Endsinger

  “I know you,” Hiro repeated.

  “I think not.”

  “You’re the one,” the Tora Daimyo nodded. “You gave the thunder tiger his metal wings, and that same thunder tiger took my arm.” A small shake of his head, pistons hissing. “Of every ship traveling to the staging grounds, they would post you to this one, wouldn’t they?”

  Kin heard no anger in Hiro’s voice. Simply the bitter resignation of a man already heaped chin-deep with indignity, suffering quietly beneath one more shovel load.

  “Second Bloom Kensai is … indisposed,” Kin said. “I stand in his stead. Apologies if this inconveniences you, honorable Daimyo.”

  “She called you Kin. That is your name, is it not?”

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

  “Hai.”

  Call me First Bloom.

  “Then as I say, I know you.”

  “As I say, honorable Daimyo, I think not.”

  “Tiger is not as blind as you think. My uncle’s spy network still whispers to me on occasion. They speak of a Guildsman who joined the Kagé, only to betray them. Selling their leader during the Kigen uprising, handing him over in exchange for safe harbor.” Hiro eyed Kin’s new suit up and down. “And a promotion, it seems.”

  “Forgiveness, honorable Daimyo. But you know nothing.”

  “I know we’re the same, you and I. I thought I loved her too, at first.”

  Kin turned sharply, atmos-suit hissing a plume of blue-black. The mechabacus was a constant clatter in the back of his mind. Soothing. Silencing.

  “Until I found out what she was,” Hiro said. “Until she betrayed me. I’m wondering what she did to you, to see this story end with you beside me?”

  “This is not about Yukiko.”

  Hiro laughed like a man who’d only read about it in books. “Everything we do is about her. Don’t you see, Kin-san? We’re both falling, you and I. And Yukiko? She’s our gravity.”

  Silence, broken by churning propellers and hungry wind. Kin counted the spaces between each smooth breath, his bellows rising and falling. Second. By second. By second.

  “The Kagé leader you handed over to the Guild was once Iron Samurai, did you know that?” A ghastly smile perched on Hiro’s lips, as if they shared some private joke. “How did it feel when you turned Daichi over to your old masters?”

  Kin glanced at the Daimyo’s corpse-pale face. This was an answer he knew by rote.

  “It felt like justice.”

  “I suppose if you were handed over to the Kagé, they’d call it justice too?”

  “Do you think it matters what they say?”

  “Not I, no.” Hiro shook his head. “But I’m not the one who betrayed everyone he knew to join them. Dead samurai. Dead Shōgun. A clan in tatters and a nation in ruin. Did you ever stop to think none of this would be happening if not for you, Kin-san? If you’d simply left the thunder tiger to Yoritomo’s mercies, and not deluded yourself with dreams of her affection? Do you ever think that? Does the thought of it wake you in the night?”

  Kin remained mute, turning away to watch the distant storms.

  “And all for nothing, eh?” Hiro mused. “For here you stand, where once you began. Did she at least take you for a roll before she cast you aside? That’s her usual method of payment.”

  Counting the space between breaths.

  Thinking nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Hiro patted Kin’s shoulder like an older brother, clockwork fingers rasping on new brass.

  “Feel no shame she used you, Kin-san. She has a gift for making men look like fools.”

  “I think perhaps it is men who have a gift for it, great Daimyo,” Kin finally said. “Women simply stand aside and leave us to it.”

  “Ah, such wisdom…”

  “To some, perhaps.”

  Hiro stepped closer, his face inches from Kin’s own. The engines’ hum was a crackling static between them, tinged with the stink of chi, the promise of black rain.

  “I wonder what you will be, when all this is said and done,” Hiro murmured. “When she and I and everyone else in this drama is dead. When there’s no one but farmers scratching in dying soil and puppets on zaibatsu thrones and the Guild standing triumphant as the earth shakes louder by the day. I wonder if you’ll taste blood every time you breathe.”

  “I wonder something also…”

  “Indeed?”

  “I wonder why you hate her so much.”

  “Do you forget my Shōgun lies murdered by her hand?” Hiro spat. “This is about honor. Such a notion might seem quaint to one like you, but this is the life of a samurai.”

  “I know all that,” Kin said. “How you all think dying gloriously will somehow make things better. But I’d think instead of spending so much of yourself hating her, you’d be giving her thanks. All of you. Right before you plunge the blades into your bellies.”

  “Thanks?” Hiro was incredulous. “What madness is this?”

  “You’re a warrior, and she’s given you war. You seek your death, and she’s given you something to die for. So why do you think you hate her so much?”

  “It makes no difference—”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you didn’t actually want to die for the Imperium, Hiro-san. Maybe you’d rather go on living. Find someone to actually love. Raise a family? Scratch out a life in some quiet corner and find your happiness where you may. Maybe that would be better than dying for an empire that’s already close to dead.”

  The pair stared at each other, inches and miles apart. A long moment passed in thunderous silence, every second drawing them closer to their final chapter.

  “But where’s the glory in that?”

  Kin walked away, clomping across the rolling deck in a cloud of smoke, leaving the Lord of Tigers alone with his parting words. Mind alight with the mechabacus hymn, the knowledge of what could have been, if only.

  If only …

  Thinking and saying nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  14

  SMOKING AND SCREAMING

  Yukiko stood in the dungeons beneath Five Flowers Palace, but in her head she was back in Kigen jail, Hiro by her side, walking to the cell where her father sat imprisoned. Her hand drifted to the tantō at her waist, her mind to the arashitora circling above.

  Just a wordless touch; a squeeze of an old friend’s hand to let him know you’re there. Yukiko felt Buruu’s warmth inside her head, static electricity crawling along his feathers. The ache to be up there with him was almost physical. She wondered how toxic the black rain would be this close to the Iishi, how badly it would burn them if they were caught in the downpour.

  Be careful, brother. The rains here are not like the Everstorm or the mountains.

  THE WATER IS WETTER?

  They’re poisonous. Black as night. They burn your skin if you stay in them too long. Even metal melts under them after a few years.

  I PROMISE TO COME IN WHEN IT RAINS, MOTHER.

  She smiled despite herself, lingering in the warmth of his mind. Ahead, she could see the silhouette of the Kitsune general in his ō-yoroi, a hand-cranked tungsten lantern held high. Misaki walked beside her, Michi behind, followed by four samurai in their ancient armor.

  The rest of the group had stayed behind in the Daimyo’s dining hall. Yukiko had asked Akihito if he wished to accompany her into the dungeon, and the big man had looked like she’d punched him in the stomach. She knew immediately he was thinking of Kasumi; the way she’d died in Kigen jail during her father’s rescue. She’d given the big man a hug, told him to finish his dinner. He’d hugged her back, hard enough to make her ribs ache.

  The dungeon corridors were cramped, pocked with rusted iron doors. Yukiko could sense the tumble of lives down here in the Kenning; hundreds of rats fighting amidst the rotten straw and sunless rooms. Dozens of Guildsmen locked in the dark, black bread and dirty water for solace. She knew they were her enemies—that if the situation we
re reversed, she’d be subjected to far worse before they dragged her out to the Burning Stones. But still, her stomach turned at the memory of her father’s suffering in Yoritomo’s dungeons. What Daichi might be suffering right now, if he still lived. A part of her wondered why these Guildsmen had to suffer the same.

  I feel sorry for them, Buruu. How many really knew what they were doing? How many acted out of blind obedience, or because they were raised that way?

  DO NOT BE ASHAMED OF YOUR PITY. IT SEPARATES YOU FROM THEM.

  I’m not. But I still feel like shit.

  WE ALL MUST LIVE WITH CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE.

  Speaking of which, is Kaiah up there with you?

  SOMEWHERE.

  Is she talking to you yet?

  … NO.

  One day you’re going to have to tell me that story, Buruu.

  ONE DAY.

  Soon, I hope.

  A HOPE I DO NOT SHARE.

  “Here.”

  General Ginjiro’s voice pulled her out of his head, back into the dungeon’s bowels. The stink made her eyes water, and both she and Michi pulled kerchiefs up around their faces. Misaki seemed to be reveling in the new scents and sights now her face was uncovered, and she breathed deep despite the reek.

  They’d stopped outside an iron door, nothing remarkable about it, save what lay beyond. Yukiko opened the Kenning just wide enough to feel inside. She sensed the impossible knot of human emotion beyond the door—a kaleidoscope of thoughts, too bright and numerous to look at for long. Her head began to ache like it was cracking.

  “I think…” A frown. “I think there’s something wrong with him.”

  “Stay back,” Ginjiro warned.

  The general pulled aside a viewing slot and peered through, eyes narrowed in the gloom. Unlocking the door, he led his samurai into the cell. Yukiko heard scuffling, a low moan. Ginjiro reappeared in the doorway, motioned the trio inside. His lantern hung on the wall, illuminating bare slick granite, a pile of dirty straw in one corner, and an empty, filth-encrusted bucket in another. Six by six.

  The samurai had seized the Inquisitor, one on each elbow, another with his arm locked around the man’s throat. The prisoner was barely an inch taller than Yukiko, sickly gray skin filmed in sweat, wrists manacled. His head lolled in the samurai’s grip as if his neck were broken, bloodshot eyes rolled back in their sockets. An awful bruise purpled his cheek, left eye swollen near-shut. His jailers had stripped him of mechabacus and tunic, revealing a black serpent coiled down his bicep, beautiful and intricate—the work of a master inksmith. The bayonet fixtures in his skin reminded Yukiko of Kin, running his thumb around the input jack at his wrist, standing in the Iishi rain.

  “I’d never hurt you. Never betray you. Never.”

  “… I know that,” she’d said.

  “You mean everything to me. Everything I’ve done. All of it. You’re the reason. The first and only reason…”

  The Inquisitor was shaking, drool slicked on his chin. Yukiko recognized the look immediately—she’d seen it in her father on days he’d lost too much at cards and had no coin for smoke.

  “He’s going through withdrawal,” she said. “He’s a lotusfiend.”

  “I told you,” Misaki said. “They breathe it every minute of their lives.”

  “But Kin…” Yukiko faltered. “I was told the Guild had to stay away from lotus. You eat purified food, live inside those suits. How is it these Inquisitors breathe it every minute?”

  “Guild doctrine says it helps them to recognize ‘impurity.’ They look into the darkest places so the rest of the Guild don’t have to. Lotus helps them ‘see.’”

  Michi’s lip curled in disgust. “I wonder what he’s seeing now.”

  The general reached into a satchel on his shoulder, pulled out a small combustion chamber on a leather harness, affixed with a grinning mouthpiece.

  “He was wearing this when we found him. We found three others like him on the ships we captured, but they’d all committed suicide. This one was knocked unconscious during the attack, otherwise he’d probably have gone the way of his fellows.”

  Yukiko stepped closer to the Inquisitor, wrinkling her nose at his stink; smoke and sweat and something rotten. “Can you hear me?”

  A shuddering moan was her only reply, and she sighed.

  “We’ll never get anything out of him like this.”

  Closing her eyes, she reached out into the tangle of his thoughts. She found them chilled and oily, edged in blue-black, just as impossible to untangle as any human mind she’d tried to touch. Wiping a trickle of blood from her nose she made a face, her head throbbing.

  “We could give him some lotus?” Ginjiro aimed the question at Misaki.

  “I do not know what will happen if we do that, General…”

  The general tapped on the Inquisitor’s forehead with his forefinger, held up the lotus breather in front of the man’s mouth. “You want this?”

  Mumbled nonsense. A spray of drool.

  Ginjiro affixed the breather over the little man’s face, fiddled with the nozzles on the combustion chamber until it started hissing. The change was astonishing. Within a moment the shakes had stopped. Within two the Inquisitor was supporting his own weight. Within three he’d opened his eyes, and was staring right at Yukiko.

  Right through her.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  A voice like a man woken from deepest sleep, still shaking the sand off his eyes.

  “Kitsune Yukiko.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  A rolling, bloodshot gaze roamed the room. “I have been here before.”

  “When?”

  “Every night for as long as I can remember…”

  Yukiko remembered Kin speaking of his Awakening ceremony. The visions of the future he’d seen. “The What Will Be.”

  The little man tilted his head, whispering. “Do I dream this now?”

  Ginjiro slapped him hard, knocked the breather askew. “Feel real to you?”

  His corpse-gray face twisted in a smile. “No…”

  Yukiko put the breather back on straight, looked into those pools of bloodshot red. There was something familiar about this—a nagging déjà-vu sitting beside her splitting headache. The lotus scent made her think of her father, long nights sitting by the—

  “Masaru-san sends his love,” the little man said.

  “… What?”

  “Kitsune Masaru. The Black Fox of Shima. He sends you his love.”

  Yukiko scowled, anger flaring in her breast. “My father’s dead.”

  “I know. I see him often, in my travels.”

  “What the hells are you talking about?”

  “Exactly,” the little man breathed.

  “He’s a godsdamned madman,” Michi growled. “This is a waste of time.”

  “I see your uncle too, Michi-chan.” The Inquisitor’s bloody gaze flickered to the girl. “Still bleeding from the cross-shaped cut in his belly. He wanders the dark, calling for his wife and children.” A small shake of his head. “They never come.”

  Michi’s eyes were wide, her voice a whisper. “… What did you say?”

  The little man’s eyes were affixed on the empty air just above Michi’s shoulder.

  “Oh … look…”

  Ginjiro’s fist slammed into his belly, bending him double. The samurai hauled him back up into another fistful, a smoke-filled sputter underscoring the whine of Ginjiro’s ō-yoroi.

  “Enough lies,” the general growled. “You speak when you’re spoken to. You answer the questions we ask. One unwanted word and I rip this mask off and leave you down here in the dark to scream yourself to sleep, understand?”

  The little man straightened with a wince, exhaled a ragged sigh. “Perfectly.”

  Ginjiro nodded to Misaki.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Inquisitors have no names, sister.”

  “Amongst yourselves. What do they call you?
”

  “They do not call me. They call Her.”

  Another punch from Ginjiro. The little man rocked sideways, blood trickling from his ear. He started chuckling, as if remembering some long-forgotten joke.

  “Her?” Misaki frowned. “Who is her?”

  The Inquisitor caught hold of himself, laughter dying on his lips. “You will see.”

  The punch lifted him off his feet, a fine red spray mingling with the smoke, gurgling and wet as he inhaled. He sagged like a broken toy in the samurai’s arms.

  “Ginjiro-san,” Yukiko warned, “you’re going to kill him.”

  “It’s all right,” the little man wheezed. “I end here, I think…”

  “The tattoo on your arm,” Misaki said. “What does it mean? Are you Serpent clan?”

  “The Serpent clan is dead. Food for Foxes.”

  “Do you control the First Bloom? Do you control the Guild? What do you want?”

  “Nothing. We want nothing at all.”

  Misaki looked to Yukiko, shook her head. Michi still stared at the Inquisitor, eyes wide, horror etched in her expression. It felt cold in the cell, bitter and bleak. Not the shivering clean of the first snowfall. It was the cold of tombs. The chill of time and implacable, approaching death.

  “Not long now,” he whispered. “A season, perhaps two. There has been enough blood, don’t you think? The little ones are already here, after all.” His eyes drifted to Yukiko’s belly. “Perhaps they can play with yours…”

  Yukiko covered her stomach, backed away a step.

  “Two seasons from now. Three at the most.” His eyes crinkled as if he smiled. “Your little ones will be old enough to try and run by then.”

  “He’s mad,” she breathed. “Lord Izanagi save him.”

  In days to come, when Yukiko thought back on that moment, she’d swear the lantern light dimmed as if someone had thrown a veil over it. The little man’s eyes widened, a sharp intake of breath through the breather. And then he screamed, awful and gut-wrenching, thrashing in the samurai’s grip as his face purpled.

  “Pray for me?” he shrieked. “Pray for yourself!”

  A blurring of light, an absence of breath. Yukiko blinked, certain her eyes betrayed her. Where once the little man stood, there was now only smoke. Shifting and intangible, iron manacles dropping to the floor, samurai hands closing tight on fistfuls of vapor.