Shefali leaps a table. The statue of the Sister is less than a horselength away—the human-shaped blackblood is the only thing barring their way. In its hands, a large pot of something or another. It meets her eyes with that awful grin, but it does not move, it does not move.
Not until the very last moment.
Then it throws the hot oil in the pot right at Shizuka.
Clever, it must think itself—but nothing has burned Shizuka in twenty years. When she swings her mother’s sword, the oil catches all along its arc. Flames consume the creature; the scent of burning flesh meets Shizuka’s nostrils. Another cut puts it out of its misery.
“Disgusting,” Shefali rumbles.
Expert craftsmen gather around to drive a post into the ground. Six of them, hammers in hand, confront their task. The first strikes, and the next, and the next, acting in such smooth motion that their arms are like the waves of Nishikomi. So often have they done this that there is no need to speak, no need to say who comes next.
So it is with Shefali, Shizuka, and the statue. The prudent thing would be to dismount, to let Shefali move it aside so that they might proceed through the passage—but Shefali will not let her wife dismount. She knows how long it takes her to get back into a saddle, and knows well that she cannot ride bareback at all.
Shefali does not stop, and Shizuka does not question her: she simply splits the statue of the Sister in two—the arc of light coming from the Daybreak Blade makes quick work of it.
The passage is a narrow one, worn more by the steps of the servants than by any of her father’s giants. How cramped, how dark!
And yet the faint taste of Kenshiro’s blood drives her on. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong, and if anything has happened to her brother …
None of the blackbloods have found the passage—for a few brief minutes, they are free from the sounds of battle, free from the scents, free from the screams of the dying. And yet this is no peace. Is Baoyi in the chamber? Is she safe? What of her brother? Possibility is an army; Shefali is but one woman—even if she is a god. Their demonic knives find her back, and she can do little to fend them off.
Baoyi has the Phoenix Guard. They will keep her, if only for a little while—but who will save Kenshiro? The cherry-sweet taste of her scholar-brother’s blood lands on the back of her tongue. Shefali wants to cry out, but what use would it be in this form?
She must save him.
Another statue of the Sister conceals the exit. Shizuka readies herself for another cut—and then they are through. Only one more hall between them and the throne room.
Yet when they emerge—when they see what lies before them—both women freeze. The Phoenix Guard are indeed here—but they are not the warriors they once were. Shoulder to shoulder, backs rigid and straight: in every way, they appear to be an army.
But they do not wear their masks, and their skin has gone the color of thousand-year eggs. Black veins crawl beneath the surface. Black their sclera, black the insides of their screaming mouths. Their teeth, too, have changed to fangs.
And the moment the two of them emerge from the tunnel, the army turns as one to meet them. So, too, do they speak as one.
“Good evening, Yui. I see you’ve brought your dog.”
In truth, Shefali hardly hears him. Between the legs of the Phoenix Guard—just behind the Traitor—she can see her brother.
Oshiro Kenshiro is on his knees in a pool of his own blood, his eyes rolled back, his mouth open in a snarl. A spear runs him through from chest to foot. Like an errant puppet, he is nailed in place above the jade plaque.
He looks so little like himself in that makeshift armor that Shefali at first does not believe it is him, cannot believe that Tree-Mind would try to fend anyone off. What did he think he would accomplish? And yet …
The door is closed; his daughter is safe.
Because Kenshiro chose this sacrifice. Because he flung himself in the path of danger. Because he protected her the way he never could protect Shefali.
In a hundred years no one will remember this moment—save those who were there to see it. They will light their incense to the Warrior Moon, they will chant her name, they will beseech her guidance when the night is long and their bellies are empty. She will protect them, as she must; she will guide them, as she must. When this is through they will thank their god; when this is through, they will think to themselves that they are lucky to have someone so valiant, so vigilant watching over them.
But they will not know this: instead of rushing to her brother’s aid, Barsalai Shefali let him die.
That is a weight the Warrior Moon will have to bear until the skies come down.
THE PHOENIX
AT LAST
“Good evening, Yui. I see you’ve brought your dog.”
His voice. Clouds of darkness leave their mouths as he voices them, coalescing into a knee-high fog at their feet. It smells of the sea, of iron, of death.
So much death—and now there will have to be more.
Her voice is a knife. “Let them go. Your quarrel is with the throne of Hokkaro, is it not? Challenge me if you will, but leave these souls out of it.”
It is one thing to see that awful grin on the face of a single blackblood—it is another to see it blossom on the face of all these soldiers at once. Like a field of flowers, she thinks, and she hates herself for the thought: all of them opening to the sun at once. “You do not hold this throne, Yui.”
As one, they move, drawing their swords and falling into their stances. Each wears the same expression, each holds their weapon the same way. The Phoenix Guard have specific height requirements—every soldier is of a size with the next, every soldier’s hair is cropped the same way. These things are meant to build unity, and so they do—but only when undertaken voluntarily.
This is something else.
The puppets at Rihima, the bodies rising to strike at their former comrades. A village reduced to cinders and ash, where the deer fear to graze and the bears fear to hunt.
The Jade Palace will soon be such a place if Shizuka does not strike down her own poisonous ancestor.
Shefali howls. She rears up on her hind legs and in so doing, grows larger again—when her front paws once more reach the ground, she is back to her towering size. So high up is Shizuka that she can no longer make out the details of the soldiers’ faces.
“I may not hold the throne,” she says, “but I act as Yuuko’s champion in this matter. So long as I breathe, you shall not lay your foul hands on her.”
The army laughs in two careful exhalations: Ha ha.
“Shefali,” she whispers. “We are going to have to go through them.”
There is no verbal answer—only something like a nod, and then five bounding steps. They are in the air once more before Shizuka knows what is happening. Over two, three, four ranks they fly—but even Shefali cannot jump them all. They land on the fifth rank, and the fifth rank is ready for them. Swords held aloft cannot compare with pikes, but they hurt all the same. Shefali howls and buckles as their weapons pierce her underbelly.
“You have no place here,” the army speaks.
But they are wrong.
This is her home, this is her wife, this is her niece, these are her people. This is her place. This shall always be her place.
And it is bravery indeed to refuse to surrender it in the face of such odds.
The Daybreak Blade flashes in her hand; she swings it in a mighty arc. A flaming crescent flies from the tip. Fire consumes everything it touches—soldier and stone alike. Where once stood a rank, now there is only slag and ash. Mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, gone in a single stroke. When she looks on the heat glimmers of their souls, she finds that she knows them. Their names, their lives. If she cares to, she can hold a bead of light before her fingers and see the whole of it. Favorite foods, words whispered to one another in the dark.
Her people. She has killed her own people.
The horror of it rolls down her bac
k like water—but the guilt she felt earlier does not find her here. There’s a hollowness, a serenity instead.
She drops from Shefali’s back onto the ground. All as one, the guards withdraw their swords from her wife’s stomach. Drenched in molten silver, they turn toward her. She does not hesitate—if she does, she is lost. Her mother’s sword flares. In a heartbeat, in a single brilliant stroke, it is over. Ten soldiers sliced in half. Ten lives gone. Why does she not feel them?
“I know that all of you can hear your Empress,” she speaks. “Fight the darkness within you. Let my wife and me through, or we will be forced to go through you.”
Let them call her the Heartless Sun. Let them hate her. So long as they can kill the Traitor here and now …
To look on a healthy plant and know what needs to be trimmed—this is what it means to be a god.
She lets out a breath, lets out a little of her fire. “Shefali. We don’t have much time.”
Her wife stands in spite of the wounds, in spite of the blood she has lost. Pain clouds her green eye, but she remains unwavering. With her great wolf’s head, she nods.
That is all the peace they have before the army collapses in on them. Shizuka grabs hold of Shefali’s fur, and Shefali flips her back into place. Another puff of ice buys them just enough time to take off down the molten path Shizuka created for them.
But Shefali isn’t running so quickly as she was before, and Shizuka can feel her struggling to breathe. This—this!—is what brings her pain. The swords going in, the empty looks on the army’s faces …
“Shefali,” she whimpers, but if her wife hears her, she is too busy with the army to respond. That puff of cold has become instead a steady exhalation: with every step she takes, ice flies up around them, creating a frozen passage to the throne room. But they must have pierced her lungs: there are holes in the wall like those in a fisherman’s net. Determined soldiers can slip through.
And so they do. Breaking their spines like reeds, snapping their arms, contorting themselves—they slip through. And it is then that Shizuka must strike, willing the light to leap from the tip of her sword.
How many die in that charge? For it lasts only ten minutes. Difficult to finish a meal in that span—but easy enough for a lance of light to pierce you, easy enough to wander into the jaws of a hungry god. Watch them as they fall! Watch them lurch toward their deaths, watch them raise their swords to slice at the undying! Yes—the wall is a net, and they are caught within it. In their wake, the bodies are like the kelp left ashore at low tide.
Still they ride.
Still, forward they go, as the crowd grows thicker and thicker. The broken statue of Emperor Yorihito towers like the Father’s Teeth over the inky depths; the jade columns her ancestors so prized are torn apart and broken. There, the throne, the dais! How clearly she can now see them, how completely they’ve been destroyed! For the throne lies in splinters of gold, and the dais is a crater in the center of the throne room. Overhead, the rafters are full of bats that were once human. As one, they descend; Shizuka must avert her attention from her wife’s flanks to cut them down. Worse—half of one lands on Shefali’s back just in front of Shizuka. It twitches as it dies, its blood matting Shefali’s fur.
A person.
With the flat of her sword, she pushes the creature aside. It topples over, landing on the head of an overzealous blackblood. To Shizuka’s horror, the once-noble Phoenix Guard chomps down on it like a piece of fruit.
None of this will end if she cannot find the Traitor. Swallowing, she scans the horizon for him—for the particular tile that leads to the hidden chamber. In the northeast corner of the room …
There!
There he is. As a wolf among dogs, the Traitor, clad in his gaudy armor. That she missed him before now is a testament to the chaos of the moment. How casually he stands! One hand rests on the pommel of his sword as he orders his minions; he does not look toward Shizuka and the charging Shefali at all. Four blackbloods have planted themselves at each corner of the trapdoor. A body is slumped over atop of it, though beaten so bloody, Shizuka cannot imagine to whom it might belong.
“Unhand it!” Shizuka shouts.
It is then that the Traitor looks at her; it is then that he tilts his head toward her. As a professor eyeing an unruly student—Yamai and his descendant.
She does not wait for him to taunt her. With all her might, she swings. Wide and tall as an anchor, the arc that leaves the Daybreak Blade! Light slices clean through the arms of all four blackbloods; only stubs remain.
But they do not look at her.
Only he does.
Her blood boils in her ears. Standing in the shadow of Emperor Yorihito, looking so utterly pleased with himself … how can any sovereign find pleasure in such destruction? How can he possibly enjoy this?
But it occurs to her that she has killed many already and felt only passing guilt for it.
Her boiling blood is the same as his.
Red, her vision! Thunder drums between her ears, fire in her veins! Yes, a fire—how hot it burns! The smallest mote might consume the palace, a large one the nation. If she unleashes all of it, surely she could burn the world.
But she does not want to burn the world.
Cloaked in heavenly flame, the Phoenix Empress throws herself from her wife’s back. She lands as petals land, slow and delicate, in the space the Traitor has cleared for himself. The Daybreak Blade is hot as a blacksmith’s tongs. Even the air goes hazy in her divine presence.
Hear the god speak; hear the mountains crack; hear the fiery rain that leaves them!
“I am Minami Shizuka, daughter of Minami Shizuru and scion of the Minami clan. This is the name of the woman who will kill you.”
Even the finest armies would tremble at the sound of her! Even Yusuke the Brawler would lay down his arms at the sight of her, her glowing eyes, the fires that lick the air around her!
And yet the Traitor born of the sea does not. He only draws his sword and lays it on his shoulder—the image of a gaudy vagabond. “When I look around with my ten thousand eyes, I see five thousand of my swords and only one of yours. You are foolish as always, Yui.”
With his free hand, he snaps.
The armies turn to face them—an arena of flesh and evil ink. Shizuka’s flaming aura glitters in their raised blades.
“They do not concern me,” Shizuka says. She takes a single step forward. Still, the Traitor does not fall into his stance.
Another snap. Like rice through a funnel—the soldiers charging toward her.
But Shefali is there to meet them. Not once has she stopped running—and now is no exception. Before the army has taken five steps, she is running in a wide circle, breathing more ice as she goes. The wall of ice grows and grows—and Shizuka watches her wife fall away behind it.
Her fires flicker. When she said the army did not concern her, she hadn’t meant … ten thousand against a single woman! And already she is injured, already silver blood mends the cracks in the ice wall.
A black shadow against the white—that is all Shizuka can see of her wife, her Shefali. Her name dies in Shizuka’s throat; she cannot bring herself to call out for her. Together. Hadn’t they said together?
Shizuka is the pot; doubt is a hammer.
And Yamai the man who wields it. His pommel cracks against her nose. Stars burst before her; blood pours into her mouth. Out of reflex, she reaches for her nose—and he meets her with a blow to the sternum. Her stomach threatens to empty. She coughs, desperate for breath, as he shoves her away.
“They should.”
She twists quick enough to land on her shoulder and not her head—but even so, it is a struggle to get herself oriented. She cannot breathe, cannot focus, and just beyond the wall, she can hear Shefali’s pained cries.
Yamai jabs her in the chin with his pommel. Her teeth rattle.
“You are selfish. You have always been selfish, and you will always be selfish.”
Blood on the
ground. The crunch of a body between Shefali’s teeth. Her head, her head! As if someone has hollowed out her skull and filled it with liquid—everything is sloshing against everything else with only the slightest movement.
The sword. She must keep hold of the sword.
Crack. She knows that sound from the Qorin camps. No one ever wrestled Stone-Arm Batbayaar, because of his nasty tendency to break ribs. How strange, now, to recall such a thing instead of feeling any pain. How strange to think of the Qorin, and not the night she learned you can break a woman’s ribs with a sheath.
A ragged breath escapes her bloodstained lips.
He answers before she can summon words. “You do not find solutions to your problems, you merely kill them.”
Puh. Spit lands on her face, hot and then immediately cold.
And in this, the Traitor makes his first mistake—for nothing offends Minami Shizuka more than abject disrespect. The fires kindle within her once more. The daughter of Minami Shizuru, the Queen of Crows, letting a man spit on her! Lying here as he strikes her again and again!
The sharp song of a drawn blade; the clatter of his sheath against the tile. His next strike won’t be so kind.
This isn’t the first beating she’s endured. She swallows a mouthful of blood. Her knuckles go white around the Daybreak Blade.
When he thrusts, so does she, striking up from underneath him at his sword arm. Blood wells from his wrist as he drops his sword. Whatever pride she feels is consumed by the sight of his blood: it is pale and blue, thick with bubbles.
Water. He bleeds seawater.
All it takes is the sight of it. All it takes is one glance, and already her mind has abducted her. So heavy, her armor, so dark the depths of the Kirin. The water, flowing up her nostrils and into her lungs; the water, claiming her cousin, her tears, her childhood self.
No sooner has she gotten to her feet than she screams. It is not a conscious outburst—it comes like a babe’s, pulled from its mother. There is nothing more natural in the world than screaming because you are frightened.
The Warrior Moon Page 57