Jay Kristoff - Kinslayer

“No. Worse than a demon.”

Takeshi spit on the dead leaves at his feet, shaking his head.

“Another Guildsman.”

She was conscious of Kin’s arms about her waist for the entire flight, strong hands and gentle grip. Soft breath tickling her neck. Warm as firelight. Her headache returning like a faithful hound, broken glass grinding at the base of her skull.

Clasping Buruu’s neck, she tried to ignore Kin’s hands on her hips, the play of muscle across his chest as he leaned against her. She entwined her fingers in the arashitora’s feathers, felt for the heat of his mind, growing more jagged and bright with each passing moment.

You’re awfully quiet.

ABOUT WHAT?

Don’t play coy with me.

YOU CHIDE ME FOR PLAYING COY. AFTER TELLING THE BOY YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW YOU FEEL, THEN LUNGING FOR HIS TONSILS A HEARTBEAT LATER.

I … He makes me feel something, Buruu. Something I think I need right now.

MMN.

Well, go on then. Get it off your chest.

The thunder tiger tossed his head, swooped around a castle of tangled sugi trees, wisps of lightning crackling at his wingtips. She could feel him in her mind, loud as the thunderstorm gathering overhead, stubborn as the mountains around them, reminding her so much of her father she could almost smell pipe smoke. She remembered the beast she’d roamed the Iishi with, the arrogance and pride, the fury coiled inside him. He’d been an animal then. Clever, yes, but still driven by instinct rather than conscious thought. Now he was more; ferocious cunning layered with human faculties for judgment. And she could feel the urge to speak his piece bubbling inside him like a wellspring, until finally he couldn’t stop himself.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR KIND. WITH ARASHITORA, THE FEMALE CHOOSES THE MATE WITH THE STRONGEST WINGS, THE SHARPEST CLAWS. THE MALE HAS NO CHOICE AT ALL. HE IS SIMPLY A SLAVE TO INSTINCT AND THE FEMALE’S SCENT.

Well, that sounds awful.

IT IS SIMPLE. YOU HUMANS. ALL THIS SIGHING AND SPITTLE SWAPPING. YOUR COUPLING IS COMPLICATED BEYOND ALL NEED OR REASON.

Gods, please don’t use that word …

MY OTHER OPTIONS ARE LESS POLITE.

Because you’re usually a paragon of courtly manners?

The thunder tiger harrumphed, swooped lower so his belly brushed the tree line. Gentle rain began falling from the storm-washed skies.

TELL ME. THE MASHING OF YOUR FACES TOGETHER …

Kissing.

IT DEMONSTRATES AFFECTION.

Yes.

AND THE TONGUES?

… What?

HONESTLY, WHAT PURPOSE DOES THAT SERVE?

How under heaven did you …

SISTER, YOU WERE PROJECTING YOUR THOUGHTS OVER THE ENTIRE FOREST. IT WAS LIKE HIGH SPRING OUT THERE. A SWEATY TIDAL WAVE OF BARELY REPRESSED ADOLESCENT LUST DROWNING ALL BEFORE IT.

Gods, really?

THE MONKEYS IN PARTICULAR SEEMED … EXCITED.

She pressed her fists to her temples, glanced over her shoulder at Kin.

WELL, PERHAPS EXCITED IS THE WRONG WORD …

Yes, Buruu, I understand. Thank you.

TITILLATED?

Buruu …

ENGORGED, PERHAPS?

Oh my GODS, stop!

The treetops parted like water as they descended through the canopy, showers of severed green tumbling earthward in their wake. Away from the glare of the garish day, Yukiko pulled her goggles down around her throat, ran her hand across her eyes.

You could really hear what I was feeling?

LOUD AS THUNDER. AS IF I FELT IT MYSELF.

She chewed her lip, listening to the faint cacophony on the edge of her subconscious.

The Kenning has never been like this before, Buruu. Your thoughts are louder than I’ve ever heard. If I listen, I can hear every animal for miles. All those impulses and lives stacked atop one another. It’s deafening.

YOUR FATHER NEVER SPOKE TO YOU OF THIS?

He never even told me he had the gift. But, he drowned his Kenning in liquor and smoke. Maybe this is why? Maybe as we get older, it gets louder? Or maybe breaking Yoritomo’s mind did something to break mine?

She sighed, ran her fingers through his feathers.

I don’t understand any of this, brother …

They circled past a copse of maidenhairs, knotted branches and shovel-tip leaves laden with rain. The soft scent of green rot entwined with the perfume of deepening autumn, the leaden smell of the storm above. Thunder rumbled somewhere distant, as if the clouds were great ironclads, splitting and burning and tumbling from the skies. Yukiko could hear the echoes of old screams, faint and metallic, somewhere inside her head. The humidity was unbearable, her body aching, sweat mixing with rain on her skin and stinging at the corners of her eyes.

“There they are,” Kin said.

Two young men around her age stood about the edge of a broad pit trap. Buruu spread his pinions and reared back, cruising in to land as gracefully as he could on the broken ground. Yukiko and Kin slipped from his shoulders and made their way across snarled roots and green-clawed scrub, Buruu prowling behind, tail stretched like a whip.

Yukiko recognized the pair with an inward groan; Isao and Atsushi. The former had long dark hair drawn back into a topknot, angular features, chin shadowed with fuzz too soft to really be called whiskers. The latter was small and wiry, light-fingered, dark hair drawn back in braids, one hand on the haft of a long spear with a single-edged, curving blade.

The pair covered their fists and bowed.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she muttered. “Strange seeing you all the way out here.”

“We were scouting, Stormdancer,” Isao said.

“Scouting? Don’t you two usually do that through a hole in the bathroom wall?”

The pair looked at each other, then glanced at Buruu’s razored talons. The thunder tiger growled long and low, staring at each boy in turn, but his laughter was warm in Yukiko’s mind.

YOU ARE MERCILESS.

So I should be. They’ve seen me naked.

DO YOU PLAN TO TORTURE THEM FOREVER?

A few more years ought to cover it.

“W-we were looking for oni,” Atsushi stammered. “As Daichi-sama bid us. There have been reports of the demons moving in the deep woods. Their numbers are growing again.”

“They know nothing but hatred for our kind,” Isao said. “The children of the Endsinger do not sleep, Stormdancer.”

“Why do you call her that?” Kin scowled at the boys. “She has a name.”

Isao drummed his fingers on his war club, a studded tetsubo of solid oak, haft wrapped in bands of old, river-smooth leather. He glanced over briefly as Kin spoke, but dismissed the boy’s words without reply. Atsushi kept his eyes on Yukiko as if Kin hadn’t spoken at all.

Yukiko glanced at the pit trap. The hole was twenty feet cubed; big enough for an oni to fall into. It had been covered by a layer of foliage, concealed from anyone who wouldn’t recognize the warning markers around it. Judging from the hole in the covering, whatever had plunged through wasn’t much bigger than a man.

“We found it an hour ago.” Isao pointed to the trap with his war club. “It must have fallen in last night. Tracks came from the south.”

“Did you speak to it?”

“No.” Isao shook his head. “We saw it looked like Guild, so we sent Takeshi to find you and Daichi-sama. I’ll not speak to any bastard Lotusman. Their kind are poison.”

Yukiko saw the boy shoot a brief, venomous glance at Kin.

How did it find us?