Kinslayer

suits.

Why would the Guild need a legion of those?

He hissed through gritted teeth as realization dawned.

To cut a forest down …

He shook his head, started to turn away when he spotted it. Just a glimpse; a shadow within shadows, something vast and black lurking amidst the smog. But then Lady Sun hit the horizon, flaring bright as she laid down to sleep, and he saw it; a kettle-bellied, sawtoothed colossus with smokestack spines and the legs of some vast, iron spider. A machine the likes of which he had never seen.

“Raijin’s drums, what is that?” he breathed.

Shintaro slumped down in the ash, staring at his hand as if amazed he owned a set of fingers. Ryusaki coughed, tasting black on his tongue. Unbuckling Shintaro’s pack, he pulled aside its oilskin, revealing the graceless bulk of a wireless transmitter. He cranked the handle, but the machine made a sound like a meat grinder, refusing to register power.

“Shit.” Ryusaki thumped the radio as Shintaro keeled over beside him, gasping like a landed fish. “Come on, you bastard, work…”

If it heard him, the transmitter made no effort to obey.

He could feel a sickness in his belly that had nothing to do with fear. An ashen, blackened nausea, creeping into his bones, up toward his heart. He could feel it inside him. Death taken root. Fear beside it. But not here. Not yet.

Ryusaki lurched to his feet, cut loose his own gear and slung the transmitter’s weight across his back. Shintaro was spasming, black foam filling his breather, and Ryusaki knelt long enough to give him a blade to the heart. Better to die quick. Better not to suffer.

Not like he was going to.

The Kage captain drew a ragged breath, adjusted the transmitter on his back and turned north, toward the rail lines. He had to get far enough from the smog that the device might work, send a message to the closest listening post, on again, until it reached the Iishi. Because Ryusaki knew now he never would.

Never see those mountains again, hear the windsong in the trees, watch flowers bloom in a blessed spring. Never see his brother again. Never again be scolded by his mother for not eating right or cursing too much. Never to see this war end.

He closed his eyes, willed away the grief, the fear, the despair. Not a second to waste on any of it. Because he refused to die for nothing. To allow Shintaro and Jun to have died for nothing. This news would reach the Iishi, even if it killed him.

Head bowed, fighting for every breath, Ryusaki began trekking north.

Even if it killed him.

30 A MOMENT OF EMPTY

Even though he’d broken the lock on her cell, Ayane had insisted she return to her prison after seeing to Daichi’s wounds. Quietly closing the door behind her and sitting in the dark to wait, despite all of Kin’s protests. She said she wanted permission before she would leave her cage again. Validation. Vindication. Finally given by an old man with bruised and ragged breath, awakening yestereve from a sleep that would have become death, if not for the accursed lotusgirl and her gleaming spider limbs.

Freedom at last.

Ayane stepped from the cell and threw her arms around his neck, her smile as wide as the sky. She smelled of sweat, damp cotton, dried blood. Kin gave a weak hug in return, waiting for her to release him. Her arms slipped away from his shoulders reluctantly, and she stepped back to look him over with those dark, liquid eyes, skin as pale as moonlight.

“Kin-san, what’s wrong?”

“… Nothing.”

“First Bloom, you could not lie a little harder, could you?” A wry smile. “That way I could at least try to believe you.”

“Why do you still do that?”

“Do what?”

“Swear by the First Bloom. You’re not Guild anymore.”

“Old habit?” The girl shrugged, silver limbs rippling on her back.

“It makes you stand out. Reminds people who you used to be. Daichi agreed to release you because you saved his life. But the less they think of you as Guild, the better.”

“Then who should I swear by? Thunder Gods and their drums? Maybe the Maker and his testicles?” She adopted a gruff voice, slapped a mock frown onto her face. “Izanagi’s bawwwwls.”

Kin smiled despite himself. “You do that very well.”

“My thanks, my Lord.” The girl bowed from the knees, like a lady of court. “Now, will you tell me what troubles you, or should we pretend you are a halfway decent liar and have you show me the bathhouse instead?”

“Just … all of it,” he shrugged. “The ’thrower malfunction. Daichi nearly dying. They think it’s my fault. Everything has gone to hell since Yukiko and Buruu left.” A sigh. “And they should be back by now.”

The words sounded as though someone else were speaking them. Someone in a distant room, indulging in idle gossip, too foolish to even contemplate.

Yukiko missing? Nonsense. The last time he’d seen her, they’d had a screaming fight. Fate would never be so cruel as to take her away without giving him a chance to—

“You are worried about her,” Ayane said.

He stared at the floor. Nodded.

“I am certain she is all right, Kin. Wherever she is. She is the Stormdancer. She destroyed three ironclads without so much as a scratch. Killed a Shogun simply by looking at him.”

Kin shook his head.

“That’s not her. The way you all see her…” He sighed, rubbed the crease between his brow. “You don’t know her at all.”

Ayane touched his hand, fingertips as gentle as cobwebs across his skin. A frail smile bloomed on her lips.

“You are very sweet, you know, Kin-san. You always think the best of everyone.”

He glanced down as her fingers touched his, raising unexpected goosebumps on his skin. Looking up into her eyes, he realized how close she stood. And before he knew what was happening, her lips were touching his, full and soft and warm, her body pressed against him, gently, as if he might break. He lingered for a second, and two, and three, breath caught in his lungs, white noise in his ears, until at last he broke away, stepping back and raising his hands. Ayane stood still as stone, eyes closed, silver limbs unfurling and rippling about her, bruised-pink lips curled in a delicate, tiny smile.

“So that is what it feels like,” she breathed.

“Why did you do that?”

Ayane opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. The silver limbs shivered.

“Just to feel,” she said. “Just to know.”

“You shouldn’t do something like that. Not without asking first.”

“You did not like it?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Didn’t you?

“I am sorry. I just thought…” She clasped her hands together. “I thought if you did not want me to, you would have stopped me…”