“I know it. But I know they will grow in the world I help create. Even if they never know my name, I’ll know I gave all I had to ensure the sun rises for them tomorrow. That is a cause worth fighting for.”
She stood for an age. Empty winds howling between them. Miles and lifetimes. And finally, she drew the blade her father gave her and opened her palm, and took his outstretched hand in hers.
“Something worth fighting for,” she said.
Hiro glanced down to the blood between them. Up into her eyes.
“To the end.”
*
What Will Be, Will Be.
Kin stood in the antechamber, listening to distant engines and the hiss of smelters, that single thought floating through the haze in his head. The chapterhouse around him felt semiconscious, echoing with distant sounds of life, too sparse to mimic the bustling, thrumming atmosphere of the house he’d grown up in. The rebels had restarted the machine-works yesterday evening, a skeleton crew cobbling together components under Shinji’s instruction, hastily drawn plans of the Earthcrusher’s innards spread upon the walls and floors.
Shinji entered the room now, his new atmos-suit gleaming in the dim light. Watching Kin pace back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Nervous?”
Kin shrugged, said nothing. His burns were a strangled ache beneath an opiate glow, and the atmos-suit felt heavier than any he’d worn in his life. His head was full of black velvet, smothering his thoughts along with his pain, the taste of dead flowers on his tongue.
“Are you well?” Shinji asked. “Does the new skin not fit? We can have—”
“It fits well enough.”
His voice echoed as if it came from far away. He looked at the gunmetal gray flourishes at his gauntlets and spaulders, chilled fingers of déjà vu caressing his spine.
“Although I wish you’d found something less ostentatious.”
“It’s a Kyodai’s suit. Most of those gathered out there are just regular Shatei. You were a Fifth Bloom, the son of an honored line. With First Bloom dead, they will look to the Big Brothers for leadership.”
“Will they see me as brother? Or the traitor who laid Earthcrusher low?”
“It was you who unplugged them from their mechabacii, Kin. You who freed them from that nightmare song. If that doesn’t warrant a moment’s consideration, nothing will.”
Kin gnawed his lip, longing to rub his eyes. A question rolled behind his teeth; improper, dangerous even. Though he’d been through fire and blood with Shinji, he was still uncertain if he should give it voice …
“What did you see, Shinji? On the night of your Awakening?”
The boy tilted his head, breathing slow. A minute passed, the hollow spaces between one breath and another laden with the memory haunting his every— “A tangle,” the boy shrugged. “A baby made of iron twisting on its back. White noise. Green fields. Nothing I could make much sense of. The Inquisitor who guided me seemed content, but I was disappointed. I’d heard the most blessed Guildsmen saw their What Will Be clear as day when they Awoke. Reliving the greatest moment of their lives, over and over. Before I had my eyes opened to the Guild’s hypocrisy, the whole thing sounded rather glorious.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why do you ask, Kin-san? What did you see?”
“This moment. This place. What lies at the end of this corridor. I’m sure of it.”
“… This is your What Will Be?”
Kin nodded.
“I don’t want this,” he sighed. “I’ve never wanted it. And now I’m here, standing on the brink, I have no idea what I’ll say.”
“Maybe you should try the truth. Hells know it would make a welcome change.”
“And why will they listen?”
“Do they listen in your dreams?”
Kin said nothing, staring at the traceries of black and warmth behind closed eyelids.
Shinji patted his arm. “Come. They await. If this is your What Will Be, there is no escaping it. Best look it in the eye as it comes for you, then kick it in the balls.”
Kin drew a ragged breath, nodded, sick to his stomach. The boys clomped from the antechamber, down a corridor of pus-yellow stone, machine-song thrumming in Kin’s bones. Cold sweat lit fires across his burns, his skin weighing heavy as he stepped onto the gantry.
Sparks and fire, groaning iron and glittering brass. They gathered below, an ocean of skins; every Guildsman who’d served on the Earthcrusher or the Tora Fleet, every rebel who’d survived the Yama insurrection. More than a hundred—Artificers and False-Lifers and Lotusmen. All staring with their faceless faces, eyes burning like funeral candles in the dark.