Hana squeezed her brother’s hand, wrapped in the scent of new rain.
The siblings sat on the landing outside the guesthouse, feet dangling over the edge. Hana peered down to the dizzying fall between her toes. The wind howled like a wounded oni, the rain a constant drumbeat, drowning the sounds of the village around them. There was some kind of ruckus going on near the heart of town, but Hana couldn’t bring herself to care. She swung her feet back and forth, letting tears tumble and misery roll over her in cold, lonely waves.
Poor Daken …
He’d been only a kitten when they found him, chewed by corpse-rats inside a Kigen city drain. He’d loved them, and they’d loved him back. He was Hana’s best friend in the world.
And now he was gone.
She wiped at her good eye and hung her head, watching her tears spiral into the void. She tried not to think about how he’d ended, how she might have stopped it, how the yakuza who’d stomped him underfoot had died far too quickly at Akihito’s hands. The bandage over the left side of her face was crusted with dry blood, the agony from where her eye had been ripped from her socket still gnawing and real. She tried not to think about that either.
Failure on both counts.
Yoshi had it worse. His skull was still wrapped in gauze from his beating, and his headaches weren’t going away. Concussion, they said. It’ll heal in time, they said. But when Hana looked into her brother’s eyes, she didn’t see the same Yoshi anymore. She saw the memory of a beautiful boy, cold and dead in a pool of coagulating red.
A smile with no lips.
A face with no eyes.
Poor Jurou …
She wondered what they’d do. Where they belonged. The few days since they’d landed in the Kagé village had been all blurred visits to the healer, draughts of medicinal tea and pain. Hana hadn’t had a chance to speak to Yukiko yet. She hadn’t even really spoken to Yoshi about Jurou’s death. Everything was happening so quickly. She just needed a minute to breathe …
A rush of wind blew her ragged bob around sodden cheeks, the thunder above sounding far closer than the clouds. She heard claws scrabbling on thatch, a tortured timber groan. Peering over her shoulder, she saw a pair of slitted amber eyes peering back. The female arashitora was perched on the guesthouse roof, half-spread wings dancing with faint electricity. The sight of her might have taken Hana’s breath away, if she hadn’t already spent it all on tears.
“Yoshi,” she whispered.
Her brother turned and saw the beast, breath catching in his lungs. The hairs on Hana’s arms stood rigid, ozone tickling her nose. And as she’d done with rats and cats since she was a child, she reached out to the heat, afraid it would be too hot for her mind to touch.
Hello.
– HELLO, MONKEY-CHILD. –
She blinked at the beast, wiped scabbed knuckles across her eye. Its voice was a thunderclap in her head. She squeezed her brother’s fingers, whispered in amazement.
“Yoshi, she’s talking to me…”
Yoshi turned away, staring out over the forest. “You been beast-speaking since you were a sprat. No news there.”
“Her voice, gods, it’s like a storm inside your mind. Try it.”
Yoshi scowled, pointed to the gauze wrapped around his brow. “Headache.”
Hana turned back to the arashitora, reaching gingerly toward its heat again. The sensation was like nothing she’d ever known, storm clouds in her mind, electricity dancing on her skin.
Your name is Kaiah, right?
– YES. –
I’m Hana.
– WHY YOU CRY? –
Hana blinked, taken aback. She sniffed, tucked her tangle of hair behind her ears.
No foreplay first, eh? No poetry or flowers. Just jumping right into it there.
– WHAT? –
… Doesn’t matter.
The arashitora began preening, straightening the coverts of her left wing with a cruel black beak, the same color encircling those wonderful amber eyes. Hana watched her, fascinated, as if a picture from a children’s tale had stepped off the paper into wonderful, full-color life. Her thoughts rang in Hana’s skull; strobing, violent, deafening.
The beast blinked, tossed her head.
– WHY YOU CRY? –
Because my friend is dead.
– YUKIKO USES THIS WORD. NOT KNOW MEANING. – Friend? You don’t know what a friend is?
The thunder tiger tilted her head, tail switching side to side.
– FATHER OF YOUR CUBS? –
He was a cat.
– HOW CAN MONKEY-CHILD MATE WITH CAT? – … What?
– WAS HE TALL CAT? –
Gods, no … look. He was my friend. We talked together, hunted together …
– AH. HUNT. YOU MEAN PACKMATE. –
… I suppose.
The thunder tiger puffed herself up, spread her wings.
- PACK I UNDERSTAND. THIS IS GOOD. –
Glad to help.