Yoritomo holstered his iron-thrower, slid the wakizashi back into his scabbard. Eyes fixed on Buruu’s, he stepped closer, slinging his plait over his shoulder with a toss of his head. The smile on his face was arctic, the clenched grin of a corpse mask.
“You have spirit, great one. I will give you that.”
YUKIKO. CAN YOU HEAR ME?
. . . Buruu?
A blurred consciousness, skull still ringing from Yoritomo’s blow. Blood in their mouths.
“Move, and she dies,” Yoritomo whispered.
The Shōgun drew his katana, steel sliding across the scabbard’s lip with a bright silver tone. He sliced away the harness that pinned Buruu’s wings with one stroke, rubber and steel mesh crumpling on the floor. Three feathers spilled from the remnants, broad and pale, severed neatly across their spines. Buruu flinched as Yoritomo ran his fingers across the new feathers growing at his wingtips, gleaming with a faint metallic sheen, whole and perfect. A sharp intake of breath rasped across the Shōgun’s teeth; a hiss of incredulity and imperious, narrow rage.
“So it is true.” Jaw twitching, gnawing his lip.
“Great Lord,” called Hiro. “I am certain Yukiko knew nothing of this.”
“She can hear the beast’s thoughts.” Yoritomo didn’t even look in the Iron Samurai’s direction. “Yet you tell me she knew nothing?”
“I am certain there is an explanation . . .”
“Then explain!”
“Perhaps she was unaware—”
“No, it was you who was unaware!” He turned on Hiro with a roar, pointing with his katana. “This treachery happening under your very nose and you were blind to it! You have failed me, Lord Hiro, and shamed yourself.”
Hiro aimed a desperate, helpless glance at Yukiko. Then he dropped to his knees, pressed his head against the stone.
“Forgive me, great Lord.”
The Shōgun turned back to Buruu, hissing through clenched teeth. The Iron Samurai lowered their swords, spinning blades of the chainkatana hovering bare inches from Yukiko’s neck. Strands of her hair were caught in the turbulence, wafting up to be severed on the furious razors and then drift slowly back down to earth.
Yukiko blinked, ears ringing, trying to clear her head. Blood flowed from her swollen cheek, pooling sluggishly under the curve of her chin and spattering at her feet.
“Where is your respect?” Yoritomo growled at the arashitora. “You think this insolent child could outwit me?” He pointed his katana at Yukiko, shaking his head. “You will learn what I am. What it means to defy Hachiman’s chosen. I will teach you. Hold out your wings.”
YUKIKO.
Buruu, don’t . . .
THEY WILL KILL YOU.
They’ll kill me anyway. Don’t do it.
“I know you understand me!” Yoritomo roared. “Hold them out or she dies!”
No, don’t. Please, Buruu. Don’t let him touch you.
The future stretched out before him, days without end, life in a rusty cage beneath this choking sky. Slave of this princeling and his madness, gawped at by insects and denied the freedom of his skies. The loss of his feathers was one thing. But the fear of this madman hacking off his wings whole was almost overpowering.
Yet it was nothing. Nothing compared to the thought of losing her. Of watching her spilled open in front of him, bleeding out on the floor as he ended them all, giving into rage and pride and being left at the finale with their blood on his tongue and her blood on his soul.
What would it mean to fly again, knowing that she was rotting in the cold ground?
“Kill her,” Yoritomo spat, stepping back. The Iron Samurai raised their blades. Hiro gritted his teeth, shaking his head and refusing to look away. The bushimen on the benches held their breath, wincing in anticipation. And with a sound like unfurling canvas, Buruu spread his wings.
Twenty-five feet of gleaming silver-white, new feathers glinting with a strange, electric opalescence. The hair on Yoritomo’s flesh stood up, static electricity coursing over his skin and setting his eyes ablaze. The arashitora spread his feathers. His coverts were tickled by the warm breeze, rippling like snow-white waves across a broad expanse of muscle and voltage.
Yoritomo breathed deep, sweat turning the hilt of his sword damp and greasy. He pointed his blade toward the sky.
“There it is. Just above you. The desire you would risk everything to attain. And had you but the courage to serve, it would be yours for the taking. But now it falls to me to take instead.” He sighed. “Such a waste.”
He lashed out with his katana, scarlet light swelling along patterned steel. A faint ripping sound, no more than a whisper; a flurry of severed white. The perfect fan of the beast’s outstretched feathertips was reduced to a flat, ugly shape, an amateur mutilation cutting the anticipated promise of flight to pieces. The tips of the new quills split asunder, ruined all over again, falling to earth with the sound of tearing paper.
Yukiko gasped as if she’d been stabbed, a rasping intake through a throat squeezed closed by grief, exhaled in an agonized, choking sob.
Kill him. Forget me, brother. Fight. FIGHT.
FEATHERS GROW BACK.
“No, please,” she moaned under the growling steel. “No.”