The man was big. A beard like a bush. He’d been here this morning, had taken his mistress away. And Tomo growled, unsure of himself, but knowing all gooddogs growled at strangers. But then the man knelt and scruffed his ears, and made sounds that were not speakings in a soft voice, and Tomo flopped onto his belly and allowed the big man to scratch him, his little legs kicking as the man found the spot he liked best, right under his left shoulder.
The big man stood finally, and Tomo rolled over, walked with him toward the wooden thing that was not a tree, tail wagging, because the big man was carrying a flat white thing that smelled like fish, and fish was his favorite. The big man put the white round thing down on the floor and yes, it did have fish, and Tomo scoffed it down as quick as he could, licking the top and sniffing beneath in case more was hidden underneath (there was never any hidden underneath).
The big man knelt and made fire on the burning things, which made the light by which his mistress used to see. And Tomo watched the big man unroll the flat thing that smelled like rice (but wasn’t) on top of the thing that was not a tree (though Tomo had used it like a tree once and his mistress had been very cross), and he picked up the thing that made the marks and dipped it in the black water that was not water (it did not taste good at all) and he heaved a sigh louder than the wind.
Tomo watched, one ear cocked, head tilted.
The man began making marks. Many marks, on the thing that was not food.
Tomo looked to the door, hoping his mistress would come soon.
He climbed onto the bed where it was warm, and he watched the man making the marks and stopping occasionally to wipe at his eyes as if they hurt him. And he thought the big man was nice, and that the big man could watch for his mistress to come back (it must be soon) and so it wouldn’t matter if Tomo closed his eyes for just a little while.
The puppy licked his lips (lovely fish) and snuggled down in the blankets.
He could hear the big man scratching with the thing that made the marks. It reminded him of the sound in his mistress’s chest, her heart beating at night as he curled up beside her.
And hoping she’d come soon, the puppy closed his eyes and slept.
49
OR NOTHING AT ALL
The entire city seemed to wake before the sun.
Smithy fires burning bright, the chime of hammer upon iron and the burn of coal smoke. The Everstorm pack was outfitted with the same barding Kaiah wore, breastplates and helms with eyeholes of black glass. They soared above Yama, filling the dispirited populace with wonder. Yukiko rode at the lead, bringing supplies to the dispossessed, assuring all would be well. And if the people were shaken to their bones by the shifting of the world beneath their feet, they took some heart in her words, the Kitsune ink bared on her arm despite the freezing cold, this daughter of foxes who now carried the future of their nation in her hands.
The gaijin wounded were moved from the Kitsune fortress, ferried back to their people on the opposite shore of the Amatsu. Hana oversaw their deportation from astride Kaiah’s back, ensuring neither side attempted violence. The wounded were met with fierce hugs from their countrymen, wondering stares at the girl and her thunder tiger. Hana’s face was stone, her eye cold behind polarized glass, belying the heart bleeding within her chest.
Kaori spoke with the remaining Kagé, and Misaki of the rebellion. She oversaw funeral preparations for the slain Kagé—Michi, Akihito, and her father Daichi, along with the other brethren who had lost their lives. But in quiet moments, she sat in the garden, Piotr beside her, and the pair spoke of tiny unimportant things in the face of the chaos around them.
Things that sometimes made her smile.
The Blackbird sat in Michi’s chambers, emerging only to make polite requests for food or drink. A puppy lurked at his heels, tail wagging constantly. The Blackbird’s fingers were stained with ink. So were the puppy’s ears.
The Earthcrusher crew were given their skins back, minus their mechabacii, and asked to muster in Chapterhouse Yama’s ruins. Each was free to walk away if they wished. Only Kensai remained under guard, the self-proclaimed First Bloom locked in a guest room in Kitsune-jō.
And Yoshi.
Yoshi crouched on the rooftops, a bottle of expensive saké unopened beside him. Despite the motion all around, his stare was fixed on the dark gathered across the southern horizon.
His thoughts were of a beautiful boy, and simpler days.
His hands were fists.
*
Pain lancing his chest with every breath. Soft carpet beneath him, a bed with silk sheets—his one real indulgence. A cage with art on the wall, guards at his “guest room” door. The bayonet fixtures in his flesh like mouths, hungry for input. The silence in his head as black and terrifying as any he’d ever known.
Alone. For the first time in a long time.
Utterly alone.
“Uncle.”
The voice pulled Kensai’s eyes open, chased away the muddy dreams in his skull. No visions of greatness from his Awakening anymore. Confusing, twisted nonsense; a tumult underscored by a tuneless hymn, a horror too vast to look at with his mind’s eye …
“Uncle.”
Kensai wheezed, sat up in his bed. “I heard you, Kioshi-san.”