I YOUR MATE. I SHAKHAN OF EVERSTORM.
AND YOUR PLACE IS HERE. TO RULE UNTIL I RETURN.
Sukaa growled.
WILL HAVE NO RULE. NOT IF YOU ASK THIS.
I DO NOT ASK, SUKAA. I COMMAND.
The other Morcheban blacks growled, talons scraping on sodden stone.
Please, stop it, Yukiko said. There’s no need to spill more blood.
~ SPEAK WITH WEAKLING’S VOICE, GIRL. WEAKLING’S HEART. ~
Weakling? You don’t know anything about me.…
COULD GUT YOU WITH A THOUGHT.
Buruu roared, stepping toward Sukaa, hackles raised. Shai backed away, ushering little Rhaii with her wings, the other bucks clearing a space for the violence readying to break loose.
I AM KHAN. I COMMAND.
WHO CLAIMS KHAN IS KHAN, KINSLAYER.
THAT IS NOT MY NAME.
PREFER THE NAME MONKEY-CHILD GAVE?
Stop it, Yukiko growled.
YOU DEFY ME, SUKAA?
YOU ARE WOUNDED, MY KHAN. BLEEDING. WEAK.
UTTER CHALLENGE THEN, AND SEE THE DEBT YOU OWED MY BROTHER REPAID. I WILL SEND YOUR BONES TO JOIN YOUR FATHER’S. I WILL SPLIT YOU— STOP IT! Yukiko roared.
The shout echoed in the Kenning, a thousandfold thunderclap that set every thunder tiger in the aerie staggering, blinking, growls rattling in their chests. The girl stepped up to Sukaa, the black towering over her as she stared into eyes of burning emerald green.
You call me weakling, Sukaa, son of Torr. You think me a frightened little girl. Another thought that of me, not so long ago. And I showed him his folly by ending his empire.
Sukaa snarled, wings flaring wide. Wisps of lightning crackled at his feathers, licking the air around them with hungry tongues. He stepped closer, beak inches from the girl’s face, tail lashing like a whip.
Yukiko didn’t flinch.
You think me weak? You think me a frightened little girl? Then I say to you what I said to him, right before I snuffed him out like a candle.
She spread her arms wide, closed her eyes.
Let me show you what one little girl can do.
Buruu felt her stepping out beyond the wall of herself into the firestorm beyond, into the seething chaos of the Lifesong. Its fury leaked through her into every one of them, the thunder tigers closing their eyes, shying away, growling and shivering. And yet she swam in it, immolated, stretching out beyond the aerie into the storm’s fury, the rush and seethe of the waves below, to the titanic warmth coiled about the base of the Everstorm isles.
Older than time. Than life or death. The ancient ones who slumbered long and deep, their fury stilled beneath the thunder of Susano-ō’s lullaby. And she reached toward them, burning with the heat of a thousand lives, a thousand hearts, a thousand voices. Brighter than the sun.
Niah. Aael. Father and Mother to all dragons.
Her lips moved, her voice a typhoon gale, louder that the song of the Storm God himself.
A single word, that set the entire world shaking.
Awaken.
35
EVE
In the house of the Lord of Foxes, eleven figures sit.
The first, a reed-thin girl, gutter-raised and ironwood hard. Hair of golden blond, a single eye aglow with pale-rose hue, the voice of a thunder tiger echoing in her heart. For the first time in as long as she can remember, she is starting to hope.
To her left, a tall man, broad and strong, Phoenix ink on one arm. He speaks with a gentle voice, and when he looks at the girl beside him, he cannot keep the smile from his lips.
To their right, a warrior from distant lands. Clad in a breastplate of battered iron, a stag with three crescent horns on its brow. Handsome but careworn. Golden-haired like the girl, but stained from weeks beneath black rain. He is a stranger here. Considered enemy by some. Friend by a few. Most do not know what to make of him at all.
Beside him, another man, quiet and watchful. His face is made of scars, left eye blind, the other blue and gleaming like ice. It drifts constantly to the blond girl, his palms pressed together as if he were praying. When the girl speaks, he falls still, like a child watching his first sunrise.
Next is a girl. Beautiful as falling flowers, sharp as razors, hard as folded steel. Long black hair, dark eyes smudged with kohl, swords crossed at her back. She does not think often of the one she stole them from—the man who called her his lady, his love. She does not think often of what might have been. She is not thinking of it now, here at the Fox Lord’s table. But tonight, alone in her room on the eve of battle, she knows she will.
She promises herself she will not weep.