by Claire Luana
The mob was chanting now, savage words calling for Kai’s head, her death. But Kai didn’t hear it amongst the inferno of rage within her. Somewhere that felt very far away, she knew Nanase and Chiya spoke to her in urgent tones, that Quitsu pressed against her foot to comfort her and bring her back to herself. She didn’t care. What she felt was anger and sorrow at her own impotence. The need to do something that would make a difference.
A violent wind rose and whipped around Kai, tossing her silver hair about her face. The handprint on Kai’s chest flared to life, glowing white through the fabric of her dress.
The air crackled with energy as clouds began to gather, dark and thick, filling a sky that had hung limp and dry for months.
The tenor of the mob changed from anger to fear. Venomous shouts dissolved into nervous murmurs.
Thunder rumbled across the citadel as more black clouds materialized. Kai wasn’t sure what she was doing, not exactly. It was instinctive. The creator’s power sang to her, called out to her. It wasn’t like burning, where she pulled moonlight, or even this strange light of life, into her qi. It was more as if she spoke to the clouds themselves, to the lightning, to the raindrops in the sky.
Kai’s voice rang out over the crowd, sounding foreign in her ears. “We are at war. But not for superiority of our nation. For our survival. We fight on the side of light! Against an enemy that would plunge our world into darkness. Our creator has not abandoned us. But he will not abide petty bickering! Return to your homes and ready yourself for the battle to come!”
Lightning forked across the sky, punctuating the final words of Kai’s strange speech. As the afterglow of the lightning stung her retinas, the heavens opened. Rain poured from the dark clouds in sheets, the monsoon drenching the mob, snuffing their torches with a sizzle.
Shouts of awe and rejoicing sounded from below as men upturned their faces and opened their mouths to let the cool rainwater wash over them. The first rain in months.
Kai stumbled back, her rage doused by the water. She was suddenly chilled and shivering. Nanase and Chiya caught her, leading her towards the stairs, their eyes wide with wonder.
Kai walked down the stairs of the tower into the courtyard below, careful not to slip on the slick stone steps. She was suddenly weary to her very bones. Though she had just awoken, she needed rest.
Hiro and Emi were waiting in the muddy courtyard, their faces impassive. Daarco slouched behind them, refusing to make eye contact. Water dripped down his crooked nose.
“It looks like you all have a story to tell,” Kai remarked, blinking the water from her eyes.
“Yes, though not such a story as you,” Hiro said, taking her hands in his own. His shook slightly, but not from the cold. She could see the apology written across his face. Her heart softened. So he had gone to retrieve Daarco. To bring him back.
“Let’s get you inside,” Hiro said. “Then we need to plead Daarco’s case to you. Emi and I believe he is innocent.”
“Innocent men don’t run,” Kai said.
“I knew this was pointless,” Daarco said, turning to go, his boots squelching in the mud.
“No.” Emi pointed at him. “You stay.”
And surprisingly enough, he did, turning back around with a glower.
“I know he slipped his guards,” Emi said, “but he returned. If he was guilty, would he have come back?”
“I’m not sure if it speaks to his innocence or his stupidity,” Kai grumbled. “But tell me. Do you vouch for him? Are you certain he did not free Geisa?”
“Yes,” Hiro and Emi said.
“Let’s see if you’re right.” Kai stepped before Daarco. She examined him, remembering the twisted hatred in his face the night of their first meeting when he had bound her hands and savagely kicked her. Was this really the best they could do for allies?
“Did you free Geisa?” she asked, weariness filling her voice.
“No,” he said.
Her necklace lay cool on her slick chest. Truth.
“Do you still hate all moonburners?” she asked.
He was silent for a moment. His eyes flicked to Emi, an almost imperceptible movement.
“Not all,” he said. Truth.
“Will you try to kill me again?”
“No,” he said. Truth.
“Why did you return?” she asked.
His cheeks colored. “I’m just here to kill tengu.” His eyes flicked to Emi again.
Her necklace warmed on her chest, but not with the full burn of a lie. A half-truth then. Well. His secret was safe with her. For the time being.
“If you’re here to kill tengu,” Kai said, “you’ve come to the right place.”
A hot bath and a plate of food awaited Kai when she returned to her room. The sight of it nearly made her weep for joy. She snagged a hot fluffy bun stuffed with spiced chicken and took a bite, savoring the flavors that played across her tongue.
Next to the tray of food lay a soft emerald cloth bearing a ring—three interlocking circles of sparkling metal. Kai had dispatched a servant on her way up to the citadel walls with Chiya, and it looked like the woman had been able to find it amongst the jumble of the treasury. Kai slipped it on, praying that the ring truly had the power to keep her in the mortal world while she slept. She didn’t need another run-in with the spirit world or its tengu inhabitants. What she needed was a good night’s sleep.
Kai’s servants had drawn the thick curtains and her moon orbs had been dimmed, leaving her room cast in maudlin shadows. She undressed and stepped into the steaming bath water lightly scented with orange blossoms. The temperature was perfect. As soon as she settled on the tub’s porcelain bottom, the heat of the water began to soothe her weary body and soul. The chill of the rain leeched out of her, replaced with pleasant warmth.
Kai tried to slow her racing mind, pulling back the many threads of herself into a coherent whole. She felt as if she was stretched thin, a piece leather over a tanner’s tool. Another inch might break her. The questions swirled in her mind, whipped about by the wind of her worries. What was she becoming? She couldn’t moonburn anymore—but she could access the creator’s light instead. But that didn’t explain how she’d done what she had done with the rain and the clouds. And in the Misty Forest, when the trees attacked. She touched the handprint on her chest, her nerves jangling. She remembered only glimpses of what she had seen when she lay dying from spotted fever. She needed to understand how to use these powers if she was going to defeat the tengu or seal the barrier between the worlds.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember, to draw the memories into her mind’s eye. A tan castle. A view of the sea. Talk of guardians. Of the tengu. And falling. Anything beyond those memories seemed too far out of reach.
She splashed the surface of the water in frustration, huffing.
“What did the bath do to you?”
She turned towards the door and found Hiro standing there, his deep green eyes shining in the low light. His tone was friendly, but he stood stiffly. Warily.
“Spying on me in my bath?” she asked.
“Just jealous. I need one myself,” he said, his boots squelching on the floor. He was still soaked through from the monsoon that had doused them at the citadel wall.
“Hand me that towel,” she said. “I’ll pour another bath for you. You’re going to catch a cold in those wet clothes.”
He walked to the chair that sat against the wall of the bathing chamber and picked up the fluffy white towel. “This towel?” he said, holding it just out of reach, a smile cracking across his face.
“Give it to me, you scoundrel,” Kai said, grabbing at it, patently aware that the water of the bath left little to the imagination.
Hiro relented and gave it to her, turning his back as she stepped out of the bath.
Kai toweled herself dry and retrieved a colorful silken robe from the corner of her dressing screen. When she emerged, Hiro had removed his boots and was stripping off his sodden shirt.
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She swallowed thickly, thoughts of the creator and tengu slipping from her mind like water down a drain. The firm muscles of Hiro’s back were slick from the rain, and his wet pants hung low across his hips and taut stomach as he turned.
Their eyes locked and she forgot to breathe, molten energy crackling between them. “Hiro,” she said huskily, hardly recognizing her own voice. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” In two steps he crossed the distance between them, enveloping her in his arms.
She shivered as he kissed her, simultaneously flushed with the heat of her own body and chilled by the rain on his skin.
He tangled his fingers in her wet hair and her head arched back, her mouth eager for more of him, her body pressing to his with a will of its own.
Her hands traced the hard planes of his arms, the curve at the small of his back, and she found them slipping around to the front, fumbling with the clasp of his belt.
“Wait,” he gasped, pulling away from her kiss, shuddering under her touch.
But Kai had waited long enough. Nothing was certain anymore. Not her future, her kingdom, not even their very existence. If their world was plunged into darkness tomorrow, she was damn well going to experience its joys tonight.
“No more waiting,” she said, tracing her fingers through his flaxen hair, down his temple, lingering on the sweet flesh of his lips.
“Are you sure?” His eyes smoldered as he held himself back from her, searching her face for her honest answer.
Kai was struck by how profoundly she had come to rely on Hiro, to trust him. He was the firm foundation among the storm of circumstance raging around her. But tonight, he was the storm that raged inside her. And she wanted nothing so much as to be lost.
“Yes,” she said, standing on her tiptoes and crushing his lips with a kiss.
Hiro swung her up into his arms as effortlessly as if he were lifting a doll. He strode to the bed and placed her gently upon it, settling down next to her, moving the trailing heat of his kisses past her ear and down her neck. As his calloused hand stroked up her leg and found the opening of her robe, her thoughts dissolved completely, giving way to the enveloping pleasure of his body against hers, his hands tracing paths of fire across her skin.
They needed no words as the last line between them dissolved, demolished by their mutual need for comfort, for connection, to remember the beauty of love and life and what they fought for. Whatever came in the morning, for one night at least, they would know each other fully.
Hiro ran his hand though Kai’s silver hair as they lay tangled in each other’s arms.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked, running a finger across her freckled cheek. Kai couldn’t keep the grin off her face.
“I wish I could freeze this moment.” Kai sighed. “For the first time in weeks, I don’t feel completely overwhelmed.” Her smile slipped as she thought of the angry mob that had swarmed her gates only hours ago.
“You’re losing it,” cried Hiro. “Don’t think about it! I thought you were freezing the moment!”
She laughed. “I’m hopeless.”
Hiro’s stomach rumbled and he swung out of bed, walking to the table. “If the moment is gone, then I’m going to get something to eat. I’m starving.”
Kai’s cheeks flushed as she took in his naked form. He was the first naked man she had seen…in the flesh. Paintings and such didn’t count. Although Hiro looked like he could have stepped right out of a painting, all tan skin and lean muscle.
He slipped back into the bed with a plate of food in one hand and a bottle of sake and two cups clasped in the other.
“You were peeking,” he said as he set them down on the bedside table. He lifted up the cover to take in Kai’s own naked body.
“Hey,” she cried.
“If I’m to marry you, it’s only fair to know what I’m getting into,” he said with a laugh.
“I think you just found out,” she said, suddenly unsure. The experience had been wonderful for her, but had Hiro enjoyed it as much as she had?
“If I wake up with you beside me every morning, I will count myself the luckiest man in the world,” he said, kissing her gently. Hiro reclined on the pillows and grabbed one of the cold buns off his plate, popping it in his mouth.
She grabbed the indigo bottle of sake and poured them each a cup. “Here’s to hoping there’s still food to cook a month from now,” she said.
“No,” Hiro said, his green eyes locked on hers. “Here’s to the best queen in a century, and the smartest and most determined woman I know.”
The words washed over her, soaking into her weary soul. Her lip started to quiver, and before she could stop herself, tears welled in her eyes.
“Oh boy,” Hiro said, setting down his cup and pulling her close. “What’d I say? What’s wrong?”
Kai wiped her eyes, trying to stop the flow. “Sometimes I don’t feel like any of those things. This is so big. How can I have the fate of Miina, of the very world, on my shoulders? I don’t think I’m even supposed to be queen if I can’t moonburn. And then there’s Chiya…”
Hiro looked at her, sympathy written across his face. “We know this light is extremely powerful. More powerful than burning.” He reached out and touched the scar on her chest gingerly. “I still think it’s a gift.”
“Some gift! I don’t know how to use it! I can’t sleep without waking up in the spirit world and almost being devoured by tengu!”
“Yes, but you will figure out how to use it. How to master it. And this Hamaio has been helpful, right? Given you valuable information?”
“I suppose,” Kai said. “Mostly she’s helped me not get killed.”
“Think about it. You know more about the tengu and the breakdown of the seals between the worlds because of this. Any insight is valuable.”
“I don’t like having something inside of me that I can’t control,” Kai admitted.
“I understand,” he said. “But some of the best parts of life are the parts we don’t control. Things will work out how they’re supposed to.”
“I don’t know how you can be so damn optimistic,” she said. “But I guess I’ll take it.”
“You’re not alone in any of this. I’m right beside you. And so are Emi, and Nanase, and Chiya, and all the rest. Whatever you ask of us, we’ll be there.”
Beside her. She liked the sound of that.
Kai stroked his face, his stubble scratchy on her palm. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
“You won’t have to,” he said. And then he kissed her again, the taste of sake sweet on his lips, and thoughts of war and demons fled from her mind.
Kai woke that morning to a brief moment of bliss. Snuggled under her warm goosedown covers, Hiro’s serene face on the pillow next to her, everything felt right.
Hiro stirred next to her, brushing away strands of golden hair. “Hello, lovely,” he said, reaching out to stroke her cheek with his thumb.
She smiled and looked at him, trying to memorize the contours of the moment. “Hello,” she said. “Back to reality.”
“Not yet,” he grumbled, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to his warm body. As his lips met hers, the door to her bedchamber burst open. Ryu and Quitsu bounded across the room and onto the bed. The frame creaked as Ryu landed by their feet.
“Woah!” Kai exclaimed.
“Rise and shine, lovebirds,” Quitsu said, bouncing a little.
They laughed, and Hiro ruffled Ryu’s mane. “Feeling neglected?”
“I don’t value private time with this one,” Ryu said, tossing his head towards Quitsu, “as much as you do with that one.”
“I’m a kind and gentle lover!” Quitsu said, waving his bushy tail in Ryu’s face.
Ryu snarled at him and Quitsu jumped away, chuffing in laughter.
“This place is going to the seishen,” Hiro said, throwing back the covers. “We’re up.”
Kai had asked her allies to meet in the librar
y at the first bell to discuss their travel plans. Hiro went back to his room to change and Kai dressed in a simple white tunic and gray leggings. Quitsu sat on the table and looked at her with what could only be described as a smirk on his face.
“What?” she finally said, trying to keep the smile from playing across her face. “Am I not entitled to one minute of happiness before I’m killed by tengu and the world as we know it ends?”
“Just one minute?” he asked. “I would have expected better from Hiro.”
“Quitsu!” she said with a scandalized laugh.
He cackled as he jumped off the table and trotted out the door.
Kai reached the library a few minutes early. Master Vita was sitting at the large table, studying the illustrated scroll.
She kissed the top of his head and sat down. “I’ve hardly gotten a moment to see you,” she said, feeling guilty.
“Don’t trouble yourself, my dear. You’re busy running a country and saving the world. I understand that you don’t have time to visit like you did when you were a novice,” he said. “Besides, your mother visits all the time. And having her back is a better gift than I could ever hope for.” Master Vita had been Kai’s mother’s tutor when she was a young princess at the citadel. He had helped her fake her own death and escape with Kai’s father. Kai knew Master Vita considered Hanae a daughter.
“I know. We both thought we had lost her,” Kai said. “And I thought I was going to lose you,” she added softly. Since Kai’s mother had returned, she had been able to treat Master Vita’s consumption. He wasn’t the picture of health, but he was no longer living on borrowed time.
“We do have much to be fortunate for,” Master Vita said.
Kai nodded and was surprised to find she agreed. At times, her situation felt hopeless, but she was still surrounded by people she loved and who loved her. They could do this.
“Did someone say, ‘fortunate’?” a voice called from the end of the library. “Because it’s fortunate your two best moonburners are back to bail you out!”