Buruu could see the pain of betrayal in Esh’s eye. The unveiled fury in Drahk’s gaze. But his brothers were young—too young to challenge their father and win. And so they bowed their heads and submitted, like loyal subjects and loyal sons would.
The passing of years. The turning of seasons like dawn and dusk in Buruu’s mind’s eye. Yukiko saw him grow, flourish, becoming the thunder tiger she knew. Watching him soar amongst the clouds, chasing the female he’d called Shai through the lightning strikes. Watching Esh’s resentment fester, hatred gleaming in his eye, poisoning Drahk along with him. It was only love for his father that kept the toxins from Buruu’s own heart. But he knew the day would come when his eldest brother would challenge for the title of Khan.
But for now, Drahk was still too young. The Khan too strong. All knew it.
The Others hadn’t been seen since the incident with Sukaa. But word came through a nomad who wandered the northern seas that Torr wished an end to hostilities. That the packs should once again meet in the summer, as they had in happier days. And though Buruu knew Torr was an opportunist, though Drahk counseled against accepting the Morcheban Khan’s overtures, their father saw wisdom in it. To end the pointless standoff. To bring stillness after years of empty aggression.
Yukiko saw the Khan standing atop the aerie in the midst of the endless tempest. The nest was empty now, Buruu’s mother having passed the previous winter, leaving Skaa alone in quiet grief. And Buruu stood at his father’s back and watched the Khan watching his kingdom. The mighty thunder tiger seemed smaller somehow, bent with the burden of it all.
Esh will never forgive if you accept Torr’s peace, Buruu growled.
No, his father agreed.
You choose Others over blood.
I choose future. For all our kind.
Future?
One day you rule, my Triumph. One day you understand. To think not of one, but all. One day there will be no black. No white. Only gray.
They will hate you. Drahk. Esh.
Then let them challenge.
Skaa turned to his son. His favored one.
Who claims Khan is Khan.
He sent Buruu the next day, the only son he trusted to deliver his words. Flying east to Morcheba, meeting with Sukaa. The Khan-son’s arrogance seemed to have dimmed in intervening years, and Buruu saw something akin to regret in his eyes. He delivered his father’s message—Everstorm would accept the Morcheban peace, if the rules of the Bloodstone were laid as law. No permanent injury. No death. Those who broke this law to be punished in kind.
Sukaa accepted, nodding deep before flying away. And Buruu flew back toward Everstorm, rankling at Sukaa’s escape from justice, but beginning to see the breadth of it. The depth of it. That his father was wise to accept peace. To fight not to avenge past wounds, but to build the future. Something greater.
No black. No white. Only gray.
Shai intercepted him miles from Everstorm, breath heaving in her lungs, sorrow and dread in her eyes. And as she dashed toward him across darkening skies, he knew something terrible had happened. Something that would never be undone.
The Khan is dead.
The news like a blow. Gut to water. Heart to stone.
Unthinkable.
Impossible.
How?
Drahk and Esh.
… Two may not challenge one?
No challenge.
Grief in her eyes. Grief and rage.
Just murder.
A travesty. An outrage. Their own father? What madness had driven them to this brink? This betrayal? It was too much to comprehend. A blood-red tide rising in his sight, filling the endless mileage between dawn and dusk with fury, and turning all to scarlet.
Shai called his name as he flew away, begging him to stop. But there was no self in that moment. There was only red and the memory of the day he’d first taken to the wing beside his father burning bright in his mind. Everything gone before, everything to come after, all of it washed away by the blood-bright rush of rage. The Khan’s aerie in the distance, growing closer with every breath, every beat of his wings, fury growing beside it.
Drahk circled the aerie, the mark of their father’s talons etched down bloody flanks. He called to Buruu across the storm. Seeking parlay. Urging stillness. But there were no words. No moment in which to speak to this one he’d called brother. There was only a roar of challenge, striking like a thunderbolt, screaming fury. A moment of impact, ten thousand hammers strong, iron-gray and deafening. Brawling across storm-torn skies, strobing lightning, thunder pounding. The sea dragons goaded to frenzy in the oceans below, thrashing in the bloody rain. No thought. No pause. Simply doing, on and above and between, a whirling flurry of talons and beaks and furious roars. And when it ended there was heat and salt, rushing warm and slick down Buruu’s throat and Drahk plummeting from the skies, trailing blood like ribbons through the rain.