The contact broke; a bullwhip crack that left a searing trail of pain across her brow. Yukiko winced, wiping her nose on her shoulder, smearing blood across her lips and chin. Her skull ached as if it had been stomped underfoot, ears ringing with a steel-toe tune. She felt absolutely awful—“Like an oni had shit in her head,” her father would’ve said. And the thought of him washed over her in the dark, five days’ worth of fatigue crashing down with the weight of anvils, threatening to tip her over the precipice.
She thought of him on his slab. Ashes caked on his swollen face. She thought of his last words, bleeding out into her arms in the skies above Kigen. She searched for the rage but could find none, tears welling instead, clotting her lashes, and she screwed her eyes shut as if she could stop them spilling over.
She reached out on instinct for Buruu; a reflex action, like she’d reach for a handhold if she felt herself falling. But there was almost nothing waiting for her; just a tiny blob of muddy heat in the cold, vast dark where he used to be, laced with the hunger of reptiles. And that was the last push that sent her sailing over the edge.
She curled up in the dark, like a child in womb’s black.
And she wept.
The smell of warm porridge and hot tea roused her from dreams of growling wind, and she woke to find the noise was the hunger in her own belly. Dim daylight shone beyond the tiny window, smeared storm-gray. Piotr was sitting beside the bed, metal tray on his lap, watching her intently with his one good eye.
As she blinked the grit from her lashes, he said something in his rolling, guttural language and reached over, pulling her uwagi up around her shoulders, covering her naked chest. She flinched away, cheeks burning, remembering the blinding outrage she’d felt as he pulled the tunic open, exposing her tattoo and all else besides.
Piotr smoothed the tangle of hair from her face, offered a spoonful of porridge. As much as the way he looked at her was unsettling, the memory of her indignities still smoldering in her mind, the food smelled delicious. Her empty stomach murmured, and she swallowed her pride along with the first mouthful, wolfing down everything he gave her.
When she was finished, she tugged the bindings on her wrists and ankles, looked at them pointedly.
“Can you untie me?”
“He cannot.” Piotr scowled and shook his head. “Pretty girl.”
“Where am I going to go?”
Piotr touched her cheek, tucking stray hairs behind her ears. He gathered up the utensils and bowls, set them aside, leaned back in his chair. Reaching into his white coat, he retrieved his fish-shaped pipe, stuffing it with that same dried, brown herb.
“Better she not here.” He shook his head. “Better all.”
“You could let me go?” Yukiko pulled at the restraints again.
“Too late.” He lit the pipe with his flame-box, exhaled a cloud of ignition fumes into the air. “Is now coming she, they.”
“What?”
“Zryachniye,” he sighed. “Zryachniye.”
“How do you speak Shiman?” Yukiko titled her head. “Were you a merchant?”
Sadness and anger thickened his voice. “Prisoner.”
Realization arrived with a wave of nausea, and at last she understood the man’s animosity. The slap to her cheek. Scarred face, blinded eye, crippled leg.
Samurai believed it was better to commit seppuku than fall into enemy hands. A gaijin soldier who allowed himself to be captured would have been viewed as beneath contempt; a wretch without honor or worth. If Piotr had been a soldier captured by Shogunate troops during the invasion, she could only imagine what he’d been through at her countrymen’s hands.
The man seemed an utter bastard. But nobody deserved to be tortured.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Sorry?” The gaijin sucked his pipe, breathed pale gray. “Save sorry for herself.”
He stood, limped out the door and closed it behind him. The wind howled like a lonely dog, a solitary voice in dark wilderness, dawn a lifetime away.
As the hallway light was shut out, she realized at last that she was alone out here. On an impossible metal island in the middle of vast oceans, surrounded by people who saw her as a spy, an invader, an enemy. She had no idea which way land might lay. Nobody knew she was in trouble, and even if they did, nobody knew where to find her.
No one could help her. No Buruu to fly her to safety. No Kin to build mechanical wings that could see them freed. No Kage, no father, no friends. She realized if anyone was going to get her out of this, it was her. But if she didn’t do it soon, Buruu was going to starve out there in the storm. Hiro’s wedding would go ahead unopposed, Aisha would be slaved for the sake of his legitimacy, and the nation would simply have traded one Shogun for another. Everything they worked for, her father died for, all of it would be for nothing.
So enough with sitting here in the dark and crying herself to sleep. Enough with waiting for lightning to strike. Time to stand instead of crawling. Time to start digging out of this hole with whatever tools she could scrounge.
If she found none, there was always her fingernails.
Buruu’s warmth had emanated somewhere north, dulled with the distance between them. Somehow she had to get out to those islands, fix his wings. She considered the flying machine on the roof of the complex, but realized she had no idea how to operate it. The female arashitora was going to be no help at all; that much was clear. As for the gaijin, Danyk and Katya clearly saw her as an enemy, and the memory of Piotr slapping her, ignoring her struggles as he tore off her uwagi, still filled her with bitter, helpless outrage.
But she needed someone. By herself, she had no chance of getting out of this room, let alone rescuing Buruu.
Ilyitch was her best bet. He was young, didn’t get along with Danyk or Piotr, seemed to be an underling afforded little respect. And of course, he’d saved her from the ocean, risked his life for hers. Surely that spoke of a good heart? A kind soul? Guilt swelled at the thought of what might happen to him if his fellows caught him helping her, but she quickly quashed it under the weight of the stakes in play: not just her life. Buruu’s. Aisha’s too. All of Shima.
She had to get back. There was still hope. If they left soon, she might still reach Kigen in time to stop Hiro’s wedding. And besides, if she couldn’t trust the boy who’d dived into a freezing ocean full of sea dragons to save her life, who the hells could she trust?
She sighed, shutting her eyes. She opened up the Kenning again—just a fraction—feeling about as gently as she could beyond the wall of herself. Again, she could sense the gaijin around her, muddy and indistinct. The headache reared up like a snake behind her eyes and she whimpered in pain.
She remembered touching Yoritomo’s mind at the Burning Stones, crushing it to pulp with her thoughts. Her father had been there to help her that day, augmenting her strength with his own. But whatever was happening to the Kenning inside her, it had grown so strong she was certain she’d be able to hurt someone by herself now. Maybe not kill them outright. But definitely make them bleed.
But could she talk to them?
Not hurt them—just do something as simple as speaking?
She wouldn’t even know where to begin. The Kenning had been with her since she was six years old, seeming totally natural to her as a child. She was able to use it because nobody ever told her she
