Kinslayer

few moments out of the elements would be a welcome change, if nothing else.

We’ll find no answers out here in the rain, brother. And every moment we waste is another moment Hiro’s wedding draws closer.

A low growl, tail lashing. His volume receding slowly, not unlike an ebbing tide.

AS YOU WISH.

Tall double doors barred entry to the main building, heavy oak shod with iron. She lifted the knocker, rust flaking beneath her grip, pounding it against the wood. Waiting interminable minutes, pounding again, dragging rain-soaked hair from her eyes. She blinked up at empty windows, lightning reflected on cloudy, dust-dark glass.

Nobody home.

STAND ASIDE.

Yukiko backed well away, Buruu lowering his head, talons scarring the flagstones. She could feel it gathering around him—a whisper-rush of static charge, the hair on her arms standing tall, ozone thickening in the air. The thunder tiger spread his wings, pistons on his false-pinions creaking, shuddering, tiny wisps of lightning trickling across his sheared feathertips. The world fell still as he reared up on his hind legs, Yukiko clenching her teeth, covering her ears as Buruu clapped his wings together, giving birth to a deafening peal of Raijin Song.

It was written in the old legends that arashitora were children of the Thunder God, Raijin. That to mark them as his own, their father had gifted their wings some measure of his power. Yukiko had thought the tales a myth until she’d seen it with her own eyes—the night Buruu had almost blasted the Thunder Child from the skies.

A thunderous boom rocked the courtyard; the crack of a thousand bullwhips splitting the air in two, the shivering walls bleeding mortar. Flagstones burst skyward as if black powder were being ignited underground, rainwater vaporizing as the shock wave collided with the ancient wooden doors and sheared them to splinters. Iron buckled, rivets popped, hinges squealed as the doors burst inward. One was blasted clear of its moorings, the other hanging from a single stubborn hinge, swinging like a broken jaw.

Dust in the hallway beyond danced briefly in the calamity, echoes dying with reluctance.

Yukiko brought her hands away from her ears, a smile curling her lips. She put her arms around Buruu’s neck, stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. His purr set the broken stones at their feet trembling anew.

You are a little magnificent, you know.

ONLY A LITTLE?

Gasping, hand to her brow as his thoughts bounced like boulders around her skull. Slamming the door on the Kenning again; a recalcitrant child marched off to its bedroom to ponder its wrongdoings. Buruu whined, stepped away, tail tucked. Yukiko could sense he wanted to apologize, but without the bridge of thought between them, he had no way to do so. She wondered what it must feel like for him when she closed off her power completely—to be locked in the cold outside her head, just as alone as she was. Reaching out, she ran her hand down his throat, curling her fingers through whisper-soft feathers, giving him the only comfort she could. As she kissed him again, she saw she’d left a smear of scarlet on his cheek.

Wiping one hand across her nose, she brought it away gleaming and bloody. And with a grim nod to the arashitora, the pair stepped across the shattered threshold and walked inside.

12 ACRES OF SKIN

Skin prickling. Flinching at shadows. Teeth clenched so tight they ached.

A wide hallway stretched out before them into sodden-blanket gloom. Choked daylight streamed through filthy windows, leaking into the corridor as mud-bright stains. The wind was a hungry ghost, chilled fingers scrabbling at the shutters, moaning as it shambled about the halls. The timbers creaked like old men’s bones, walls shifting as if the monastery were some slumbering giant, lost in nightmares and praying for dawn.

Yukiko reached into the satchels over Buruu’s back, fetched a paper lantern and a wallet of matches. The crackling flare illuminated dozens of old tapestries, faded through the passing of years and the sea’s corrosive breath. Bitter cold winds howled through the blasted doors and set the talismans trembling on their hooks.

Buruu was all tingling spine and dilating eyes, wingtips scraping the walls. Brushing the feathers at his throat, her fingertips crackled with static electricity. His talons gouged the stone as they prowled into the dark, ears straining for lifesound. But there were only the tapestries whispering in the gloom, the blustering storm and their own synchronized heartbeats.

They searched every room, found nothing and no one. Dust-cloaked furniture, fabric slowly rotting, lanterns unlit for an age. The sea howling below, rainsong on the tiles above.

At the end of the hall they found an empty doorway, spitting a flight of stairs down into a gloom-soaked room. Yukiko stood on the landing, candle held high, feeble light trickling into a stubborn dark. Down the twisting stairs, she could see a vast chamber, lined with row upon row of dusty shelves. Buruu loomed behind, too big to fit through the narrow space, growling his displeasure, his nostrils filled with the pungent reek of old decay.

Bracing herself, she opened the Kenning again, reached for the thunder tiger’s mind. His warmth was sullen, distant, as if oppressed by the deafening silence around them. She could feel nothing but the two of them —no rats, mice, birds. Not a single spark of life. After weeks inundated in the Iishi, the hush should have been a blessing. Instead it planted the seeds of a slow dread in her belly, cold and deep, spreading through her insides with slick tendrils.

It looks like … a library.

YOU INTEND TO GO DOWN THERE?

If there are answers in this place, I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find them.

IT STINKS OF DEATH. THIS IS AN ASTONISHINGLY BAD IDEA.

This place has been deserted for decades, Buruu.

I WISH I HAD EYEBROWS, SO I COULD SCOWL AT YOU.

I can’t sense anything. There’s nobody here.

I WISH I HAD HANDS, SO I COULD WRITE A HISTORY OF YOUR EXPLOITS AND NAME THIS CHAPTER “THE WORST IDEA SHE EVER HAD.”

Gods, so just blast the wall with Raijin Song and come with me, then.

THE WALL IS SOLID GRANITE. WE WOULD HAVE BETTER LUCK KNOCKING HOLES IN IT WITH YOUR THICK HEAD.

Maybe you could just sarcasm it to death?

Buruu growled, fell into a moody silence. She could sense the worry in him, the affection clothed in sullen, sulky aggression. But beneath that, the pain was blooming again, the lubdub of her pulse like tiny hammer blows in the back of her head. Another surge was building, another squeal of psychic static to paint her lips crimson and make her ears bleed. She was tired of it. Tired of not knowing why.

I’ll be back soon, brother. Wait for me here.

Buruu sighed from the tip of his tail.

ALWAYS.

She turned and crept down the stairwell, the stone slick beneath her split-toed boots. Lantern light flickered on granite walls, diminishing the farther she descended. The temperature was chill, a faint smell of oil overlaid with subtle decay. Soft thunder rolled through the tiles overhead, long shadows dancing amongst tall rafters.

The shelves stood ten feet high, crisscrossing planks forming diamond-shaped partitions. Her heart beat faster as she saw the alcoves were piled with scrolls—hundreds upon hundreds, stacked one atop another, running the length of the room.

Daichi said these monks tattooed their secrets on their flesh.

YOU ARE WONDERING WHY THEY KEPT A LIBRARY.

You’re amazing. It’s like you can read my mind.

Buruu’s amusement echoed in the Kenning like a tiny earthquake, setting her temples throbbing.