The heat took a moment to penetrate Shinji’s membrane, and he’d made it at least three feet off the ground before the fabric began melting. Pain arrived then, a rapid escalation from mild discomfort to searing agony, stink of burning meat in his nostrils, membrane blackening, smoke rising, every instinct screaming to let go, get away, fall. But he thrust his feet and knees and hands against the diffuser, back to the wall, pushing higher as the agony mounted. Blistering. Charring. Shaking away the encroaching numbness from the iron-thrower wound, the shock his body had tried to wrap him inside, dunking him headfirst into incendiary pain.
Smoke rising from his skin wherever it touched metal. Scream strangled behind his teeth. But he could see it through the haze, the cluster of explosives, just inches out of reach now, smoke in his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks stretching toward it blistered fingers brushing the edge almost slipping gods it’s too far it hurts IT HURTS.
And if you let go now it will have all been for nothing every lie every death every second of your
life
leading here to this
moment this place pushing higher back scraping skin staying behind reaching
out farther just a
little farther and he could smell himself
charring little
Kin
in the fire
gods
nothing left nothing
more don’t you
dare
let go now DON’T
YOU
DARE
LET
GO.
He fell, skin tearing, face smashing on the diffuser, a layer of cheek left behind to sizzle. Collapsing on steel mesh, hissing as it burned his chest, rolling away from the bundle he’d dragged with him as he fell. A cluster of cylindrical shapes, a tiny radio receiver mounted atop handcrafted detonators, making soft crinkling noises as it slowly cooled.
A blistered gift.
A smoking promise.
An explosion unborn.
*
Kaori held her breath, waiting to die.
Rope twisting in her fingers, spinning slowly above the Chamber of Void. Any second now, the chi reservoirs would blow, ripping First House apart. An end to Guild power. An end to everything.
“Climb up slowly, citizens.” The Lotusmen gathered about the chamber’s lip peered down with burning eyes. “No sudden movements.”
Eiko was holding her breath lest she sob, trembling grip setting the rope aquiver. Kaori looked up at the girl, pity in her heart. Barely seventeen. So much strength in youth. The wisdom to see and the courage to act. Still doomed to die in this pit with the rest of them.
“Courage, girl,” Kaori said. “It will be over soon.”
Tickticktick …
“I don’t want it to be over…”
“Want seldom matters in life, child. We do what we must.”
“What we must…” Daichi murmured.
Kaori looked at her father on the rope above, his eyes affixed on the First Bloom’s headless corpse. She saw a pale fear in them; a shadow of doubt never present before. And she realized it was not Eiko making the rope tremble.
It was him.
“Citizens!” The Lotusman raised the flat barrel of his shuriken-thrower. “If you are not climbing within five seconds, you will be falling.”
Weapon aimed at Daichi’s chest.
Finger tightening on the trigger.
Tickticktick …
She didn’t want him to die like this. Afraid. Alone. Not after everything he’d been through. And if these moments were to be their last, she knew they shouldn’t be stained by past mistakes or words unsaid. The anger inside her, burning so brightly after he’d left her alone—it wasn’t enough to consume the bond between them. Ties deeper than blood. Here and now and always.
Tickticktick …
“Father.”
Daichi’s eyes were still locked on the First Bloom’s body.
“Father, look at me.”
His gaze drifted up to meet hers.
Tickticktick …
“Father, everything is going to be all right. I promise.”
“Kaori…” A shuddering cough stole the words from his mouth.
“I know, Father,” she smiled. “I love you too.”
“You were warned,” rasped the Lotusman.
The hollow popopopopopopopop of shuriken-thrower fire, razored steel glittering in the air. Forcing herself to watch, not to flinch, not to turn away. Droplets of blood, perfect globes, falling like rain. Lotusmen corpses tumbling after them, brass skins torn wide and ragged, bodies tumbling end over end as the Truth Seeker roared overhead, propellers chopping snow-laden air, the engines’ thunder lost amidst her own heartbeat. Misaki was leaning over the railing, tossing a rope ladder and screaming words too distant to hear, deck-mounted shuriken-throwers spitting death at the remaining Lotusmen, down to the Inquisitors turning to smoke amidst the hail of sparks and steel.
Misaki screaming again. Pointing.
What is she saying?
“Go!” Eiko screamed. “Gods above, jump!”