Kinslayer

sight of him, daubed corpse-white with his ashen face, set the bloodlust swelling again, gripping her tight, dragging her in. Buruu’s need to kill, pure and primal, rushing over her like a flood. Filling her. Fighting her. Dragging her down to drown.

But she kicked. Fought. Seethed. To pull herself free, rip herself out, back from the oneness and into herself, the taste of her own blood on her lips and the pain flooding through the cracks in her wall. Just herself again. Just Yukiko.

Unwhole.

Buruu reared up into the air, metal wings spread wide, Yukiko sitting up tall on his back. Delirium and vertigo, the sense of her own body for a moment utterly alien, her flesh shivering and cold. The thunder tiger beneath her roared, time slowing to a crawl as she felt the blood flee her face, lips parted as she struggled for breath. Eyes fixed on the tall figure standing on the bow, even now drawing his swords, pointing his chainkatana at her, screaming challenge.

“Hiro,” she breathed.

Lips peeled back from her teeth. Eyes locked with his. The green of Kitsune jade. The green of lotus fronds. But not the green of the sea, no, not the green she had named them for. Because the seas around this island she called home were red, red as lotus, red as blood, poisoned scarlet by these bastards and their stinking, wretched weed.

She could see Hiro’s face, twisted with rage, gesturing for his samurai to clear a space on the foredeck. To back away, let him stand alone. His words were lost in the drone of the engines, the howl of the flames, but his gestures made his intent clear. Calling Yukiko out. Demanding a duel. Satisfaction. Vengeance. He beat one fist upon his chest—an iron fist—gestured for his samurai to step farther back. Holding his arms wide, eyes locked on the girl and her thunder tiger. Actions speaking louder than any words.

Come on.

He bellowed, pointing his chainkatana at her again.

Come and get me.

Buruu growled, low and long, their hatred spilling into each other and gleaming in his eyes. It could all end. The Guild’s ambitions for Hiro’s rule. The threat of war still looming large over Shima. The storm clouds gathering on distant horizons. All of it could end, here and now.

WHY DO WE FALTER?

Buruu’s thoughts in her head, as always, echoing the deepest recesses of her own.

THE PHOENIX I UNDERSTAND. THERE WERE INNOCENTS ABOARD THAT SHIP. BUT HIRO WANTS YOU DEAD. THE GUILD BACK HIM TO THE HILT. THIS IS KILL OR BE KILLED, YUKIKO.

She struggled for breath, clawing her hair from her eyes.

And then what? If we kill him, the Guild will just choose another puppet. Another thrall.

THIS IS THE PATH YOU CHOSE. THIS IS THE RIVER OF BLOOD I PROMISED.

And weren’t you afraid I would drown in it?

ALL YOU NEED DO IS DIVE IN AND SWIM.

I …

She wiped her fist across her nose, brought it away bloody. Kaiah wheeled through the sky, circling them, roaring again, fairly trembling with anticipation.

Her hand strayed to her belly.

I don’t think I can, brother …

WE KILLED HIM ONCE. WE CAN DO IT AGAIN.

Yukiko sat tall on his back, katana clutched in her hand.

I let anger and vengeance cloud my judgment before. We’ve killed hundreds of people and what has it gotten us? Where has it led us? We killed Yoritomo and simply made more chaos. We had a hand in all of this, Buruu. We helped set this city, this whole nation, on fire.

We have to be more than this. More than rage. More than revenge. Or else we will drown, Buruu. You. Me. All of us. Just like you said.

The beast growled, hackles rippling.

HE DESERVES IT FOR WHAT HE DID TO YOU. THIS BOY DESERVES TO DIE.

Yukiko sank down on his shoulders, a fire wind whipping hair across her eyes.

Everything dies, brother.

She stared at the boy on the deck of his ship, watching him roar and rage and rev his blades. All that was. That could have been. That would never be again. The memory of a tablet in a garden of stone, marked with her own father’s name. The memory of his loss, real and sharp in her mind. Hand slipping from her belly to the blade he’d given her, all she had left of him save fading memories. And she stared at the boy she once loved, the arms that had once encircled her waist as he pressed his lips to hers—one of flesh, and one of cold, dead iron. She reached across the gulf between them, into the burning fire of his thoughts, acutely aware of how little effort it would take to simply … squeeze. And there, amidst that impossible tangle, curled at the edges by rage and despair, she caught an impression. A single revelation. A fragment of knowledge, consuming, inundating, immolating all he was.

Aisha gone.

Dead.

So much blood.

And looking down on the ruins of the city below, the smoke and the bodies, the scarlet in the streets deep enough to sink in, the thought of adding one more drop filled her to sickening.

What we came here to do has been done for us.

WHAT?

The wedding has been stopped, Buruu. The dynasty is in ruins. The Guild’s plan is undone.

She ran one hand through his fur.

Enough for today.

She sheathed the katana at her back. Put away her anger and tossed her head. The boy in his ash-pale iron roared and spat and screamed, and her hands drifted once more to her stomach, to the dread and horror and enormity she felt swelling there. Fire burning in her mind. The city burning below. The Shogun’s peace in tatters, the civil war inevitable now. Tiger against Dragon. Dragon against Fox. Fox against Tiger. The Guild amongst it all.

“Good-bye, Hiro…”

And as they turned away from Kigen, cutting through the air back to the north, a single thought burned like a star in her mind. A promise on a not-too-distant horizon, so close she could taste it in the very air. A certainty, light as iron, warm as ice, that Buruu’s river would swallow them all now, no matter what they did.

The Lotus War has begun.

55 ARMY OF THE SUN

The wolves had almost run them to ground.

Michi hovered by the railing on the captain’s deck, watching the pursuing floodlights grow larger. The running lights of the corvettes were smaller, brighter, the drone of their engines of a higher pitch. She fancied she could make out something of their shape in the glow of their floods and the hint of a distant dawn; sleek and sharp, like knives flung through the air, speeding right toward them.

The Kurea’s captain stood by the wheel, occasionally looking back over his shoulder and spitting, knuckles white on the controls. The ship’s engines were at full burn, temperature gauges hovering in the red, her aft shuddering with the strain. Smoke poured from her exhaust, her four propellers