To even glance into the Kenning was to look at the sun. To make cinders of her eyes. But she could feel Buruu in there, rumbling beneath it all like thunder on a distant horizon. She reached for him, synapses ablaze—just a touch to let him know she was awake. The saké did its work; black velvet thrown over her head and smothering the noise and heat of the world. She felt it flow her to her edges, a beautiful gravity filling her to her fingernails, dragging the Kenning to some quiet corner in her mind and choking until it could barely breathe.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, curled like a babe in lightless, amniotic warmth. But finally she opened her eyes a sliver, saw the old man still seated at the edge of her bed, concern plain in those steel-gray eyes. He coughed once, twice, as if he’d been struggling to remain silent, wiping his knuckles across his lips. And finally he met her gaze.
“What is happening to you, Yukiko?”
His voice was graveled. Rusted. The muddy rasp of a pipe-fiend, so akin to her father’s for a moment she thought she was dreaming.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, tongue numb. “I can hear everything. Animals. People. Everyone. Inside my head.”
The old man frowned. “Their thoughts?”
“Hai. But it’s like everyone shouting … all at once. It’s deafening.”
He stroked his moustache, slow and thoughtful. “The cause?”
“I don’t know. My father never told me about this. No one told me anything.”
“I do not mean to cause you alarm…” the old man paused, licked his lips, “but I think you caused an earthquake today.”
She stared at him, jaw slightly agape, blinking slow.
“Do you not remember the ground shaking?” Daichi asked. “Trees shivering like frightened children as you fell to your knees?”
“No.” A hollow whisper. “Gods…”
“Can you not hold it at bay? Control it?”
Yukiko fixed the old man in a bleary stare. The saké was heat in her veins and in her cheeks, pulling her eyelids closed. Legs trembling. Mouth dry. “My father … I think perhaps he smoked lotus to keep it quiet. Liquor seems to dull it, too.”
“That seems a dangerous road to walk. One that does not end in answers.”
“I know it,” she sighed, her tongue clumsy on her teeth. “Truly, I do. I don’t want to hide in the bottom of a bottle.”
“Kaori told me of the birds. The ones who killed themselves against your bedroom walls.”
“Buruu said it was because I was screaming. Inside their heads.”
“And now you say you can hear not just the thoughts of beasts, but of people too?”
Yukiko remained silent, awful certainty of Daichi’s destination building in her gut.
“Leave aside the earthquake for a moment,” he said. “The fact you may shake the very island beneath our feet when you get upset. Think for a moment what else might happen if you lose control again.”
“Are you saying—”
“I say nothing. I simply wonder if next time, it is not birds trying to silence your screams, but people.” The old man gestured around him. “Us.”
“Gods…”
“Indeed.”
Yukiko blinked, cold dread in her belly. She hadn’t even considered the thought …
“I don’t know what to do, Daichi,” she breathed, dragging her fingers through her hair. “I have nobody to ask how to control this thing. No teacher. No father. Nothing.”
Daichi steepled his hands beneath his chin, brows drawn together in thought. A long silence passed, his frown growing darker as moments turned to minutes.
“I did not wish to tell you this,” he finally said. “I should have spoken of it after the incident with the birds, but I hoped the matter not as grave as now I know it to be. And in truth, we cannot afford to lose you, Yukiko.”
“I don’t understand…”
“I know where you can find your answers. If answers exist to be found anywhere at all.” The old man coughed, wiped his mouth on his sleeve with a grimace. “A monastery on the isle of Shabishii, far north of here, near the Imperium’s edge. It was said the monks there kept the mysteries of the world inked on their flesh.”
“To keep them secret?”
“To keep them safe. Their order began with the rise of the Tenma Emperors, when the Imperial Censors first started burning ‘indecent’ literature. The monks tattooed themselves with ancient arts and the deepest secrets, that they would not be lost to the Imperium’s hubris. Much harder to kill a living man than incinerate a paper scroll.”
Yukiko raised an eyebrow. “But what happened when a monk died?”
“I do not know.” Daichi coughed again, rubbed at his throat as if pained. “I do not even know if the monastery still stands. I have heard rumor it was destroyed. Others say it is cursed.”
“People say the same about these mountains.”
“Precisely,” Daichi smiled. “I am hoping the Painted Brotherhood may encourage those rumors for the same reason we do. To keep away unwanted eyes.”
“Painted Brotherhood…”
“So they were named.”
Yukiko drew a deep, shivering breath, dragged her knuckles across her mouth. Beyond the saké blur, deep through the haze she’d plunged herself into, she could still hear it. The cacophony. The inferno waiting inside her head.
“But the wedding…” she said. “Aisha. The dynasty … I can’t leave now.”
“You see our dilemma. We need you and Buruu more than ever. And in truth, if all that was at stake were a few more birds, I could risk your presence here. But the people of this village … the wives and daughters and husbands and sons…”
“I’m a danger to them.”
The old man sighed, staring at empty palms as if they might hold the answers he sought.
“Hai.”
“So risk flying north on what might be a fool’s errand, or stay here and risk the entire village? Those are my options?”
A faint smile. “Nobody said being the Stormdancer would be easy.”
Yukiko pressed her knuckles to her temples, the throb pulsing just below the saké lull. Misery and pain and the swelling tide, pushing them all back with the simple, undeniable truth—that the choice Daichi presented was no choice at all. The path was clear. She need only start walking. And every second she wasted was another second the wedding drew closer. But still …
But still …
“We’ll be swift,” she said. “Fly to Shabishii as fast as we can, find what truths we may. At the very least, it’ll be a lot quieter in the sky.”
Daichi nodded. “You will be back in time to stop Aisha’s wedding, with a little luck.”
“You know what they say.” A tired, colorless smile. “Kitsune looks after his own…”
“So I will pray.”
Daichi reached out and took her hand. His fingers were callused, faint liver spots and wrinkles decades deep. She met his eyes, and for a moment, she saw past the mask he wore, the iron he encased his soul inside. He seemed terribly old, bent beneath his burdens, tired beyond all want of sleep. His smile was frayed at the hem.
“I know what it is we are asking of you, Yukiko. I see the toll it takes.”
She looked into his eyes, searching for a hint of scorn and finding none. The words inside her were like living things, bubbling in her throat, demanding to be aired. She forced her lips together, fighting a losing battle to keep them at bay. When finally they spilled forth, they were a whisper muffled by the curtain of her hair.
“It’s all weighing too heavy, Daichi.” She took a shuddering breath, sighed. “Being this thing. This Stormdancer. I feel like an utter fraud. A little girl stamping her feet and screaming life isn’t fair.”