Yukiko.”
At the mention of her name, Hiro’s metal hand snapped shut with a clang. He blinked, forced it open again, to be still at his side.
“The prosthetic is fully functional I see.” Faint amusement in Kensai’s voice.
“It will serve.”
“As will we all.” Kensai covered his fist and bowed. “Shogun.”
She lay on a bed large enough to get lost in, red silk pulled up to her chin, the tune of a hundred ticking clocks hanging in the air. A mountain of pillows was piled at her back, the curtain drawn away from cloudy beach-glass windows, bloody daylight creeping across the floorboards toward her. Machines chattered beside her bed, all dials and bellows, a language of punch cards and clicking beads and stuttering harmonics, cables snaking beneath her sheets. A small black-and-white terrier sat beside her on the bed, worrying a knotted ball of rope with puppy-sharp teeth. Its tail wagged as he entered.
She was not clad in a junihitoe as occasion would dictate; just a plain shift of deep red, rivers of long, raven hair spilling about her shoulders. No powder upon her bloodless face, nor kohl around her bloodshot eyes. Her right arm was bound in plaster, her lips pale and bereft of paint, left eye still surrounded by a faint yellow bruise, skin split almost to her chin down the left side of her mouth, stitched with delicate sutures. Yoritomo’s beating had been far more brutal than most in the court were allowed to believe.
And still, she was beautiful.
“My Lady Tora Aisha.” Hiro covered his fist and bowed from the waist. “First Daughter of Shima. Last of the line of Kazumitsu. I am honored you grant me audience.”
“Lord Tora Hiro.” She smiled faintly, as if afraid to split the sutures on her lip. “My heart lightens to see a noble samurai of this honorable house. I have not enjoyed such pleasant company for an age, it seems.”
Her eyes flickered to the two False-Lifers flanking her bed, arms crossed over the mechabacii on their breasts. The sound of their breathing was a vacant hiss, muted sunlight glittering on bulbous crimson eyes set in faceless heads.
Hiro knelt by the bed. Spring-driven ceiling fans rocked in the exposed beams overhead, circulating a feeble breeze throughout the room. Sweat beaded on Aisha’s brow, but she made no move to brush it away.
“I would speak to the Lady alone.” Hiro looked up at the False-Lifers.
The Guildsmen shared a mute glance, remained motionless.
“Leave us,” Hiro snapped.
“The lotus must bloom.”
The pair bowed, synchronized, walked to the door as if they were two bodies and one mind, their boots clicking across the floorboards in perfect unison. The chromed razors on their backs gleamed as they reached the rice-paper doors, sliding the panels away and stepping out into the hall like dancers taking their place upon the stage. The doors closed with a harsh thud behind them.
“Thank the gods,” Aisha breathed, voice trembling. “They have been with me every moment since I awoke. You are the first of Yoritomo’s men I have seen since…” She glanced about with wide eyes, as if the walls themselves had ears. “They are keeping me like a prisoner, Lord Hiro. They will not permit me to see Michi or any of my maidservants. They let me speak to no one…”
She sniffed, swallowed thickly.
“You must get me away from them. The Guild. I cannot believe the court would allow me to be treated so if they knew what was happening here. I have nothing to do, no one to speak to. They drug me. Treat me like a sack of meat. My gods…”
She clenched her teeth, fighting the fear, the tears. He could see it took everything she had not to break, to cry like a lost child, alone and afraid in the dark. The puppy stopped playing with his ball, watched her with one ear cocked, tail between his legs. Hiro sat and stared for an age, fists upon knees, face like granite. And then he spoke, his voice hard as a gravestone, as dead and cold as the ashes they’d interred in his Lord’s tomb.
“You deserve this.”
Wide eyes clouded with unspent tears, lips trembling like leaves in the autumn wind. A fragile, tiny whisper.
“What?”
“You deserve this, my Lady.” Hiro stared at her, pitiless and unblinking. “You betrayed your brother and sovereign Lord. The Shogun of these islands, the man to whom all owed allegiance. You helped that Kitsune whore escape with Yoritomo’s prize. And because of you, he is dead, the country in chaos, and this clan in tatters.”
“Not you too?” she breathed. “Gods … have mercy upon me…”
“But they have, my Lady. They are far more merciful than I. They have given you the opportunity to atone. To alleviate the shame you have heaped upon yourself with your betrayal.”
“What are—”
“You and I are to be married.”
What little color remained in Aisha’s cheeks faded away, blood draining from her skin as if someone had cut her throat.
“The announcement has already been made,” Hiro said. “Clanlords of the Phoenix and Dragon have accepted invitation. We will be husband and wife by month’s end. And together, we will reforge the Kazumitsu Dynasty, restore the line you helped destroy.”
Hiro took Aisha’s hand, iron fingers closing around her own. The movements were clumsy, gears hissing and whirring like a Lotusman’s skin.
“So now I see.” Defiance burned in Aisha’s stare. Refusal to flinch from his touch. “Shogun Hiro, is it?”
“You always were an insightful one, Lady.”
“So the Guild have bought you.” Her voice grew stronger, underscored with anger and faint contempt. She glanced at Hiro’s metal arm, lips curling in disgust. “Paid for and sold.”
“Do not dare pass judgment on me,” he growled. “Everything I do now, I do to right the wrongs you helped perpetrate.”
“Wrongs?” Half laughing, half sobbing. “You speak to me of wrongs?”
“He was your brother, Aisha. You were honor-bound to—”
“Do not speak to me of honor,” she snapped. “Your rhetoric about Bushido and sacrifice. Just look outside the window, Hiro-san. Look what this empire has done to the island we live on. Skies red as blood, earth black as pitch. Our addiction to chi draining the land of every drop of life. We wage war overseas, murdering gaijin by the thousands, and for what? More land. More fuel. Where will it end? When the deadlands split wide and drag us all down into the hells?”
“It will end when she is dead,” he spat.
“Ah.” Aisha looked at him with something akin to sympathy. “Now I see. It is not my betrayal that cuts you. It is hers. Yukiko.”
Hiro’s metal hand snapped into a fist. “Do not speak that name in my presence again.”
“She loved you, Hiro-san.”
“Shut up!” Iron fingers twitched.
“And still you failed. Even after you tore her heart from her chest, betrayed the girl who loved you true … still you failed to save your Lord’s life.”
Hiro leapt onto the bed, metal hand closing about Aisha’s throat. Her eyes bulged wide, color blooming in her cheeks as iron bit into her skin. The puppy barked, growling as he sank his fangs into the Daimyo’s robe and tugged. Hiro’s face was a madman’s mask, eyes wild, lips flecked with spittle, teeth gritted. He pressed down with all his weight, watching her face flush with blood.
“Shut your mouth, you honorless whore.”
Aisha’s voice was a strangled whisper, tears welling in her eyes.
“I … pity you…”
Hiro drew his face close to hers, twisted with hatred, staring into her eyes, watching their light fade as the moments ticked by into minutes. But as the end drew near, instead of terror and pain, he saw triumph, gloating and awful as she teetered upon the precipice. She did not struggle. Did not flail or kick or slap at his crushing grip. And with a moan of horror he seized hold of the prosthetic with his other hand and tore it away from her
