The little girl bowed. “I will, Mother.”
Kissing the boy again, the Daimyo stood, searching the eastern horizon. Pulling down her goggles, she raised one hand against the glare—still harsh after a decade of industry without chi. The wounds of land and sky were healing slowly, but none knew for sure if the scars would ever truly fade from sight. The sun still burned kiln-hot. The rivers faded from black to gray, but not to crystal clear. And though the ocean and sky longed to return to their brilliant blue, it seemed they might never rid themselves of blood’s hue.
A figure walked through the crowd toward Shinji, a smile on his face, reflected in knife-bright eyes. Speaker for the Serpent clan. First amongst equals.
“My friend,” Kin said, holding his arms wide.
“My brother,” Shinji replied, hugging him fiercely.
The pair embraced, eyes closed for a long, silent moment. Kin was dressed in a simple black kimono, a leather obi at his waist arrayed with all manner of tools. Dark cropped hair and black, twinkling eyes, the skin on his hands marred by a slight sheen—the mark of awful burns earned in years long past. But there was no trace of that old pain in his eyes as he turned to Sumiko, bowed low, looking at each of her daughters in turn.
“It is good to see you again, Sumiko.” He knelt by her daughters, shyly peering out at him behind curtains of long, dark hair. “My, you two ladies have grown!”
“It is good to see you also, Kin-sama.” Sumiko bowed from the knees.
Kin smiled, holding up one scarred hand. “Just Kin.”
“Where is your Lady, brother?” Shinji gestured to the massive crowd gathered around the stage. “The whole country waits for her appearance.”
“You know her. Dramatic entrances are her favorite. The later, the better.”
“I remember,” Shinji smiled.
Sumiko looked again over the restless crowd, murmurs rippling through the throng. She could feel an electricity in the air, butterflies tumbling in her stomach. A gentle spring breeze kissed her skin, the soft perfume of young flowers and new life running fingers through her hair.
And then she heard it. A lone voice, crying aloud, a single word that dragged her back a decade to Kigen’s Market Square, to the day she’d raised her fist in the air and witnessed the birth of a legend.
“Arashitora!”
The cry spread; a fire on bone-dry tinder, blooming like wisteria and laden with promise. All eyes turned eastward, every finger pointing, every mouth open in wonder, every heart lifted from the shackles of its mortal shell and set to singing.
“Arashitora!” they cried.
The majestic figure flew toward them out of the rising sun, circling above, its wings making the sound of thunder. It was sleek as knives, cutting the air like folded steel, dipping and swooping to the crowd’s delight, awe and joy written on every face. And as the beast came in to land, talons shredding the fresh earth near the ruins of the little farmstead, Sumiko caught sight of the rider astride it.
A beautiful woman, slender and graceful, moving like a dancer as she slipped down from the arashitora’s back. Her skin was pale as Iishi snow, hair rippling in the wind like molten gold, a ribbon of sunlight framing her impish features. She was clad in iron; an embossed breastplate set with the sigil of a stag with three crescent horns, a golden amulet around her neck bearing the same. A band of black leather covered one eye, the other settling on the Speaker of the Serpent clan as he leapt down off the stage and caught the woman in his embrace.
“Hana,” Kin said.
The woman closed her eye, hugged Kin tight. When she spoke, her consonants were hard, a hint of the Morcheban accent creeping into her inflections and tone.
“It is good to see you again, my friend.”
“How fares your family?” Kin asked as they parted.
“Well enough,” Hana smiled. “My eldest insisted she ride here with me, though she stands only five summers deep. Screamed for hours when I told her she couldn’t come. She has the fire of the Goddess, that one.”
Sumiko gazed at the arashitora looming behind the woman, peering down at Kin with bright, amber eyes. The beast was impossibly beautiful; deep bands of black marking her hindquarters, feathers possessed of a wondrous opalescence. But the feathers around her eyes were graying, the black in her stripes running to charcoal. Sumiko was filled with melancholy to look at her—the last thunder tiger, as frail and mortal as anyone. Time would claim brave Kaiah, as it would claim them all. What would be left, when the last stormdancer was gone?
“Where is your lady, Kin-san?” Hana said. “Where is my sister?”