phoenix Empress—”

  All members of the Dragon Guard must stand at least seventeen hands tall. Sakura barely makes it to fifteen. That does not stop her from shoving the fully armored man in front of her.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she says. “Y’know, she isn’t serene at all.”

  As he takes a stumbling step backwards, she holds up her sleeve, the golden stripe around the hem apparent. With his war mask on, she cannot see his face, but his eyes go from surprise and anger to surprise and resignation. He bows.

  “After you, my lady,” he says.

  Clearly, he has no idea who she is. That’s all right with her. She never asked to be recognized, and it’s probably better if she isn’t.

  “What’s the situation?” she asks. She does not stop, but she does gesture for this soldier to follow her. She doesn’t feel like explaining herself more than once—having a visible escort will make her look more important.

  “Two ships down,” he says. “Doanese, both of them. The Ambition still stands, but…”

  “But?” Sakura says. She squints. Five columns burning, but there is something else, too. She sees it only when the waves hit the docks, glittering between the drops of sea spray.

  A chain?

  “But we can’t know how long that’s going to last,” says the soldier. He points to the top of the Ambition. She follows his finger, but it isn’t until she squints that she sees it: there’s someone sitting on the roof of the ship, illuminated by a faint carmine glow; an arc of solid white lies within arm’s reach.

  Shizuka.

  That’s her cousin, sitting on top of a ship, channeling the columns of fire.

  Shit. How is she managing? How is she—? There’s open sea around her, how is she not panicking?

  “That’s her,” Sakura says.

  The soldier nods. “That’s our Empress,” he says. The reverence in his tone at a time like this does not escape her; she hopes he is not the sort of man who buys miniature woodcuts of Shizuka’s likeness. “We’re not sure what she’s doing up there, or how long it will take, but when the columns flare, we can see the enemy. There’s fewer of them each time. She’s doing it—can you believe it?”

  “I can,” says Sakura. She doesn’t want to, but she can.

  As they reach the edge of the docks, she takes a deep breath. The salty air of home fills her lungs. She wonders how she went so long without tasting salt every time she breathed, how she ever imagined she might live anywhere but here. In the rush of the waters against the Father’s Teeth, against the sand, against the docks, she hears the voice of her childhood: This is where you have always belonged.

  “Do you think it’s hard for her?” the soldier says. “However she does it. If I could control fire like that, I’d make a weapon out of it. Use a spear of flame and you don’t have to worry about contamination…”

  Who hired him, and why? Just because he’s tall and broad shouldered; just because he can look intimidating holding a spear? To be mooning over a woman when she’s single-handedly saving the Empire—

  A wave of pure heat slams into Sakura, passing as quickly as it appeared. The lights flare brighter than dawn; she must avert her eyes if she wants to keep her vision.

  “That’s the flare I was telling you about,” he says. “Always kicked myself for being born too late to meet any of the Heavenly Family, but just look at her go.…”

  Sakura looks up, all right.

  Just in time to watch her cousin tumble from the top of the ship into the water.

  She doesn’t think of herself as a particularly brave woman.

  But that’s the thing about bravery—you’re never certain whether you’ve got it until you really need it.

  And watching Shizuka fall into the water, knowing full well the fear that will envelop her …

  Well. Sakura’s a Minami, after all. She was bound to do something profoundly stupid at some point.

  Shoes off first. She reaches for the soldier to steady herself as the first choruses of dismay rise up from the army. Even this soldier lets out a pained whimper. He reaches out as if he’s going to be able to catch her from here.

  If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself—isn’t that how the old line goes?

  There’s no time to waste. Sakura takes the dagger from the soldier’s scabbard and cuts through her outer belt. She sheds her outermost robes and, before she can think any better of it, jumps into the water.

  The waters of Nishikomi are famously cold. The jolt that meets her is enough to keep her awake for the next five years. Already her heart is hammering to keep her warm, and she has not begun to kick—she is gliding now beneath the surface, her eyes closed.

  It occurs to her that there might be creatures nearby. There were creatures in the Kirin, weren’t there? Women with needle-teeth, that’s what Shizuka said in her drunken rambles. What if they were here, too? What if she were going to die in the bay, some foul creation of evil’s evening snack?

  What does it matter? She’s already made her choice.

  Sakura begins to kick. Kelp licks at her ankles, and for a moment she fears the worst, but so long as nothing is reaching out to stop her, she shall not stop. When she breaks the surface, she sucks in the biggest breath she can. The waves crash against her, send her careening to the east.

  Against her better judgment, she opens her eyes.

  She sees it.

  There—floating right in front of the Ambition—is the enemy’s ship, a stately thing too large for anything but a small army to crew. Shiratori Palace is not so large as this floating monstrosity.

  And what is that she hears? A flute? That melody—she knows this song and yet she can attach to it neither name nor lyric. Hearing it is like stepping into a bear trap—she stops moving to better discern the melody. The longer she stays there, bobbing in the wild bay, the heavier grow her limbs. How mournful, this melody; how like the lament of the dying! Her eyes are drooping, drooping; the light of the columns grows dimmer and dimmer.…

  Why did she come out here again?

  All she wants to do is float. All she needs to do is float. Who cares about anything else? The worries of the day cannot reach her here. The cold is refreshing, isn’t it? How it numbs her to her pain and her worries. Like Blessing it comes over her, like Blessing.

  Her eyelids droop.

  Close your eyes, the melody sings to her.

  But—
what is that?

  Beneath the surface of the water, glimmering like a carp—what is that? For it is glowing, pulsing, and it looks so familiar—

  Shizuka!

  At once it comes back to her. Sakura has come out here to save her idiot cousin. That music must be one of the enemy’s schemes. She can’t let herself fall for it!

  It is like forcing yourself awake, like forcing yourself to leave the warm paradise of your sheets. What will it takes her, what motivation! Yet this is a woman who left her life behind for the sake of another, a woman who learned to read not only in her own native language but in three others besides, a woman who has proved again and again that she is not so soft as her name might suggest.

  Sakura shall not be defeated by a song.

  The waters begin to boil around her. If she’s going to save her cousin, she doesn’t have much time to do it.

  “I don’t know who or where you are,” she shouts, “but you can fuck right off!”

  Having said her piece, she takes in a breath and dives. Dark and churning, the waters, though here and there she sees the glimmer she saw ashore. Its shape is easier to discern when there’s algae swirling around it—a chain.

  Well. She hopes Shizuka can deal with it when she wakes up.

  Is it providence that she has not sunk too far, or is it something in her godly nature? Whatever it is, Sakura won’t question it. Her lungs are burning enough already. There is her cousin, still clad head to toe in her gods-damned armor, in the grip of an unseen chain.

  How long does Sakura have? Seconds, perhaps.

  Best to use them.

  Yet the moment she reaches for Shizuka, Sakura finds that her Imperial Cousin has started to glow.

  And this is not the glow of fireflies on a summer night, not the glow of a lantern boldly lit in the room of a married lover; this is the light of day. These are the rays of the sun crowning the Tokuma mountains. It hurts to look at her, it hurts to be near her—and yet Sakura cannot look away, not even with light and water alike searing her eyes.

  The sea itself boils around the nascent god. Sakura throws up her arms out of reflex. Her lungs are burning; she cannot, cannot look away.

  For look! There—wrapped about her is the cloak of Heaven itself! A strip of golden flame the width of Sakura’s forearm, there is no mistaking what it is and what it signifies.

  Her cousin, the god.

  And it is not the only thing to suddenly appear: flames consume the armor she wears, leaving bright gold in their wake; a crown of fire boils the water around her head; gold chases the scar across her face, like a streak on mended pottery.

  Sakura kicks at the water around her, desperate to stay down here, desperate to watch. Hotter and hotter the chain around her cousin, hotter and hotter, until it too glows a searing white.

  Come on, wake up, she thinks, but she knows that it’s a foregone conclusion: no one wakes an Empress before she is ready, let alone a god. How difficult it is to keep focus. More than anything, she wants to breathe—her body is fighting her with every passing heartbeat. To keep from sucking in a lungful of air takes nearly all her attention.

  But the chains are about to break now, she is sure of it, and Sakura must be here when Shizuka opens her eyes; she must see the birth of a new god—her cousin!—play out in full. And yet her cousin Shizuka is trapped, still not moving, even as her body undergoes this transformation.

  Sakura kicks her way over to Shizuka, every movement a war against her own waning strength. The heat coming off the chains is enough to singe her if she comes too close to touching it—how is she meant to help?

  Salt stings at her eyes; her lips are starting to go numb. Nevertheless, Minami Sakura grabs hold of the god by the shoulders and pulls. To her surprise the metal gives instantly, bending like a drunk doubled over in an alley.

  When you wake up, Sakura thinks, I’m never going to let you hear the end of it. Wearing a full suit of armor to a naval battle? What sort of idiot was she? Divine sense is no match for common. How is Sakura going to get her up to the surface like this?

  Gods, Shizuka’s going to owe her one if they get out of this.

  If.

  Closer, closer still—kicking is difficult when it feels as if there are iron weights clasped to her ankles. Her lungs burn and it occurs to her in another awful whisper that she could already have surfaced if it weren’t for her cargo.

  Brushing that thought aside takes too much of her attention.

  She opens her mouth to argue and the water rushes in. Fear and panic overwhelm her—she does not think to spit it out, does not think to suppress the urge to breathe. Into her lungs, the water, the water; filling her and suffocating her.

  Her vision is starting to blur. Above her is the brilliant light of her cousin.

  With whatever power remains to her, Sakura pushes.

  Five columns of burning light. Darkness encroaches upon her, yet still those columns burn.

  I swear, if you die…, Sakura thinks, but it is too much effort to finish the thought.

  The water’s starting to carry her down. Again, she feels heavy; again, she feels light. All her worries are there, above the surface. If she only sinks, then the sea will carry her far, far—

  There—a lance piercing the dark! White as a midnight snow, brighter even than the columns! Its arrival churns the waters. Sakura expects to see the boiling start, but it doesn’t—the lance seems to be, somehow, cool to the touch.

  She is so far gone by then that it is difficult to think of anything, in the common sense. She does not think to herself that she should grab hold of it—only that it is strange and beautiful, and she should like to know what it feels like.

  Her hand closes around the lance.

  Like a fish cruelly yanked from the water—Sakura flying up to the surface. Flat on her back, she lands, the air and water alike knocked out of her from the impact alone. Instinct drives her to turn, to cough, to hack out all the rest.

  It is then—when she at last forces her eyes open—that she sees the Phoenix.

  O-SHIZUKA

  FOUR

  She dreams that she is in a cavern. A true cavern, and not the small caves that dot the seaside here in Nishikomi. This place is more than that. The walls, smooth and slick black, reflect the light of her mother’s sword.

  In the distance, there is music.

  The melody’s familiar. Simple, as all the old songs are; a three-note rise and one-note stumble; a two-note recovery and a one-note smirk. The girl who races ahead of the clan atop her gray mare, the girl who can pluck a coin from the ground without dismounting, the girl who can draw a bow no two men can draw together—this is her song.

  Her wife’s song.

  Reaching the source of it is her only thought—surely, her wife will be waiting for her there.

  Deeper she wanders. The darkness, too, deepens. Her mother’s sword is a beam of sunlight even here—wherever here is. The farther in she goes, the brighter the sword burns.

  Fifty-five steps in, she stops.

  The melody’s changing. Faster now, as if whoever is playing the unseen fiddle means for the listener to dance.

  Something bruised her shoulders; something crushed her ribs.

  She does not want to dance.

  The sword heats up in her hands. Faster, the music, faster still, until the stumbling fourth note is quick as a stone skipping across the water. Blood rushes between her ears. She feels it welling up behind her eyes, feels it pressing against her skin from the inside—gold and jade and fire.

  Her blood, his blood.

  Drawing in a breath is harder than it should be. She is conscious—now that the music is racing so—of something caught in her throat, something that keeps the air from reaching her lungs.

  Unseen hands twist a songbird’s neck. The music stops.

  Of all the silences Shizuka has known in her life, this is surely the worst—there is no air here, after all, and she cannot even hear her own heartbeat. The rush of her
blood is all that is there to comfort her.

  And what comfort is she meant to find there?

  She draws a breath, another, another—all three stop at her throat.

  This place—doesn’t it smell familiar? Doesn’t it look familiar—like somewhere she’s been before, with Shefali, somewhere she’s forgotten …

  She closes her eyes.

  When she opens them, the woman in the fox mask stands before her. How many years has it been since their last meeting? Shizuka wore an acolyte’s robes then, and for a moment she feels their roughness against her skin. The darkness of the cavern does little to hide the horror of the other woman’s scarring—the thick seams where flesh meets bronze, her hands dappled with red. White robes replace the armor she wore in Xian-Lai.

  But her eyes have not changed. Two suns, encased in amber, burn within the holes of the mask.

  “You have a choice to make,” she says.

  Shizuka’s natural inclination is, of course, to argue with her. She is the Phoenix Empress, she is the Daughter of Heaven, she is a trueborn heir of the Minami line—she may go wherever she pleases, and may the dead gods strike her down if they have any feelings on the matter.

  But she has the feeling she’s speaking to one of them now—or at least someone who knows them well.

  This inclination dissolves away like ink in water when the music begins again.

  For this melody—this melody is as well known to her as her own name.

  A languid rise, a yearning fall.

  She is standing outside Fujino, looking toward the palace …

  View from Rolling Hills.

  Yes. She knows exactly where she is now. Her mother always warned Shizuka that she’d end up here. How foolish of her not to have realized sooner. If she’d wandered much farther in, she’d break all her promises.

  The woman in the fox mask unbelts her sword, which was not there a moment ago. A single sharp note rings as the woman draws it from its home; the blade shines a brilliant gold. She holds it across the palms of both hands as she sinks down to the ground, laying the sword there like an offering.