And together, the arashitora and the Kurea turned north, toward the shadow of the Iishi on the horizon, bathed in the light of a dawn long overdue.
Not a victory. Not even close.
But perhaps …
Michi nodded.
Perhaps soon.
56
WOMB
The cage stank of dried blood. Of failure and fear. The soup-thick reek of lotus smoke and stale human waste made Kin’s eyes water, the boiling thrum of the chapterhouse above reverberating into tired bones. The manacles were cutting off his circulation, and he wriggled the numbness from his fingers. Sweat burning his eyes, fumes burning his lungs, he hung his head and waited in the aching dark.
His cage was one of hundreds, row upon row of iron bars, running the ribs of a vast, gloom-soaked room. The wall at his back was dirty yellow, armpit-moist with condensation, slick and warm to the touch. Not so long ago, the chapterhouse cells would have been filled with flesh—the old and the infirm, women and children with fair skin and wide, round eyes and blond and red and auburn hair, all waiting their turn to shuffle meekly into the inochi vats and meet their boiling end. But now the cages were empty, one after another, bare, sweating stone picked out by pinpricks of flickering halogen.
He closed his eyes, sought his center, the emptiness of self he’d found in the workshop, the long silence within the press of his metal shell. He could feel sweat creeping into the plugs studding his flesh, the pull of cable beneath. He tried to block out the half-remembered echo of the mechabacus in his head, the stink of the smoke and the shit, to remember why he’d come here. Why he’d chosen this.
He thought of the girl, felt the lead-lined wings of butterflies in his stomach, heart thumping in his chest. He pictured her standing on a rope footbridge in the Iishi village, a silhouette etched against ancient trees as the moon took his throne, wind running its fingers through her hair.
To be the wind …
He remembered the kiss in the dark, shrouded in wisteria perfume. He could still feel her body against him, the soft, insistent press of her lips against his. He remembered how she’d looked, crying in the gloom, moonlight glittering in her tears. He remembered the taste of them. The heartbroken sigh.
“We don’t belong here.”
Guilt tied his stomach in knots, and choked his butterflies one by one.
Kin felt him before he heard him, more an absence than a presence; a dead-blossom scent or the empty in an echo’s wake. He opened his eyes and saw the figure lurking at the halogen’s cusp, serene as a sleepwalker. Small and slender, sun-starved skin, shaved head, loose dark cloth. Sleek black filters of a mechanical breather, bottomless eyes so scrawled with capillaries there was nothing but red around his irises. Hands clasped, long, clever fingers intertwined like a penitent before a shrine. If it were not for the soft rise and fall of his chest, the chi smoke spilling from his mask with every exhalation, Kin would have thought him a statue.
His voice was soft as lullabies, a metallic whisper behind the breather.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No,” Kin said.
“Do you know what I am?”
“Of course, Inquisitor.”
And so they began to speak.
EPILOGUE
Now witness the beginning of the end.
A ghost-pale boy, seventeen years old, tendrils of blue-black vapor and drying scarlet scrawled across his face. A motionless figure, swathed in black, the boy’s fate held in the palm of his hand. The pair speaking in the chapterhouse bowels as countless hours swirl and dance in the gulf between them. And the Inquisitor finally nods, and opens his mouth, and speaks the words the boy has longed to hear.
“Welcome home, young brother.”
So here I sit. Back again. The Lotus Guildsman who betrayed all he knew, and all he was. Who gifted his brethren with the leader of the Kagé cabal. Who helped a lone girl undo the rebellion, and drag this nation back from the tempest. Traitor is the name I will wear in the histories. Kioshi was the name I inherited after my father died.
But in truth, my name is Kin.
I remember what it was to be encased in metal skin. To see the world through blood-red glass. To stand apart and above and beyond and know there was so much more. And even now, here in the depths of the chapterhouse that birthed me, the only home I have ever truly known, I can hear the whispers of the mechabacus in my head, feel the phantom weight of that skin on my back and on my bones, and part of me misses it so badly it makes my chest hurt.
I remember the night I learned the truth of myself—my future laid bare in the Chamber of Smoke. I remember the Inquisitors coming for me, swathed in black and soundless as cats, telling me it was time to see my What Will Be. I try to recall the certainty I felt as I walked from that chamber, try to recall what it was like to be proud of who I was. To feel the flesh tingle beneath my skin as I accepted my Truth. Stepping into a new life. A bright and gleaming future.
The What Will Be.
My What Will Be.
Thirteen years old and they call you a man.
I had never watched the sun kiss the horizon, setting the sky on fire as it sank below the lip of the world. Never felt the whisper-gentle press of a night wind on my face. Never known the feel of her skin against mine, the touch of her lips lighting fires on my own. Never known what it was to belong or betray. To refuse or resist. To love or to lose.
But I knew who I was. I knew who I was supposed to be.
Skin was strong.
Flesh was weak.
I wonder now, how that boy could have been so blind.
GLOSSARY
GENERAL TERMS
Arashitora—literally “stormtiger.” A mythical creature with the head, forelegs and wings of an eagle, and the hindquarters of a tiger. Thought to be long extinct, these beasts were traditionally used as flying mounts by the caste of legendary Shima heroes known as “Stormdancers.” These beasts are also referred to as “thunder tigers.”
Arashi-no-odoriko—literally “Stormdancer.” Legendary heroes of Shima’s past, who rode arashitora into battle. The most well-known are Kitsune no Akira (who slew the great sea dragon Boukyaku) and Tora Takehiko (who sacrificed his life to close Devil Gate and stop the Yomi hordes escaping into Shima).
Blood Lotus—a toxic flowering plant cultivated by the people of Shima. Blood lotus poisons the soil in which it grows, rendering it incapable of sustaining life. The blood lotus plant is utilized in the production of teas, medicines, narcotics and fabrics. The seeds of the bloom are processed by the Lotus Guild to produce “chi”; the fuel that drives the machines of the Shima Shōgunate.
Burakumin—a lowborn citizen who does not belong to any of the four zaibatsu clans.