smell charring meat, hear the sizzle of her skin as Daichi pressed the burning blade to her tattoo.
Yukiko stood and walked to the window. The laughing fire spread awful warmth into every corner, snapping blackened logs between its fingers and breathing smoke up through a beaten brass flue. She pushed the shutters aside, gulping down lungfuls of fresh, rain-sweet air.
Daichi watched Yukiko carefully, faint concern in his eyes.
“Nobody in this room has more reason to hate the Guild than me, Kaori.” Yukiko turned from the window, stared at the council. “But I’m not certain I want to be a butcher.”
“The crews of those ironclads you destroyed might say otherwise,” Kaori said.
“Oh, you fuc—”
“We all do what needs to be done, Stormdancer,” Kaori snapped. “You included. We will all turn the waters red when we bathe once this is finished. The lotus must burn.”
Yukiko looked to Daichi, waiting for him to weigh in, but the old man was staring at his hands, uncharacteristically silent.
“I wanted to check with you all before I did anything final.” Yukiko wiped sweat-soaked palms on her hakama legs. “It’s safe to bring her here. Kin assured me there’s no way for the Guild to track her out of her skin.”
“And you trust him?” Maro scoffed.
“Of course I trust him.” Yukiko’s voice was cold as winter morning. “He saved my life. I trust him more than I trust you.”
“Be it made of scales or brass, a snake who sheds his skin is still a snake.”
“There is no steel in that boy,” Kaori said. “No fire. Only treachery.”
“How can you say that?” Yukiko felt heat in her cheeks, memories of his lips rushing beneath her skin. “He gave up everything to be here with us.”
“He gave up everything to be here with
Yukiko drew breath to reply, but found no words.
“This is not about the boy.” Sensei Ryusaki’s low growl cut through the tension. “This is about the Guildsman, and what we do with it.”
“Kill it,” Maro said flatly. “Their kind are poison. The lotus must burn.”
“I agree,” Yukiko nodded. “We’d be fools to trust it.”
She looked amongst the council, noted the surprise on their faces.
“Look, I know that might make me a bitch, but at least I’m not a
“What if this girl speaks the truth?” Daichi’s voice cut the air like a knife. “What if there are more like her in the Guild?”
“Impossible,” Kaori said.
“Arashitora were impossible too, a few months ago.” Daichi’s voice was rough as bluestone gravel. “Now look at the magnificence outside this room.”
The council looked out through the open doorway at the thunder tiger sprawled upon the deck. Buruu was stretched out in the rain, idly tearing up talonfuls of planking. His yawn sent tremors through the floor.
She felt the thunder tiger trying to hold himself back, aware of her pain, allowing only a sliver of himself to creep across the bond between them. And though his thoughts were tinged with bright, crackling feedback, at least the volume receded to a tolerable level.
“Father, you cannot mean to trust it.” Kaori placed her hand on the old man’s knee.
Daichi sipped his tea, cleared his throat. “All I say is consider if she speaks truth. Think of what it would gain us to start a rebellion within the Guild. Think of the damage we could do. This girl could be the secret to bringing down the chi-mongers once and for all.”
Yukiko met the old man’s gaze. “I don’t think we can trust her.”
“Can we not, Stormdancer? Yet in the same breath, you would tell us to treat your Kin as one of our own?”
Yukiko winced, turned her head aside as if from an incoming slap.
Buruu pulled himself back again, curling inward until only a splinter remained.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Yukiko folded her arms, ignoring Buruu’s smug, self-satisfied warmth.
“Stormdancer?” Daichi’s eyebrows were raised over the rim of his teacup.
“It’s not my name.”
“It is what you are.”
“The way you all look at me … it’s like you expect to see lightning coming out of my hands, or flowers blooming wherever I walk. I haven’t done anything yet, and you act like I’ve saved the world.”
“You have given people hope,” Daichi said. “That is a precious thing.”
“It’s a dangerous thing.”
“No more dangerous than executing this girl for the sin of what she used to be.”
“Gods, Daichi, when we first came here you were willing to murder Kin on exactly the same suspicion. You were willing to kill me over a tattoo.”
“Perhaps I have learned a few lessons since then. From a new sensei.” Daichi smiled. “And you say you haven’t done anything yet.”
Yukiko stared at the old man, mute and still. It wasn’t so long ago she was standing over him in this very room, knife at his throat while he demanded she kill him. But it seemed every time Daichi spoke, some new facet of him came to light. His hatred of the Guild and government was tempered by steady hands and a fierce, calculating mind. She could see why the Kage followed him. Why they were willing to risk their lives for his vision.
The truth was, he was a natural leader—the leader she feared she’d never be. All she had was the desire for revenge. The memory of her father’s death, his blood warm and sticky on her hands, bubbling on his lips as he died. The thought of it threatened to overwhelm her, pulsing in time with the headache splitting the bone at the base of her skull.
“It seems somehow out of balance, does it not?” Daichi coughed hard, cleared his throat as he looked around the council. “To spare the boy and end the girl?”
“We can always kill them both,” Kaori said.
Yukiko rubbed her pounding temples, closed her bloodshot eyes. She could feel the forest all around her, the myriad lives just beyond the window, the heat and chatter of their minds rising in her own. A barrage. A bedlam. Concussive and sickening, pouring over her like scalding water. And as she closed her eyes, tried to stifle the fires burning in her head, to her amazement, her absolute horror, she realized she could sense other pulses within the Kenning. Something beyond the fluttering thoughts of birds, the faint and furtive impulses of small warm things, the boiling heartbeat of the thunder tiger just outside the door.
She could feel the Kage too.
Blurry and indistinct, all heat and light, alien shapes and impossible tangles of emotion. Everywhere. Like
