The Last Stormdancer Read Free Page B

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 Sh ō gun’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 Sh ō gun’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