Has all this been bought with innocent blood?
The riots after the inochi broadcast had been brief, brutally suppressed. And now an uneasy peace had settled over the clan metropolises, broken glass crunching underfoot, violence on hold until the official period of mourning came to an end. Forty-nine days of fragile, jagged silence. Forty-nine days spent waiting to be told who would rule, now that the Kazumitsu Dynasty had lost its only son.
Sumiko kept her eyes on the ground, lips moving in silent prayer. Not for Yoritomo, Seii Taishōgun of the Empire, but for the people he had murdered. The women, the children, the old and the weak. The prisoners who had been dragged up the hill into the chapterhouse, to die frightened and alone, a thousand miles from home. The soldiers who had perished on foreign soil, fighting in a war built on lies and the fear of empty fuel tanks. The starving beggars, the silenced dissenters. Even the great Black Fox of Shima. Every soul sent on its way for the sake of greed and hubris and madness.
It had been a small thing to begin with; just a few spirit tablets laid out to mark the place of the Black Fox’s death near the Burning Stones. Nobody knew who had put them there. But then a few had grown into a dozen. And then a hundred. At first, the guards had tried removing the markers and paper flowers laid to honor the dead, but soon there were thousands of ihai laid out across the Market Square. A silent recrimination, a graveyard for the countless bodies with no grave to call their own.
Sumiko had made one herself. A simple tablet of stone, carved with her mother’s name, as black as the blood she’d coughed at her ending.
A cry rang out among the crowd, picked up and carried by a dozen other voices, fingers pointed at the sky. A single word, rolling among the mob like breaking surf, awash with wonder and awe. Sumiko looked up and the prayer died on her lips.
Jay Kristoff “Arashitora.” A majestic black silhouette against the brightening, bloody sky, flying out of the north with the poison wind at its back. It soared overhead, above the gasps and cries of astonishment, heading up the Palace Way. The pro cession collapsed into bedlam, the solemn rows of monks and spectators dissolving into a throng of running feet, thousands of people breaking ranks and following the silhouette up the street.
Sumiko squinted behind her goggles in the grubby dawn light, one hand up to blot out the sun.
“Gods above,” she breathed.
There was a rider on the thunder tiger’s back.
The shape circled above the Burning Stones, splitting the air with rasping, beautiful cries, its wings making a sound like rolling thunder. It was the color of clean snow, black slashes across pristine white, lightning playing at the edges of its wings. Eyes flashing, cruel, hooked claws and beak, proud and fierce.
Sumiko had never seen anything more beautiful in all her life.
A metal frame sat over its wings, gleaming and iridescent, feathers made of hard bloodstained canvas. The beast circled lower, alighting on the cobblestones as the crowd gathered, surrounding them in a wide circle. The few Tora guards among the mob watched on fearfully, hands slack on their naginata.
The rider was a girl Sumiko recognized. Long hair, dark eyes, pale skin clad in mourning black. She was the girl they sang kabuki plays about in the Downside taverns. The girl the street children mimicked, running among the gutters and alleys, flapping their arms and hollering at the sky. The girl that had gifted her with a full purse and a sad smile in the shadow of the sky-docks.
Arashi-no-odoriko, Stormdancer, Slayer of Yoritomo-no-miya.
The girl dismounted, placed a circlet of fresh wildflowers on the ground. A rainbow of color woven into a beautiful wreath, the scent of jasmine and chrysanthemums, azalea and wisteria rising above the black lotus stink. She gently set an ihai among the others, dark stone, a single word carved deeply into its face.
Father.
The girl bowed her head, lips moving as if in prayer. She wore a shortsleeved uwagi, and Sumiko could see her left arm was horribly scarred; the flesh about her shoulder was a patchwork of new burns. An old-fashioned katana in a black lacquered scabbard was strapped across her back. Her face was a grim, pale mask, cold as stone as she lifted her eyes and stared at the sea of wondering expressions around her.
“People of Kigen,” she called. “Hear me now.”
The toxic wind howled in off the bay, bringing the stink of rot and lotus ash, coating the throats of the crowd, seeping into their pores. The girl’s voice rose above it.
“For forty-nine days, we have mourned our lost; those we loved, and those who loved us.” She swallowed. “Now the time for grief is over.