Yukiko hung her head, fighting back bitter tears, pushed knuckles into her eyes. Her hair hung over her face, the rain slicking it to her skin in sodden skeins. Lady Amaterasu was sinking to her rest, the Sun Goddess burning the cloud-choked western skies a scorched and bloody umber. Night was falling, and with it, all her hopes.
Slipping into Buruu’s mind, lips pressed tight, trying to focus the Kenning to a tiny point, like sunlight through an aperture of flesh and bone. Her skull ached, warm sickness swelling in her belly, pressing at her gorge. Sharp teeth waiting just beneath her skin.
Can you hear me, brother?
I HEAR YOU.
Wincing. Licking slowly at wind-parched lips. Too tired and disheartened to build her wall, to push bricks into place that would only come crashing down again.
There’s nothing in here that will help us. Legends of old heroes, long dead.
A bitter and helpless fury curled her fingers to fists. She looked up at a black sea rolling overhead, searching the skies for answers she knew were not there. The ache in her skull tightened its grip. The frustration made her want to scream.
AT LEAST THE EXERCISE WAS NOT AN UTTER WASTE OF TIME.
Why the hells do you say that?
The arashitora unfurled one clockwork wing, wrapped it around her shivering form. The static electricity made her tingle, wrapping her up in lightning’s scent.
NO REASON.
She smiled, closed her eyes and rested her head against him. Holding him tight, she pushed warmth into his mind, the gratitude she felt for him just being near. The promise he’d made her was bright in her memory, etched on the stone she set her back against.
“Beneath and between and beyond anything else I may be, I am yours. I will never leave you. Never forsake you. You may rely upon me as you rely upon sun to rise and moon to fall. For you are the heart of me.”
WE SHOULD HEAD BACK TO THE IISHI. THERE YOU CAN SLEEP. AND I CAN EAT.
I hope the Kagé have been treating Kin decently. I worry about him there alone.
HE IS NOT ALONE. THE GIRL IS WITH HIM.
That worries me even more.
SURELY YOU ARE NOT STILL JEALOUS?
Why on earth would I be jealous of Ayane?
… DOES NOT MATTER.
No, say what you mean.
He heaved a sigh, wind curling in the feathers beneath narrowed, amber eyes.
BECAUSE SHE KNOWS A PART OF HIM YOU NEVER WILL. BECAUSE YOU FEAR HE WILL SEE IN HER A KINSHIP HE CANNOT SEE IN YOU.
She pouted amidst her snug kingdom of fur and feathers.
I thought you said you didn’t understand human relationships.
DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WHY. THE WHY NOT IS MUCH EASIER.
I don’t know what to do.
NO, YOU ARE SIMPLY FRIGHTENED OF WHAT DOING IT WILL MEAN. HE IS NOT HIRO. HE LOVES YOU.
I know that.
AND YOU HIM?
A part of me must. To feel this way. When I think of him and Ayane alone together, I want to choke something.
AH, YOUNG ROMANCE …
As the sun sank toward the world’s edge, she surveyed the storm looming on the northern horizon. Lightning arced across the clouds and Buruu turned to watch, melancholy staining his mind a somber blue. She reached out to touch it, still unsure of the Kenning’s strength, and as she smoothed it away, she recognized it for what it was.
You’re homesick.
THE TEMPEST REMINDS ME. ALWAYS.
Of the Everstorm?
WHERE THE GREAT SEA DRAGONS SLUMBER. WHERE RAIJIN AND SUSANO-Ō SING LULLABIES TO STILL THEIR HUNGER, FROM NOW UNTIL WORLD’S ENDING.
Are there many of you there? Arashitora?
A FEW SCATTERED PACKS. THE LAST OF MY KIND. WE ARE SLOW TO BREED. JEALOUS. PRIMITIVE. LIKE YOU IN MANY WAYS.
The question rose unbidden in her thoughts.
You never really explained why you came to Shima, you know. You said you were curious, but I’m sure there was more to it than that.
…
Buruu?
GUILD.
Her senses sharpened at the word, feeling his hackles rise in sharp peaks. Staring toward the horizon, squinting in the growing gloom, ears straining for the sound of engines.
I see nothing …
USE MY EYES.
She slipped into the warmth behind his pupils, saw the world as he did, flaring too bright for an agonizing moment as she wrestled for control. She could feel her nose bleeding, slick on her lips, narrowing her eyes as if staring at the sun. The details were picked out in brilliant relief; the shapes of the clouds, of every curling wave and foaming breaker. And to the north, she spotted a shadow, tiny as an infant lotusfly, stark black against iron-gray. The unmistakable snub-nosed silhouette of a Guild sky-ship.
What the hells are they doing all the way out there?
WAR.
Gaijin lands are east, not north. If they’re a warship, they’re way off course.
WE COULD ASK THEM?
Yukiko looked toward the northernmost tip of Seidai, then back toward the tiny silhouette. She knew they should be flying back to the Kagé. They had to plan the strike on Hiro’s wedding, Lady Aisha’s rescue. But if they let the Guild ship go, the opportunity might never arise to find out what they were up to again. And she had promised to deal harshly with the next ship they sent northward.
She gripped Yofun’s hilt, remembering Daichi’s words. Remembering the endless miles of deadlands they’d flown over during their visits to the clan capitals, the Guild’s stain seeping through every province. The rusted pipelines. The blacklung beggars. The Burning Stones.
Whatever the Guildsmen were doing, she’d bet her life it was no good.
All right.
She nodded.
Let’s follow and see what we can see.
Mechanical marvels they might be, but in the end, sky-ships suffered most limitations of their sea-bound cousins. The truth is, any dirigible is at the mercy of the Wind God Fūjin, no matter how powerful her engines. Heading directly into a gale consumes enormous amounts of fuel, and as the charred remains of three Guild ironclads and the Thunder Child before them could attest, the hydrogen in a sky-ship’s gut is highly flammable. Which is why, when Yukiko realized the Guild ship was not only flying directly into the wind, but also headed straight for a lightning storm, she knew the bastards were up to something on the south side of righteous.
They’d been flying for almost a day, and Buruu was showing signs of fatigue. He caught sleep in fits and starts, gliding high on ocean-born thermals, drifting in a kind of sleepwalker state. Yukiko kept watch while he dozed, slowly rebuilding the wall inside her head, but he showed a remarkable ability to remain aloft despite being, for all intents and purposes, fast asleep. Yukiko nibbled on the rice cakes at the bottom of her satchels, sipped water from her last gourd. She watched the horizon, gaze fixed on the ship she could now see with her own eyes.