Yet even over the sound of her own scream, she can hear her wife. Shefali’s war howl pierces the screen of Shizuka’s despair. This is not the Kirin. It cannot be, for her wife is here with her, and their two peoples are depending on them.
Watch your opponent.
This is the first rule and the north star of swordsmanship. Too long already has she neglected it. Touching the tip of her finger to the blade brings a sharp hiss of pain—this is enough to anchor her in the present. She focuses her eyes on him, though the world spins around her.
The Traitor staggers. He clutches at his bleeding wrist, his sword at his feet.
One cut is all it will take, if she can just—
Fall into stance, breathe in, step forward, cut—
He twists aside at the last moment. The arc of light flies into Shefali’s ice wall, cracking it halfway. Shizuka’s stomach lurches. An entire army lurks beyond that white, with only Shefali to fend them off—and now she’s put a crack in their defenses.
Perhaps she really is selfish.
In the moment it takes her to glance at the crack, the Traitor has run to the trapdoor.
“You won’t be able to open it,” she says. “The ropes binding it were blessed by the Father himself.”
An ugly look crosses Yamai’s face—a storm cloud of an expression.
“My brother,” he says, “can never bar me for long.”
He reaches for the body’s hand, and it is then—yes, it is then—that Shizuka’s world falls from beneath her.
That hand is smooth and brown; the cuff at its wrist green felt with white triangles embroidered. She knows that deel. His mother made it for him. During their winter in Xian-Lai, he’d worn it every single day, bragging of its warmth and many pockets.
Kenshiro. Dead with a Qorin sword in hand, dead atop his daughter’s hiding place, dead after facing the same army that now threatened to claim his sister.
No.
He isn’t … He is …
That idiot …
A young man may say he is the bravest warrior in the world, but that claim dies with the first friend run through by the enemy.
So it is with Shizuka. Frozen, the Sun, as Yamai closes Kenshiro’s hand around the handle and pulls.
A scream shrill as metal on glass. Shizuka’s hand flies to her ear, but she cannot drown it out. He’s lifting, lifting—
Two spears jab at him, but he only laughs—
She cannot let this stand!
Forward, forward! Her second cut catches him across the back. Water spills from him as if his body were a dam—but he does not stop. Instead, he lets out a rattling laugh. “Haven’t you forgotten something?”
A taunt, only a taunt. Another cut will end him. Straight down the line of his spine she slices—and yet still he continues. Two spears pierce his chest. He stands with a guttural yell, throwing the trapdoor fully open.
How?
Kenshiro—Kenshiro—said the Traitor isn’t a warrior. How is it that he can withstand such blows? All her life, she has waited for this moment of their ascension; all her life, she has imagined killing the Traitor—and now her sword does not truly hurt him?
When weapons fail, your own hands will have to do. Shizuka lunges for him. He does not move to avoid her. Just as she throws her hands around his waist and sinks to her knees, realization strikes her.
The screaming has stopped. It is then she sees the water from his wrist dripping onto Lai Baoyi. Her niece’s green eyes are foggy and wide, her mouth hanging open. The armor Kenshiro must have gotten her into is two sizes too big; a sword she has never used hangs at her waist. The two Phoenix Guard continue trying to kill the Traitor, oblivious to the state of their charge.
How can a man crush a heart that is no longer there? For “crush” is the word—her soul buckles at the sight. It is impotent rage that drives her, it is fury that compels her to continue her attack. She drops to her knees and lets gravity do the work of flipping him. When he clatters to the ground, a puddle forms around him—his seawater mixing with her gold.
He has the nerve to laugh. “You see? I’ve already—”
But she does not let him finish. He does not deserve to speak. Wretched creature! Kinslayer, betrayer of men! Who would suffer his words? She drives the Daybreak Blade straight through his throat and farther still. The tip of her sword melts through to the tile; he is doubled over backwards, with her right above him.
Yet he does not die.
The wound in his throat keeps him from laughing at her, but he does it with his eyes just the same. She raises the sword for another blow—only to stagger when a fist meets her temple. Shizuka’s ears ring.
“A proper woman must be skilled in defending her home.”
His lips aren’t moving. He isn’t the one speaking, but that is his voice, that is his voice—
She does not want to turn.
She has to turn.
There: her niece, her knuckles bruise-violet.
None of this was supposed to happen. “Baoyi,” she whimpers.
“She can’t hear you.” Pinned as he is to the ground, he continues to speak through her niece instead. The pleasure in his voice is unmistakable. “How much of your own family can you kill in one day, Yui?”
To hear that from her lips! To see her face, to know that they are here only because of her failures!
Her hand flies to her chest as Baoyi reaches for Yamai’s sword. “Baoyi, please—”
The slash comes quickly. Reflex alone saves her: she pulls the sword from Yamai just in time for a hasty perpendicular parry. Blade grinds on edge; her bones shiver. That strength is not her niece’s.
“Ah, I forgot. You can’t kill me.” Now he is speaking for himself—she can hear him rising behind her, can hear the water pooling around him from his wounds.
Baoyi slashes at her again, wild and vicious. It is all Shizuka can do to parry with her flat and shove her niece’s shoulder. A quick stumble is her reward—but the true treasure comes moments later.
Golden characters appear on Baoyi’s chest as she recovers: Precious, Righteous. Shizuka chose them herself. It was—aside from Shefali’s accepting her marriage proposal—the greatest honor she’d ever been given. Baozhai laid it upon her as thanks for formally severing the ties.
Her name. Shizuka still knows her true name.
But she does not know Yamai’s. She sees them now, the characters, or the suggestion of them: they are so antiquated, she cannot properly read them. Even if she could—is this Yamai, or is this another name? It was not uncommon for nobles to adopt a new one upon taking the throne. Shefali had seen him in her vision as a grown man—but she couldn’t have read his name.
Baoyi’s assault continues. Farther and farther back she beats Shizuka, the blows heavier every time. God though she may be, Shizuka’s arms scream for respite. They will find none here—no one will. Yamai’s taken up a spear.
An awful sinking in her chest. Truth be told, she hadn’t often defended against multiple opponents, even during the war. In those days, she was always surrounded by her own soldiers, by Xianyu or Munenori or Akiko.
But here? Here she is alone.
Baoyi’s swings are heavy; parrying them is like trying to parry a bull. Five more swings, Shizuka endures, before she switches to swaying away from the tip of that thick Xianese sword. One, two, three steps she takes, watching her niece’s shoulders and feet.
But Yamai is watching her.
One step backwards. Her foot lands on the severed hand of a guardsman; she slips, skids—and Yamai’s spear is there to meet her. As easily as a needle pierces thread, his spear slips between her already aching ribs. It is the sight of it that jars her more than the pain, for she is by then so lost in the battle that she cannot feel any more pain. But see it—the crossguard of the spear pressed against her fine robes; the gold welling up like liquid light; the spurt when he withdraws it. Shizuka’s side goes hot, and then cold as the blood leaves her.
If she
was dizzy before, she is spinning now.
“What a shame you would not listen to reason, Yui. I think I could have made something worthwhile out of you.”
He laughs near her ear.
Your name, what is your name?
When she tries to draw a breath, she finds that she cannot—something in her chest is no longer working. Blood shoots up her throat and fills her mouth. Shefali wrote so often of blood’s sweetness—Shizuka tastes only copper.
Baoyi’s blurry form lifts her sword overhead in one of the traditional Hokkaran stances. Another blow is coming: an overhead slash. Shizuka can see it in her shoulders. Yamai wants to split her from forehead to groin, and he will use her niece to do it. Swordplay is her mother tongue—she knows a quick thrust to the chest or stomach will end the attacker before they can finish the overhead swing.
And kill her niece.
No.
She refuses.
Spinning, spinning. The sword overhead, the spear somewhere behind her, waiting for her to back out of the way.
She cannot falter. Twenty years and more she has trained for this. If she fails, all of Hokkaro will be as glassy-eyed as her niece; if she fails, Kenshiro and her father will have died for nothing.
In her mind she sees it: she steps back, manages a hasty parry, and Yamai’s spear pierces through the hard bone of her chest. This is what he wants, this is what he expects of her. Failing that, he expects her to go for the counterstroke—and so, too, will he.
Whether she steps forward or back, her fate is sealed.
It is a good thing, then, that Yamai has no actual talent with a sword.
Baoyi brings down her sword with a shout to make her ancestors proud. How heavy, that blow! A hardened oak could not withstand it, and so Shizuka does not try.
She twists toward Baoyi’s sword arm, the Daybreak Blade held just overhead. As she dodges the blow, she slashes her niece across the wrist. Yamai might control her, but Baoyi’s muscles will react without conscious thought. For a precious instant, her grip on the sword falters—and it is then that Shizuka drives the pommel of the Daybreak Blade against the hilt of Baoyi’s, knocking it from her hand.
The idea comes to her like an old memory. With her free hand, she coats her fingers in her own blood. Baoyi comes for her like a wrestler—and Shizuka meets her with twelve strokes to the chest. All at once, the breath leaves her niece; all at once, her strength falters. She doubles over, draped around Shizuka’s waiting arm.
Two characters, painted in divine blood on her chest: Precious, Righteousness.
Shefali has her kumaq—but Shizuka’s domain has always been calligraphy. Whether it is the loss of blood that elates her or genuine relief—does it matter? She would trade nearly anything for more of this moment. Baoyi is safe. The glass has left her eyes; she is free from him. For once, Shizuka feels the hero.
Yamai cares nothing for this moment. Rage and anger drive him forward like an arrow, his spear questing for purchase on Baoyi’s slumped body. Shizuka does not need to think—she drops Baoyi’s unconscious body and throws herself in the path of the spear. That she manages to bat the spear off track surprises her almost as much as it surprises Yamai—his brows rise halfway up his head.
True swordsmanship happens without thinking. In this way, Shizuka drives the Daybreak Blade through Yamai’s gut. Only when her hilt meets flesh does she stop thrusting; only then does she back away, twisting her wounded side away from the spurt of water.
A rasping breath. She stands, facing Yamai, her shoulders bowed. There are three of him in her vision: three spears at the ready, three rivers spouting from three men. Desperately she searches for any sign of the characters she needs. Legend and folklore said the Emperor bore the name Yamai because of an illness he’d overcome as a child—it cannot be his real one.
There! One of the characters settles into place—the second of the two. Above.
Above what?
“You’re throwing away eternity.” His voice is a washerwoman’s rag. “The old hag lives forever because she cannot die. You and I—divine though we may be—can be killed. With the world under my control, they will never lift a finger against us. We will know when the new gods come, and we will drown them. The Hokkaran Empire shall stand forever, as inexorable as the tides. That is the world I envisioned. I thought my own progeny would have the good sense to join me—but here you are. Dying.”
For all his talk, he, too, is dying—or will be, if she can figure out his name. Their makeshift arena is slick with his watery blood. When he levels his spear at her, it rattles; his shoulder trembles. This man is no fighter.
And yet neither can Shizuka stand. As a branch in the wind, she sways from side to side. No, her blade does not rattle in her hands, nor can she focus on the five stars of swordsmanship. How is she to pay attention to Yamai’s shoulders when she cannot tell which image is the real one?
Two gods sealed in a chamber—and look at them. Ragged and worn. He was right. Either of them could die here. The sort of thing her father would have written a—
Am I forever to gaze upon the blue sky and dream of better?
That’s it, isn’t it? When the moon rose above the false palace, when her father spouted that poem—he was helping her. How did Shizuka not put it together sooner? Better than the blue sky—the wide, dark ocean. The blood he shed, the kingdom he so longed for. The fox-woman had tried to tell her to listen to her father!
Laughter takes her. Oh, it’s all so obvious.
She will give the man this much credit at least: he takes her laughter for an opening, and one he is eager to seize. Another thrust from the spear, arrow quick and boulder heavy. She sways out of the way and slices the spear in two and grabs it by the shaft. Closer she pulls him with the last of her strength, close enough that she can hold him by the collars of his robes. His mouth grows into a grin. There is a dagger at his waist, and he is reaching for it. She does not care.
“What is it about incompetent gardeners? Always going on about their techniques while their flowers die around them,” Minami Shizuka says. Already her fingers are tracing the characters onto his armor, already the fire is pouring into them. Above the sea. “Do not presume to tell the chrysanthemum how to bloom, Umigami.”
* * *
THERE! HIS GRIN shatters. She has only a moment before the dagger pierces her, only a moment to do what needs to be done: she slashes over his arm at the air behind him.
“You missed,” he says.
The dagger crashes into the side of her throat. She does not feel the pain, but she feels the impact. So, too, does she feel her fingers against his armor, tracing his name in her own golden blood.
All of this—all of this!—is so funny to her.
How common it is among the dying to laugh like this—and yet how perplexed he is at the sight.
“I never miss,” she says as the darkness starts to take her, as the shadows start to swallow him.
And it is then, of course, that he hears the crack of ice. It is then that he feels the earth thudding beneath his feet, and it is then that he sees the wolf looming above him.
He drops her to the ground.
And, yes, though the dark is deep, though she has lost all her blood—she sees it happen. She sees Barsalai Shefali clamp down on him with her massive jaws; she sees her swallow him.
And she thinks to herself: It is all right to die now, we are together.
The rest can wait—
LAI BAOYI
THREE
When she wakes, Baoyi is cradled in a god’s lap. Familiar eyes meet hers—but she cannot place them, does not know where she last saw them.
For a moment Baoyi thinks she must have woken from an awful dream—a dream where she forgot her own aunt, a dream where Barsalai wandered off for years and she lived her whole life without ever seeing her again, a dream where demons attacked the palace and her father decided to die.
This moment is one of the happiest in her young life. Indeed, the elatio
n that comes to her then outweighs the elation she felt when her father placed the Phoenix Crown upon her head, the elation she felt the first time she met her mother in court as an equal and not as a subordinate, better than her brother carving his first bow and running up to show her. This moment, this joy, is better than all of the hills she has rolled down, all of the horses she has raced, all of the games of Poem War she won thanks to fate conspiring in her favor.
This moment, however, is transient. She cannot bring herself to think of it as beautiful—but it is transient.
The smell hits her first, compelling her eyes to look around. Bodies line the floor like rotting fruit beneath a tree. Some have burst, here and there, splotches of rust and wine seeping out of them. The eastern wing of the throne room is on fire; the west is clogged with the dead. The god who is holding her kneels in an ankle-deep pool of water. Blood and ink alike soak into their clothes.
The first beat of her heart is like a bolt through rice paper. The second is the fall of a hammer. So it is: she has swallowed a thunder drum, and now it wants to sing. Everything within her dances to its maddening song: her blood rushes to her ears, her breathing goes ragged; she must move, must do something to convince herself that this is not real.
She reaches for the collar of the god’s deel only to see the state of her own wrist: a weeping gash of red. Somehow she expects it to hurt more than it does when she grabs hold of the deel. It is the fear, not the pain, that comes through in her royal voice. “My father. Where is my father?”
The god’s eyes screw shut. She picks up Baoyi with little effort and holds her close, rocking the two of them, burying her head against Baoyi’s shoulder.
And Baoyi, whose tears are not coming, thinks to herself that this is pathetic.
She hates herself for that thought, she does, but she has it all the same. This is pathetic. Whoever heard of a weeping god? Aren’t there things this god should be doing? All those years she spent away doing who knows what—and now she can’t even be strong when other people need her to be?
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