Aisha put her cup down on the table carefully, her hand steady. “What do you want, Kitsune Yukiko?”
Yukiko’s gaze flickered up to the Lady’s face. She didn’t seem angry, or offended. Aisha glanced up and down Yukiko’s body, as if taking her measure
inside her head. Her eyes glittered with a fierce intelligence, a calculating precise cunning that matched the unveiled authority in her voice. The shamisen
music began playing again from the room next door, a smoke-screen over their
conversation behind the paper-thin walls. Yukiko began to suspect that there
was more to this woman than pretty dresses and tea ceremonies. “What do I want?”
“Hai,” said Aisha. “What is it that you wish to achieve here in Kigen?” Yukiko blinked, said nothing.
“You may speak freely.”
“Well.” Yukiko licked carefully at her bottom lip. “First of all, I want my
father out of prison.”
“And you believe that insulting me is the best way to achieve this?” “N-no,” she murmured. “I am sorry, La—”
“Do not apologize for your mistakes,” Aisha interrupted. “Learn from them.” “I don’t—”
“Women in this city, on this island, we do not seem like we are important.
We do not lead armies. We do not own lands, nor fight in wars. Men consider
us nothing more than pretty distractions. Do not for a second believe that this
means we are powerless. Never underestimate a woman’s power over men, Kitsune Yukiko.”
“No, Lady.”
“You are young, have not been educated in courtly ways, instead growing
up wild with that drug-addled father of yours. This is a disadvantage you must
learn to overcome quickly. For believe me when I say that, second only to myself, you are currently the most powerful woman in all of Shima.” “What?”
“Yoritomo needs you, Yukiko.” Aisha held her pinned in that dark, glittering
stare. “I know what you are, yōkai-kin. The whole court knows. The entire city
has heard your story by now. Street minstrels sit on the corners, watch their offering cups fill with kouka as they play songs about the brave ‘Arashi-no-ko,’
who slew a dozen oni and tamed the mighty thunder tiger. Did you know that
the Guild has already sent an emissary demanding you be put to the pyre?” Yukiko felt her gut lurch with fear as she mumbled a negative. “Yoritomo laughed in his face. Can you imagine? The Shateigashira himself, the Guild made flesh in this city. And Yoritomo laughed at him.” Aisha
shook her head. “My brother thinks of nothing but his dream. Of riding that
arashitora to a final victory over the gaijin that a dozen different generals under the command of our father failed to bring. A triumph the historians will
tell of for generations. And you can give that to him, Yukiko-chan. Only you.” Aisha picked up her cup and sipped the tea.
“Why do you think I brought you here today? Made you wear that dress?” “. . . I do not know, Lady.”
“You are not just young, you are beautiful. And now half the men in this
palace know it, and have told the remaining half what a prize you are. Men are
idiots. They think with their loins, not their heads. Beauty is a weapon, sharp
as any chainkatana. Men will do almost anything to possess it, if only for a
second. In the face of that desire, a girl blushes and turns her gaze to the floor.
A woman plays it like a shamisen.” Aisha gestured to the musicians next door.
“And she gets her way.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
Aisha smiled. “Because you have a good heart. A kind spirit and a brave
soul. Most people in this palace have none of these things. I know what has
been done to you. You and your family. I want to see you get what you want,
Yukiko-chan. And I want to see others here get what they deserve.” Aisha drained the last of her tea, placed the cup down, a faint stripe of
blood-red paint left behind on the glaze.
“I received a message from a dear friend today. One I have not seen in many
years. She told me her father is well. She wanted me to pass on her regards to
you.”
“To me?”
“Hai.”
Aisha reached into the sleeve of her robe, placed something on the table
between them. Unfurling her fan respirator, she fluttered it in front of her
face. The eyes floating above it were diamond hard.
Yukiko looked down to the white shape, stark against stained teak. Fragile
as spun sugar, petals shaped like an upturned bowl. Her heart thundered as she
inhaled the scent, the sweet perfume of the Iishi.
It was a wisteria bloom.
28 Fragile as Glass