She’d been putting this off for far too long.
The graveyard stood in a quiet clearing, guarded by ancient sugi trees. The sparks of a hundred tiny lives burned around her, the heat and pulse of Buruu beside her so overpowering it was almost nauseating. The forest was a smudge against sleep-gummed lashes, eyelids made of sand, pickaxes in her throbbing skull. She remembered the sake blurring the pain as Daichi burned away her tattoo, sensation fading to oblivion. She remembered her father, drowning his own gift in smoke and drink.
A sigh.
She looked down at the marker at her feet, at his name carved deep into the gravestone.
Her mouth was dry, tongue like ash. The Kenning burned in her mind alongside the memory of dozens of small, broken bodies scattered around the tree cradling her room. Wind moaned through the fading green, the Thunder God Raijin pounding on his drums above the gentle rain. Incense smoldered in the shrine, thin smoke weaving toward the heavens.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Kin stood a few paces away, knife-bright eyes locked on hers, rain beading upon his lashes. He was clad in gray, his feet and arm wrapped in fresh bandages, fading burn scars etched on his throat and chin. She saw his flight from Kigen had taken its toll, turned him lean and hard, tanned his sun-starved skin. His once-shaved skull was now covered in dark stubble, short sleeves showing taut muscle and the strange metallic bayonet fixtures studding his flesh. Yukiko remembered unplugging him from his atmos-suit after he’d been burned, pulling black, snaking cables from his flesh, the plugs gaping like hungry mouths. All that remained of his suit now was a brass belt around his waist, stuffed with an assortment of tools and instrumentation—the only component he’d salvaged from the metal skin he’d worn for most of his life.
“No,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Your father loved you, Yukiko. And he knew you loved him before the end.”
“That won’t bring him back.”
“No. It won’t. But you can make his death mean something anyway.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it, Kin. Please.”
He chewed his lip, eyes to the ground. “You seem … different somehow. Changed. What you did to those ships the other day…”
“I don’t really want to talk about that either.”
She knelt near the grave, dug her fingers into the soil. Dark earth on pale skin, rain rolling down her cheeks instead of the tears she should be crying. She could see Yoritomo’s face, eyes narrowed above the iron-thrower, hear his voice ringing inside her head.
Her hands curled into fists, eyes closed tight. She stood, face to the sky, cool rain on her cheeks washing none of it away. Buruu stretched his wings, shook himself like a soggy hound. His thoughts were so loud they made her wince.
She stared at the grave, sighed like the wind through the trees.
“Hiro is alive.”
“What?” Kin whispered, eyes growing wide.
“The Guild is backing him as Daimyo of the Tora clan. He’s going to marry Lady Aisha. Claim the Shogun’s throne. We have to stop him.”
“Hiro.” Kin swallowed. “As Shogun…”
She pictured a boy with sea-green eyes, remembered the way her stomach tumbled upward into the clouds when he smiled. All the sweet nothings he’d whispered in the long hours between dusk and dawn, touching her in ways and places no one ever had before. Holding her close, arm wrapped around her naked shoulders. That same arm they’d torn from his body, those beautiful eyes staring up at her in disbelief as she lay him on the stone, her tanto in his ribs.
If only she’d twisted it.
If only she’d torn it loose and opened up the smooth skin at his throat …
“Do you still love him?”
Yukiko blinked in surprise. Kin was watching her closely, eyes clothed in shadow. His fingers strayed to his wrist, fidgeted with the metal input stud in his flesh. She was reminded of the day they first met on the
“Hiro?”
“Hiro.”
“Of course I don’t, Kin. I thought I killed that bastard. I wish I had.”
“I…” His fingers twitched, and he stuffed his hands into his tool belt, scuffing dead leaves beneath his feet. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
Yukiko heaved an impatient sigh. The headache squeezed tight, the pulse of the lives around her was thunder in her ears. Soaking wet. Miserable. And he wants to play games?
“Kin, say what you mean, godsdammit.”
“I’m going to sound like an idiot. I’m no good at this.” He waved at the spirit stones around them. “And a graveyard probably isn’t the best place for this conversation.”
“Izanagi’s balls, what conversation?”
He sucked his lip, looked into her eyes. She could see the words welling up in his throat, a flood pressing at a crumbling levy, bursting over in a tumble.
“Traveling here after Yoritomo died … on a road that long, you have a lot of time to think about what matters to you. And I know everyone is looking to you now. This war isn’t over, and I understand that. I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work. I spent my whole life in the Guild. I don’t know what … happens between men and women…”
Yukiko raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, I know what
Yukiko pressed her lips together, trying to smother a smile that somehow felt traitorous and out of place. She felt a lightness in her chest, breathing just a tiny bit easier. The simplicity of it. The sweet and awkward stumbling of it. The beauty of it.
She remembered.
The boy ran his hand across his scalp, threw a pleading glance to the heavens.
“I told you I’d sound like an idiot…”
“No, you don’t.”
Her smile emerged, bright in its victory.
Kin was looking into her eyes. A soft stare full of silent hope. A hope that had made him betray everything
