“We must, Ichigo. My Lord commands and I obey.”
“But what about Satoru?” she whispered. “He’ll be all alo—”
The sentence cracked along with her voice and she turned her eyes to the grave at her feet. Tears swelled inside her, a choking ball of heat creeping up her throat. The empty yawned all about her, the world too big for her alone.
“I got you something,” her father said. “For your birthday.”
He held up a white box, tied with black ribbon. And if the sight of the sun gleaming on that dark silk made her heart beat a little faster, if thoughts of the countless mysteries that might lay within that box stilled the thoughts of her brother for a moment, she was only nine, after all.
She was only little.
She took the box in her hands, surprised at its weight.
“Open it,” he said.
She pulled at the ribbon, watching the bow fold in upon itself and fall open. Inside the box waited a gift so pretty it stole the breath from between her lips. A scabbard of lacquered wood, black as her father’s eyes, smooth as cat’s claws. Beside it, a six-inch length of folded steel, gleaming in the sun, so sharp it might cut the day in half.
“A knife?”
“A tantō,” he said. “All ladies of court carry one.”
“What do I need it for?”
“It will protect you.” He took the scabbard from the box, sheathed the blade and tucked it into her obi at the small of her back. “In the times when I cannot. And even when I’m not there, I will be with you.”
She felt strong arms around her then, lifting her off the ground, drawing her up into the sky. He said nothing at all, simply held her, rocked her back and forth and let her cry. She put her arms around his neck and held tight, as if he were the only thing to keep her from going under, falling away into the cold and black.
He pressed his lips against her cheek. His whiskers tickled her skin.
“I will be with you,” he said.
He could always make her smile.
*
A softness to her edges, satin weight on her eyelids. Her tongue too big for her mouth. The world swaying to a tune she couldn’t quite hear. The room spinning as she opened her eyes.
“You wake,” Daichi said.
Wind kami called down timeworn mountainsides, the spirits playing in the branches of the treetop village outside, bringing the brittle-crisp promise of winter to come. Yukiko sat up slowly, groaning and squeezing her eyes shut once more. The pulse of the entire world beat beneath her skin, the thoughts of every beast, man, woman and child around her, layered upon one another in a shapeless cacophony. She pawed blindly beside her bed, seized the half-empty saké jug, upending it into her mouth. Daichi murmured concern, tried to take the bottle from her hands but she pushed him away, molten fire pouring down her throat, rushing to fill the void inside her.
“Yukiko—”
“Stop, please,” she begged, curling into a ball with her fists to her temples. “Give me a minute. Just one minute.”
The old man sat in silence, legs crossed, palms upturned on his knees. He seemed a statue of some bygone warrior, katana slung across his back—a glacial stillness in contrast to the seething shift inside her head.
To even glance into the Kenning was to look at the sun. To make cinders of her eyes. But she could feel Buruu in there, rumbling beneath it all like thunder on a distant horizon. She reached for him, synapses ablaze—just a touch to let him know she was awake. The saké did its work; black velvet thrown over her head and smothering the noise and heat of the world. She felt it flow her to her edges, a beautiful gravity filling her to her fingernails, dragging the Kenning to some quiet corner in her mind and choking until it could barely breathe.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, curled like a babe in lightless, amniotic warmth. But finally she opened her eyes a sliver, saw the old man still seated at the edge of her bed, concern plain in those steel-gray eyes. He coughed once, twice, as if he’d been struggling to remain silent, wiping his knuckles across his lips. And finally he met her gaze.
“What is happening to you, Yukiko?”
His voice was graveled. Rusted. The muddy rasp of a pipe-fiend, so akin to her father’s for a moment she thought she was dreaming.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, tongue numb. “I can hear everything. Animals. People. Everyone. Inside my head.”
The old man frowned. “Their thoughts?”
“Hai. But it’s like everyone shouting … all at once. It’s deafening.”
He stroked his moustache, slow and thoughtful. “The cause?”
“I don’t know. My father never told me about this. No one told me anything.”
“I do not mean to cause you alarm…” the old man paused, licked his lips, “but I think you caused an earthquake today.”
She stared at him, jaw slightly agape, blinking slow.
“Do you not remember the ground shaking?” Daichi asked. “Trees shivering like frightened children as you fell to your knees?”