Jay Kristoff: The Last Stormdancer

“What is it you wish to know, Lady?”

“Let us begin with how a blind painter comes to wield a blade with more skill than most masters.”

“In painting and swordplay, there is no end of parallels. Form and flow and surrender of control. To cease to feel and become one with the implement—blade or brush, it matters not.”

“But you had a teacher, surely.”

“My father studied under the sword-saint Kitsune Yoshinobu. He trained me also, before my sight began to fail.”

“Kitsune Yoshinobu? The Laughing Fox?” A frown in the Lady’s voice. “But he served in my father’s halls. In the court of the Kitsune Daimyo.”

“As did my father, Lady. For a time. Before my mother bid us move north for the sake of my sight. My father was a demon hunter, like his father before him. As I would have been. A sworn swordsman of your father’s house.”

“But, wait … that would mean…”

A smile on his lips. “You remember at last, Lady.”

“Gods, you were the huntmaster’s son!” the Lady breathed. “I remember you! That little light-fingered hellion who would steal my sister’s clothes while she bathed…”

“As I recall correctly, Lady, it was your idea to steal her clothes.” Jun inclined his head. “You simply roped me in to help you. And to catch all hells when things went sour.”

“Oh, gods,” Ami laughed. “I remember now! We would hunt imaginary beasts through my father’s gardens. And you would hide in the wisteria and frighten the maidservants. Gods, you were just a slip of a thing. You couldn’t have been more than eight or nine when you left?”

“Ten, Lady. As I said.”

“Maker’s breath, but you have changed Jun-san,” she sighed. “I would never have recognized you. Long years have treated you kind.”

Jun smiled, sightless gaze fixed on the flames. “No more than you, Lady.”

“And here you are, years later. Handsome as a fistful of devils. A master swordsman. A Stormdancer, no less. Blind as midnight, and still rescuing noble ladies from murderous assassins. Quite a change from the little boy I charged to do my evil bidding.”

Smoke in her voice. Wistful.

Hungry?

Jun cleared his throat. “I was not truly blind during the attack, Lady. I could see through the eyes of your cats. Even then, if not for Koh, if I were not intended to save this world, I would have fallen.”

“I am less certain. Prophecy or no, I sense the remarkable in you, young Stormdancer.”

Jun fell silent, heat rising in his cheeks.

“And yet he blushes!” Ami laughed, pausing in her ministrations. “Oh, you are a sweet one. Did the girls of your village not pay you such compliments as you grew up?”

Jun fought the flush in his cheeks to no avail, feeling again like a clumsy, provincial child. “In truth, the girls paid me little heed, Lady.”

“Then they were foolish.”

“A blind man does not a good husband make.”

“Not all trysts end in vows of forever. Some exist for their own sake.”

Jun felt her move closer, hand falling still at his cheek.

“… Surely there was someone?”

Jun stood quickly, stepping back, a nervous smile twisting upon his face. Hands outstretched before him as if to ward her away. What did she want? What was she doing? No matter what lay in their pasts, she was a married woman. The wife of a would-be Shōgun.

This was madness.

“There was no one, my Lady. If you will forgive me, I’d not speak of it further.”

“No one at all?” A smile in her voice. “The beautiful Stormdancer, yet unplucked?”

“Lady—”

He heard her rise, felt her fingers touch his, drawing away as if scalded. Blind there in the dark, he stepped back farther, snagging his heel on their pile of firewood. The Lady was swift, catching his hands, holding tight, preventing his fall. Fingers wrapped in his now, pulling him in, feeling her burning gaze searching his face.

“Surely you know you are beautiful, Jun?” she said. “Strong and fierce and proud and young. Surely you know how you must look, to someone like me?”

“I fear you see a trinket, Lady. A plaything, perhaps. One to be used and discarded.”

“Used? You think I do not see the want in you, too?”

“Your husband…” he floundered. “Your vows…”

“My husband has not touched me in three years, Jun-san.” Bitterness crept into her voice. The anger grown in the wake of a long-dead sorrow. “And in the two years before that, there was never anything of love in it. Our marriage was arranged by our parents. You are older now than I was when they made me a bride. And as for my Lord Tatsuya’s vows … well, he breaks those nightly with my ladies. Under my very nose.”

“Lady, you do not think clearly. You see a childhood friend and think it more than what it is. Simple shock. Relief after a day of trauma. You are beautiful, surely. But I do not know you.”

“You do not need to know me to love me, Stormdancer.” Jun felt the gentle touch of her fingertips across his cheek. “I do not ask for forever.”

He felt her close, lips brushing against his with every word. He could feel warmth radiating from her body. Her fingertips trailing static electricity across his skin. Down his throat. Along his chest. His breath trembling, quick as hummingbirds as she pressed her body against him, melting all that was left of his will.

“Only tonight,” she breathed.

She stepped away from him, back toward the fire, soft footsteps and the sound of her gown falling layer by layer to the ground. Her voice calling to him in the dark, the oldest, deepest tune, barely audible over the bloodrush of his pulse in his ears.

“Come here, Stormdancer.”

“I cannot see you, Lady…”

“You have hands, do you not? Let them find your way.”

I returned as the Lady Sun cleared the horizon, turning all to blood and fire. The blooms in the fields below unfurling, slow and soft, turning their heads toward the light and opening wide. Jun was waiting for me outside the silo, standing there in the brightening light with his face upturned toward me. I felt his touch in my mind, the strange sensation of returning home, though in truth I had just left the place of my birth.

You returned, friend Koh.

SAID I WOULD.

Still, it gladdens me. How did your travels fare?

SKYMEET DECIDE TODAY. MUST BE SWIFT.

I will rouse the Lady. We will fly north, quick as you may.

SAW MONKEY-CHILDREN ON MY RETURN. SOLDIERS CAMPED NEAR FOUR SISTERS. MANY. RIDING FROM SOUTH. OTHERS FROM NORTHEAST. TWO ARMIES GATHERING. READY TO CLASH.

The Lady Ami emerged from the silo, hair mussed by sleep, the faint remnants of paint upon her face. She looked at the boy, smiling, her eyes shining. The boy saw her stare through mine, smiling broader still, the tremblings of new affection in his thoughts.

“Good morning to you, Lady Ami,” he said, bowing.

“And to you, Stormdancer Jun,” she replied. “The mighty Koh has returned, I see.”

“She spied two armies on her flight back here, Lady. Gathering at the feet of the Four Sisters. It seems your husband and his brother clash there today.”

The smile faded from her face, the color beside it. Whatever peace their brief respite had bought now evaporated in the light of the waking day.

“Then let us waste no time. The fate of our nation is decided this day.”

Jun climbed aboard my back, offered his hand to Ami. Her smile returned—only a brief glimmer, yet enough to set the boy’s heart racing. As their fingers touched, I felt electricity arcing across his skin, the press of warm and sweet summer winds. The Lady climbed onto my shoulders, sitting in front of the boy now, I noted with interest, his arms about her waist.