Jay Kristoff: The Last Stormdancer

As promised, the Shōgun showed clemency to Riku’s wife. The Lady Mai was permitted to dwell within a quiet corner of the Imperial Palace, her belly swelling with her dead husband’s child. First Lady Ami herself set about affairs befitting her station: the running of the Shōgun’s household, the entertaining of visiting dignitaries from the Phoenix, Dragon and Fox clans. She spent what little time she could with a pale, blind boy who lingered like a shadow at the court’s edge; ever uncertain of his place there. The boy in turn kept the company of her cats, looking out from behind those slitted eyes of green glass and seeing a world he recognized not at all.

Since Tatsuya’s ascension, Ami had seen the Shōgun only fleetingly, and from a distance. Ever surrounded by ministers and courtiers. Ever kept at cold arm’s length. Still, she struggled on. As best she could. As best she knew how. It was nearly five weeks after the Battle at Four Sisters when she heard it—the news that drained the blood from her face, set her storming through the palace halls in search of her seldom-seen husband.

After almost two hours and a dozen minders’ attempts to stave her off, she found him in meeting with his council of ministers and four representatives of the Lotus Guild. The men arrayed about a long table, crowded with tea services and sumptuous dishes, laughing and smiling, ruddy cheeks gleaming. The Guildsmen seated opposite, their glasses and plates empty, bloodred goggles fixing Lady Ami with dead-eyed stares as the herald begged forgiveness for the intrusion and announced her name to the assembly.

The bottom half of the Shōgun’s face was covered by a golden breather fashioned like a tiger’s maw—apparently intended to keep the worsening fumes at bay. A kimono red as heartsblood was draped about his shoulders, embroidered with gold tigers. A golden breastplate and matching swords completed the imperious portrait.

He raised one eyebrow, met Ami’s burning glare.

“Honorable wife? What is the meaning of this?”

“I beg forgiveness, most gracious Lord.” Ami kept the rage from her voice, her face impassive as a statue’s. “But I must speak with you on a matter most urgent.”

Ami held up a crumpled sheet of rice paper in one white-knuckled fist—an edict marked with the Imperial Seal. The assembled ministers looked to their Lord in unison. The Shōgun’s brow darkened, his voice hollow and metallic behind the mask.

“Do you not see me here in council—”

“As I say, great Lord,” Ami interrupted. “A matter most urgent.”

The Shōgun looked among his ministers, the Guildsmen. “You will excuse us, please.”

Murmured acquiescence, the hiss and whine of pistons and the whisper of silken robes as the assemblage stood as one, bowed to their Lord, their Lady, and marched slowly from the room. Ami’s eyes were fixed on Tatsuya, the beginning of tears gathering in her lashes. Rage burning inside her, refusing to let them fall. The Shōgun’s voice was tinged with impatience.

“You had best have fine reason for interrupting—”

“I do not care about your bloody council, Tatsuya!” Ami crumpled the paper in her fist and hurled it at her husband’s chest. “Bad enough you leave our marriage bed empty, and my belly besides. But now you shame me like this?”

Tatsuya glanced at the paper in his lap, back at his wife. “Shame you?”

“You plan to adopt Mai’s child?” Ami hissed. “Make it your heir?”

“Hai.” Tatsuya nodded. “If it is a boy. Until I have an heir of my own.”

“And how in the name of the gods do you suppose that will happen, Tatsuya?”

“I am wondering the same, beloved,” the Shōgun replied. “I hear rumor about the court you are barren. Unable to provide me with sons.”

“You have not touched me in three years !”

“Strange,” he mused. “I heard no mention of that amidst the whispers.”

“What did I do to you?” Ami demanded. “Ever you have spurned me, but never have you sought to so openly disgrace me. And now I find you in council with the Lotus Guild? You vowed vengeance against them! Have you forgotten they tried to murder me? Your own wife?”

“The Guild leaders who ordered such dishonorable aggression have been brought to justice. Their heads delivered to me personally. And my vengeance? Already I bring them under my heel. I have commanded their chi-production be brought under Shōgunate control. Their refineries will be constructed in each clan capital now, where they can be monitored by my officials. No longer will they practice their arts out in the wilderness beyond my sight or knowledge. It is time they learned to whom they owe allegiance.”

“You bring their refineries into our cities?” Ami was incredulous. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Tatsuya stood slowly, hand on his sword. His scowl growing black as storm clouds above the tiger mask. “Mind your tongue, honorable wife. You speak to your Shōgun now.”

“What of the sickness? The blacklung? The arashitora fought beside you because they thought you meant to expel the Guild! Unravel it! You gave Jun your word!”

“I recall making no promises to the beast-speaker.”

“Beast-speaker?” Ami blinked. “He is a Stormdancer, Tatsuya! Perhaps the last of them!”

“Indeed? Then where is his thunder tiger?”

Ami fell silent, incredulity and rage choking her to stillness.

“The Guild has some intriguing interpretations of holy scripture regarding the nature of those who speak with animals.” Tatsuya crossed the wooden floor, heavy boots ringing upon the boards. Towering over his wife now, staring down at her with cold, black eyes. “The Book of Ten Thousand Days is quite clear upon the topic, when read in a certain light.”

“… A certain light?”

“Hai,” Tatsuya nodded. “The book also speaks clearly on the matter of wives. The nature of deference. Obedience. I suggest you peruse it, before next you consider it prudent to burst in upon one of my council sessions like some moon-touched peasant-child…”

“What has become of you, Tatsuya? Always you and I had our differences, but now…” Ami shook her head. “It seems I know you not at all…”

The Shōgun stared from behind his breather, golden tiger fangs bared and gleaming.

“Did you ever?”

She found him in the garden, his thin pine walking stick in hand. He stood in the shade of a twisted maple, leaves turning gray in the stink and slow exhaust haze. Every day, it seemed to be growing just a fraction worse. A few Guild ships now rumbling in the skies above Kigen, smudging the clouds with thick plumes of blue-black smoke. The haze of motor-rickshaw thickening in the streets, beggars coughing in the alleyways, the taste of lotus leaking slowly into the water. The food. The air. Everything.

“Jun-san.”

He turned toward the sound of her voice, and she saw he had tears in his eyes.

“Jun-san, what is wrong?”

“I heard them crying.” He pointed to the gardens beyond the palace verandah. “I came to see. On days such as this, I wish I were truly blind.”

Ami saw a clutch of servants gathered around a tall stack of bamboo cages. The little prisons were filled with sparrows, all hues of the rainbow, screeching their distress. The servants reaching through the bars, one by one, plucking the birds out and setting to with wickedly sharp snips; clipping the sparrow’s wings as they struggled and screeched.

“The ones who could fly away already did.” Jun’s voice was that of a man with a hollowed-out chest. “But the servants told me the Lady Mai enjoys their song. The Shōgun had hunters in the north catch them, bring them here.” He looked around the graying gardens as if he could truly see. “To die. Singing.”