“It’ll heal,” Akihito shrugged. “She just needs time.”
“No, Akihito-san. Not the one plucked from her socket. The one that glows.”
“Oh.” A nod. “Right.”
“What does your gaijin say about the girl, Stormdancer?” Maro asked. “The way he reacted when he first saw her…”
Yukiko was still staring at Kaori, shock at her words settling in her bones.
“Yukiko,” repeated Maro. “What does your gaijin say?”
She looked out to the silhouette on the landing. Piotr stood gazing into the forest, his wolf skin wrapped against the growing cold. His pipe illuminated the deep scars on his face, his blind eye, dark cropped hair and a pointed beard. Cinnamon-and-honey-scented smoke spilled from pale lips, lightning glinting on the iron brace at his knee.
Buruu was swacking his tail against Piotr’s legs, falling stone-still whenever the gaijin turned to glare. As soon as Piotr turned away, Buruu would swack him again. Piotr had helped them escape the lightning farm, and they both owed him a debt—the thunder tiger was just showing affection in the most annoying way he knew how.
“It’s hard to understand him,” Yukiko said. “Piotr’s Shiman is broken at best. He talks about Hana like she’s … touched or something. I saw a gaijin woman at that farm who had an eye like Hana’s. Same color, same glow. They treated her like a holy woman.”
“You should speak to her,” Michi said. “Hana is strong as iron. And we’ll need to wield every weapon we have against Hiro and his Earthcrusher. Whether we fight here or in Kitsune lands, two stormdancers are better than one.”
Yukiko nodded wearily.
Little Tomo barked again, flaring the headache in Yukiko’s head.
LITTLE WOLF, IF YOU KEEP BARKING YOU WILL BE A LITTLE MEAL.
Burru growled, long and low. Tomo tucked his tail and wisely fell silent.
“There’s also this,” Yukiko said. She produced a battered leather wallet, held it up to the assembled Kagé. “It’s a letter. From the Artificer who fixed Piotr’s leg. He was a captive of the gaijin, taught Piotr how to speak Shiman. If you can call it speaking…”
“A letter from a Guildsman?” Kaori narrowed her eyes. “To whom?”
“His lover.”
“Guildsmen do not have—”
“It’s all true, Kaori. What Ayane told us. There is a rebellion within the Guild. Piotr’s Artificer was a member. This is a letter to his lover, a woman named Misaki, asking her to fight on and bring the Guild down.” She removed the worn paper from the wallet, held it up to the firelight. “And I will pray for you, for all the rebels that remain, that you may finish what we have started: Death to the Serpents. An end to the Guild. Freedom for Shima—”
“Death to the Serpents?” Michi frowned.
Yukiko shrugged.
Kaori’s voice was a low hiss. “My father is being tortured in some Guild hellpit right now because of that spider-legged bitch, Ayane. You expect us to believe anything she said?”
“Lies work best hidden between truths. If there’s a group within the Guild looking to take it down from the inside, if this Misaki exists—”
“You’d have us take up arms beside chi-mongers?” Michi was incredulous.
“You just said we’re going to need every weapon we can get, Michi.”
Akihito frowned, rubbing his scarred thigh with dinner-plate hands. “If the Guild have a rebel faction, some of those we killed in the attack on Kigen could have been…”
“I know.” Yukiko stared at the fire, thinking of the Guild ships she’d destroyed over the Iishi ranges. “They’re just like us. They see the wrong of it. And we’ve been murdering them.”
THERE IS NO MURDER IN WAR.
Buruu’s thoughts rolled over her like storm clouds.
Tell that to the ones they loved.
YOU CANNOT BLAME YOURSELF, SISTER. YOU DID NOT KNOW.
But I know now. We can’t go on like this, Buruu. Whether they can add to our strength or not, we can’t keep killing them. It’s just wrong.
“May I see it?” Kaori held out her hand. Yukiko passed over the letter, watched the older woman scan it with steel-gray eyes, her expression cold as snow.
Tomo barked again, one high-pitched yap that made Yukiko flinch. A curse rose on her lips, and she turned on the dog, pouring into his skull, ready to shout for silence.
… silver razors …
She blinked, pupils dilating.
… red eye watching bad badbad …
SISTER, BEWARE!
Buruu was on his feet, knocking Piotr aside and leaping onto the roof of Daichi’s cabin. Two tons of muscle and beak and talon smashed the eaves to splinters, Maro crying out in alarm, Tomo yelping, the assemblage scattering as the ceiling partially collapsed.
“Maker’s breath, what the hells is the matter with him?” Kaori cried.
Buruu landed amidst shattered timbers, shaking his head like a wolf savaging prey. As the Kagé stood dumbfounded, he opened his beak and spat onto the decking a crumpled ruin of silver clockwork and delicate spider legs, set with a windup key and a glowing red eye.