She turned back to Piotr slowly, lest her head fall completely off her shoulders. The Thunder God pounded his drums, the tremor beginning in her temples and rumbling all the way down her spine.
“Promised who?”
“Prisoner,” he said.
She blinked away the rain, frowning. “The ones who kept you prisoner? Kitsune? Samurai?”
“No, no.” The man sighed, exasperated. “Not me for the prisoner. Us keeping for the prisoner. There.” He pointed toward the lightning farm, his good eye lighting up as he remembered a word. “Guild!” He snapped his fingers. “Guild!”
“A Guildsman?” Yukiko recalled the ruined Guild ships on the rocks at the edge of the Razor Isles, the beaten brass on Katya’s armor. “A Guildsman who crashed here?”
“Da, da,” Piotr nodded. “Fix me. Fix leg. Walk me.” He pointed at the mechanical brace on his leg, the blind eye in its ravaged socket. “He prisoner for us. My accident is falling. Leg crush. Face, da? He fix me. Saving for the life. Teach for me the Shiman. Piotr friend too, da? Is friend.” A sigh. “I make for the promise if Zryachniye take him.”
“A promise?”
The gaijin pulled a worn leather wallet from his coat, hunched over to shield it from the rain, unfolded a scrap of paper inside.
“Taking back.” Piotr touched his chest, touched the paper. “Taking back for the Shima. He for the saving my life. Good man. Was good.”
The paper was worn, slightly mildewed, covered in fine black kanji. It was a letter, she realized. A letter from Piotr’s Guildsman. Yukiko scanned the text, struggling to focus, a lead-gray sorrow welling in her chest.
Beloved,
I know I will never see your face again. The skin upon it, nor flesh beneath it. But the memory of it keeps me warm, when all else turns to winter and all hope is gone.
I am prisoner to the gaijin. Our ship crashed in the tempest, only five of us rescued from the waters. And now they keep us here as prisoners, waiting for spring to ease the storms enough to transport us to Morcheba, and from there, to a fate only the gods can know. But the gaijin who delivers this note is a friend; greater than any I deserve for the life I have led. If you are reading this, Piotr has fulfilled his vow against all odds. Treat him well, love.
I wish I could hold you one last time. I wish more than anything to feel your body against mine. I wish our daughter could know her father’s face. I wish I could see her in all her perfection, before the False-Lifers run her flesh through with cables and encase her beauty in cold metal. I wish I could see the day when the machines are torn from Shima’s skin, when the mechabacus falls silent for the last time, when the rebellion smashes First House to flaming splinters. When a love like ours can bloom in the sun, not endure silently within prisons of brass.
But I will not do any of these things. This is my fate. And for my part in the world we created, I deserve no better. I think myself blessed to have known you for the brief moments I did. And I go to my end with a gentle smile, at peace with the knowledge that, for all my crimes, fate saw fit to grant me you. Such a gift would not be wasted on one who is damned. Perhaps what little I did to aid the rebellion is enough to see Enma-ō judge me fair.
Pray for me, love. Pray that the Judge of the Nine Hells weighs me true. That when I stand before him, he will not only consider what I did, but what I made possible. And I will pray for you, for all the rebels that remain, that you may finish what we have started: Death to the Serpents. An end to the Guild. Freedom for Shima.
I love you. With all I have in me. Tell our daughter I love her also. Know that in my final moments, I will think of your face. With my last breath, I will whisper your name, Misaki.
Always yours,
Takeo
Yukiko stared at the page long after she’d finished reading, letting the words sink into her skin. So it was all true. Ayane’s story about a hidden faction within the Guild. An army of insurgents, just as devoted as the Kagé, working to bring the Guild to its knees.
And she had thought the girl a liar. A spy.
Just like the gaijin thought about me.
“Death to the Serpents?” she whispered.
What in the name of the gods did that mean?
“I have to get out of here.” She folded the letter carefully, put one hand to her throbbing brow. “I have to get back.”
“Back Shima?” Piotr took the letter, returned it to the leather wallet with a strange reverence. “Find Takeo love? Find Misaki-san?”
“Hai,” she nodded. “I will find her.”
The gaijin placed the leather wallet in her hands.
“You hold,” he said. “You take.”
“I will.”
“You promise.”
Yukiko smiled.
“I promise.”
Buruu awoke beneath sweet, cool rain, and for a single, brilliant moment, he had no idea where he was. Just listening to the storm, feeling electricity dance on his skin, remembering the days when there had been nothing but this; the freedom of black cloud and rolling thunder and roaring wind beneath his wings.
His wings.
The metal creaked as he hauled himself to his feet, the stench of murder in his nostrils, the pain of talon and beak carved into his flesh. And then he felt warmth in his mind, a thunderous, gushing heat, and her arms were around his neck and her face pressed into his cheek, and she squeezed him so tightly it made her arms shake.
Gods, Buruu. You’re all right.
APPARENTLY SO.
I love you so much.
He blinked, nuzzled close.
AND I YOU.
I thought I was going to lose you.
I THOUGHT YOU WERE ALREADY LOST.
Nothing is going to keep us apart again, you hear me? Not oceans, not storms, not armies. I’m by your side, always. I’ll die with you, Buruu.
SUCH MELODRAMA, GIRL.
Don’t be mean.
He smiled into her mind.
LET US HOPE IT DOES NOT COME TO THAT, THEN.
She held him for the longest time, saying nothing at all. And then she let him go, hand drifting to the hessian still bound to his back, shredded and bloodstained. Most of the satchels had been lost somewhere in the chaos of the past few days—in the attack or the crash or the bloody brawl here on broken black glass. Only one remained. He could feel the fear in her, the tremors in her fingers as she reached inside, hoping beyond hope. And then her fingers closed about it, drawing it forth, a miracle in lacquered wood. A shape as familiar to Yukiko as her own face. Her ninth birthday present.
“My tantō,” she breathed.
She had almost lost it. Just as she’d almost lost herself. In the hate. In the rage.
Walking to the island’s edge, she stood there in the wind, him beside her, watching the ocean sway. In her right hand, she held the blade her father had given her when her brother died. A gift from the man who had given everything of himself to keep her safe. A man she hadn’t truly mourned, whose loss had cut her too deep for tears. In her left, she held the sword Daichi had given her, naked and gleaming, the old man’s call to cherish her anger, to fill the empty of her father’s loss with fury. The storm howled about her as she stood as still as stone, and beyond the razored shore, Buruu could feel the sea dragons curling beneath black water, looking at her with glittering eyes, rolling with the breath of the waves.