Jay Kristoff: The Last Stormdancer

Lady Ami’s voice was low, smoky, his skin prickling at every note.

“Your name is Jun?” she asked.

“So my mother named me, great Lady. Before the sickness took her.”

“From what clan do you hail?”

He licked his lips. Forced himself to be patient. Courteous. Calm.

“I am Fox clan, Lady,” he replied. “Born and raised.”

“Another Kitsune.” Jun heard a smile creep into the Lady’s voice, muffled by the fan she no doubt covered it with. “I am pleased to enjoy the company of a clansman once again. It has been many years since I saw my homeland.”

“In this, we are equals, Lady Ami-san.”

“Then you were not born blind, Jun-san?”

Images of a vast garden. Laughing children. A girl who smiled at him as —

Jun shook his head to banish the memories.

“No, Lady. I began losing my sight when I was ten. It took two years to depart. My grandmother blamed the pollution in the sky. The haze that makes Lady Sun burn brighter and hotter. I am told many folk wear goggles now in the north, to protect them from my fate.”

“That is very sad.”

“Happier than some. The sickness grows worse with each passing year. It claims lives, not just eyes. My mother and father both fell to it. The people of my village call it blacklung. And it strikes not only humans. The phoenix sicken and die. The mujina and tanuki of the forests, the kappa of the river and lakes, even the thunder tigers—all of them are falling prey.”

“We hear rumor of this sickness you speak of, Jun-san,” said Lady Ami. “I remember folk of my father’s court falling to it when I was younger. But we had no notion it had grown to such a threat. My father-in-law’s illness, the matter of succession … the Shōgun’s court has been consumed by it in recent times.”

“I fear the Lotus Guild is to blame for…”

His voice drifted off as a familiar shape in his mind … no, two … coalesced out of the mists at the edge of his senses and stalked forward into the light. All purring and soft velvet, tread like a faint breeze on the polished boards. He reached out with the Kenning, their thoughts calling to his, recognizing them as cats, male and female, slinking to their mistress’s side and watching him with curious eyes. He touched their minds, bid them greeting, feeling their delight as the Lady Ami ran her fingernails through their fur, their sensual shivers flowing into him.

“These are your cats, Lady? What are their names?”

A long pause, the press of three stares upon his empty eyes.

“Whisper and Silk,” the Lady finally replied.

“Very pretty.”

“You have excellent ears, Jun-san. Can you hear what color undergarments I wear?”

A playful tone in the Lady’s voice, soft laughter as his cheeks flushed at the imposition of thoroughly unbecoming thoughts. He shivered again as she stroked the tomcat’s spine. Despite his upbringing, he felt a novice. Provincial and ignorant in the face of this Lady’s parlor games.

She has changed so much …

“I hear the thoughts of beasts, Lady. The cats in your lap. The thunder tiger outside.”

“… You are yōkai-kin?”

“Hai.”

“I have never met one of your ilk before. I though perhaps you were legend.”

“So it might one day be said of phoenix or henge and tanuki. So might it be said of all the spirit beasts of this land, if the Lotus Guild and their sickness are not stopped.”

The Lady cleared her throat, attention refocused, the cats in her lap forgotten.

“The Guild grows in power daily,” she said. “They buy ministers and magistrates with the iron coin their mechanical marvels bring them. They could be dangerous enemies. You have proof of their involvement in this sickness, Jun-san?”

“I do not, Lady. I am … that is to say, I was a simple artist. But my grandmother is a wise woman, and she is convinced the Guild is to blame. Her village stands at the edge of a murmuring forest, by the banks of a chuckling stream. But the water flows from a Guild factory upriver, and the thicker their smoke grows, the sicker people become. The tanuki I spoke to in the Iishi forests said similar. The phoenix also. And why else do the Guildsmen wear masks? Those suits? Why do they not breathe the same air we do unless they know it is toxic?”

“You were an artist?”

Jun frowned, confused as to why that, of all he had said, might catch the Lady’s attention.

“Hai,” he finally nodded. “My father was a hunter. But when my sight began failing and it became clear I would never follow in his footsteps, my mother thought to teach me of the arts. Poetry. Painting. Until the sun took my eyes completely, at least, and the sickness them besides.”

“Your tale grows sadder still, Jun-san. It has the seeming of a great ballad. A song for the ages. A painter struck blind by the Sun Goddess. A poet, never to write again. All you need is some unrequited love and perhaps a tragic death…”

“Please, Lady,” Jun said. “You make jest at my expense. But the spirit beasts are dying in droves. The thunder tigers are planning to leave Shima. We have only days until they decide whether or not to abandon us to our fate. And the prophecy spoke of their importance.”

Jun could hear the skepticism in the Lady’s voice. “Prophecy?”

“My grandmother has the Sight, great Lady. She foretold a child of her bloodline—a child Kitsune-born—would save these islands from certain destruction.”

“And you … believe yourself this child, Jun-san?”

“I have no living kin, save her and my grandfather. If anyone is to fulfill the prophecy, it must be me. But we have only days. So I beg forgiveness if I seem ill at ease sitting here drinking this lovely tea.”

“You ride one of the beasts already, Jun-san. Why do you need the Shōgun’s help at all?”

“In Grandmother’s prophecy, the child would ride with an army of thunder tigers at his back. But the arashitora will not help if we do not help ourselves. If they are to stand against the Guild, the Shōgun must stand beside them. The arashitora will not fight our battles for us.”

“There is no Shōgun to stand against the chi-mongers, Jun-san.”

“Will your husband be victorious against his brother, great Lady? Claim the Four Thrones of Shima as his own?”

“Nothing in this life is certain, Jun-san. Least of all the battle between Bear and Bull.”

“My grandmother taught me differently, Lady Ami. She taught me to believe I would save this place from itself. And I intend to do just that.”

“Excuse me, Lady,” the maidservant said. “I must fetch more tea.”

Jun heard the girl rise, retreat with short, clipped steps across the floorboards. He felt the cats purr in his head, their chests thrumming, the Lady Ami stroking each in turn, watching him in silence. He felt his blindness keenly, longing for the little sparrow on his shoulder. He could look through the cats’ eyes to be certain, but then he would see only himself. Not her face. Not her eyes, no doubt locked on his, those ruby lips pressed thin in thought as she watched and he remembered—

“I agreed to speak to you out of respect for the beast you rode, young master Jun. My father raised my sister and I on tales of the Stormdancers. But this talk of prophecy and destiny … it will carry no weight with my husband, should he prove victor against his brother. And Lord Riku will care less for it still. Regardless, it is doubtful the war will be decided within days, and days are all you have before the arashitora leave.”

Jun heard the serving girl reach the doors.

Close them softly.

Slide a bolt into place.

He frowned, head tilted. Rising slowly to his feet.