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  Now, on the eve of the heist, the furnace in her chest had replaced any need for the sun’s warmth on her skin. As she sat beside Mitsuo in the dark booth, she worried that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Across from them, Yoshiaki beamed as he unrolled the key piece of Mitsuo’s plan.

  Characters literally danced on the scroll. It appeared at one point to be dense legalese about the responsibilities that the bearer of this document had been entrusted with, but the longer Yaki stared at it, the more she caught snippets of the deeds of one Xurihama Nishamura and how he gave his life for the rebellion against the Great Wyrm. Ink-sprite warriors wielding long single brush strokes as swords battled dragons up and down the decorative border. At the bottom of the document, a box waited for her own name next to a similar box that barely contained the pulsing signature of Xao Nishamura, the Scion of the Nishamura approximately three generations earlier and long dead.

  “So, you’re saying that you couldn’t have made all this?” Yaki prodded Mitsuo, who sat next to her with a copy waiting for his signature as well.

  “I could have done this.” Mitsuo pointed at the text. “This is all you need. The border is just for him showing off.”

  “If Mitsuo’s a scribe, then so is any five-year-old with a piece of chalk,” Yoshiaki said.

  Mitsuo frowned but didn’t argue his cousin’s point. Instead, he tapped the signature of his ancestor. “This is the part I couldn’t do; all the signature stamps are supposed to be destroyed when the head of a house passes.” He looked up at Yoshiaki and eyed him curiously.

  “I’ll never tell.” Yoshiaki pushed a pair of inkwells and brushes at them. “Mix a little of your blood into the ink; otherwise, the old ghosts who guard the vault won’t see the signature.”

  Unease stirred within her as she took her inkwell. After adding a drop of her blood, she made her name in the box with a few efficient strokes of the brush, then frowned at the tiny single character that floated there next to the grand imperial stamp of the ancient Nishamura. Having no house and no titles, her name looked childish on the page. Even if she expanded it to Yaki of Madria, it looked lopsided, since individuals without a formally declared house generally named both their mother and father. Rumors about the Steward aside, Yaki couldn’t help be saddened that she’d never get the chance to squeeze her father’s identity out of Madria.

  Of course, it had been her job to fix that houselessness, a little voice reminded her. She sat back and placed her hand over her heart, and listened to the quiet thrum within her chest. Not much possibility of that anymore. Straightening, she pushed the paper back at Yoshiaki. He didn’t notice it immediately. Brows furrowed, he stared down to Yaki’s left. Following his gaze showed only empty air at the corner of the table.

  “Yoshiaki?” Mitsuo asked. “You sure these will work?”

  His cousin immediately blinked and gave a little shiver. “Yes!” he squeaked. “They’ll get you past our ancestors and they’ll convince Hana’s.” He refocused on Mitsuo. “But you make sure you get me that ink. And burn those things as soon as you get out. Promise me, cousin.”

  Mitsuo grinned and made a sign that mimicked purifying his hands for entering a temple. “I swear on my birthright.”

  The look Yoshiaki gave him deepened into a glare. “Do better than that.”

  This caused Mitsuo to roll his eyes. “Fine. If I lie, may I fall into a vat of molten metal, for my life is forfeit.” The grin came back double strength. “Better?”

  Yoshiaki gave a little nod and collected his things. “I’ll wait for you down by the docks; if it’s too hot, then hide the ink and have an ink sprite tell me the location.” Not hearing any objection, he slung his satchel over his shoulder and made for the door. He had to cross a puddle of beer that some other patron had spilled, and Yaki doubted anyone else saw the wet pawprints that followed him out the door. Her mouth went dry as a bone. Had she just seen the Death Panther?

  Turning back, she found Mitsuo coming in close, lips pursed. A little shock of surprise went through her body has he kissed her. She nearly pushed him away before remembering herself and pulling him deeper into it. She gave herself up to for a long moment, wishing it were real. She assumed the mask of Lady Cat over herself and pulled away with a sly, mischievous smile. For a moment, she wondered if she should care about Yoshiaki’s fate, as Mitsuo’s eyes had that wicked glow in them that meant he expected a reward for getting her this far. Still, finding out his cousin was dead would probably be worse than a missed opportunity for a roll.

  She put a finger over his lips as he came in for another kiss. “Hold on. You might not have anything left to set up for tomorrow night, but I can’t let you distract me this evening.”

  He took her hand and kissed it delicately. “Surely, you can spare a few minutes for a break. You’re working very hard.”

  Yaki twisted her hand from his grasp and slid closer to him like a cat marking her territory. “I don’t do quick,” she purred. “If I start, I’m not letting you go for hours.” A single nibble on the lobe of his ear made him shiver so hard that it was easy to slip from his grip. “Later, Foxy.” Yaki giggled as he made a halfhearted grab for her.

  “You’ll come back later tonight?” he asked.

  “I promise.” Yaki made sure to give him a great view as she left the tavern, and broke into a run as soon as she stepped out of his line of sight.

  The wet pawprints seemed to leap out of the road and into her eyes as she followed them to Yoshiaki. He hadn’t gotten far in the moments it had taken to disengage from Mitsuo. Immediately, she shifted from looking at the forger to possible threats. Had he screwed up? Or maybe Mitsuo would kill him now that they had the documents? Or was Shuri waiting to cut him into sliced market meat? Possibilities whirled as she felt the Death Panther’s mark throb. What did the spirit really want with her?

  So many questions and zero answers came to her as she tracked Yoshiaki up the hill to a shop in the High Market. While the market closed as soon as the sun touched the mountain’s peaks, the twilight streets were crowded as many made their way to their favorite evening haunts, free of the eye of their absent Emperor. The masses of people provided Yaki plenty of places to hide when Yoshiaki glanced back.

  The shop advertised traditional calligraphy, its banner swarming with canine-shaped ink sprites darting between the characters. The building stood low and squat, no apartments above it. No apartments meant fewer neighbors, good for something not precisely legal. Also, no hearth kami to protect it, which would explain all the ink sprites. Judging from the size of the chimney, it was originally a blacksmith’s shop. Ink sprites could alert you to all sorts of things, but nothing beat the protection of a hearth kami. Yaki entered the alleyway and crouched by the back doorway, an actual wooden door with a stout lock speaking to Yoshiaki’s paranoia about the contents of the shop.

  Fortunately, the windows were open, probably to let out the nasty fumes of specialized ink he used.

  “Hey, cuz,” a voice boomed from inside.

  A long silence followed, then a deep breath. “What brings you here, Ryouta?”

  Oh, no. Yaki drew her sword and shrank it down to a thick dagger. Would she have to kill Ryouta to save Yoshiaki?

  “Just seeing what you’re working on, cousin. Looks like you’ve been a busy bee. Got your chemistry set out and everything.” Heavy footsteps followed toward the door. In her hiding place, Yaki’s breath caught. Ryouta’s mother couldn’t find out about their little raid. Did the Death Panther bring her there to save Yoshiaki from his cousin?

  “Private commission,” Yoshiaki said.

  “For Mitsuo and that little tribal whore, I bet. Got some crazy scheme.”

  “So what if they do? I can do stuff without you,” Yoshiaki whined. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  Yaki shifted position away from the window, readying herself to spring through it. Once Ryouta sounded like he’d start beating answers out of Yoshiaki, she’d step in.

&nbs
p; “You lie well on paper, Yoshiaki, but it’s written all over your face. Spill,” Ryouta said.

  “Fine.” Yoshiaki gave the smallest of sighs. “Mitsuo and Badger are planning on stealing several tons of quicksilver from the foundry and buy themselves a ship.”

  A soft sound of surprise exited Yaki’s lips before she could stop it. He’d betrayed them with barely any hesitation. Already she heard Yoshiaki begin to spill all the details he’d been told: “So, it’s like this...”

  Yaki’s grip on the hilt of her sword tightened with every word out of Yoshiaki’s lips as anger stoked the warmth in her chest to an inferno. A small wisp of black smoke leaked from her nostrils with every breath. Her mind raced with possibilities on how to stop this. How to shut him up.

  “Hah!” Ryouta barked at the end of Yoshiaki’s tale. “Idiot Mitsuo. That will never work. Like three hundred workers aren’t going to notice you walking out with six barrels of quicksilver. You’ll need one of the heavy-duty sleds for that much, and that won’t even fit through the doors.”

  He clapped his hands. “Here’s what we’re gunna do. We’re going to catch Mitsuo red-handed, and if his little whore is actually Yaki of Madria, we’ll hand her directly to the Steward. Mother will be pleased.”

  No, Yaki thought, and stood. She had to end this. She squinted at that paper shutter. If she could figure out where Ryouta stood in the room, she could get a clear shot. The shade had been fixed to the top and bottom of the window and had gaps of an eighth of an inch on either side. On its surface, ink sprites paced. If she so much as breathed on it, they might howl. She positioned her herself to peer through a slit, moving her head back and forth to see the area beyond.

  “I wonder what he’s up to with that whore of his. She’s been in the sky so long; do you think she floats in bed? I bet her mother shares her with the entire ship.” Yaki could see Ryouta’s lecherous grin in her mind’s eye. Inside the shop she could see Yoshiaki standing in the corner; he looked pale but he wore a smirk at his cousin’s comments. But where was that bastard Ryouta? Yaki’s mouth had drawn up into a snarl as she switched to the other side of window.

  “She’s probably so diseased that his pecker’s turning black at this moment.”

  With murderous intent, Yaki stepped forward to broaden her view through the slit. Her nose nearly touched the windowsill.

  She had zero time to react when a massive fist punched through the paper shade and struck her in the eye with a vicious right hook that sent Yaki’s world crashing sideways.

  “Ha! Got you, you iron-cunted whore!” Ryouta crowed as Yaki shook away the stars and the pain. The tearing of paper and the tiny howls of the ink sprites filled the air as Ryouta opened the door. He came out with his rapier in hand.

  Yaki staggered to her feet, face throbbing from the blow. He towered over her wobbling form. “What do you have to say now? Should have called yourself Foolish Bitch instead of Badger.”

  He’d baited her and she had fallen for it. Drawn to his insults like a suicidal moth to an open flame.

  Yaki spat blood into the dirt. “I’d call you names, too, but it’s not wise to speak ill of the dead.” Yaki thumbed the crystal in her blade, which had already been pointing at his heart. It shot forward, but going from dagger length to a razor-thin blade took a moment longer. He jerked to the side, the blade impaling his shoulder instead of his chest. His eyes bugged like a stepped-on frog, and Ryouta lunged with his own sword. Yaki batted the blow aside with the basket of her rapier; shortening her sword so it regained some stoutness, she drove it into his gut.

  He made a surprised wheezing sound as Yaki pulled the bloody blade from his stomach and buried it in his throat. Blood burst from his neck and poured down the length of the weapon.

  Yaki jerked the sword free before the blood over ran the hilt, and Ryouta slipped to the ground with a wet gurgle. The focus of life had already left his eyes. She swung her sword downward, his blood making a line of dots against the wall, before shouldering open the door and stepping into Yoshiaki’s office.

  He stood there like a mole blinded by the sudden appearance of the sun. While heat burned in her chest to the point that the very air wriggled and squirmed from it, Yaki herself felt cold. “You betrayed me,” she told Yoshiaki, her voice flat and distant as Ryouta’s insults echoed across her mind.

  “Y-y-you killed him!” Yoshiaki stuttered.

  “He didn’t even have to hit you. You intended to betray us from the moment you heard. Do you know what my mother does to people who go back on deals with her?” Disbelief crept into Yaki’s voice as she shook her head and began taking steps forward.

  “I won’t tell anyone! I swear!” he screeched, pulling a knife from somewhere beneath his robes.

  “You won’t,” Yaki agreed. “I commit your soul to the care of the Death Panther; may she deliver your soul to the afterlife you deserve.”

  “Plea—”

  The blade piercing his heart cut the sound of his voice off. He looked down at the thin strand of metal that protruded from his breast. It made a tiny thwip sound as the blade retracted back to the hilt. Blood fountained from the hole; for a moment, both Yoshiaki and Yaki stared at it as it pooled at his feet.

  Belatedly, Yoshiaki moved his hand to cover the wound; with a wet cough that brought up a bubble of red, he sank to his knees and fell back. He reached his bloody hand up, grasping at something invisible, and issued a coughing rattle before stilling.

  The sword fell from Yaki’s hand with a clatter on the stone floor. Move, child. There is still work to be done, her mother’s voice echoed into her head. She not did move. Her eyes fixed on the blood she stood in; it had flowed through a groove in the tiling to pool around her feet. She tracked it back to Yoshiaki’s body. A stillness had fallen, and while abstractly, Yaki could hear the ink sprites howling for their fallen master, it seemed that the very air around her had stopped flowing. As if the eye of the very world had fallen on her. A trembling hand covered her eyes as the first sob wracked her body. Whispers filled her head, urging her to stop; she still had to move Ryouta’s body out of the alley. Still the sobs welled up out of her, unstoppable, a shaking, silent weeping that did not break the stillness but echoed through it.

  With her eyes closed, something warm wrapped around her body. Impossibly soft and otherworldly fur stroked her cheek. Yaki threw her arms around the Death Panther’s neck and buried her face in it. “Why?” Yaki whispered into her. “Why do you continue to save me?” In response, the shadow cat purred like a proud mother and pulled away.

  “I do not save you,” the Death Panther whispered. “We walk together as I have always walked with life. The end of my journey is the end of all.”

  Yaki kept her eyes closed, and in the dark behind her eyelids, she could see the outline of the Panther sitting in front of her. “Please,” Yaki said, remembering each time she had nearly met her end and how her patron had refused to take her. “Tell me why. What is all this heading towards? If these men had lived, they’d have ruined it all. Why must I succeed tomorrow night? Why is that important to you?” Yaki sniffled and wiped at her eyes.

  “I keep my claws sharp and my fur well groomed. What is the use of a paw in a hunter’s trap? Where is the joy of raising a cub that cannot grow?” The great cat stood and turned; the tip of her ethereal tail brushed Yaki’s cheek.

  Her eyes opened and Death Panther departed with the light that played on Yoshiaki’s unmoving corpse, staring up in an expression of surprise that would never fade.

  A heavy, wet sniff cleared her nose, and she wiped it with the backside of her sleeve. A mirror sitting against the wall caught her reflection and hurled it back at her. Her painted face, marred both by tears and a bloody handprint across one side of her features. She bared her teeth at it. “There, Mother. See? I’m a monster just like you.” Yaki had always known this day would come. When she would become the murderer instead of the witness. She had assumed it would be with a poison or by placing a stack o
f coins into an assassin’s palm. Instead, her baptism by blood would have done her sister proud. Maybe. Yaki couldn’t see Ishe as one who would spill tears over someone who had sold her out. Now, as Yoshiaki’s blood cooled, there seemed to be options she hadn’t considered. Tying him up and telling Mitsuo where he was after she had the quicksilver, for example.

  Yaki dragged Ryouta’s body into the office. Tonight, a priest would have a nightmare, no doubt, and the kami would guide them to the house in the morning. Laying Ryouta next to Yoshiaki, she placed her hand over her heart and felt the still nearly scalding heat emanating from it. She held her breath and the heat began to grow. Have to get rid of the evidence. The thought was clear. An image of a plume of smoke stretching up from the city pushed the thought aside and she blew smoke out instead.

  Instead of setting the building aflame, she searched the miscellaneous bottles on the shelf until she found bleach for the blood on her dress. It would be white as snow by the time she was done. As the dress soaked, she worked on repairing her makeup while sucking on a nugget of gold she’d found in Yoshiaki’s pocket. She’d had enough death for one day.

  Chapter Thirty

  The Golden Hills uses crystals to enhance their crop yields. More food swells the numbers of both High Tree and Low Rivers. Both know that without the city-state, famine would strike them down. It is the key to peace.

  Seek Fire, Chief of the Turtle Clan of the Low Rivers Tribe, Lorekeeper

  Sleep released Ishe reluctantly, letting Drosa and Unyet’s voices drift in and out of half-waking dreams. She instinctively shielded her eyes against the brightness of the room and turned away from the miniature sun that blazed directly overhead. Warm skin met her face. The memories of the last few days came back to her, and with a swallow, she lifted the hand away to examine it. The oil-slick texture of her hand had been replaced with the complex texture of her deep copper skin. Long, slender fingers appeared from the edge of Ishe’s view and wrapped around the edge of her mitt.