*WEAKLING. HIDING BEHIND FALSE WINGS.*
The black circled wide, rage building to a boil. Yukiko could feel the ache in his paws, cut bloody on pinions that refused to break. The Khan was confused about the clockwork on Buruu’s back and wings—what it meant, how it worked. And though he was as ferociously intelligent as Buruu had been when they first met, Torr lacked a mind of men or metal. He didn’t know what a machine was, how to overcome it. All he knew was that wings were an arashitora’s greatest strength and greatest weakness, and the first to lose one would be the first to die.
NO KHAN, YOU.
A roar of frustration. Rage.
*KINSLAYER.*
Yukiko reached across the void, whispering into Buruu’s mind.
Your wings. He doesn’t know what they are.
I KNOW.
You have to stop using them as shields. They break, you fall.
TRUST ME.
Buruu, I can kill him with a thought. I could reach out right now and— TRUST ME.
Thunder tore the skies, a battery of cannon rumbling up her spine. Fists clenched, mouth dry as she watched them circling. Torr roared again, spitting insults and hatred at the Kinslayer. Who was he to challenge? This monkey’s pet? This son of a line gone mad? If not for Torr, this pack would have fallen to ruin. If not for Torr, Everstorm would be a graveyard littered with the bones of their race.
And through it all Buruu stayed silent as tombs. Why spend breath on insult? Waste strength on bravado? The human in him, the human in her in him, understood—a tempered intelligence layered over animal cunning, a soul-deep change wrought by the bond between them. She’d made him more. They’d made each other so much more.
Torr was older, stronger. But Buruu had the capacity for reason, subterfuge, and above all, patience. And for a moment, Yukiko found herself believing. That he could win. That he would triumph. But only for a moment.
A gust of wind caught the Khan’s wings, buoying him higher. He wheeled and dove across the brink, colliding with Buruu like a thunderbolt. Lost in frenzy, targeting the metal wings that had thwarted blow after blow, now caught in his talons. The Khan clutched a fistful of the mechanism running down Buruu’s spine, ripping and tearing, delicate gears tumbling like brass snow amongst the raindrops. Feeling them break, ripped to ribbons at last, at last, the Khan roared victory. Buruu twisted in his harness, kicking out with his hind legs as the pair once again fell from the clouds, blood and canvas feathers flying.
Spinning.
Plummeting.
Torr’s claws digging into Buruu’s shoulders. Ripping through the harness pinning the device to his back, tearing one false wing completely away, the broken pinion falling in a wretched spiral as Yukiko screamed and the Khan bellowed in triumph. Lightning illuminated the pair, light and shadow, spiraling toward the bloody waves. Clutching each other as death reached for them both. Inseparable as lovers all the way to their grave. With a desperate roar and the bright ring of splitting metal, Buruu tore free of the harness, twisting and seizing Torr’s flank, claws finding purchase beneath the Khan’s ribs. And with a kick that tore him free of the broken harness, leather snapping, bolts splitting and spinning bright into the void, Buruu’s talons tore the Khan open from sternum to groin.
Torr roared, blood-flecked and defiant, tearing the contraption to pieces as his guts unfurled, trailing out behind him as the pair fell. Tumbling. Bleeding. Screaming. The Khan hit the water; a brilliant scarlet spray, foaming flurries, the dance of teeth like glittering swords. Yukiko’s eyes were wide, scream frozen behind clenched teeth as Buruu plunged toward that same frenzy, wings spread to slow his descent. But he was too far from the broken islands to make it to safety, the water between filled with golden eyes and glittering, translucent fangs. Even if he managed to glide …
To glide …
Lightning crashed, illuminating the thunder tiger swooping away from the boiling froth. Wings outspread. Feather-tips rippling with faint electricity. Not the severed feathers left in the wake of Yoritomo’s blade. Not the ugly, squared-off shapes that had grounded him in the Razor Isles, made him incapable of anything but a feeble, wobbling glide.
Feathers—pearlescent, whole and perfect and beautiful.
In her memory, she saw the severed feather she’d held in Five Flowers Palace as she waited in the dark for his return. Torn free during the clash with Kaiah in the Daimyo’s garden.
No. Not torn free …
The pair of them flying over the Iishi, just days after her father had died.
How long until you molt? she’d asked.
I WILL HAVE NO NEW PLUMAGE FOR MONTHS. NOT UNTIL MY WINTER COAT GROWS IN.
Sitting together in the rain by the Kagé pit trap, alone in the wilderness, waiting for the hunters to become the hunted.
Father said you would molt your feathers. Like a bird. Is that true?
TWICE YEARLY. SUMMER AND WINTER.
Summer.
A smile on her lips.