Misaki stared back with those bloody eyes, her mask expressionless. When she finally spoke, her voice burned with a passion Kaori could scarce believe.
“I have a daughter. Suki. Her father is gone. Dead. But his last words to me were a plea to build a world in which our daughter might live free. To dance in the light with the sun upon her skin. He died for that dream. And I will die to see it done, if needs be. There is nothing I would not do to keep her safe. To see her breathe the free air. I would die a thousand deaths to see my daughter live one lifetime in happiness.”
Kaori blinked in the dark, a sting rising in the corners of her eyes. Misaki’s voice, her father’s thoughts. The truth of what he’d done. What he’d sacrificed for her. Why he’d chosen. Not Kin. Not any of them. His choice and his alone.
Misaki touched Kaori’s wakizashi, gently pushing it aside. “The lotus must burn, Kagé.”
“Burn,” echoed her companions.
Kaori sighed, held out her hand, her voice a whisper.
“Burn.”
*
’Thopters lurched into the air, swaying like drunkards in a howling wind. Drums pounded, siege-crawlers roared, lightning crackling down their treads and arcing into black snow. And with howls of rage and bloodlust rolling up and down the line, flags of a dozen houses hoisted in the poisoned air, the gaijin army charged down the hillside toward the city of Yama.
A solitary figure remained.
Piotr stood in the black snow, staring at Akihito’s body, the blood still steaming in the chill. It was strange how such a big man could suddenly seem so tiny, all the power in him, all the strength reduced to an empty bag of slack meat and tumbled bones.
The gaijin winced, kneeling beside the big man’s corpse, the metal at his knee creaking. Reaching out, he folded Akihito’s arms across his chest, closed his sightless eyes. Head bowed, he kissed his fingertips, pressed them to the big man’s brow, whispering a prayer.
“Good-bye my friend,” he sighed. “Am so sorry.”
41
THE SHAPE OF LOSS
Yukiko could feel them all. Every one. Waiting in the burning fire beyond the wall in her mind. The arashitora, black and white, swarming in the air around her. Her Khan beneath her, fierce and proud and sharp as swords. Cloudwalkers and Iron Samurai clashing aboard sky-ships. Corvette pilots dogfighting through blinding fumes. Kitsune soldiers fighting and dying to defend their home. Tora soldiers fighting and dying to avenge their Shōgun. Gaijin warriors charging down the hill to avenge their fallen Mother. All of them, tumbling and burning and seething, one flame burning brighter than the rest. A flame that touched the Kenning just like she did, sending ripples across flaming water.
Hana. Grief-stricken. Furious. Screaming as she and Kaiah weaved among the gaijin rotor-thopters, tearing them from the sky.
Blood dripping from her nose, pain flaring hot at the base of her skull, Yukiko reached out through the storm, crossing a sea of death and pain. Gentle as she could, she reached inside the girl’s head, saw the source of her heartache: Akihito lying motionless on the frozen ground.
Oh gods, no …
Grief seized Yukiko’s heart, almost stilled it. It was a physical pain. A punch in the chest with jagged, frozen knuckles. One more piece of herself lost in this fucking war. One more person she loved taken away. Aisha. Kasumi. Her father. Now Akihito too. Gods above. His huge crushing hugs lifting her off the ground. His bad poetry. His clumsy, big brother hands, encircling her own. Gone now. Blood-slicked. Cold and still.
She reached out into the storm of talons and feathers all around her, filling them with her rage. Flooding their inputs with bitter, broken-glass grief, the desire for revenge burning white and blinding. They roared in reply, deafening and furious.
The Phoenix sky-fleet was now attacking the Kitsune fleet from behind, shredding their crews with bursts of shuriken fire. The arashitora fell on them like hammers from the sky, talons shearing through inflatables, the shriek of venting hydrogen layered over the roar of the thunder tigers as they fell on this tiny swarm of wood and flimsy metal, ripping it to tatters.