She pawed the tears in her eyes, leaned into Buruu’s warmth.
“I’m sorry.” She looked around the assembled gaijin. “All of you. I’m sorry for what was done to you. And though I have no right, I beg you to help us as you help yourselves. Though precious few of us deserve it … I can think of at least two who do.”
She looked back at Katya, the word catching in her throat.
“Please.”
Lightning arced across darkening skies, the wind a tuneless dirge. The priestess stared, long and hard. At the soldiers gathered around her. At the girl and her thunder tiger and the tears shining in her eyes. At the Kapitán leaning in close and whispering in her ear.
“Please…”
Yukiko put her arm around Buruu’s neck, pressed her stomach to his warmth. Sister Katya spoke, her voice low and measured, her eyes locked on Yukiko. The girl turned to Mostovoi, watching him exhale, deflate, broad shoulders slumping.
Disappointment?
Relief?
“Sister Katya says it would disgrace the memory of our Zryachniye, of all those who have fallen against your people, to ally with you against an evil of your own making. She forbids any and all troops loyal to the Imperatritsa to fight at your side.”
Yukiko sighed, the words a cold knife in her gut. Hana’s jaw clenched, fighting back bitter rebuke. Katya spit on the ground, pointed to the sky.
Heart sinking into her belly, Yukiko pulled herself up on Buruu’s shoulders.
“I am sorry,” Mostovoi said. “Morcheban folk are not known for their forgiving ways. We have suffered twenty years of atrocity beneath your Shōgun’s flag.”
Hana’s voice was taut, her lips almost unmoving. “Where’s his body?”
Mostovoi spoke a few words to his men, and the sea of swords and hammers slowly parted. The Kapitán pointed to a shape near the command tent, wrapped in blood-soaked cloth.
“Wait.” Piotr pushed through the crowd, limping as he came, cursing and shoving. He stopped before Yukiko, stared at her with half-blind eyes.
“I come with her.” He cast his glare around the mob. “If no other.”
Yukiko smiled despite her sorrow. Piotr helped lift Akihito’s corpse onto Kaiah’s shoulders, then struggled up onto Buruu behind Yukiko. Mostovoi moved closer before a low growl from Kaiah pulled him up short. He looked at Hana, grief plain in his eyes.
“I am truly sorry about your man, my blood…”
“You said Morcheban folk are not known for their forgiveness, Uncle,” Hana murmured. “Perhaps there’s more of my mother in me than either of us knew.”
A bounding dash across frozen ground.
A rush of wind, freezing beneath.
Flight.
*
Five figures sat in the Kitsune Chamber of Counsel—an old wardog, a cloudwalker captain, a rebel Guildswoman, and two girls who had changed the face of the world. The seat at the table’s head was conspicuously empty.
The seats around them, more so.
“We spend two days repairing the fleet,” Yukiko said. “Then we march south with everything we have and meet the oni in the field.”
“Sounds like a grand way to die,” Blackbird sighed, knocking back a cupful of saké.
“We have a fortress here, Stormdancer,” General Ginjiro replied. “Why ride out from behind our walls with the gaijin waiting across the river?”
“I don’t think this hellgate was meant to open yet. The Stain’s collapse was set off by the First House explosion, not by whatever ritual the Serpents were intending. If we strike now, we have a chance. If we wait, the oni simply build their strength and move when they’re ready. Besides, your walls are breached. Once the gaijin bridge the Amatsu, they need only to walk up to your front door and knock.”
“Fools,” Ginjiro murmured.
“They’re not fools,” Yukiko said. “They’re just angry. They’ve lost as much as we.”
“With the legions of the Hells just days from annihilating us all, they still press old grudges? Time and place?”
Hana spoke, her voice dark and low with grief. “If it was your mother crushed into fertilizer, your might sing a different tune, General.”
“My Lord and Master lying dead is not sacrifice enough for you, girl?”
“Don’t call me ‘girl,’ motherfuc—”
“My gods, we’re on the same side!” Yukiko slammed her hands on the table. “If we don’t put aside the past and look to the now there will be no tomorrow.” Her glare switched between Hana and Ginjiro. “Do you not understand that?”
“Hana has a mean streak,” said a low, graveled voice. “Gets it from her da.”
Hana looked up, eye wide, saw him standing at the doors with a crooked grin. Misaki stood beside him with her chrome arms unfurled, daughter in her arms.
“Yoshi!”