Kinslayer

The boy plucked a torque wrench from his belt, looked over the ’thrower emplacement with a sigh.

“A man can dream…”

* * *

Hundreds of eyes, red as sunset, staring up at Kin with as much adoration as glass could muster. A sea of brass faces, stretching into dark corners, smooth and featureless. Infinite repetitions of the same iteration; no individuality or personality, no expression or humanity in each razor-sharp contour. His own face, but not his at all. Over and over again.

Walls of stone, yellow and dripping, the songs of engine and piston and gears blurring into a monotone hum, a broken-clock rhythm that seeded at the base of his skull and sent out roots to claw the backs of his eyes. And he stood above them on the gantry, stared down at their upturned faces, felt the comforting weight of metal on his bones and knew that he was home.

They were calling his name.

He held his arms wide, fingertips spread, the lights of their eyes glinting on the edges of his skin. The gunmetal-gray filigree embossed upon his fingertips, the cuffs of his gauntlets, the edges of his spaulders. A new skin for his flesh; the skin of rank, of privilege and authority. Everything they had promised, everything he had feared had come to pass. It was True.

This was Truth.

They called his name, the assembled Shatei, holding their hands aloft. And even as he drew breath to speak, the words rang in his head like a funeral song, and he felt whatever was left of his soul slipping up and away into the dark.

He knew he was asleep; knew this was only the dream of a thirteen-year-old boy, huddled in the Chamber of Smoke as the poison crept into his lungs. The same vision that had plagued him every single night since he Awakened. But he could still taste the lotus on his tongue, feel the weight of his skin upon his flesh and the gut- wrenching fear as his What Will Be was laid bare before him.

The multitude below fell silent. He looked down at the scarlet pinpricks in the dark, swaying and flickering like fireflies on a winter breeze. His voice was a fierce cry, hollow and metallic behind the brass covering his lips.

“Do not call me Kin. That is not my name.”

In the dream, he felt his lips curl into a smile.

“Call me First Bloom.”

19 CATCHING THE SKY

The pain in her lungs was a living thing; a fire pressing against her ribs as black flowers bloomed before her eyes. The shock of impact, the water’s chill clawing at her marrow, rocks as sharp as demon’s teeth tearing her flesh—all of it secondary to the burning in her chest, the screaming in her head, the desperation forcing her mouth open to the black and the salt and the death that lay inside a single lungful.

Breathe.

She swam up. Or down. One as good as the other, the swell tumbling her like throwing sticks between forests of cruel stone, slick with grasping weed. Dull roaring in her ears, pressing her down, the blinding desire for oxygen becoming more than just a need; a reflex impulse over which she finally lost all control.

BREATHE.

She opened her lungs to the ocean, and the ocean dived inside.

* * *

Yukiko woke with a start, sobbing, gasping as sweet, blessed air filled her lungs. Her clothing was drenched, hair plastered to her face in thick, black drifts. She tried to claw it from her eyes, felt restraints around her wrists; leather thongs binding her to the flanks of an iron bed frame, clean sheets entwined about her ankles. She thrashed for a moment, vertigo swelling, staring around the dank, gray room without any idea where she was.

A voice spoke. Tangled words she didn’t understand.

She jerked toward the sound, saw a fierce-looking man reaching for her. Perhaps thirty years old, dressed in a long white coat of a strange cut, old bloodstains at the cuffs. Cropped dark hair and a pale, weather-beaten face, framed by a pointed beard.

She shied away, kicked against the ties on her ankles. The man held her shoulders and shook her gently, mouthing nonsensical words as his features coalesced. A long scar ran down his right cheek, another curved along his left, and he was missing his left ear entirely. His right eye was chalk-white; probably blinded by whatever had mangled his face. But beneath salt-encrusted eyebrows, she saw his left eye was a pale, sparkling blue.

White skin.

Blue eyes.

My gods, he’s gaijin.

Smoothing the hair from her face, he spoke more of his incomprehensible language. Yukiko pulled back from his touch, but he offered a tin cup, filled with fresh water. The taste of salt was thick on her tongue, throat parched, and she gulped it down without pause. Eyes closed in the mercy of dimming thirst, she was startled by another voice speaking from the doorway.

“Piotr.”

The only round-eyes she’d ever seen were the merchantmen selling leather goods on the Kigen docks, so it was difficult to judge. But as she squinted at the speaker, she guessed this second gaijin was only a little older than she. Damp, shoulder-length blond hair swept behind his ears, a small tuft of beard on his chin, tanned skin. There was a symmetry to his features she might have found handsome if he didn’t look so utterly alien. Scruffy red tunic of a bizarre cut, decorated with a shawl of pale-gray fur, thick leather gloves, insignia on his collars, goggles slung around his neck. He stared at her with eyes the color of tarnished silver, burning with curiosity.

There was something familiar about him …

As she watched, he took a small cylinder of white paper from a flat tin box in his coat, put it in his mouth. He drew a small slab of dull steel from a pocket, touched it to the stick. Pale gray smoke drifted from the end of the paper cylinder, filling the room with the scent of cinnamon and honey. His hands were shaking.

The smell dragged a dim memory back up through the sea-drenched fog in her brain: she was curled up on rain-slick metal, coughing lungfuls of brine. A silhouette crouched over her, thick rope lashed around his waist, sodden blond hair plastered to his face.

She remembered her mouth had tasted strange. Something over the salt and bile …

Cinnamon and honey.

“You…” she said. “You saved me?”

The blond boy spoke—incomprehensible and guttural. The dark-haired man stood and walked to the doorway, and the pair talked in hushed tones, glancing over occasionally while Yukiko’s eyes roamed the room.

Some kind of hospice, lined with metal cots, perhaps a dozen in all. The sharp smell of liquor and burned hair, jars of chemicals stacked beneath a cast-iron sink. Gray walls, glistening with damp, wind howling through ventilation ducts lining the ceiling. Grubby bulbs in rusted, wall-mounted housings, flickering in time with the toneless howl of the wind outside. Beneath it, she could hear the roll and crack of surf, thunder rumbling across sharp rock.

The ocean’s song.

She reached out with the Kenning, tentative, the headache cinching at the base of her skull. She could feel the gaijin in the room, just like she’d felt the people of the Kage village; indistinct smudges of alien warmth. Pushing them aside, she groped around the nearby darkness, felt the impression of something warm; an animal with a familiar shape, far too small to be a thunder tiger.