by Jay Kristoff
The air was freezing, walls glistening with moisture. Long paper amulets ran floor to ceiling, protective mantra scribed in soulless kanji. Daichi could hear motors thrumming through the floor, smell chi-stench curled in the air, clinging to the inside of every breath.
They finally stopped outside another iris door, looming and black. The Inquisitors seemed distracted, watching the corners or staring into space, the leader actually sidestepping as if to avoid collision with something that wasn’t there. After long minutes, the iris dilated, opening out into a vast hollow of black stone. The room was too large to see the edges, a domed ceiling stretching overhead, the floor lit by strips of glowing halogen.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Daichi made out a granite pillar in the room’s heart. Ten feet high, riddled with fat lengths of cable, like boreworms in rotten fruit. The pillar’s base was ringed with thousands of mechabacii, chittering and skittering—the hum of some obscene hive. And atop the pillar, a figure crouched like a parasite king upon his throne.
Red glowing eyes, a thin, pointed helm with hollow cheeks like a death’s head. Cables ran from throne and ceiling, plugged into his chest, legs, arms. His back was a cluster of metal shafts, like sea-urchin spines, glowing with scalding heat. Despite the brass shell, the cruel barbs and sharp lines, the figure seemed frail, old and thin and bent under the weight of his skin.
Daichi could sympathize.
The figure was watching the ceiling as they entered, staring at the impenetrable black above their heads. As Daichi was brought before the throne, it looked down on him, breath straining through the breather bellows encircling the chair. When it spoke, its voice echoed around the room, amplified by speakers in the walls.
“Kagé Daichi. I am Tojo, exalted and venerable First Bloom of the Lotus Guild.”
“A pleasure,” Daichi rasped.
“No doubt.” A smile lurked inside the wheeze, dry as summer grass. “I fear it will be short-lived.”
* * *
The command tent’s ceiling had been peeled away, ushering in the rising sun’s feeble light. Black snowflakes drifted through the gap, hissing as they ended in the roaring firepit. The room was pitch-dark behind her goggles—Hana could barely see a thing. But Katya and Natassja held her hands, one apiece, and Hana was afraid of doing or saying anything wrong. So she remained mute and near-blind behind polarized glass, stumbling as she was led to the fire’s edge.
She could make out trophies lining the walls—ō-yoroi from dead Iron Samurai, chainkatana, bloodied flags set with the standard of the Dragon clan. The Marshal’s six huge warhounds sat in one corner, softly wheezing, but their master was nowhere to be seen. She reached out to caress their minds before slipping back into Kaiah’s thoughts, the bottomless strength she found there. A courage born of endless, raging storms.
I will not be afraid.
Natassja circled the flames, her eye a burning point of brightness even through dark glass. Katya pulled Hana down to kneel opposite, entwined her fingers in the Holy Mother’s. Each woman’s right eye was aglow, fierce and bright, hands joined around the flames.
I will NOT be afraid.
Natassja began speaking, her voice low, musical—a supplication before a power both feared and respected. Natassja closed her eyes, Katya followed suit, and Hana felt the air grow heavier, the tang of iron and blood in back of her throat as the Sisters joined voices, a tune that at any other moment might have seemed terrifying, ending in a rhythmic chanting, breathed at the last like the words of lovers into the ears of their desire.
Natassja opened her eyes, that rose-clad glow spilling into the scars lining her face. Her expression was indulgent, full of love—the smile of a parent watching a clumsy child in an innocent blunder. The old woman spoke softly, pointed to her face, but Hana couldn’t understand the words. She licked her lips, again tasting bloody oxides.
“I don’t understand,” she said, panic rising.
Had she done something wrong? Had she offended?
Katya bared her saw-tooth smile, leaned across the firelight, pulling Hana’s kerchief down around her throat. The girl felt the momentary fear evaporate, finally realizing they just wanted to see her face.
“Oh,” Hana smiled. “Forgiveness, please.”
Katya smiled in return. And reaching up, she pulled the goggles down from her eyes.
Firelight gleamed bright, dazzling after the gloom.
And then everything came undone.
* * *
Kaori dropped down through the hatchway, sinking into the blood-red flood, warm and sticky-thick. She kicked to surface; a few feeble inches of air at the top of the pipeline, spitting her breath and sucking in another reeking lungful. Maro and the others dropped in beside her, the tungsten lamp sputtering out and plunging all into darkness.
Almost immediately they were moving, sucked farther up the pipeline by a tumbling current. Kaori’s head smashed against a low-hanging seam, stars bursting in her eyes. Dazed and near-senseless, sputtering, the gash in her scalp burning at the fuel’s touch. The current choked off as pump chambers filled and valves closed, silence falling like a feather. She was able to collect herself, pressing her hands against the curved ceiling, trying to suck down more of that awful choking air as twenty-eight seconds ticked by, lifetime by lifetime.
As if into the lungs of some titanic beast, the current kicked in again, dragging them farther along the pipeline, tears in her eyes. So it went on; torn up the pipe like a rag doll, floundering for a handful of heartbeats, then hauled along again. The motion was violent, sickening, the current dragging her down, down toward the bloody dark where her screams would go unheard. The pumps grew louder, nausea rising, threatening to spill from her lips and fill her breather, leave her choking on the contents of her own innards. She swallowed hard, another pulse gripping her, flinging her, a child at the mercy of some unholy tempest.
She heard Maro’s voice over the thunder, the deafening beat of her own pulse.
“We must be close! Breathe deep and swim for your life!”
But how could she breathe deep when every breath threatened to choke her? When the air itself was poison, wringing the bile from her throat, retching dry, gods, gods help me—
And then it took her. That colossal undertow. Dragging her down through the great valve, sucking her into the black beyond. Head over heels, up and down meaningless, utterly dark. The groan of the great pistons to her left … or was it behind? Was she even here at all? Curled up in her bed in the Shōgun’s palace, all her life before her, a father who loved her, a princeling who wanted her, a golden throne beckoning and all the treasures and pleasures of the Seven Isles laid glittering at her feet …
Swim, godsdamn you.
A shuddering moan, all along her spine, dread rising with the puke in her throat. A thrumming pulse. A crushing weight. Which way? Gods, which way?
Swim!
Kicking blindly in the dark, struggling toward the light. Except there was no light. No air in her lungs. And even if she did make it through, even if she did light a fire in the Guild’s heart and burn it all to cinders, would it change a single thing? Would it bring back all the things she’d lost? Burn away the hate inside her? The rage at what she’d been and become?
Swim!
Would it bring her peace?
SWIM!
Would any of it make any difference at all?
* * *
Akihito leaned on his warclub crutch, staring across the valley at the Tora army lumbering into motion. The Earthcrusher had vomited an enormous plume of exhaust into the air, but hadn’t actually moved an inch. After everything—all the talk and prayers and risk—it looked like the rebel plan was working. The big man found his face decorated with a broad smile.
The Guild sky-fleet charged headlong toward the Kitsune ships amassed over Yama. The shreddermen pounded across the open ground, carrying mighty metal boardwalks to bridge the Amatsu. Legions of bushimen moved like a glittering, scarlet flo
od behind. But the army had no siege towers, no battering rams, and without the Earthcrusher to clear the way, they were in for hard times when they reached the walls. Any second now, the behemoth would blow, vaporizing anything nearby.
But still, some of the Tora fleet would survive. The ships were better armed than the Kitsune ironclads—they needed something to equal the scales. And not for the first time that day, Akihito found himself searching the clouds, ears straining for the thunder of beating wings.
Yukiko, where the hells are you?
Hana’s uncle Aleksandar stood a few paces away, Piotr beside him. The big man glanced toward the tent, Kaiah sitting outside and preening. The thunder tiger seemed alert but calm, and he knew she’d react at the first murmur of Hana’s distress. But still, he couldn’t help the anxiety stealing his spit, unspooling like ice-cold worms in his belly.
“How long does this ritual take?” he asked.
The gaijin commander raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down. “Why do you ask?”
“They could probably use a stormdancer soon.” Akihito pointed to the sky-fleet. “Besides, I’m worried about her. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”
“I admire my blood’s courage,” the gaijin said. “And that of her friends. And I know she will fight for her people this day, her friends beside her. But you should know, much will change after the ritual.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hana will not be the same. No matter what happens this day, you should prepare yourself for a parting. When this war is done, my niece will return with us to Morcheba, to serve her House and the Goddess as is her duty.”
“What?” Akihito frowned. “Have you spoken to her about this?”
“What is there to speak of?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to go to Morcheba…”
“What she wants is not entirely relevant. All Zryachniye—”
“Izanagi’s balls, it’s not relevant. That girl has been through the hells. All her life, she’s never had a choice. And now she’s had all these doors opened, all these riddles answered, you’re going to take any choice she has away? She trusts you, Aleksandar. And for that girl, trust—”
A harsh cry, guttural and fierce; a tumbling nonsense Akihito had no chance of translating. He saw one of the Sacred Sisters stalking toward them, Guild faces beaten flat against her shoulders, sharpened teeth bared. Kaiah was on her feet, growl building in her throat. Akihito hefted his warclub, limped forward, eyes on the thunder tiger.
“Hana?” he called.
“Akihito-san.” Piotr was looking at him, horrified. “What you do?”
“What?” He glanced at the gaijin, at the woman stalking toward him, scarred face twisted in fury. “What did I do? What the hells are you saying?”
“What you do?” Piotr asked again, voice rising.
Kaiah turned toward him, hackles rippling as she roared. The woman with the lightning scars shouted again, the Kapitán hissed and seized Akihito’s arm. The big man cursed, shoved Aleksandar away. Kaiah was bounding toward him, gaijin soldiers were drawing weapons, outrage etched on every face. Piotr grabbed his arm, eyes wide and bright with panic.
“Akihito-san, run you.”
He heard Hana cry out. The Sacred Sister shouting again, pointing. He shook Piotr off, stalking toward the holy woman, warclub raised high.
“What did you do to her?”
“No!” Piotr yelled. “No, run you!”
“What the hells did you do?” he growled. “If you’ve touched a hair on her head—”
The woman stepping toward him.
A blade, long and cruel and sickle-shaped.
Piotr shouting warning.
Kaiah’s roar.
Hana’s scream.
A blur of leather and brass, the priestess stepping close, whirling, braids flailing as she came. The sun finally cresting the horizon, a bright spray of blinding red, a soft hissing as the blade passed clean through his throat.
Ear to ear.
Black snow tumbling from the sky. Tumbling just like him. Hands at his neck, the flood of his blood almost scalding in the clawing chill. Collapsing to his knees. Dull roaring in his mind. Bubbling foam between his fingers, pink and bright. Falling face-first into frozen mud, disbelieving. Stupefied.
Taste of salt and copper on his tongue. Sticky on his lips. Those same lips he’d pressed to hers, sighing and laughing and whispering in the dark.
Together.
In the dark …
39
AN ORCHESTRA OF BONE AND BLOOD
Iron-thrower smoke curled in the air. Bo and Maseo lay twitching in a puddle of their own ruins. Kin roared, raised his fist. And Kensai lifted the iron-thrower, and blew a hole clean through the boy’s leg.
The pain was breathtaking, bright and sickening, an unwanted scream spilling from his lips as he fell, crashing onto steel mesh smeared with his friends’ blood. Staring into their sightless eyes, the whites ruptured, filling slowly with red. He clutched his leg, rolling on the floor, crimson painting the brass on his thigh.
“Understand me, Kin-san.” Kensai loomed above him. “I will spare your life. To drag you before the First Bloom as proof of the Inquisition’s fallibility—their feeble prognostications and their Chamber of Smoke. For if you are the one they hold up as Tojo’s successor, everything they have ever said is suspect. But simply because I need you alive, does not mean I need you whole. And nothing would please me more than seeing just how much of you we could lose before we lose you entirely.”
Kin clutched his leg, eyes locked on Kensai’s.
“How did you know?”
“You were betrayed,” Kensai sneered. “By the one nearest and dearest to you.”
Kin blinked, mind racing. Kensai leaned down with a labored hiss and fumbled at the releases on Kin’s helmet, pulled it away, staring at the boy’s naked face.
“It was you, Kin-san. No matter what the Inquisition murmured in their smoke-drunk haze, I have known you for a traitor ever since you returned from the Iishi. I know your true self. I know the words you have whispered in the long quiet of the night.”
Kensai made a fist, pistons hissing, an explosion of pale sparks filling the air as he tore the mechabacus from Kin’s chest. The boy gasped in agony as the input jacks were ripped from his skin, the Second Bloom rummaging in the machine’s guts until he produced a coiled length of wire, a small transmitter, the black button stud of a tiny microphone.
“I have heard them.”
Kin groaned, hands pressed to the holes torn in his chest.
“Tell me,” Kensai said. “Did you plant the bomb in my quarters yourself?”
Kin hissed, blood in his mouth, “Hai.”
“I should have known. And yet I live. A failure to the last.”
“I didn’t want to kill you, Uncle. I don’t want anyone to die who doesn’t have to.”
“Ah, such mercy, Kin-san. But what of Ayane? Have you spared a thought for what became of her? Your friend Daichi? Tell me, when you pulled the trigger at his head, you had no idea the iron-thrower was empty, did you?”
“… No.”
“And you would have killed him all the same. Killed almost anyone. Sacrificed almost anything. Just for the chance to be here, am I right?”
“The lotus must burn. The needs of many outweigh the needs of one.”
“Except if she is the one. Your precious Yukiko. And perhaps yourself. Everything else is expendable, am I right? Those soldiers outside you planned to incinerate. The brothers aboard this vessel who trusted you. I’m sure you could happily throw the whole world away if you and she were standing together in the final chapter. And you call me monster.”
Kin lashed out at Kensai’s shin with his good leg. Metal kissed, the dull whunng of brass drums. The Second Bloom staggered, clutching the railing to stop his fall. Lotusmen descended, punching, kicking. Kensai seized Kin’s collar and slapped him, gauntlet ringing on breaking skin. A Lotusman stepped forward, concern und
erscoring his rasp.
“Shateigashira, your wounds … If you exert yourself…”
Kensai still glared at Kin, his perfect, childlike face devoid of rancor. But his voice was black, poisonous, like the snow falling all around them.
“The things we do for love,” he wheezed. “The things it does to us…”
Kensai released his hold, allowed Kin to slump to the deck. Standing with a smooth hiss of gears, he turned to his lackeys, breath rattling in his lungs.
“He is unworthy of his skin.”
The Lotusmen swarmed, snapping the release clasps and tearing the atmos-suit from Kin’s body. They were intentionally cruel, twisting into the bayonet fixtures at his wrists and spine, tearing them out, bruises and blood behind. Kin refused to groan—unwilling to give the bastard looming over him the satisfaction.
An Artificer turned from his console, bowing in apology.
“Forgiveness, Second Bloom, weapons systems are back online.”
Another Shatei spoke up. “Communications back online.”
Rei gave his stirrups an experimental nudge, and the Earthcrusher took four thundering steps forward, all aboard the bridge clutching at support to keep their footing.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
“We have drive control again, Shateigashira,” Rei reported, somewhat needlessly.
Kensai stepped forward, glaring through the viewports at Yama city.
“Leave no brick unbroken. No blade unshattered. Let this day be spoken of with shock and awe for one thousand years. Let Yama’s ruins serve as a tomb for the corpses of this rebellion, and her tumbled walls a marker for the graves of those who defy us.”
Kensai pointed one bloody finger at the city walls.
“Annihilate them.”
* * *
Michi stood on the Kurea’s deck, frozen breath billowing from bruised-blue lips. The sky-ship floated above Yama, watching the shreddermen suits lay their iron walkways across the Amatsu, storming across the tar-thick flow with floods of Tora bushi’ following. She glanced at the Daimyo’s flagship, the Lucky Fox, seeing old Isamu surrounded by his samurai guard and command staff. The Guild fleet was bearing down on them, but the Kitsune warships were holding back for fear of being caught in the Earthcrusher’s fiery demise.