She stood in front of the mirror hours later, bleach-burn scratching her eye. The air draped with bathhouse steam, the towel wrapped twice around her body, finger-thin from years of privation. She stared at herself, eyeline drifting up from her feet, over the subtle curve of her thighs and hips, her almost-flat chest. The leather thong around her neck, the tiny stag with the crescent-shaped horns meeting her stare with unspoken questions in his eyes.
A pointed chin in an impish face. Just like her brother’s. Just like her mother’s. A patch of leather over the hole the Gentleman had left behind—the yakuza boss with his dead stare and fistful of pliers. The memory made her tremble. The thought of Daken made her eye brim with tears. Images of Jurou made them fall. Iris softly glowing, the color of rose-quartz, telling the secret of her birthright. Of who she really was.
Stormdancer?
Or Zryachniye?
Finally, her gaze fell upon her hair, plastered flat, dripping wet. Childhood memories of her mother dyeing it burning in her mind. From the time she could talk, she’d been taught to pretend she was something else. Golden locks concealed beneath black ink, milk-white skin obfuscated behind fancies about Kitsune heritage.
Living a lie. Telling it so often she’d begun to believe it herself, so obsessed about hiding her truth she’d never discovered what it really was. Beyond the Kenning. Beyond the “Impurity” Guildsmen would have immolated at the Burning Stones. The truth of her blood, at last stripped of its black veil. She stared at it now; an unruly bob flattened by bathwater’s weight, draped about her high cheeks and framing that eye of glowing rose-quartz.
Beautiful blond hair.
And in her mind, thunder flared. Wings pounding like a heartbeat. A storm-born ferocity, swelling inside her like a hurricane. An intent not just to be a stormdancer’s shadow, not to be the girl others only looked to when Yukiko wasn’t around. All her life, she’d fought. Every breath. Every scrap. The future of the entire nation hung in the balance. And if Piotr spoke truth, she had the power to do something about it. To find out who she truly was.
To see.
She ran her fingers through the natural blond, unveiled at last, staring at the girl staring back at her. A girl she didn’t know. Had never bothered to. But she’d been there all along, waiting for this day. This truth. This moment.
Hana reached out through the storm for Kaiah’s distant thoughts.
You want to fly with me?
- ALWAYS. WHERE? -
She touched the mirror, pressing her hand flat against the glass.
The girl she didn’t know did the same.
Home.
*
The walls of Kigen Station echoed with the hiss of pistons, violent sprays of water vapor, bubbling chi-exhaust. The platforms were lined with fresh-faced boys in unscarred armor, new-forged weaponry in hand, coughing in the rolling fumes. Lenses of polarized glass to hide frightened stares. Kerchiefs of dirty scarlet to conceal bloodless expressions. Platoons of brand-new bushimen, recruited from fair Kigen’s slums with the promise of regular meals and a place to belong and a cause so glorious it was worth dying for.
Yoshi watched them as his train shuddered to a stop, shaking his head.
The rail-lines were still running, shipping soldiers northward. But as the engines sped back toward Kigen, the carriages were virtually empty, and some quick coin pressed into a conductor’s palm had bought Yoshi a berth on a fast south-bound. So here he was, stepping onto the platform and ducking through the frontline fodder, pulling a broad, bowl-shaped hat over his head and thanking whatever gods listened it was them instead of him.
“Best of luck, gentlemen,” he muttered, making his way through the forest of spears.
If any of the boys heard him, none replied.
He stepped into the smoke-stained boulevard, tempted to breathe deep but knowing he’d regret it. Staring out over the city where he’d grown, the alleys where he’d run, the streets he’d ever call home. The ramshackle cesspool of Downside, shrouded in exhaust and sin. The twisted refinery, spattering gray storm clouds black. The pentagonal spire of Chapterhouse Kigen. The Market Square and the Altar of Purity, where Guildsmen filled the skies with the screams of burning children. Yoshi saw posters on every wall, marked with the First Bloom’s seal.
“At weeksend, a one and two-thirds measure of chi and five iron kouka shall be granted to any loyal citizen who walks the path of righteousness and brings forth any Impure for judgment upon this city’s Burning Stones.”
People scurrying to and fro, blades hidden beneath their clothes. An automated Guild crier lying broken in the street, clockwork guts spilled over broken cobbles. Beggar monks wandering amidst smoke and ashes, speaking of comfort and bringing none. Screams from an alleyway, the rhythmic hymn of violence. A hungry child, crying to a world that simply didn’t care anymore.
The heart of Shima. Its mighty capital. This dirty, scab-kneed whore called Kigen.