The Lotus War - Kinslayer Part 37

He glanced down as her fingers touched his, raising unexpected gooseb.u.mps on his skin. Looking up into her eyes, he realized how close she stood. And before he knew what was happening, her lips were touching his, full and soft and warm, her body pressed against him, gently, as if he might break. He lingered for a second, and two, and three, breath caught in his lungs, white noise in his ears, until at last he broke away, stepping back and raising his hands. Ayane stood still as stone, eyes closed, silver limbs unfurling and rippling about her, bruised-pink lips curled in a delicate, tiny smile.

"So that is what it feels like," she breathed.

"Why did you do that?"

Ayane opened her eyes, blinking rapidly. The silver limbs s.h.i.+vered.

"Just to feel," she said. "Just to know."

"You shouldn't do something like that. Not without asking first."

"You did not like it?"

"No, I didn't."

Didn't you?

"I am sorry. I just thought..." She clasped her hands together. "I thought if you did not want me to, you would have stopped me..."

"Don't do it again, please."

"Do not be angry at me."

"I'm not angry..."

"You are." Tears welled in the girl's eyes. "I am sorry. It is just ... everything, all this..." She shook her head, groping blindly for the words. "Now I have the chance to feel something, I just want to feel it all..."

The tears spilled over her new eyelashes, down those moon-pale cheeks.

"I am so sorry, Kin-san."

"It's all right." He opened his arms, offered an awkward hug. She pressed against him and s.h.i.+vered, chest heaving softly, and he ran his hand over the stubble on her head and whispered, "It'll be all right, don't cry, hush now," feeling altogether wretched.

Not long ago, he was just like her, spreading his wings for the first time in a world he'd never known. He remembered what it was to feel that way; to be the unwanted one, the one outside looking in, and for one brief, impossible moment, he forgot about a girl with long dark hair and skin like smooth cream and eyes so deep he could drown, flying away on her thunder tiger and taking his heart with her. Forgot that she was missing, that she could be dead, that the last time he spoke to her could be the last time they ever spoke at all.

Forgot about her entirely.

But only for a moment.

A single, empty moment.

Angry stares p.r.i.c.kled on the back of his neck.

Ayane walked beside him, seemingly lost in the flood of sights and smells, a small smile on her face as she squinted at the treetops and breathed deep, as if every lungful were her first and last. But Kin could feel it. See it in the Kage's grim expressions, shoulders set, pausing in their labors as the pair walked by and making the warding sign against evil when they thought he could not see.

Some looked upon Ayane with vague approval; it seemed rumor about her saving Daichi's life had spread. But for him, there was only mistrust. Anger and contempt.

They stepped onto a footbridge, Ayane chattering about the way the wind made the hairs on her arms stand up in tiny rows, how it felt like static current, and how strange it was to have hair on her arms at all. Kin p.r.i.c.kled under the angry stares, teeth gritted, rankling at the injustice of it all. If not for his 'throwers, that oni war band would have been unstoppable-the Kage could never have met them in battle, let alone bested them. If not for his perimeter, even now those h.e.l.lsp.a.w.n would be roaming the forest with abandon, and the Kage would be holed up in their trees and praying for Yukiko to return. Before they failed, the emplacements had taken out more than a dozen of the monsters. But did that matter to anyone? Did anyone take even a second to think what might have happened if Kin had not been here at all? And did no one else think it suspicious that every single 'thrower failed within seconds of each other?

How the h.e.l.ls did they get those seals to rupture?

"Guildsman."

The voice was a fist in his gut, hard and freezing, the memory of the knife twisting his input jack setting his teeth on edge.

Skritch.

Skriiiitch.

"Go away, Isao," Kin said.

The boys were standing at the end of the footbridge, cutting off their pa.s.sage to the bathhouse; Isao in front, Atsus.h.i.+ lurking like a shadow behind. Kin stopped, pulled Ayane to a halt. The girl blinked and looked around, doe-eyed and confused.

"What is it, Kin-san?"

"Go back to the prison." He kept his voice low. "Wait for me there."

"I told you what would happen if you didn't leave." Isao hefted a pair of tonfa; wooden clubs with a short handle perpendicular to the shaft. "You should have listened."

Kin noticed movement behind him; Takes.h.i.+ standing at the other end of the bridge, smile stretched across that crooked face. He looked around to the villagers on the other platforms, but none would meet his gaze. They picked up their bundles, or simply abandoned their tasks and walked away. The boys were all oni killers-if they had issue with the Guildsmen, it seemed not many Kage considered it their business after the disaster at the 'thrower line.

Kin squeezed Ayane's hand, pulled her behind him.

"Stay out of the way, Ayane."

"Your accursed shuriken-throwers nearly got Daichi-sama killed," Isao spat. "I warned you."

Ten feet away.

"My 'throwers?" Kin hissed through gritted teeth. "You're the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who sabotaged them. That's why you begged Daichi not to fight at the line. You set them to fail, but you wanted them to blow in the test run with the whole village watching, not in the middle of-"

"How the h.e.l.ls would I know how to sabotage your machines, Guildsman?"

"I saw your hands after the battle, Isao. They were covered in grease."

"Grease, you fool?" Isao scoffed. "Was it black? Sticky? Like oni blood?"

Five feet.

"When Daichi hears about this-"

"And how is he going to hear about it?" Isao smiled. "Dead men don't talk."

Two feet. Close enough to see the sweat beaded upon the boy's skin. The hatred unveiled in his eyes.

"Isao, don't-"

The tonfa whistled past his jaw, Kin jerking away and cracking the back of his head into Ayane's nose. The girl squealed and put her hands to her face, staggered back, grasping at the rope railing for balance. The bridge swayed beneath them.

Kin stepped forward and grabbed the second tonfa, wood smacking sharply against his palms. He tried to wrestle the weapon from Isao's grip, but the boy lashed out with the other club, once, twice, cracking into his solar plexus and ribs, bringing the wind up from his lungs with a mouthful of vomit. Kin aimed a clumsy elbow as he fell, clipping Isao's chin. A foot to his gut curled him up on the deck as he heard Ayane cry out, a sharp s.n.a.t.c.h of laughter from Takes.h.i.+ as he seized the girl's arms.

Isao hauled Kin to his feet, punched him in the stomach again, and again, and again, until the pain burned white and his breath turned red and the world lurched side to side as if a giant were shaking it in clumsy, fat fists. He felt himself being pushed against the railing, bridge rocking beneath them, Isao's hand wrapped in his collar, the other clutching his obi and dragging him upward, dangling him out over the sixty-foot drop to the forest below.

"Do you have a machine to help you fly, Guildsman?"

Kin wheezed, tasted blood, clutching the hand at his throat. He could feel the forest breeze, cool and crisp, leaves the color of fire tumbling from the canopy and falling into the s.p.a.ce below. Would he flutter as they did? Spinning end over end, down to sudden rest, closing his eyes and dreaming no more? Was this how he ended?

Was the Chamber of Smoke all a lie?

Hundreds of eyes, red as sunset, aglow and unblinking and staring up at him with as much adoration as gla.s.s could muster.

His own face, but not his at all.

"Do not call me Kin. That is not my name."

Stray sunlight glinted through the canopy, a lance of b.l.o.o.d.y red, dazzling his eyes.

Yukiko, where are you?

He felt a wet spray across his face, heard a scream over whistling, silver music. Isao released his grip, lurched away, Kin crumpling to his knees as sharp cries of fear and pain filled the air. He blinked into the s.h.i.+fting light, saw Ayane standing over him, b.l.o.o.d.y face, hands outstretched, trembling fingers splayed as if feeling the air. The spider limbs were arched at her back, each one glazed with a thin film of scarlet.

Isao was backing away, clutching his face, fingers painted red, eyes fixed on the swaying silver at Ayane's back. Atsus.h.i.+ was behind him, howling like a hungry baby, fingers shredded, forearms and biceps punctured as if he'd tangled with a needle-thrower. Takes.h.i.+ lay curled on the bridge, clutching his arm, thin ribbons of scarlet trailing up toward his shoulder, spattered on the wood beneath him.

Ayane's lower lip trembled, dark eyes wide with fear.

"Stay away from him." Her voice small, shaking. "Do not touch him."

"Monster," Isao spat. "Abomination."

The girl glanced at the boy behind her, back to Isao, cheeks wet with tears and blood.

"Just leave us alone," she whispered.

Takes.h.i.+ pulled himself to his feet, dragging himself away, scarlet footprints left behind. Isao and Atsus.h.i.+ also retreated, eyes fixed on the trembling girl, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with hatred. Leaves fell from the branches above, filling the gulf between them with patterns of orange and yellow and soaking blood-red, a slow and beautiful dance spiraling down, down toward the place they all knew it would end.

They were gone.

Ayane took hold of Kin, helped him to his feet. She was shaking so badly she could barely manage his weight. His stomach felt like it had been put through a meat grinder, every breath a battle, copper marching on his tongue. She slung his arm around her shoulder and led him away. Her voice was small and fragile as snowflakes.

"You told me the Kage were good people, Kin-san. That they believed in what was right."

Kin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, brought it away b.l.o.o.d.y. It hurt to speak the words. More than he could imagine. And yet he spoke them all the same.

"Maybe I was wrong."

31.

PRECIPICE.

Blistered palms and aching muscles and sweat burning her eyes. The scarred flesh where Yukiko's tattoo used to be a knot of constant pain, arms shaking with fatigue as she turned the hand cranks and propelled herself over the thirty-foot drop to the raging ocean below.

They were twelve hours and twenty-seven cables deep into the network now, the lightning farm a distant smear of light, blinking behind the rise and fall of the waves. The first half of each run was an effortless journey; the natural sag in the lines would propel them as if they were rolling downhill, the flying foxes giving off a high-pitched whine. But halfway, inertia would pull them to a halt, and they would have to turn the hand cranks along the rest of the line, up the steepening incline to the next tower. The few final feet were always the worst, and the ascent to the last tower had almost beaten her.

The wind pushed her back, rain trickling down her oilskin's sleeves, the rope coiled over her shoulder a soaking, leaden weight. Headache swelling in her skull, a thing of knives and rust and broken gla.s.s. And all the while, she sensed long, sleek shapes coiling through the water below, staring up with hungry, slitted eyes.

A hush fell; a split second of stillness as if the storm itself was drawing breath. An arc of brilliant blue-white hit a tower not two hundred feet east of theirs. Yukiko watched raw current crackling across the neighboring cables, off toward the lightning farm. She wondered if she'd be fast enough to pull the pin on her harness if their line actually got struck.

Ilyitch had made the next tower, jumping down onto the small island it sprouted from. He turned back to her, shouted words she couldn't understand. She gritted her teeth and kicked her legs as if she were running, hands shaking, gaining inch by agonizing inch.

In the last few feet, her arms were trembling so violently she could barely turn the cranks. Ilyitch climbed the tower and held out his hand. She s.n.a.t.c.hed at it, fingers slipping on his own, wind buffeting her as if she were a dandelion seed. Lunging, he caught her sleeve, dragged her toward him, wrapping strong arms around her chest and pulling her in tight. She could smell him; cinnamon and honey, mixed with the faint scent of grease and rubber. They struggled to unhitch her flying fox from the cables, Ilyitch's boots slipping on the tower as the contraption finally came loose. The pair tumbled onto the stone in a tangle of limbs and curse words, Yukiko landing atop the gaijin, her hair draped over his face. The flying fox landed beside them with a clang.

She rolled off him and they lay together on rain-drenched rock, breathless, too tired to move. Reaching out with the Kenning, pus.h.i.+ng the bricks of her wall far enough apart to reach through, fumbling in the dark as her head throbbed. She could feel the female aras.h.i.+tora circling above, reveling in each peal of thunder. She could feel the cold shapes of the sea dragons circling the island, filling her with dread. She could feel Ilyitch beside her. And in the distance, she felt a surge of bright warmth that wore a familiar shape.

"G.o.ds, Buruu..." she breathed.

Ilyitch was busy rubbing a bruised s.h.i.+n. Yukiko grabbed his arm and screamed over the storm.

"We're close!"

She pointed north, dragged herself to her feet, pain and fatigue forgotten. Closing her eyes, reaching out beyond her barricade, she threw her thoughts into the void.

Buruu, can you hear me?

A long silence, empty and awful.

YUKIKO.

G.o.ds, yes, it's me! Are you all right?

FALSE WINGS BROKEN. BUT MY MIND IS MY OWN AGAIN. I AM SO SORRY ...

It's all right.

HER SCENT. I COULD NOT- I'm on my way, just stay where you are.

NOT MUCH CHOICE.

We'll be there soon. Just hold on.

BE WARY.