Never again.
Buruu’s low growl dragged Yukiko from the throb inside her head, the ache in her body. She closed her eyes, tried to look through the Kenning to see what he was grumbling about. But as she reached inside his head, the world flared bright and loud, screeching and clawing—the thoughts of a hundred tiny lives out in the gloom flooding her skull. An owl soaring through the velvet dark (seekkilleatseekkilleat), a tiny furtive thing of fur and pounding heart hiding in long shadows (stillstillbestill), mockingbirds curled in their nests (warmandsafesafeandwarm), a lone monkey howling (hungreeeeeeee). So many. Too many. Never in her life so impossibly loud. Gasping, she closed off the Kenning, as if locking a disobedient child in an empty room in her mind. Breathing hard, she dragged her eyelids open, squinting out to the landing.
A figure stood in the shadows.
High cheekbones and steel-gray eyes. Dressed in dappled forest-green. An elegant, old-fashioned wakizashi sword at her waist, a scabbard embossed with golden cranes in flight. A long, black fringe cut to fall over one side of her face, almost concealing the jagged diagonal knife scar running from forehead to chin.
Another of Yoritomo’s legacies.
“Kaori.”
Daichi’s daughter lurked in the near darkness, wary eyes locked on the thunder tiger.
“He won’t hurt you,” Yukiko said. “Come in.”
Kaori hovered for a few uncertain moments, then slipped past Buruu as quickly as she could. The arashitora watched her, amber stare glittering. His metal-clad wings twitched, and he lay his head back down with a sigh and a hiss of pistons, tail sweeping in broad, lazy arcs.
The bedroom was ten feet square, unvarnished wood, wide windows looking out into a sea of night. The perfume of dried wisteria mingled with sweet candle smoke, doing their best to banish the pulsing ache at Yukiko’s temples. She lay back in her unmade bed with a sigh.
“The lookouts told me you had returned,” Kaori said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come see you and Daichi-sama. I was tired.”
The woman looked her over with a critical eye, lips pressed tightly together. Her stare lingered on the empty saké bottle at the foot of the bed.
“You look awful. Are you unwell?”
“The Guild ships are dealt with.” Yukiko’s arm was slung over her face, words muffled in her sleeve. “They’re no threat to us anymore.”
“Your Guildsman is resting. He is torn. Bruised. But Old Mari says he will recover.”
“He’s not my Guildsman. He’s not a Guildsman anymore at all.”
“Indeed.”
“My thanks, anyway.” Her tone softened. “Your father honors me with his trust. I know what it means to have Kin here.”
“I sincerely doubt that, Stormdancer.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Uncomfortable silence fell between them, broken only by the whisper of dry leaves, the thunder-rumble breath of the arashitora outside. Yukiko kept her arm over her eyes, hoping to hear Kaori’s retreating footsteps. But the woman simply hovered, like dragonflies in the bamboo valley where Yukiko had spent her childhood. Poised. Motionless.
Finally, Yukiko dragged herself upright with an exasperated sigh. Pain flared at the base of her skull, claws curling up through her spinal cord.
“I’m tired, Kaori-san.”
“Thirsty too, no doubt.” Steel-gray eyes flickered to the empty saké bottle. “But we have news from our agents in Kigen city.”
She sensed the hesitation in Kaori’s scorn. The weight.
“Is Akihito all right?”
“Well enough. He cannot escape Kigen while rail and sky-ship traffic is locked down. But the local cell is looking after him.” Kaori walked to the window, avoided her reflection in the dark glass. “The city is in chaos. The Tiger bushimen can barely maintain the peace. We get new recruits every day. Talk of war is everywhere.”
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? The body thrashing without its head.”
“The Guild seek to grow it a new one.”
Yukiko blinked through the headache blur. “Meaning what?”
The woman sighed, clawing her fringe over her face, kohl-rimmed eyes downcast.
“I take little pleasure in telling you this…”
“Telling me what, Kaori?”
The woman looked at her palms, licked her lips. “Lord Hiro is alive.”
Yukiko felt the words as a blow to her stomach, a cold fist of dread knocking the wind from her lungs. She felt the room spin, the floor fall away into a beckoning nothing. And yet somehow, she managed to sway to her feet, to hold her center and pretend she didn’t feel like a stranger clawing at the insides of someone else’s skin.