Steel Crow Saga

by Paul Krueger

  Jimuro shrugged. “Your brother saved mine, several times over. It was the least my sister could do in return.” He waved his hand at her. “She’s not literally my sister, of course, but when the time came to seal the pact, it was the only name that made sense.”

  Tala remembered the newsreels about the late Iron Princess. “She was killed trying to rescue you from us, wasn’t she?” When he nodded, she went on: “You named your shade after her, and used her to save a Sanbuna?”

  Jimuro nodded. “I couldn’t hate your people forever. I still have to share the world with you, after all. And you, specifically, I could never hate.”

  A rustle of feathers heralded the return of Beaky. When he caught sight of Jimuro, he cawed in recognition. But when he saw Fumiko crawling along the ceiling, his chest feathers puffed out.

  “Quit being dramatic,” Tala muttered. “You saw her in the garden the other night.”

  He clacked his beak, but cocked his head at the cicada-shade nonetheless.

  “In the garden,” Tala said, remembering suddenly. “That thing you said to me—”

  “ ‘You can do anything if you love someone enough,’ ” Jimuro said with a small, sad smile. “I understand if you don’t return the feeling. I’m the enemy, and I’ve done little to change your stance on that topic.”

  Tala balked. “You can’t be serious, Your Brilliance,” she said. “You stopped being the enemy once the war ended. I’m the one who didn’t stop fighting. That man…Mayon…he was right about me.” The words looped between her ears like a catchy song: I knew you were vicious for what you’d done to me…I had no idea how vicious you’d become since. She looked down at her hands: one still, one shaking. “I killed that woman. Harada. Murdered her.”

  “She tried to murder you,” Jimuro said gently. “And I might remind you, everything that came after I abandoned you rests on my shouders: Your injuries. Dimangan’s abduction. His…” He trailed off.

  Tala shook her head. “The more I think about it, the more tangled it gets.”

  “It is,” Jimuro said. “Which is why I’d like to propose a radical solution: I forgive you.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “For the crime of killing Harada Hanae,” he said. “Lala, I for—”

  Her head snapped to him. “What?” she said. “What did you just say?”

  He looked at her furtively. “ ‘Tala, I forgive you’? Did I cause some offense?”

  She blinked again. She could’ve sworn she’d heard…

  She looked to Beaky for confirmation. The crow-shade clacked his beak. Jimuro had been telling the truth.

  “Sorry,” Tala said after a moment. “I just…something about the way you said it, I thought I heard his voice again.”

  He smiled, small and understanding. On any other face Tala would’ve mistaken it for pity, but him she understood as well as if he were her own shade. “Then I will forgive you that, as well. Which,” he added quickly, “brings me to the reason why I came.”

  He let his hand slip from her, and she felt a tiny pang of disappointment as he went back to fetch his book and box. “The truth is, Tala, I didn’t have matters of state to attend to. Or that is, I did, but I neglected them in favor of—”

  “I know.”

  “You do?” he said, surprised.

  She rolled her eyes. “Paper walls aren’t good for anything, but especially not privacy.”

  “The one thing my ancestors never accounted for…” Jimuro said, casting an eye at the walls in question.

  Up above, Fumiko clicked her forelegs against each other. It was hard to interpret the expression and body language of an insect, even a giant one, but Tala took it to be a sign of agreement. Her thoughts were confirmed when Jimuro shot a look up at her, smirked, and said, “Oh, be quiet.” He looked around, as if seeing the room for the first time. “It feels like our conversation is pulling me in many directions at once. What was I…?”

  “Why you came,” Tala said. Her tears had almost completely stopped now. She even found the corners of her mouth twitching upward, if only a little.

  Recognition flitted across the Steel Lord’s face. “Right!” he said, suddenly remembering the things on the cart. He retrieved them, then knelt on the floor and bid her to do the same. Her discomfort with kneeling aside, she obliged as he opened the book to reveal a detailed sketch of the façade of the Palace of Steel. “In times of peace, this was my greatest passion and pursuit. I’d sit in the garden, drawing flowers and trees and insects for hours…until Fumiko and her friends found me, anyway.”

  Tala blinked at the drawing. “It’s…very good,” she said, not sure where this was going.

  “I know it is,” Jimuro said with a proud huffiness she couldn’t help laughing at. “But it wasn’t just flowers and buildings, you know.” He flipped the page to reveal a drawing of a bright-eyed dog, her tongue lolling happily out of her wide-open mouth. Eyeing the familiar patterning, Tala did a double take.

  “That Jeongsonese woman…?” Tala began, but Jimuro waved her off.

  “It’s a long story that’s neither here nor there. But yes.” He flipped the page again, revealing a familiar face. The shape of it and the hairstyle told Tala it was Steel Lord Yoshiko. But this was not the snarling, ugly woman on the propaganda posters, or the crone played by grotesque actresses in the movies screened to raise troop morale. His brush had captured her mid-laugh, her face lit up by her smile, eyes closed and crinkled around their corners.

  Tala’s breath caught at the sight of her. She didn’t look like Steel Lord Yoshiko, the butcher-queen of Tomoda. She looked like somebody’s mother.

  Jimuro caught sight of her reaction, pleased. He flipped the page again to reveal a new face: a man’s. He was plumper than Jimuro, but there was something familiar in the knowing shine Jimuro had managed to bring to his eyes. This had to be his late father, Steel Consort Soujiro.

  And then he flipped the page one more time to reveal a third portrait: just a simple head-on drawing of a young woman with a vibrancy that sprang off the page. Though she was only visible from the neck up, Jimuro had managed to create the impression that she was one who moved through her life springy and loose.

  “This was my sister, Fumiko,” he said quietly. “At night, while I would draw, she would read from her favorite books and have me illustrate scenes for her. She was always so picky; she’d have me redraw a scene two or three times, until it looked precisely the way it did in her head. I tried to teach her how to draw so she could do it herself, but she always told me since I was going to be the Steel Lord someday, it was my duty to serve my subjects. So…I would draw.”

  Vaguely, Tala was aware of her tears regaining their strength. She found herself thrown back to memories of her own: Of herself and Mang at the market, him letting her carry more mangoes than she could handle because he trusted her to do it anyway. Of him stroking her hair and telling her things would be okay after their mother lost her temper and yelled again.

  Of him the way he’d been, not the way she’d made him.

  “It took me a very long time, but eventually I forgave Sanbu for taking her from me,” Jimuro said. “Now I want the chance to earn forgiveness from you.” He turned the page again…to reveal a blank one.

  And at last, Tala understood what he meant to do.

  “What do you need?” she said, her heart swelling in her chest.

  “Just…tell me about him. Every little detail you can think of, no matter how insignificant. Let me understand what you’ve lost, so I can bring him back…in one way or another.”

  He smoothed the page out, then rose and began ladling rice and adobo into a bowl. “And this won’t be the last, either, Lieutenant. Each day, as long as you choose to stay beneath my roof, I’ll come find you. And each day, you’ll tell me more about Dimangan, and I’ll draw what you tell m
e.” His eyes shone even brighter than the glasses he wore. “I would give the world to you, if I thought it would do some small thing to ease your pain. But all I can offer you is this pact, so if you want it…” He held the bowl of adobo out to her. “…it’s yours.”

  Slowly, stunned, Tala took the adobo. For a long moment, she stared into its glossy brown depths, counting the sauce-glazed mushroom caps she saw there. The familiar scent wafted up to her face, and for the first time in days she found she wanted to eat.

  At long last, she set it down and looked at him again. “What if I already forgive you?”

  His concern broke into a wobbly smile. He blinked three times very fast, then said, “It’s unbecoming of a Steel Lord to cry, you know.” He thought a moment. “Again.”

  She laughed, and he laughed, too, as if the sound were a fire that had leapt from one house to the next. Their voices mingled, and though the room was large and airy, they filled it effortlessly. And as they laughed, they fell into each other, her head pressed against his chest and his arms wrapped around her back. She closed her eyes, feeling the strength of his grip and the fluttering of his heart, and she laughed until she found herself at the edge of tears again.

  Long after their laughter subsided, they held each other, enveloped in a warm, soft silence.

  But eventually, Jimuro stepped back and tapped his long metal box. It sprang open to reveal a brush and a pot of black ink.

  Tala frowned thoughtfully. “Jimuro…what you said in the garden…”

  Jimuro didn’t look up from the prep work he was doing, and when he spoke it was with a passable attempt at nonchalance. “It’s as I said: I understand if you don’t return the feeling. More than understand, really. It’s—”

  “No, it’s not that,” Tala said, and Jimuro looked up, face shimmering with hope. “It’s just…with everything else happening right now, I don’t know if I have room for you…yet.”

  To her surprise, his hope didn’t dim even the slightest degree. “You have all the time in the world now to make room, or not,” he said simply. “The war’s over, isn’t it?”

  She nodded only once, but once was enough.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, to gather all her memories. Shades take her, she had so many. But when her eyes opened again, her recall was clear, and it came to her tongue easily and freely.

  “Do you remember visiting Lisan City when you were a boy, Jimuro?” She hadn’t meant to start with this memory, but now that she’d given it voice it felt right.

  Jimuro blinked in surprise. “Yes,” he said. “A state visit, to show me the subjects I would serve one day. Jungle-runners actually attacked us while we were touring the city.”

  “I know,” Tala said quietly. “I was there.”

  He started. “You were?”

  “Yes,” she said. “With Mang.”

  He dipped his brush into the ink, then sat straight-backed and ready. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  She smiled softly. She knew just where to begin.

  “Dimangan would hear his name,” Tala said, “and come when he was called.”

  And as she told Dimangan’s story, Jimuro’s brush began to flow across the page.

  To Trung and Alyssa,

  who were with me the whole way

  My agent is DongWon Song. Thank you, my friend, for making room: for this book on your shelf and for me on your team. My editor is Tricia Narwani. Thank you, my friend, for your generosity: in your notes, and in your supply of cat pics. And thank you, my friends, for reading this book and getting it.

  My publisher is Del Rey. Thank you, fine folks who work there, for bringing this book out of my hard drive and into readers’ hands.

  My alpha readers are Calder CaDavid and Leslie Wishnevski. Thank you both for being this book’s first and fiercest champions, and for knowing what I want to say even when I don’t.

  My beta readers are Katherine Locke, Nilah Magruder, Ashley Poston, Tess Sharpe, and Andrea Zevallos. Thank you for helping me dig down and level up.

  My support network is Holly Aitchison, Matt Brauer, Conor Colasurdo, Grace Fong, JJ Jones, Sarah Kuhn, CB Lee, Dustin Martin, Connor McCrate, Cara McGee, Alan Mills, Omar Najam, Trung Le Nguyen, Annette Nowacki, Morgan Perry, Dan Reed, Mia Resella, Kristy Staky, Christina Strain, Sam Sykes, Katie Tolle, Matt Willems, Alyssa Wong, and Cassie Zwart. Thank you all for your friendship, and for the times you didn’t even know how much you were helping me with this book.

  My parents are Cecilia and Kurt, but to me they’re Mom and Dad. Thank you both for getting me hooked on this whole book thing early. My brother is Timm. Thank you for generously letting me be the second-coolest brother.

  My cat is Wrigley, and my stepcat is Mira. Thank you both for reminding me of what really matters in life, by way of sitting on my keyboard while I tried to write this book.

  My hero is the programming executive at Cartoon Network who many years ago decided to slate anime on its Toonami block. Thank you for genuinely changing my life.

  My previous book was about an Asian-American recession victim millennial from Chicago who finds meaning in food service. I tell you all this so you can take my full meaning when I say that Steel Crow Saga is the most personal, autobiographical thing I’ve ever written.

  So thank you, my dear readers, for letting me show you who I am.

  PAUL KRUEGER

  stranded overnight in a North Carolina baggage claim

  October 15, 2018

  BY PAUL KRUEGER

  Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge

  Steel Crow Saga

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PAUL KRUEGER is a Filipino-American author. His first novel was the urban fantasy Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge. A lapsed Chicagoan, he may now be found literally herding cats in Los Angeles.

  Twitter: @NotLikeFreddy

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