Endsinger: The Lotus War Book Three Read online

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  For Jack, Max and Poppy.

  Raise your fists.

  MONS OF THE

  SHIMA IMPERIUM

  TIGER CLAN (TORA)

  FOX CLAN (KITSUNE)

  DRAGON CLAN (RYU)

  PHOENIX CLAN (FUSHICHO)

  THE LOTUS GUILD

  THE SHIMA ISLES

  There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.

  —MARIO SAVIO

  LOTUS WAR CHARACTER REFRESHER

  WHO THE HELLS ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?

  Yukiko—A young girl with the ability to speak telepathically to animals (a gift called “the Kenning”). Yukiko forged a powerful bond with the thunder tiger, Buruu, and has become a figurehead of the Kagé rebellion. Her telepathic ability has been growing, granting her astonishing abilities and causing agonizing headaches, but its cause—her pregnancy to the Tiger Daimyo, Hiro—promises to be more painful still.

  Last known whereabouts: Yukiko traveled north, seeking the truth of her growing power. Discovering the female thunder tiger Kaiah and a gaijin lightning farm, she returned to Shima in time to help thwart Hiro’s marriage to Lady Aisha and save the rebellion from ruin.

  Buruu—A thunder tiger (aka arashitora). Yukiko’s best friend and loyal companion. Buruu is the last of his race in Shima. His feathers were clipped by Shōgun Yoritomo, and until he molts again, he cannot fly without the aid of mechanical wings built for him by the Guild Artificer, Kin. He is referred to by other arashitora as “Kinslayer,” though he hasn’t revealed why.

  Last known whereabouts: with Yukiko.

  Kin—An Artificer (engineer) of the Lotus Guild who built mechanical wings for Buruu. Kin tried to join the Kagé rebellion but found no acceptance among them. During the attack on Hiro’s wedding, Kin and the False-Lifer Ayane betrayed the rebellion and handed over its leader, Daichi, to the Lotus Guild.

  Last known whereabouts: after his betrayal, Kin was accepted back into the Guild.

  Akihito—A former hunter of the Imperial Court, and Yukiko’s friend since childhood. Trapped in Kigen city after Yukiko left, he found two siblings—Hana and Yoshi—both of whom possess the Kenning. During the attack on Hiro’s wedding, he rescued the pair from yakuza thugs, and brought them into the Kagé rebellion.

  Last known whereabouts: aboard the sky-ship Kurea, with the other Kagé members.

  Hana—A Burakumin (clanless) street waif, Hana served as a maid in Kigen palace. Inspired by Yukiko, she joined the Kagé and helped liberate Michi from her prison. She possesses the Kenning, and her mother was a gaijin captive of a Kitsune soldier. Her left eye was torn out by a yakuza gangster, but her right eye glows like rose-quartz. She has no idea why.

  Last known whereabouts: aboard the sky-ship Kurea, with the other Kagé members.

  Yoshi—Hana’s brother, Yoshi is a streetwise thief who crossed the yakuza, resulting in his lover’s murder and his sister’s maiming. He is half-gaijin, like his sister, and also possesses the Kenning, though he primarily uses it to speak to rats.

  Last known whereabouts: aboard the sky-ship Kurea.

  Jurou—Yoshi’s lover, tortured and killed by yakuza gangsters.

  Last known whereabouts: an alley in Kigen city.

  Daken—Yoshi and Hana’s cat. He died trying to save Hana from the yakuza.

  Last known whereabouts: yakuza warehouse.

  Kaiah—A female arashitora, discovered by Yukiko near the gaijin lightning farm. Kaiah and Buruu share a troubled past—she refers to him as “Kinslayer” and treats him with contempt. She agreed to help Yukiko and the rebellion out of a desire to defend Yukiko’s unborn children.

  Last known whereabouts: with Yukiko.

  Ayane—A member of the Lotus Guild, part of the False-Lifer sect. Inspired by Kin’s rebellion, Ayane traveled to the Iishi Mountains, seeking to join the Kagé, but she was met by cruelty and distrust, eventually suffering a brutal assault at Isao’s hands. This attack prompted Kin to betray the rebellion and sell Daichi to his former masters.

  Last known whereabouts: after Kin’s betrayal, Ayane was accepted back into the Guild.

  Yoritomo-no-miya—Shōgun of Shima. Daimyo of the Tiger clan. A lunatic who came too young to power, and was ultimately consumed by it.

  Last known whereabouts: Yoritomo was slain by Yukiko.

  Aisha—Yoritomo’s sister. Last daughter of the Kazumitsu Dynasty. Secret ally of the Kagé rebellion. Aisha’s neck was broken by Yoritomo when he discovered her rebel sympathies.

  Last known whereabouts: in order to spare herself the indignity of being married to Hiro, Aisha begged Michi to end her life. She died in Kigen palace.

  Michi—Maidservant of the Lady Aisha. Secret member of the Kagé rebellion. Swordmaster. Michi passed up a life of love and happiness with the Tiger Lord Ichizo (Hiro’s cousin), murdering him in her attempt to rescue Aisha. When begged by her Lady to end her suffering, the girl tearfully complied.

  Last known whereabouts: aboard the sky-ship Kurea, with the other Kagé members.

  Hiro—AKA “The Boy with the Sea-Green Eyes.” Daimyo of the Tiger Clan. Hiro has been propped up as Tiger clanlord by the Lotus Guild—they also replaced his arm with an iron prosthetic after Buruu tore it off. It was the Guild’s intention to marry Hiro to Aisha and cement his claim to the Shōgun’s throne, but the plan was thwarted. Hiro is Yukiko’s former lover, and desires nothing more than to see her dead.

  Last known whereabouts: Kigen city, in the ruins of his palace.

  Daichi—Leader of the Kagé rebellion. A former member of the Kazumitsu Elite who rebelled against the Shōgunate after Yoritomo mutilated his daughter, Kaori. Daichi has blacklung—a degenerative lung disease caused by lotus pollution, characterized by coughing fits and black saliva. He was betrayed by Kin during the attack on Hiro’s wedding, and captured by the Guild.

  Last known whereabouts: a Lotus Guild prison cell.

  Kaori—Lieutenant of the Kagé rebellion. Daichi’s daughter. She bears an awful knife scar on her face, courtesy of Yoritomo-no-miya. She helped spearhead the attack on Hiro’s wedding that ended in her father’s capture.

  Last known whereabouts: aboard the sky-ship Kurea.

  Kensai—Second Bloom of the Lotus Guild, and Voice of the Guild in Kigen city. One of the most powerful and influential Guildsmen alive, Kin’s adoptive uncle, and chief designer of the iron behemoth known as the Earthcrusher—a mechanical giant intended to end the gaijin war and destroy the Kagé rebellion.

  Last known whereabouts: Lotus Guild Chapterhouse in Kigen city.

&
nbsp; Piotr—A gaijin doctor who helped Yukiko escape captivity at the lightning farm. Piotr was friends with a captured rebel Guildsman, and vowed to get a message to the Guildsman’s lover after he died. Piotr traveled back to Shima with Yukiko, Buruu and Kaiah.

  Last known whereabouts: the Kagé stronghold in the Iishi mountains.

  Isao—A young member of the Kagé. He spied on Yukiko while bathing, discovering she bore the tattoo of the Shōgun on her arm. He was knifed in the back by Kin during the attack on Hiro’s wedding, as punishment for the cruelty he’d shown to Ayane.

  Last known whereabouts: dead in a Kigen basement.

  Blackbird—The dashing captain of the sky-ship Kurea, and a rebel sympathizer.

  Last known whereabouts: on his ship, flying the Kagé from the ruins of Kigen.

  PART ONE

  BIRTH

  Through darkness he walked,

  Holy Lord Izanagi. Maker and Father.

  His beloved lost; great Lady Izanami, Mother of All Things,

  Deep in Yomi’s black, sorrows strung about his neck, he searched for his love.

  And yet what he found, after miles and trials untold,

  He then left behind.

  —from the Book of Ten Thousand Days

  PROLOGUE

  The thing inside their mother wanted out.

  Swollen and heavy as stone, Lady Sun fell westward into the waiting oceans. A chill followed her descent, coiled in the mountain shadows, creeping toward the dusty little farm and its withered fields. The wind brought the brittle bite of approaching winter, the vapor from the deadlands stirring like a lover at its touch, rippling with the sound of their mother’s screams.

  Tetsuo and Hikita crouched together in the dirt, all grubby faces and threadbare rags. The children had fled the house when the noise became too much. Their mother’s agonized cries had reduced little Tetsuo to tears, and Hikita took his younger brother’s hand and led him out into the dark and quiet. Hikita knew he must be strong. He was the man now. Thin shoulders only ten summers old, carrying the weight of his family and the weight of the world.

  Their neighbor had arrived with the midwife, and now the women clustered about the bed as Mother wailed, stepping outside only to dash buckets of red water onto cracked earth, or wring bloody rags between their fingers. Hikita would watch them then, his eyes hidden behind soot-smeared glass, black and empty as the dusk above their heads.

  He knew what another mouth meant for his family. Knew their pitiful stead wouldn’t have enough good earth left next season to feed three, let alone four. But the baby was coming, whether he willed it or not. There was nowhere else for it to go, after all.

  Tetsuo stabbed at the ashen earth with a stick. The blood lotus crop around them swayed and rolled, voices whispering in the husk-dry leaves.

  “Do you think it will be another boy?”

  “Only the Maker knows,” Hikita replied.

  “I would like a sister.”

  “I would like the cur who put that baby in her to be at her side. I would like Father to still be alive.” Hikita scowled, climbing to his feet. “Like has nothing to do with life.”

  He stared at the Tōnan mountains to the west; jagged fists raised against the setting sun. Between Hikita’s feet and those stone roots, miles of deadlands stretched into the dark—cracks in the earth running twenty feet deep, wreathed in choking fog. Through the fumes, he could see a broken wagon here, a collapsed barn there. Farmsteads run to ruin, swallowed by the blackness spreading from the Stain. He knew somewhere in those mountains loomed First House, the heart of Guild power in Shima. The ones who fed the lotus with the blood of round-eyes, or so the radio sometimes said. The ones who were bleeding this land dry for the sake of fuel and flowers.

  Sometimes, when the sky-ships flew overhead, the windows would rattle and little Tetsuo would wake from his sleep, thinking demons were rising from the hells. But Hikita knew the oni had better things to do than trouble the sleep of foolish boys. The Endsinger’s children dwelled below the earth, deep in the Yomi underworld. It was men who stained the clouds in their roaring machines. Men who turned the sky to red, the land to ashes, the rain to black. Not demons. Not gods. Just men.

  A trembling wail split the dusk, Mother shrieking, throat raw. Hikita scowled again, lifted his kerchief and spat. Brother or sister, it didn’t matter. He’d hate that child. Hate it as he hated its father, with his smooth talk and smoother smile. A dog who took advantage of a widow’s loneliness, left her in dishonor, a bastard in her belly. He’d kill him if he saw him again. Show him that though they lived on the Stain’s edge, in the poorest lands in all the seven islands of Shima, they were still Ryu clan. The blood of Dragons still flowed in their veins.

  The windows began rattling and Hikita looked up, expecting to see a Guild sky-ship lumbering out of the dusk. But the sky was an empty, fading red, scabbed with storm clouds. The rattling intensified, the earth trembling so violently he fell to his knees. Tetsuo crawled across the bucking soil, a great belly-sore rumble beneath them. The brothers held each other as the island shook, Tetsuo crying out in fear.

  “Another earthquake?”

  The fifth in as many weeks. The rumbling stilled, choking slowly, until the skitter of rotten earth into the deadlands’ fissures was the only noise. A thin cry began: a newborn’s first bewildered plea as it was dragged from bloody warmth into this world of men. Kicking and screaming.

  “It’s here!” Tetsuo cried, the tremors forgotten. He slipped from Hikita’s embrace and dashed into the house, dirty heels beating the verandah like drums.

  Hikita stood slowly, listening to the hungry wails from their newest mouth. He could hear his mother crying, the joy in her voice as she called for him to come meet his new sister. And the boy shook his head and licked the ashes from his lips, looking across the tall stalks of blood lotus to the desolation around the mountain’s feet.

  He blinked. Squinted in the gloom.

  Tiny lights. Blood-red. A pair, shining between the lotus fronds. The crunch of little feet in dead leaves and deader earth. Hikita peered into the dark, the wails of his new sibling filling his ears. The deadlands’ fumes were an oil-thick shadow, rippling like black water. The lotus stalks bent gently—something moving through the crop—and the tiny lights flickered out, once, twice, winking like the long-lost stars in the skies overhead.

  No, not winking, he realized.

  Blinking.

  A figure shuffled from the stalks, covered in black earth and ashes. It stood two feet high, but its arms hung long and low, back bent as it shuffled forward and snuffled at the air. Its eyes were scarlet, casting a bloody light over heavy brows, hairless skull, swollen lips. It saw the boy, lips splitting into an idiot grin like a toddler who’d just found a new playmate. But its teeth were yellowed fangs, tusks protruding from its lower jaw, and Hikita realized beneath the mask of dirt and ash, its skin was midnight blue.

  “Uh-uuhhhhhhhh,” it said, holding out its arms.

  Hikita’s eyes were fixed on the talons set in those grasping fingers, sharp as katana.

  “Gn-uhhhhh…”

  “Oni,” he breathed. “Lord Izanagi save me.”

  The demon flinched at the Maker God’s name, eyes growing bright and wide. It loped forward, knuckles dragging in the earth, a shriek of rage spilling from crooked fangs.

  Hikita screamed. Screamed with his sister, here on her birthing day in the shadow of those broken peaks, amidst the rot creeping like a cancer across the island’s skin. Screamed as if it were his final breath. As if it were all he was, and all he ever would be.

  As if the world itself was ending.

  1

  SCHISM

  Lightning burned the skies to white, glinting on black glass all around her.

  Buruu and Kaiah loomed over her, their thoughts a raging storm in her mind.

  And in her head, in her belly, only pain.

  YUKIKO …

  What is she talking about?

&nbs
p; - TELL HER. -

  Tell me what? Who is “they”?

  YUKIKO, YOU ARE WITH CHILD—

  “Yukiko.”

  The girl opened her eyes, the sweet scent of burning cedar in her lungs. It took a moment to remember where she was. Who she was. What had brought them to this.

  She knelt beside a firepit in a simple house at the heart of a village in the trees. A bone-deep cold had slunk down from the mountains, hungry as ghosts, stealing through the Kagé stronghold and bringing the freezing promise of winter to come. Yukiko could smell it in the air, waiting at the edge of the stage. Storm clouds and white frost and black, black rain.

  Six others sat around the flames. The bleeding remnants of a beheaded rebellion.

  Soldiers without a captain?

  Or sheep without a shepherd?

  Kaori stared at Yukiko across the fire, steel-gray eyes bloodshot and circled with shadows. A long fringe was draped over the scar running forehead to chin, skin pale and drawn. She sat on Daichi’s cushion at the head of the circle—as his daughter, everyone assumed Kaori would take charge now the leader of the rebellion was gone.

  No, not gone, Yukiko thought.

  Taken.

  Other Kagé sat beside Kaori: Maro, the only other remaining member of the original council, long hair bound in warrior’s braids, a leather patch over his missing eye. Beside him sat the Blackbird, the sky-ship captain who’d flown them from Kigen’s smoldering ruin. The man’s scowl was almost hidden beneath an enormous straw hat, his beard as thick as hedgerows. Then there was Michi of course, small and razor sharp, a chainkatana and wakizashi marked with the sigils of a noble Tiger household across her back. Little Tomo, the black and white pup she’d rescued from Aisha’s chambers, sat in her lap, gnawing a knotted rope.

  Lightning arced across an angry horizon.