“Make it three times, then. Or are those magistrate’s robes I put you in sending you soft?”
Ichizo bowed with a wry smile, walking to one of the wooden figures and slipping on the training armor, a servant buckling it in place. Hiro sipped his water as Ichizo suited up—heavy gauntlets, breastplate, a cowled helm—watching his cousin test a half-dozen practice blades before he found one with balance to his liking. The Lord Magistrate finally stepped into the sparring circle, raised his sword in salute. The Daimyo tossed his cup to another servant, swept his ponytail back over his shoulder and flourished a new bokken with his iron sword arm.
“Defend yourself,” Hiro hissed.
The Daimyo charged across the room, footsteps echoing floor to high ceiling, bringing his sword down toward his Lord Magistrate’s head. Ichizo parried, impact jarring his wrists, knocked aside amidst the hiss and whirr of Hiro’s prosthetic. A foot to his chest sent him stumbling back, hissing and coughing, opening his eyes just in time to fend off another flurry of blows from Hiro’s blade—face, chest, gut.
He backed away, astonished at the ferocity of the attack. Hiro smiled, watching him over the edge of his blade, waiting for his counter.
“So,” he said. “Speak.”
Ichizo lunged, once, twice, Hiro fending off both strikes with practiced ease, the sharp notes of wood cracking against wood ringing in his ears.
“It is of little import, great Lord.”
Strike. Parry. Lunge.
“Come now,” Hiro said, dancing away. “It seems I speak of nothing these days save wedding plans.” Strike. “Of ministers who cannot be allowed to sit with magistrates at the reception because of slights three decades old.” Feint. “Of whether to offer insult to the attending Guildsmen by serving food and drink they consider impure, or insult by serving nothing at all.”
“My sympathies, cousin.” Ichizo ducked a scything blow aimed at his head, fell back for breathing room. “I suppose dominion over an entire nation comes with its drawbacks. But the wedding at least will be over soon.”
Feint. Dodge. Lunge.
“Hai,” Hiro nodded. “All the oni in the hells could not stop it now.”
“… Would you wish them to?”
Hiro struck, clipped Ichizo’s shoulder, kicked him again in the chest. The Lord Magistrate staggered away, blade at half-guard, but the Daimyo did not press.
“Come,” Hiro said, breathing easy, flexing his iron arm. “Speak your piece. Your intrigues offer welcome diversion if nothing else.”
Ichizo waved the request away with one hand, sweat burning his eyes.
“I fear it is a trifling thing, great Lord.”
“Trifling. This would be about your prisoner, then…”
Ichizo felt his stomach turn. He risked a glance at the servants. The other samurai. A humorless smile creased Hiro’s lips, and he dismissed the retinue with a wave of his blade. The group shuffled from the room with low bows, the sparring partners looking particularly grateful. Silence descended on the dojo, broken only by the sparrows choking in the gardens outside, the creak of the boards beneath their feet, Ichizo’s sodden gasps dragged into burning lungs.
The Lord Magistrate cleared his throat. Swallowed hard.
“You have heard.”
“You would be surprised what the Guild knows about the happenings in this palace.”
Ichizo glanced at the spider-drone perched on the railing of the mezzanine above. That cursed blood-red eye, seeing and telling all. “It displeases you?”
Hiro’s eyes were as hard as the prosthetic at his side. Just as cold. Just as lifeless. Ichizo searched his cousin’s face for some remnant of the boy he had played soldiers with around his father’s estates; toy bokken in their hands, swiping the wooden swords at imaginary legions of Shima’s enemies. Always smiling, always laughing.
Centuries ago.
“It displeases me,” Hiro said.
“She is beautiful, cousin. Like the first flower after winter’s end.”
“She is dangerous. I asked you to question these girls, Ichizo, not bed them. You have lost your clarity. Her mistress is purest poison. Who is to say how far her taint spread?”
“Yoritomo’s assassin tried to murder this girl. Cut her to pieces and nearly caved her head in. That hardly seems in keeping if they were allies. I am not a fool, Hiro.”
“No? And what does your beauty say when she lies in your arms at night? That she loves you?” Hiro flourished his blade in his iron hand, hissing fingers drumming across the hilt. “A woman’s betrayal cuts bone-deep, cousin.”
“Not all of them are liars, Hiro. Not all of them are false.”
“What would you have of me?”
“To set Michi-chan free. Under my recognizance. She wishes to see her mistr—”
“We have spoken of this before.”
His breath returned, Ichizo struck without warning, the blow narrowly missing Hiro’s face. The Daimyo struck back, ferocious, no smile on his lips, pressing hard with blow after blow until Ichizo again backed away.
“Tenacity is one of my strengths, great Lord,” he grinned, gasping.
“You ask the impossible, Lord Magistrate.”
“I would consider it a personal favor, Daimyo.” Ichizo looked at his cousin, eyes pleading. “To a kinsman who ran with you when the deadlands in Blackstone province were still lotus fields, and who always let you beat him with the bokken.”
“Let me beat you?”
Hiro laughed despite himself, his smile bright. For a brief moment, the facade of the Daimyo, the Iron Samurai, fell away, and all that remained was the boy Ichizo had always known. The boy he’d grown up with. The boy he trusted.
“Lord Izanagi strike you down for a bastard and a liar, cousin,” Hiro grinned.
“Please, cousin.” Ichizo stepped closer, smile slowly fading. “There is much to be said for a merciful rule.”
Hiro stroked his goatee, breathed deep. He stood for a silent minute, motionless as the training dummies surrounding them. Blue-black smoke hung about his brow, turned his eyes the deep green of lotus leaves. When he finally spoke, his voice rang across the dojo, cold and hard as a knife sinking into Ichizo’s back.
“Those boys you spoke of are men now, Ichizo-san. Those days you spoke of are gone. Best to forget they ever were, and remember what you are.”
“I am a man in love, cousin.”
Ichizo looked at Hiro with pleading eyes.
“Surely, you remember what that was like?”
Without a sound, Hiro raised his blade and struck, faster than Ichizo would have believed possible. The blade cracked across his shoulder, another strike smashing his sword from nerveless fingers. Hiro circled behind, struck him across his back so hard the blade simply shattered, a hail of splinters filling the air along with a damp spray of spittle, a strangled cry as Ichizo stumbled forward, collapsed to his knees.
The Lord Magistrate rolled onto his back, wincing, gasping, empty palm upheld in surrender. His Daimyo stood above him, shattered blade clutched in his iron hand. His voice was cold as tombs.
“I remember what it was to be a man in love, cousin.”
Hiro cast the broken sword onto the floor with a clatter, held up iron fingers, curling them into a solid, hissing fist.
“Every single night.”
“I wonder what you would say, if I asked you to marry me.”
They lay entwined amidst the bed’s ruins, sweat drying on their skin. Michi’s hair adrift across her cheeks, her head upon his chest, lulled almost to sleeping by the song of his heart. But his words dragged her back into full waking, incredulity creeping into her voice as she raised herself up on one elbow and stared at the viper in her arms.