Kinslayer

He was pretty, and that was a real shame.

Seimi-san liked to hurt the pretty ones.

41 A THOUSAND DIAMONDS

Consciousness was hard-won, harder still to hold, swimming up to the light of waking and struggling to tread water, body and head one throbbing knot of pain.

Yukiko blinked up into roiling black and found Piotr looking down at her, just a silhouette, lightning snared in the white of his blind eye. He crouched beside her on the cold glass, smoothed the hair from her face and murmured in his own tongue. Her hands and brow had been rebandaged, a bundled satchel placed behind her head, Piotr’s big wolf skin draped over her to shield her from the storm. She had no idea how long she’d been out for.

“Care,” he said. “Head.”

Yukiko sat up slowly, clutching her gut. Every part of her ached, the rain fell like iron-thrower shot against her skin. She couldn’t remember hurting so badly in all her life.

“Thank…”

Her throat seized closed on the words. Wincing, breathing deep, she tried speaking again.

“Thank you for helping us, Piotr.”

“Tell you.” He nodded proudly. “Promise.”

Yukiko crawled across the blood-slick rock and leaned against Buruu, running her fingers through the feathers at the base of his skull. He stirred, eyelids flickering, the pupils beyond so dilated that his irises almost drowned in the black.

She turned back to Piotr slowly, lest her head fall completely off her shoulders. The Thunder God pounded his drums, the tremor beginning in her temples and rumbling all the way down her spine.

“Promised who?”

“Prisoner,” he said.

She blinked away the rain, frowning. “The ones who kept you prisoner? Kitsune? Samurai?”

“No, no.” The man sighed, exasperated. “Not me for the prisoner. Us keeping for the prisoner. There.” He pointed toward the lightning farm, his good eye lighting up as he remembered a word. “Guild!” He snapped his fingers. “Guild!”

“A Guildsman?” Yukiko recalled the ruined Guild ships on the rocks at the edge of the Razor Isles, the beaten brass on Katya’s armor. “A Guildsman who crashed here?”

“Da, da,” Piotr nodded. “Fix me. Fix leg. Walk me.” He pointed at the mechanical brace on his leg, the blind eye in its ravaged socket. “He prisoner for us. My accident is falling. Leg crush. Face, da? He fix me. Saving for the life. Teach for me the Shiman. Piotr friend too, da? Is friend.” A sigh. “I make for the promise if Zryachniye take him.”

“A promise?”

The gaijin pulled a worn leather wallet from his coat, hunched over to shield it from the rain, unfolded a scrap of paper inside.

“Taking back.” Piotr touched his chest, touched the paper. “Taking back for the Shima. He for the saving my life. Good man. Was good.”

The paper was worn, slightly mildewed, covered in fine black kanji. It was a letter, she realized. A letter from Piotr’s Guildsman. Yukiko scanned the text, struggling to focus, a lead-gray sorrow welling in her chest.

Beloved,

I know I will never see your face again. The skin upon it, nor flesh beneath it. But the memory of it keeps me warm, when all else turns to winter and all hope is gone.

I am prisoner to the gaijin. Our ship crashed in the tempest, only five of us rescued from the waters. And now they keep us here as prisoners, waiting for spring to ease the storms enough to transport us to Morcheba, and from there, to a fate only the gods can know. But the gaijin who delivers this note is a friend; greater than any I deserve for the life I have led. If you are reading this, Piotr has fulfilled his vow against all odds. Treat him well, love.

I wish I could hold you one last time. I wish more than anything to feel your body against mine. I wish our daughter could know her father’s face. I wish I could see her in all her perfection, before the False- Lifers run her flesh through with cables and encase her beauty in cold metal. I wish I could see the day when the machines are torn from Shima’s skin, when the mechabacus falls silent for the last time, when the rebellion smashes First House to flaming splinters. When a love like ours can bloom in the sun, not endure silently within prisons of brass.

But I will not do any of these things. This is my fate. And for my part in the world we created, I deserve no better. I think myself blessed to have known you for the brief moments I did. And I go to my end with a gentle smile, at peace with the knowledge that, for all my crimes, fate saw fit to grant me you. Such a gift would not be wasted on one who is damned. Perhaps what little I did to aid the rebellion is enough to see Enma-o judge me fair.

Pray for me, love. Pray that the Judge of the Nine Hells weighs me true. That when I stand before him, he will not only consider what I did, but what I made possible. And I will pray for you, for all the rebels that remain, that you may finish what we have started: Death to the Serpents. An end to the Guild. Freedom for Shima.

I love you. With all I have in me. Tell our daughter I love her also. Know that in my final moments, I will think of your face. With my last breath, I will whisper your name, Misaki.

Always yours,

Takeo

Yukiko stared at the page long after she’d finished reading, letting the words sink into her skin. So it was all true. Ayane’s story about a hidden faction within the Guild. An army of insurgents, just as devoted as the Kage, working to bring the Guild to its knees.

And she had thought the girl a liar. A spy.

Just like the gaijin thought about me.

“Death to the Serpents?” she whispered.

What in the name of the gods did that mean?

“I have to get out of here.” She folded the letter carefully, put one hand to her throbbing brow. “I have to get back.”

“Back Shima?” Piotr took the letter, returned it to the leather wallet with a strange reverence. “Find Takeo love? Find Misaki-san?”

“Hai,” she nodded. “I will find her.”

The gaijin placed the leather wallet in her hands.

“You hold,” he said. “You take.”

“I will.”

“You promise.”

Yukiko smiled.

“I promise.”

* * *

Buruu awoke beneath sweet, cool rain, and for a single, brilliant moment, he had no idea where he was. Just listening to the storm, feeling electricity dance on his skin, remembering the days when there had been nothing but this; the freedom of black cloud and rolling thunder and roaring wind beneath his wings.

His wings.

The metal creaked as he hauled himself to his feet, the stench of murder in his nostrils, the pain of talon and beak carved into his flesh. And then he felt warmth in his mind, a thunderous, gushing heat, and her arms