Jay Kristoff - The Last Stormdancer

A slow blink. A frown darkening that blind and vacant stare. It seemed to me the monkey-child’s mask fell away, his serenity and quiet assurance shattering upon the ice, and beneath was the face of a confused and frightened boychild, lost in a world he thought he knew.

But … you must help.

—NO PLACE FOR MUSTS HERE, SAVE MINE.—

The sparrow peered at the great Khan, trembling in the freezing chill. The boy stepped forward, the pack about him rising, growling long and deep in warning.

Please, great one. This was foretold. A child of my—

—TAKE FORETELLINGS WHEN YOU LEAVE, MONKEY-CHILD. NO PLACE FOR THEM HERE, EITHER.—

But I—

The Khan’s roar was a slap to the boy’s face. Blasting the fringe back from those sightless eyes, drenching his pallid cheeks with spittle. The Khan’s breath boiled in the freezing air, reverb shaking our bones. And at his outburst, the sparrow nestled at the boy’s shoulder finally broke, springing loose and fluttering away in a rolling tumble of feather and shrill squawking. Right into the path of another young buck by the name of Rahh. A friend of mine. As close to a brother as I would know.

Rahh’s beak closed, quick as lightning.

Snap .

And the little white sparrow squawked no more.

No! Mikayo!

The boy turned, fell to his knees, pawed about in the snow until he found the sparrow’s broken corpse. Bright red smeared in pearlescent white. Clutching the little bundle to his chest, he made nonsense noises with his mouth, tears glittering in his eyes.

… You did not need to do that.

Rahh leaned close to the blind boy, amber stare boring a hole through the monkey-child’s skull, hackles raised in jagged threat down his spine.

* GET OFF OUR MOUNTAIN, MONKEY-CHILD. *

She was my friend …

* FLY WITH US THEN. *

Rahh raised his claws, intent on seizing the boy and ripping him skyward. Rumbling growls amidst the roll of thunder above. And as the talons of my brother who was not my brother descended, I called to him in our own tongue, my voice enough to stay his hand.

“Wait.”

Rahh fell still. Glanced at me with eyes the shade of sunflowers and murder.

“He laid his stick on my back.”

I stepped forward, talons sinking deep into the snow.

“Let me teach him.”

Rahh looked to the Khan looming at our backs, blinking in question. This was not my place to speak. Let alone to demand. But the old beast must have assented (as he often did in those days), for the brother who was not my brother inclined his head, backed away from the boy with his bloody palmful of broken sparrow.

“ Teach him well, ” he said .

And seizing the monkey-child by his shoulders, spreading my wings wide, I sprang into the sky.

Lady Ami knelt in a vast antechamber of the House of Passing, her sister Mai beside her. The roof arched forty feet above her head, long silken amulets of perfect white running ceiling to floor. The room was lit with a thousand fragrant candles, also the color of death; white as newborn snow. Two dozen maidservants gathered about her, heads pressed to floorboards, hands clasped in prayer.

The sisters were motionless as statues. Faces painted bone-pale, thick kohl about their lashes. Hair bound in coils and braids, twelve-layered robes of mourning-black dragging them earthward. They were beauties among your kind, or so I am told. Perfect as the first flowers of spring. Born of the same womb, one year apart, mirrored reflections of each other in dark, still water.

Brides of the Shōgun’s sons—sisters wed to brothers, which I suppose makes a kind of sense, in so far as anything you monkey-children do makes sense. And hanging heavy in the air between Ami and her sibling, along with the perfume of burning candles and the hymns of beggar monks praying for the dead Shōgun’s soul, lay the knowledge that all that stood between either of them and the title of First Lady of Shima was the death of the other’s husband.

Lady Mai spoke first. Utterly motionless, save her lips.

“Your Lord Tatsuya looked unwell this morning, dear sister.”

Lady Ami was still as stone. Unblinking. Almost unbreathing. “My husband is well, dear sister. Considering circumstances. Though I must say, your Lord Riku looks a picture of health.”

“He does, does he not?”

Ami nodded slightly. “One would think the Bear would appear a touch paler, considering the forces my noble husband has gathered to his side.”

“Lord Tatsuya has proven himself most effective in the application of bribery and threats, to be certain. A pity he was not courageous enough to simply end the matter by duel and spare us all the horrors of civil war.”

“Horrific for some,” Ami nodded. “Considering our forces outnumber yours almost two to one. And yet Lord Riku barely musters a sweat. Most admirable.”

Lady Mai’s smile was pretty as sunset. “Perhaps my Lord and husband knows it is not simply numbers that win battles, dear sister. That skill counts for more by half.”

“One would think,” Ami smiled in return, “such knowledge would make him sweat all the more.”

A hollow chuckle, drifting off into a deathly hiss. “Always so clever, little sister.”

“And still you ever ask to dance.”

“A pity the same cannot be said of the Bull?” Mai glanced sideways at her sibling.

Muscle clenched at Lady Ami’s jaw. She blinked once. Twice.

“No riposte?” Mai whispered. “Does it cut you so deep that Tatsuya-sama spends so little time in your bedchamber? I would have thought you accustomed to the idea by now.”

“You dare…” Ami breathed.

“Tell me, if your Lord and husband does murder mine and do away with me besides, will the arrangement our parents made remain intact, do you think? Or will the Bull supplant you with the one he truly loves? Whomever that might be this week?”

Ami licked once at trembling lips. Palms pressed flat to her thighs. She glanced at the maidservants behind her, breath strangled in her lungs. Tatsuya’s latest favorite, a tiny slip of a thing named Chiyoko was watching the back of her head, turning her eyes to the floor as the Lady met her gaze.

Lady Mai finally glanced at her sister, dark lips curled in a smile.

“By the by,” she said brightly. “You will be an aunt soon.”

The doors to the Chamber of Passing opened wide, the volume of the mourning hymns rising. Beyond the threshold, their husbands awaited. Lord Tatsuya and Lord Riku, Bull and Bear, swathed in heavy armor of ink-black, surrounded by a legion of samurai and beggar monks. Beyond them, carried by a multitude of hunched servants, the old Shōgun’s body awaited on his funeral bier.

Lady Mai smiled at her husband, rose with practiced grace and drifted to his side. Lord Riku was somber as occasion would dictate, yet still leaned down to kiss her brow, place a comforting hand upon her midriff. Lady Ami watched the pair—mirror to her and Tatsuya, and yet nothing alike at all.

Her husband glanced at her, still kneeling on the floor. Still reeling from the blow. Hand pressed to her empty belly. Blinking faster than the tears could muster.

“Ami-chan,” Tatsuya said with faint annoyance. “Come.”

Lady Ami breathed deep. Stood slow. Walked to her husband’s side. If she noted the Bull’s stare lingering on Chiyoko and the other maidservants behind her, she gave no sign.

The procession trudged from the House of Passing, down a vast flight of stone stairs and into the Kigen streets. The people were a throng, a crush, lining the Palace Way. Each citizen dressed in black, head bowed, burning sticks of incense held in clasped hands. Those few with the courage to look at the royal entourage as they passed noted each of the Shōgun’s sons were as stone, hands on their katana hilts, eyes downturned. The Lady Ami was pale as death itself, thin lips pressed into a bloodless line. And though it was improper to show emotion at an event such as this, the young woman wiped once at her eyes, as if brushing away errant tears.