She left him standing there in the snow, staring at his hand.
Fingers closing one by one.
*
The warriors were gathered in the floodlight glow, Morcheban and Shiman alike, an army the likes of which the island had never seen. Yukiko flew down from the Kurea on Buruu’s back, surrounded by arashitora of black and white, all of them smudged with gray. Spiraling to the frozen earth, the chill seeping into her very core. Slipping from Buruu’s back, she surveyed the crowd around her, the thousands of expectant stares.
She was a tiny thing amidst the warriors—slender limbs clad in black cloth and scars, loose hair drifting amidst the falling ash, like fingers of smoke painting the lines of her face. Each man could see the swell at her stomach; the new life growing amidst this ocean of flies. Some took heart, knowing if a mother would carry her children into the battle to come, there must be some hope of victory. Others felt their hearts sinking in their chests, knowing if the girl risked her unborn babes in this gambit, their plight must be more desperate than any supposed.
She thought back to the day they’d left Kigen at Yoritomo’s command, barely six months ago now—gods, it seemed a thousand years. Akihito and Kasumi and her father beside her, friends and family, loved ones all. All of them dead now. She pictured Michi braiding her hair in front of the looking glass, speaking in fierce whispers of the will it took to swim against the flow. Aisha’s deadly beauty and deadlier mind. Daichi … gods, poor Daichi, his wisdom and his rage and his righteousness in perfect balance, her sensei in her darkest hours.
So much death.
EVERYTHING DIES, YUKIKO.
But so soon? So young? Some of these people aren’t old enough to have lived at all. And at the end of this story, all of them could be dead.
ALL STORIES END. ALL SONGS CEASE. ALL OF US HAVE OUR ONE FRAGILE MOMENT IN THE SUN, THEN SLEEP FOREVERMORE. BUT MOST SPEND THAT MOMENT OF WARMTH IN MUTE DESPAIR, NEVER KNOWING WHAT IT IS TO LIVE A LIFE EXTRAORDINARY. NEVER KNOWING A SINGLE BREATH WHERE THEIR BLOOD WAS FIRE AND THEIR HEARTS WERE SINGING, A MOMENT THEY COULD GAZE BACK ON AND SAY IN TRUTH “THEN, IF NEVER AGAIN, I WAS ALIVE.”
He smiled into her mind, and her blood became fire in her veins.
SPEAK YOUR HEART. THEY WILL SEE THE TRUTH OF IT.
She drew a breath, staring into the black behind her eyes. She could feel Buruu’s warmth, even here in the cold belly of winter, the darkest depths of night. The stone she set her back against. The mountain never crumbling. And she raised her voice, and began to speak.
“I’m not a hero,” she said.
She looked at the faces around her, expectant, ashen pale. She heard Aleksandar’s voice amidst the wind, translating her words for the sake of his countrymen. Out in the dark beyond the ship lights, gibbering voices whispered in tongues too black for men to know. She raised her voice over them, over the storm above, the rolling thunder and crackling lightning.
“I know you want me to be. You think me to be. But I’m not. A hero would speak great words to you now. True words. Fierce words. Words that would ring in the ages, long after everything of us is dust. A hero would have words to turn your sword arms to steel and your hearts to iron, crown your shoulders with wings. And you’d march toward the enemy with the song of those words in your souls.”
She shook her head.
“But I’m not a hero.
“I’m just like you. Just as lost. I’m small and afraid and I wonder if anything I do here will make the slightest difference. If it’s worth trying at all. I wonder if any victory could be worth the price we’ve already paid. I’ve lost so many people I loved, so much of who and what I was. I look to the sky and I can’t see the sun. I look in the mirror and I can’t see myself.”
Her gaze roamed the crowd, the eyes locked on her own.
“But I look around me. And I see all of you. Just like me. Just as small and just as lost. But when we stand side by side, we are twice the size. Twice as brave. Twice as loud. Look around you now, and see there are not just two of us, but thousands. Thousands of voices. Thousands of fists and minds and dreams, all of us together, in this moment. Because we believe.
“We can light a fire to burn through this dark. We can scream loud enough to be heard over this storm. We can say ‘no.’ We can say ‘enough.’ And hand in hand, stronger than we could ever be alone, we can change the shape of this world. All of us. Together.”
She walked into the crowd, the soldiers parting before her, every heart stilled, every breath held. Yukiko took the hand of a Kitsune bushiman—a young boy barely older than she, his ash-smeared face alight with awe. With her other hand, she clutched the gauntlet of a gaijin hammerman—a mountain of muscle and scars and plaited blond hair. She squeezed each hand tight, looked each man in the eye, her voice as fierce as a thunder tiger’s roar.
“All of us.” She looked between them. “Together.”