“Repair the Earthcrusher. March south to fight the Yomi horde. Close the gate threatening to engulf the Seven Isles and everything on them.”
Kensai stared down at his open hand, the bayonet fixture at his wrist, back up to the severed head and its sightless eyes. In the back of his skull, he could feel that tuneless rhythm, crawling in the place his dreams used to live. Cold lips brushing his skin.
He’d known.
Somehow he’d always known.
“Get out,” he whispered.
“Uncle, help me. Help yourself—”
“Get out!” Kensai lunged from his bed, across those silken sheets, heedless of the pain. He collapsed to the floor, fingers twisted into claws, face contorted. Kin looked at him with pity and Kensai screamed, howling, a thing of wretched meat and feeble bones, longing to be encased inside a skin of cold metal. Impervious. Invisible. Hidden behind a perfection of molded brass, a beauty unmarred no matter how hideous the flesh beneath.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he screamed.
“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Kin murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
Kensai curled into a ball to the tune of Kin’s fading footsteps, clawing the bloody carpet. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, the floor crumbling beneath his feet and letting him fall, down and down and down into a blackness bathed in the blood of thousands. Torn wide in the womb of the world, birthing monstrosities; a mouth that swallowed the feeble truths upon which his reality had been built, leaving him with a question to which he could find no answer.
“Who am I?”
*
DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST WORDS WE SPOKE?
They were perched atop the walls of Kitsune-jō, surrounded by the Everstorm pack. Mercifully, the snow had stopped, toxic drifts lying four inches deep on the ground, covering the corpses littering Yama’s streets. Hana was somewhere in the Kitsune library, searching for any record of Tora Takehiko and his exploits. Shai sat nearby, watching Yukiko, tail lashing side to side as if she were irritated. The girl ran her hands down Buruu’s armor, working her fingers between the plates at the join of his shoulder and neck—his favorite spot.
Of course I remember, brother.
AND WHAT DID I SAY?
You asked who I was.
YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE YUKIKO.
It was all I could think of to say. I don’t think I knew the answer to that question then. Didn’t know who I was, or who I’d become.
BUT YOU KNOW NOW?
I know I’d be nothing without you, brother. I would be ashes and bones.
WHO WILL YOU BE THEN, WHEN I AM GONE?
Yukiko looked to Shai, watching with narrowed, amber eyes. She thought of the Everstorm, of the little bundle of feathers and claws waiting for Buruu—the son he’d flown with for that brief, blessed hour before returning to fight a war not of his making. She’d known this moment would come—that he would leave her one day, go back to the life he’d made, the family he’d built. She knew even if they somehow bested the Endsinger, they’d have to say good-bye.
I know it’s not fair to ask you to stay. I know you have your pack to lead. Your family to raise. And I want you to be happy. But when you go back to Everstorm … you know it’s going to break my heart, don’t you?
The thunder tiger surveyed the ruined landscape, sigh rumbling in his chest.
YOURS NO MORE THAN MINE.
But you have to go.
THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.
I know it’s true. But don’t ask me not to weep when you leave. You mean everything to me, brother. You are my blood and my heart and I love you with all I have inside me.
AND I YOU.
She put her arms around his neck, rested her cheek against the steel he was encased in. This thing she’d turned him into. This weapon. And she knew in her heart she’d asked enough.
SO. WHO WILL YOU BE WHEN I AM GONE?
She sighed. Shook her head.
I don’t know. A teacher? A leader? A mother? There will still be so much— NO. NOT WHAT.
The arashitora shook his head.
WHO WILL YOU BE?
“Yukiko!”
A voice from below pulled her stare into the courtyard. She saw Ginjiro and a dozen Iron Samurai, thickets of bushimen gathering about them.
“General?”
“Word from Last Isle! The Tigers are gathering. They look to be preparing for an assault. Will you come with us?”
HIRO.
She pulled her goggles down over her eyes, called into the Kenning. Fierce cries split the air, the bucks and dams answering her call. Yukiko drew her katana, folded steel ringing bright against its scabbard. Eyes fixed on the blade, she nodded to Ginjiro.
“Lead on. We will follow.”
*
Kitsune troops were stationed at the two bridges leading from Last Isle. Yukiko and the Everstorm pack flew above, wheeling and diving; a picture of majesty Kitsune historians would speak of for centuries. The day the stormdancers came to Yama.