The Last Stormdancer

—NOT YOUR BUSINESS, BOY. NOT YOUR PLACE TO QUESTION. WERE YOU NOT YOKAI-KIN, ALREADY YOU BE FLYING.—

The sparrow looked over each of us in turn. The boy’s head followed the bird’s gaze, as if he watched us also.

There must be some among you who see as I do?

The Khan growled, low and deep and deadly.

—SEE NOTHING. YOU BLIND.—

Alone in the snow. Beneath the stares of dozens of thunder tigers, any of whom could have torn him to pieces. A thousand miles from Kitsune lands, with his tattered boots and his tattered hope. And still, the boy stood tall.

Am I?

—MONKEY-CHILDREN MAKE SICKNESS. EXPECT ARASHITORA TO MEND? AND OF ALL, THEY SEND YOU? WEAK AND BLIND AND MEWLING?—

Nobody sent me, great one, save perhaps the gods themselves.

—HEAR THEM, DO YOU?—

They have spoken to me. My grandmother has the gift of Truth. Of Sight. She said I would save the lands of Shima. End this sickness. Riding with thunder tigers at my back.

—THEN SHE AS BLIND AS YOU.—

You do not understand—

—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CARING AND UNDERSTANDING, MONKEY-CHILD.—

A slow blink. A frown darkening that blind and vacant stare. It seemed to me the monkey-child’s mask fell away, his serenity and quiet assurance shattering upon the ice, and beneath was the face of a confused and frightened boychild, lost in a world he thought he knew.

But … you must help.

—NO PLACE FOR MUSTS HERE, SAVE MINE.—

The sparrow peered at the great Khan, trembling in the freezing chill. The boy stepped forward, the pack about him rising, growling long and deep in warning.

Please, great one. This was foretold. A child of my—

—TAKE FORETELLINGS WHEN YOU LEAVE, MONKEY-CHILD. NO PLACE FOR THEM HERE, EITHER.—

But I—

The Khan’s roar was a slap to the boy’s face. Blasting the fringe back from those sightless eyes, drenching his pallid cheeks with spittle. The Khan’s breath boiled in the freezing air, reverb shaking our bones. And at his outburst, the sparrow nestled at the boy’s shoulder finally broke, springing loose and fluttering away in a rolling tumble of feather and shrill squawking. Right into the path of another young buck by the name of Rahh. A friend of mine. As close to a brother as I would know.

Rahh’s beak closed, quick as lightning.

Snap.

And the little white sparrow squawked no more.

No! Mikayo!

The boy turned, fell to his knees, pawed about in the snow until he found the sparrow’s broken corpse. Bright red smeared in pearlescent white. Clutching the little bundle to his chest, he made nonsense noises with his mouth, tears glittering in his eyes.

… You did not need to do that.

Rahh leaned close to the blind boy, amber stare boring a hole through the monkey-child’s skull, hackles raised in jagged threat down his spine.

* GET OFF OUR MOUNTAIN, MONKEY-CHILD. *

She was my friend …

* FLY WITH US THEN. *

Rahh raised his claws, intent on seizing the boy and ripping him skyward. Rumbling growls amidst the roll of thunder above. And as the talons of my brother who was not my brother descended, I called to him in our own tongue, my voice enough to stay his hand.

“Wait.”

Rahh fell still. Glanced at me with eyes the shade of sunflowers and murder.

“He laid his stick on my back.”

I stepped forward, talons sinking deep into the snow.

“Let me teach him.”

Rahh looked to the Khan looming at our backs, blinking in question. This was not my place to speak. Let alone to demand. But the old beast must have assented (as he often did in those days), for the brother who was not my brother inclined his head, backed away from the boy with his bloody palmful of broken sparrow.

“Teach him well,” he said.

And seizing the monkey-child by his shoulders, spreading my wings wide, I sprang into the sky.

* * *

Lady Ami knelt in a vast antechamber of the House of Passing, her sister Mai beside her. The roof arched forty feet above her head, long silken amulets of perfect white running ceiling to floor. The room was lit with a thousand fragrant candles, also the color of death; white as newborn snow. Two dozen maidservants gathered about her, heads pressed to floorboards, hands clasped in prayer.

The sisters were motionless as statues. Faces painted bone-pale, thick kohl about their lashes. Hair bound in coils and braids, twelve-layered robes of mourning-black dragging them earthward. They were beauties among your kind, or so I am told. Perfect as the first flowers of spring. Born of the same womb, one year apart, mirrored reflections of each other in dark, still water.

Brides of the Shogun’s sons—sisters wed to brothers, which I suppose makes a kind of sense, in so far as anything you monkey-children do makes sense. And hanging heavy in the air between Ami and her sibling, along with the perfume of burning candles and the hymns of beggar monks praying for the dead Shogun’s soul, lay the knowledge that all that stood between either of them and the title of First Lady of Shima was the death of the other’s husband.

Lady Mai spoke first. Utterly motionless, save her lips.

“Your Lord Tatsuya looked unwell this morning, dear sister.”

Lady Ami was still as stone. Unblinking. Almost unbreathing. “My husband is well, dear sister. Considering circumstances. Though I must say, your Lord Riku looks a picture of health.”

“He does, does he not?”

Ami nodded slightly. “One would think the Bear would appear a touch paler, considering the forces my noble husband has gathered to his side.”

“Lord Tatsuya has proven himself most effective in the application of bribery and threats, to be certain. A pity he was not courageous enough to simply end the matter by duel and spare us all the horrors of civil war.”

“Horrific for some,” Ami nodded. “Considering our forces outnumber yours almost two to one. And yet Lord Riku barely musters a sweat. Most admirable.”

Lady Mai’s smile was pretty as sunset. “Perhaps my Lord and husband knows it is not simply numbers that win battles, dear sister. That skill counts for more by half.”

“One would think,” Ami smiled in return, “such knowledge would make him sweat all the more.”

A hollow chuckle, drifting off into a deathly hiss. “Always so clever, little sister.”

“And still you ever ask to dance.”

“A pity the same cannot be said of the Bull?” Mai glanced sideways at her sibling.

Muscle clenched at Lady Ami’s jaw. She blinked once. Twice.

“No riposte?” Mai whispered. “Does it cut you so deep that Tatsuya-sama spends so little time in your bedchamber? I would have thought you accustomed to the idea by now.”

“You dare…” Ami breathed.

“Tell me, if your Lord and husband does murder mine and do away with me besides, will the arrangement