A pair of strong but gentle hands found Juno’s shoulders and lifted her from the floor. Her world was a haze of pain and memories. She blinked to clear the tears from her eyes, and found Bishop Isshi’s face staring into hers.
“Ms Montressen? Can you hear me?” Juno nodded woodenly. Isshi let out a relieved sigh. “You gave me quite a scare. I wasn’t sure what happened. One minute you were fine, the next you were on the floor, unconscious. We had a lot of debris flying through the bridge, and I thought you might have hit your head. When I didn’t see any bruises, I was afraid it was something worse. You were standing over a relay during the power surge. The energy could have shot through your feet and up your legs.”
Juno stared back, unable to speak. Unconscious? She didn’t remember blacking out. She thought back, recalling the Heartstone’s heat, her tears, the incredible loss. Had she imagined it? Curious, she started to look at the stone then stopped herself. Better they didn’t know, she thought. They’d have questions she didn’t think she could answer. Or want to. She was aboard a ship filled with religious acolytes. How would they respond? They’d never believe her; they might even accuse her of spying or sabotage.
Slowly, she lifted her hand. “I’m all right. How long was I out?”
“No more than a few minutes.”
“A few minutes,” she murmured. She didn’t remember any of it and took a moment to check her bearings. Little had changed. The Go-Rheeyo still listed badly, its engines quiet, its alarms blaring. Tension clung to the air like mist over a valley.
The stocky weapons officer gazed unblinking at his instruments. Sweat streaked the robes of the monk next to him, a wiry young man who licked his lips and continuously pushed his floppy brown hair from his forehead. The pretty blonde woman running shipwide diagnostics was the most nervous, and for good reason: the Go-Rheeyo was helpless and adrift. Everyone aboard waited for her report. They wanted to hear her say the engines would be back online soon. Some cast furtive glances at the view, others at tactical; all wondered which race would end first – the engine restart or Yohshin’s attack.
A surprised gasp to her right further charged the atmosphere. The willowy, dark-haired woman monitoring the mah-zhin’s progress spun to face Kaidan. “I’ve lost Yohshin!” Fear and desperation played across her sharp features, giving her the look of a hunted animal.
Alarm flashed behind Kaidan’s eyes. “Recheck your readings. Start with the mah-zhin’s last known position. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
“I’ve rechecked everything, my lord. There’s no sign of it.”
“So, Kaidan; How do we fight something we can’t see?” Keiko stood to the man’s right, and though Juno was happy to see her, Keiko’s tone had become mocking.
I hope you know what you’re doing, Juno said through their shared minds.
Keiko’s eyes shifted to Juno. I’m pretty sure I do.
Kaidan’s expression hardened; he drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Full alert,” he ordered. “Plot Yohshin’s course using the information we have. We need to know how quickly the mah-zhin can reach us. Just give me your best guess and have all weapons armed and ready to fire. Make sure we’re covered on all sides. And Isshi, I want all Riders in the hangar and ready to launch.”
The bishop bowed and rushed to a communication link. Juno headed for Kaidan.
Don’t do it, Juno, Keiko warned.
Juno ignored her. Two guards moved in to block her path. Where had they been when Keiko slid in next to him? “You said you wanted to end the fighting,” Juno cried. “Just tell Baiyren what’s happened. Talk to him. He won’t attack if he knows you can’t defend yourself.”
“My half-brother has every reason to want me dead.” Kaidan’s eyes gleamed under the bridge’s soft lighting. Pain lingered deeply inside them, regret too. He blinked both away.
Juno’s breath left her. “What did you do to him?”
Kaidan waved her off. “The crown uses and discards its people like chattel. No one hears the cries of those it throws away.” Kaidan put a hand to his chest. “Not any more.”
“You can’t do this,” Juno said pleadingly. “You share the same blood.”
Kaidan stiffened. His face grew cold, glacial. He pulled the ceremonial hammer from his belt and sliced it across his forearm. Red liquid oozed from the wound, a bright streak against his tanned skin. “Tyranny has no place on Higo. Miko and I will remove it forever.”
Juno faced Kaidan, matching his ice with her heat. “You lied to me; you said I was supposed to help you stop the fighting, not escalate it. What about the relic we found? Was that a lie too?”
“Those relics belong on Higo; the Zhoku confirms it.” Kaidan’s eyes glittered like dark marbles. “Bringing them home will solidify the support I need to take down the monarchy.”
“Those remains won’t help you,” Keiko warned. “Disturbing them will put you in a deeper hole than you’re already in.” She looked at Juno. “This charade’s gone on long enough. Take me to Zuishin and let me wake it. Your people aren’t pawns. They deserve better than that. I’ll give you a chance to fight for Higo, one mah-zhin against another.” She lifted a finger. “A word of warning though. You might find your savior uncooperative. Things like Zuishin have their own agendas, ones you can’t hope to know until it’s too late.”
“Keiko,” Juno gasped.
“You lose either way.” Keiko continued as if Juno wasn’t there. “If you fight here, you face a superior enemy; if you go home, you wake a force you probably can’t control. Your choice.”
Kaidan rounded on Keiko. “Who are you again?”
“Who I am doesn’t matter. You need to worry about what I am.”
Kaidan walked over and started circling her. “I’m intrigued,” he said. “You obviously want to tell me. I’m listening.”
“I’m… a friend.”
“A friend?” Kaidan arched an eyebrow. “Funny, I don’t remember seeing you before. Miko and I remember our friends.”
“I never said I was your friend. I’m a friend of Roarke. You know him, right? Your god?” Kaidan stopped pacing. The bridge crew shifted uncomfortably in their seats. “Yeah, I know,” Keiko said with a shrug. “It sounds crazy, but it’s true. I was on Earth when Roarke and his friends fought another god, what we call kami.”
“So you’re a god now?” Kaidan’s laugh was full and deep. He was enjoying himself.
“Of course not,” Keiko scoffed, crossing her arms. She looked like a cat that had already beaten its unsuspecting prey. “I’m a guardian – a kami’s protector.”
“Uh-huh. So tell me, guardian, what are you doing here? Where is your lord?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Keiko sighed, and her tone grew serious. “As for why I’m here… The answer is pretty straightforward: I can’t let you dig up those remains.”
Kaidan reddened. “Can’t let me? You think you can stand here, on my ship, and tell me what I can and can’t do?” He stopped and stared, measuring her. “That fossil must be important. Why else would you create such an incredible story?”
“Because I’d rather not watch Roarke turn Higo into a dust bowl. I’ve met some pretty nice people back there; I really don’t want to see them, or anyone else, suffer because of you.”
Kaidan laughed harshly. “You have a pretty high opinion of yourself, considering how you hide your arrogance behind an unassuming nature.”
“I’m not hiding anything. I am who I am.”
“A – what did you call it? – guardian.” Kaidan shook his head in disbelief. He spun on his heels, stalked back to his chair and sat. “Prepare the Go-Rheeyo for battle,” he said, watching Keiko for the reaction she didn’t give. “Launch the Riders. And get those engines back online. The prince is on his way. Unless you’d like to prove what you say is true,” he said to Keiko.
“I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, but I sort of figured you’d want some proof. People like you always do.” A nimbus of bright burgundy light surrounded Keiko’s body. She looked up and made a wide circular motion with her finger. A section of the metal wall aged and rusted. A hole just large enough for her orb opened, revealing clear sky. Keiko lifted from the floor, flew through, and turned. Chestnut eyes burned brightly beyond the bridge’s muted light. “I’m sorry, but you don’t get a say in this.” She made another circular motion with her hand, and the hull repaired itself, the hole disappearing as if it had never existed.
Baiyren punched through a furious squall and into clear air. Water sluiced off his armor. The wind barely touched him. Nothing existed but pain. He’d suffered so much, had lost so much. He tried to push it away, but the images kept coming: members of the Royal Guard who gave up their lives to protect him in battle; friends who deserted to join Kaidan’s Riders; his mother; the scientists who went with him to China. Keiko. Juno.
Being with Yohshin helped him forget. Its power overrode his mind, making him feel invincible. Power intensified his sight, gave him the ability to see clearly despite the distance. Kaidan’s ship sat in the sky like a titanium vulture. A pair of malignant domes with protruding cannons decorated the spine. The bridge was somewhere in the tower between the guns, probably embedded near the center where angular cuts of metal and impregnable glass bowed outward before tapering back and climbing to an arching observation deck.
Wispy strands of white vapor whipped past him, the clouds that appeared so solid dissolving the farther he flew. Below, turquoise water flashed by, dotted here and there with atolls and other green-covered islands, some large, some small. A perfect azure sky sparkled above; Yohshin’s golden armor would be impossible to miss.
Escape pod, Yohshin reported.
Is it Juno? He wanted it to be her, hoped against hope she had found a way to escape.
No, Yohshin reported. The Heartstone is still aboard the ship.
And Juno still has it, a voice said in Baiyren’s head.
Keiko? Is that you?
Yes, Keiko said. I’ve escaped the Go-Rheeyo, but I couldn’t take Juno with me. Don’t worry, the Heartstone will protect her. Stay alert. Watch for Kaidan’s armor. She’ll be with him.
How do you know?
Keiko didn’t answer. She’d clearly said what she needed to, taken her burgundy escape pod, and fled. Baiyren flew faster. The Go-Rheeyo’s guns swiveled toward him. Armored double doors at the back slid open, and a swarm of mah-kai took to the air.
The flagship itself looked like a crooked painting – low aft starboard, high fore port. Apart from the guns and doors, the ship remained motionless. Damaged, perhaps? He wasn’t sure. Kaidan might want him to think so. Make him lower his guard. Lure him in.
The Go-Rheeyo appeared powerless, the Riders’ defensive stance adding to the perception. Instead of charging, they split into three squads. The first surrounded the ship in a blockading formation, the second and third set the perimeter. They kept the space between their lines to a mile or less. Fighting there would be tight, increasing the chance of a stray shot damaging the Go-Rheeyo. Or worse.
Baiyren needed to think but didn’t have time. His mind became a ceaseless whirlpool. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t form a plan. Then, an idea clawed its way from the darkness, a strategy. A hope.
Lure them away, Yohshin said, bringing his thoughts to light. Break their lines and pull them from the Go-Rheeyo. The mah-zhin showed him where to strike, noted which attacks worked better than others.
Baiyren chose the least likely. The most audacious. He liked the plan, couldn’t wait to watch it in action regardless of consequence. Grinning, he lifted his arm.
A thought fired a chain of solid energy that sliced through the atmosphere, blew past the mah-kai’s lines, and wrapped around the Go-Rheeyo’s hull. The charged rope sizzled but didn’t cut, and the longer he watched the more he wanted to tighten his noose. It would be so easy. Bring the pressure. Crush the ship. Sever it in two.
He could almost see it happening, could almost hear the shearing metal and the screams of men and women tumbling out. Would Juno be one of them? He imagined her there, her hazel eyes wide with accusation and fear. He couldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t. Instead, he pulled back, hauling the chain in with the speed of a released spring.
The Go-Rheeyo came with it.
Powerless, the ship was an anchor without weight, a lionfish at the end of a line – caught, possibly wounded, but still deadly. Reeling it in was too easy. Baiyren extinguished the rope and was about to train his weapons on the Riders’ first line when the Go-Rheeyo’s big guns came to life. A Rider, caught between Baiyren and the ship, disintegrated in a blaze of smoke and fire. Baiyren recognized the armor – a mah-kai designed to look like an eagle in flight with wide, sweeping wings and a distinctly avian head. The pilot, Yara Sanish, was a young nobleman from the north who believed – wrongly – that every woman at court desired him. He bragged his mah-kai was the most beautiful one on Higo. Now it was little more than windblown ash.
The explosion charged Baiyren’s soul. He wanted to leap forward, to join the carnage and see which of them, him or his brother, would bring down the most fighters. It would be one more game between them, another chance to relive his treasured memories. He thought about their times together: Kaidan laughing as he carried Baiyren on his shoulders, their annual game of search, the emptiness Baiyren felt whenever Kaidan left for Haven.
Lifting his eyes to the wreckage, he watched the gusts blow it all away. Smoke shredded and scattered the dying embers, erasing Sanish’s existence from Earth. Behind the emptiness, behind the hole in the sky, the Go-Rheeyo adjusted its aim and readied another volley.
Life means nothing to him, Yohshin said. You have to stop your brother before he spreads his poison.
The Go-Rheeyo fired again, but the energy that burned Sanish away simply broke around Yohshin like waves against stone. He barely felt it; it was a tickle on his skin, the kiss of a light breeze. Baiyren stared into the flashing muzzles, mocking their power, daring them to fire again.
Each Rider they bring down is one less to fight.
But he wasn’t here to fight; he was here to free Juno. For that, he needed to draw the Riders from the ship. Kaidan was ruthless enough to kill his own men, what would he do if the tide turned against him? Sacrifice the Go-Rheeyo and take out his vengeance on Juno? Baiyren traced the ship’s deflected shot as it flew from him. Smoldering stone and boiling ocean marked where it struck. The debris tugged at him. Inspired him.
We are the rock and the earth, Yohshin told him. They are ours to control. Touch them. Use them! The enemy won’t expect you to. They will never see it coming.
A light, almost paternal amusement flickered back to him. Acquiescence followed, and then Yohshin’s presence receded. New thoughts and experiences filled the void left behind. He was an amnesiac whose memory returned in one large flash, a puzzle whose pieces rearranged without help. When complete, he understood more about Yohshin’s abilities than ever before.
And they terrified him.
The mah-zhin controlled and manipulated soil and minerals. It commanded a portion of the planet’s layered plates from core to mantle. Yohshin tapped into that same energy in China when it uprooted mountains and hurled them at the Riders. Now it offered him that power. Accept it and become the monster he once was. Deny it and condemn Juno to Kaidan’s chains.
The choice was no choice at all.
Turning away, he dropped to the ground. The rushing wind tickled him, the cold air growing warmer as he fell. A thought sent power into his arms where it erupted around his gauntleted fists like brilliant sunlight. He held heat and let it build as he selected a target. Islands both large and small thrust from the waves, each as different as one person from another.
Baiyren lifted his arms and aimed at an archipelago of small islands that looked more like forested spears than rock. He checked for signs of life but found none.
He fired.
A squat limestone island to his right disintegrated, a slender sail-shaped one to his left became pulverized dust. Rock shattered, and the green tree-covered tops became torches. Debris drifted upward to stain the perfect sky; slivers of black, like rotting fingers pointing at the devastation below.
Re-sighting, Baiyren fired again. Another island, a cylindrical, moss-covered column toppled like a felled tree. Steam joined smoke, the hiss of vaporized water adding to the crackle of flame in a symphony of destructive sound. He ignored the noise and focused instead on the broken rock. The lightest wafted along the morning breeze while the rest peppered the calm water. Baiyren seized everything – motes, dust, and rubble. He didn’t know exactly how he did it, only that the broken earth responded.
He hurled commands into the heavens, packing matter together and sliding the fused whole between the Go-Rheeyo and the Riders. Thoughts forged the broken pieces into a wall he then wrapped around Kaidan’s ship. Isolated, the mah-kai scattered like a flushed covey. The rear line tried to reform, but farther away. They couldn’t afford to stay close, not if Baiyren launched a second rock wall at them. Farther out, the Riders in the middle line held while the outer moved into attack formation behind a large, black mah-kai with thick arms and legs and a helm that resembled a snarling bear.
They were coming for him now. The ship itself lay behind the stone barrier, cannonfire booming as it tried to break free. In the distance a new formation crested the horizon.
Regan’s forces, the ones that would attack the Go-Rheeyo’s back, were in place.