CHAPTER 27: THE DUEL

Snow fell softly on the buried pyre. The earth Song’s soldiers had packed down over the pit had been visibly different from the rockier ground around it, but once Nagi finished laying his shroud of new snow over the ground, it would be indistinguishable from any other part of the mountain.

Takeru approached the circle in measured swordsman’s steps, his left thumb resting on the guard of Kyougetsu, ready to flick the weapon out at the slightest hint of danger. Then his eyes fell on his opponent.

“You?”

Misaki stood slowly, her own left thumb resting on Siradenyaa’s glass guard. As she had expected, Takeru hadn’t kept her waiting long. The snow had barely started to gather in her hair and the folds of her clothing. She had borrowed a ceremonial women’s hakama from one of the fina nuns. While the loose garment was not intended for combat, it allowed for more movement than the restrictive obi and kimono she usually wore.

“Misaki...” Takeru didn’t quite seem to have put the pieces together. “What are you doing here?”

“I have an appointment,” she said calmly as his eyes flicked to the sword at her hip. “I challenged another warrior to a duel.” She placed her right hand on Siradenyaa’s handle. “Evidently, he accepts.”

Takeru’s reaction was disappointing but predictable.

“This is ridiculous, Misaki. You will return to the house immediately.”

“No.” She was done sitting with her disappointment. Here, on the snow-covered grave of her son, someone was going to pay for it. “We’re going to duel.”

“We will do no such thing,” Takeru said firmly. “A man doesn’t fight his wife.”

“You forfeit, then?” she demanded. “That would be a first in Matsuda history, wouldn’t it? I also believe it entitles me to your head if I want it.”

“I can’t forfeit if it’s not a real duel,” Takeru snapped. “You have to be a warrior to issue a challenge and you are not.”

“Am I not? Would you like to tell that to the Ranganese who got past your lines?” She thumped a heel against the ground beneath which her victims were buried. “I believe I killed eight before you arrived to ‘protect’ me, and one more when you refused to protect Hyori. Or did you think they had all dropped dead of their own accord?”

“It is not your place to take up arms,” Takeru’s voice rose, as did his jiya, crushing down on her. “You are a woman. Your only job is to look after the children.”

“And why is that again?” Misaki asked, her voice full of venom. “Oh yes. Because my husband, the greatest swordsman in Shirojima, is supposed to protect us all.”

“Misaki.” His voice had grown dangerous. “You will not speak to me that way. You are my wife—”

“I never wanted to be your wife!” Misaki burst out and found her voice breaking into a scream. “I never wanted any of this!” Gods, it had been so long since she had screamed. The sound was so visceral, even Takeru took a step back. “I didn’t want any of this, but I birthed that boy, and nursed him, and loved him—all because my parents wanted me to marry a Matsuda! The only reason I am here is that you are a strong theonite who was supposed to keep me and my children safe! That’s what I gave up my life for. Safety.”

“I will not hear any more—”

“I left everything behind to marry you! I have been an obedient wife, I have borne you children, I have done everything that was asked of me, so why did this happen? Why is my son gone?” Misaki finished, breathless, feeling like she could fall into a thousand pieces, like she could eat the world. She was ready to fight.

“I had my orders,” was all Takeru said.

“Like you had your orders when Colonel Song burned the bodies of our dead and then turned his back on us?” Misaki snarled.

“A Matsuda obeys his superiors. When I left the frontline...” Takeru’s voice seemed to falter. “Nii-sama was clear—”

“I don’t care about Takashi,” Misaki spat. “He isn’t here anymore. Neither is Colonel Song, or your father. You’re all out of people to hide behind. I married you, I had a son with you, and you left him on the frontlines to die when you had a chance to save him. Takashi is not going to answer for his death. You are.” She whipped Siradenyaa from her sheath and leveled the blade at her husband’s chest. “Draw, Matsuda Takeru!”

“I will not hear any more of this, woman!” Takeru bellowed, as if sheer volume could silence her now. “This is your last chance to

obey—”

“You lost your right to my obedience when you stopped being a man!” Misaki cut him off. “If you want me to go back to the house, you’ll have to fight me. I’ve stood by too long while you disgraced yourself, but this—this is the last time you will be weak in front of me. One of us is going to rest here with our son. Draw!”

Takeru held her gaze. There was no indication that the storm seething in her had prompted so much as a ripple in him. For a moment, the only movement between them was the slow undulation of falling snow.

“You shouldn’t yell so much.” His voice was suddenly quieter. “It’s not ladylike.”

Indignation twisted in Misaki’s throat, and she shifted into her stance, preparing to attack. Her anger was itching to burst into action, and she had given him ample warning—

“Besides,” he said in that same subdued voice, “you made your case better in the letter.”

“What?” Misaki’s fingers squirmed in their grip on Siradenyaa’s handle. Her body was heartbeats from surging out of her control—like the lurch that had sent her into Kazu’s arms, the fury that had driven her toward Colonel Song’s throat—and it took all the willpower she had to hold it back. Takeru still hadn’t drawn Kyougetsu or summoned his Whispering Blade. If she was going to follow through with the formalities of the duel she had called for, she couldn’t attack him until he had a weapon in hand.

“It is customary,” Takeru said, “for the challenge to be reviewed before a duel commences.”

Misaki glared up at him, eyes narrowing. “Does this mean you accept my challenge?” she asked. “If so, I don’t need anything reviewed. I know what I said.” After fifteen years of holding still, she didn’t feel like she could take another moment. She wanted to fight.

Ignoring her, Takeru reached into the fold of his kimono and produced the anonymous letter of challenge Misaki had left on the door of the compound. Nami’s sake, wasn’t that just like him? He couldn’t even fight without making sure the paperwork was all in order. Emotionless, he read aloud:

“Matsuda Takeru,

I am one of many who lost my family, my home, all that was precious to me, to your cowardice and poor judgment. In abandoning the frontlines during the battle, you condemned other warriors to die, including your own brother and son.”

“I told you, you don’t need to read it,” she said, but Takeru kept going:

“Since our village has been ravaged, you have not spoken to the government on our behalf. When the bodies of our dead were disrespected, you did not speak up. When the authorities refused us aid, you did not dispute their decision. When we needed you most, you disappeared up the mountain, leaving others to assume your responsibilities.

At every turn, you have proven yourself incapable of standing up to authority when those beneath you depend on you to do so. It is my belief that a coward like this is unfit to lead our village in its time of need.”

There had been so much righteous anger in Misaki as she wrote. Takeru’s deep, calm voice stripped the words of their emotion, sharpening them to their simple cruelty.

“For these reasons, I challenge you to single combat, at the ninth waati, on the ground where the numu village once stood. If you would prove yourself a man, do so in single combat.”

Takeru finished, still staring at the letter.

“Incapable of standing up to authority,” he repeated, strangely pensive, rather than angry. “Is this in reference to Colonel Song... or to my brother?”

“Both,” Misaki said, her sword still drawn. “I stand by what I said and what I wrote. Do you deny any of it?”

Takeru did not answer. When he reached to his hip, Misaki twitched, ready to defend herself, but instead of drawing Kyougetsu, he slowly untied the white string holding it in place and slid the pearly sheath from his belt. Then, just as slowly, he knelt and placed the Moon Spire off to the side.

So that’s how it’s going to be, Misaki thought, shifting her grip on Siradenyaa. He’s starting right off with the Whispering Blade.

Legend said Sasayaiba could cut through anything. It remained to be seen whether it could cut Zilazen glass. Misaki was ready. She had thought through every maneuver she had ever seen Takeru employ. She had planned counters for all of them. She was ready—

But she hadn’t planned for what he did next.

Having set his sword aside, Takeru rested his palms on the snow-covered ground... and bowed.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I admit to all of the accusations the challenger has leveled against me. So...” He scooped his hair to the side, exposing the back of his neck. “I forfeit,” he bowed lower, offering his bare neck to the blade, “and offer my life in atonement.”

Misaki felt like the world had come to a halt. She might have thought she was dreaming, but she never could have dreamed this. Even at her most delirious, she would never invent a Takeru who ceded a fight, who knelt before a woman, who asked to die.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m accepting the terms of your letter,” Takeru said. “I’m forfeiting and surrendering my life.”

“I d-didn’t... I didn’t mean all those things in that letter,” she stammered, backpedaling in her confusion. “I only wrote what I thought would bring you here.”

“All you had to do to bring me here was issue the challenge,” Takeru said. “You must have known that.”

The pang of guilt was disorienting. Misaki swayed, utterly lost. How had this stand-off she had planned so carefully slid out of her control in a matter of moments?

She had thought Takeru might try to force her back to the house, prompting her to resist, or walk away in disdain, prompting her to chase him. She had known that the chances of him accepting her challenge like that of an equal were slim, but if he did, she had been certain he would defend his manhood and put her in her place. All paths ended in a fight. That was how she had planned it, how it had to be, so what in all the realms was happening here? Why was he on his knees?

“Why?” The question came out strained.

“What?”

“Before I kill you,” she said, “I have to know why... If you understand all my accusations, if you agree, then why did this happen? Why didn’t you stand up to Colonel Song? Or to your brother? You bastard, how could you let all of this happen?”

“I...” Takeru’s voice was so quiet it barely broke the silence of the falling snow. “I have no answer.”

Misaki’s mouth opened in disbelief. Isn’t this what you wanted? asked a voice in her head. Didn’t you want to bring him low? Didn’t you want to kill him? It wasn’t until she stood over her husband, staring at his exposed neck that she realized that the answer was no. She didn’t want his life. But what did she want then? Why was she here?

“I felt them die.” Takeru spoke the words toward his knees, his face hidden.

“You what?” Misaki’s voice that had been a screaming storm only moments earlier was no more than a whisper.

“Sometimes... I am not a man,” he said slowly, “I am the mountain,” and for a dinma, Misaki wondered if he had gone insane—if they had both gone insane—but he kept speaking. “It is a state I have been able to effect since I was a child. I retreat deep into the snow and rivers, and sink myself into the ocean below, and everything on this mountain becomes me, and I become the mountain. It looks like meditation, but it is more. It is becoming a different sort of being...”

“A different sort of being?” Misaki repeated.

“A bigger being,” he said, “so big that I, Matsuda Takeru, cease to matter. The first time it happened to me, I was very young. On that day, the snow fell thick, as it does now. My father was beating me for something. He knocked me down in the snow in the courtyard. And with my palms to the ground, I realized that I could disperse myself into the snow, spreading all across the mountain, even to the sea below and deeper, deeper… until the pain diffused through my new being, like a drop of blood into a pool. Maybe the pain and shame were too much for a small boy to hold, but the mountain... the mountain could bear it all, so I became the mountain.”

Misaki could only stare down at her husband in awe. She had never experienced anything like what Takeru was describing, nor could she fathom why he was telling her about it now.

“As the mountain, I am hyper-aware of some things. I can feel every molecule of water, from the rivers, to the snow, to the subtlest movements of the mist all around. In the midst of so much sensory input, any feeling in my human self—physical or emotional—becomes insignificant, and therefore bearable.”

“You’re telling me that when your feelings are inconvenient to you, you just... get rid of them?”

“I let the size of the mountain dull them to the point of insignificance.”

It was bizarre to be vindicated in her suspicion that Takeru was not quite human. All those times Misaki had looked into his face and felt as though she could find no emotion there... she had been right. But why was he telling her all this now?

“Other Matsudas have been known to achieve this state too, through intense meditation, but I can slide into it like a glove, on a whim.”

It shook Misaki for a moment that she had even contemplated fighting a man whose power was as big as the mountain itself. The poison had consumed her, turning her completely foolhardy—like a small, rabid creature thinking it could take on an animal forty times its size.

“Matsudas past deemed this ability a gift from the Gods,” Takeru said, “but I have used it to hide. Since I was a child, using it to escape my father’s wrath, I have used it to hide. When it is too much to be a man, I am the mountain. I have done this my whole life—when there was a truth I didn’t want to acknowledge, a decision I didn’t want to face, a pain I didn’t want to endure. It is easier to enter a state in which I am spared human emotions like regret, or shame, or love.”

“Do you ever feel love?” Misaki demanded. She didn’t know if the question came from spite or genuine curiosity. It said too much that they felt like the same thing.

Takeru did not answer her question. It was a moment before he spoke again, leading in with a deep—rather human—breath.

“When Takashi-nii-sama ordered me back to the village, I became the mountain. It was the only thing I could do—the only way I could obey.”

Misaki was silent. The simple admission that he had struggled to leave Mamoru should have come as a relief. Instead, it just lay a new pain atop the old. Her husband had been human the whole time.

“But I made a mistake,” Takeru continued. “I retreated into the mountain to spare myself the reality of leaving my brother and son without considering the fact that they were born of this mountain too. Their jiya was bound to the same snow, and ice, and moving water as mine. I didn’t realize that, in that state, I would feel them die.”

Misaki felt her hands shake on Siradenyaa.

“I was on my way back to the village when my brother died—and—” His eyebrow twitched, as if his face was trying to find an expression for the pain, but had forgotten how. “It was sharp, Misaki, just a pinprick on the mountain, but it hit like a Blood Needle. Such a tiny thing... and I was paralyzed.”

For so many years, Takeru’s silence had infuriated her. Now, he was speaking freely and she would have given anything to have him stop.

“I wish I could explain it—My brother was my shelter in all things. His death left me shaken, flayed, like nerve and muscle exposed to the air.”

The words were too raw, too near. When you spent years in the company of Takashi, who wasn’t much for fancy words, and Takeru, who wasn’t much for words at all, it was easy to forget that the Matsudas had a tradition of poetry as old as their tradition of the sword. Takeru might only stumble his way through Imperial Kaigengua, but his Shirojima Dialect was vivid and concise, like the simple clarity of Hyori’s eyes. Unbearable.

“I felt after that—as I imagine a skinned man must feel—but I was the mountain, and I couldn’t move, not backward toward Mamoru nor forward toward you and the little children. I could not act on my brother’s orders or my own impulses. And then...”

“Then Mamoru died,” Misaki whispered.

Her grip on Siradenyaa had gone slack. As tears clouded her eyes, she remembered staring through a similar fog in the dark of the bunker. The haze of her concussion or perhaps the tides of her own stubborn denial had drowned the memory, submerging it deep in the back of her mind, but it came bobbing back now: Takeru, resting his head against the bunker door as his shoulders shook. In the dark, the low sound had mixed with the weeping all around them, and gone unnoticed. She hadn’t reached for him or spoken his name, even when she knew she should. Why hadn’t she reached for him?

“It’s...” It’s alright, she meant to say, I forgive you, but she couldn’t. Even now, part of her was still too prideful. Too cruel.

Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “I know that a Matsuda’s job is to defend the Empire, even at the expense of his sons.” Snowflakes caught in her tears as they ran down her cheeks, making them slow with cold. “I know who I married.”

“Who did you marry, Tsusano Misaki?” Snow had gathered in Takeru’s hair in the stillness. “Who did you marry?”

“I was supposed to marry a man with the strength and sense to keep my children safe.”

“Then I have failed you completely.”

“You didn’t...” Misaki stumbled over her words, lost between her overgrown anger at Takeru and this new and foreign urge to defend him. “You didn’t know that was going to happen. You didn’t know you would be immobilized.”

“That’s no excuse. It doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t carry out my brother’s orders when they mattered, nor challenge them when it was needed, so cut me down. Even though you are a woman, you issued a formal challenge, so your hands and conscience should be clean in the eyes of the Gods. You can rid the family of my spiritual impurity.”

That part surprised Misaki. “Your spiritual impurity?”

“I harbor anger toward my brother and regret for not protecting my son. That weakness has kept them both from passing to the next world. Perhaps the Gods will allow me to take their place in Hell, knowing my bitterness has passed out of the living realm.”

“You... you think Mamoru’s ghost stays because of you?” Misaki didn’t understand. She was the one who had suffered for nights with terrible visions. She was the one who couldn’t let go.

“I never prayed for him.”

“Why not?”

“How do you face a son—an honest, brave warrior—who was killed while you stood and did nothing? I have been unable to send his spirit off, so he has haunted us all this time, stealing your sleep and Nagasa’s. Last night, he caused my jiya to rise out of my sleep and it nearly killed us both.”

“That wasn’t...” That wasn’t you, Misaki had started to say, but she trailed off. Now that she thought back to the previous night, she remembered waking up drenched in sweat and tears. That water on her skin would have been the first to turn to ice if her jiya had been active. The ice spikes protruding from the walls had been straight and clear, much more like Takeru’s clean blades than her own imperfect creations.

“You stabbed yourself!” she exclaimed in horrified realization. There were accounts of theonites subconsciously wounding themselves with their own untamed nyama, but it was only supposed to happen to children, whose powers were not developed enough to be lethal. In an adult, it was treated as madness.

“It was lucky that you screamed,” he said. “The sound woke me before my jiya had a chance to hurt you.”

Misaki realized then that when he had shouted at her to get out, it hadn’t been anger in his eyes but panic. He had been worried for her safety.

“With that in mind, you should be careful in this endeavor.” Takeru lowered his head again, voice peaceful. “I doubt my death jiya will manifest as dramatically as my brother’s, but it may still be extremely dangerous. Make sure you get clear as soon as you’ve severed my spinal column.”

How could he speak so calmly about his own death? Why was his heartbeat so steady?

“You’re doing it now, aren’t you?” Misaki accused. “Retreating into the mountain, so you won’t have to face this like a man.”

“I am not.”

“Then how are you so calm all of a sudden? You had emotions a moment ago, when you were talking about Mamoru. How can you ask your wife to kill you as if it means nothing at all?”

“Because... This does not upset me.”

“I don’t believe you.” How could someone as powerful as Takeru just give up on his own life without resistance?

“I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t tried to enter that state since...”

“Since Colonel Song burned the bodies,” Misaki spoke the realization aloud as it hit her. “You couldn’t face it so you ran away, to retreat into the mountain.”

“I tried,” Takeru said. “The anger didn’t go away.”

“Oh, Takeru-sama...” Misaki breathed, voice high in a mixture of exasperation and grief. “The anger isn’t going to go away.”

For a moment, she couldn’t name the emotion welling up inside her. When she did identify it, an insane part of her wanted to laugh—because it was pity. For this ridiculous man on his knees in the snow, for this blind, self-centered woman who had been married to him for fifteen years and never seen him for what he was. Fifteen years and she had never once looked at Takeru as someone who might need her help. Or if she had, she had shut it down—it’s not my place, not my responsibility, not my family.

“Well?” Takeru asked, his voice as placid as ever. “Are you going to do it?”

“No.” She lifted her head and felt something flare to life in her chest, a fresh determination.

You’ve always been good with people, Kazu had said. If she could pull others out of their despair, she could do the same for Takeru. As she had just learned, he was just as human as anyone else.

“The anger is not going to go away,” she repeated in a stronger voice, “but you are going to face it and tame it, like a man.”

“What?” Takeru looked up at her, confused.

“You’re guilty of the same thing I am—trying to please and obey your elders.” Misaki shook her head. “Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter anymore. None of them are here to give us the answers anymore. We’re all out of parents, and grandparents and brothers... It’s just us…” She paused, unsure where she was going. Maybe setting aside her own regret wasn’t enough. Maybe this was the last thing she needed do for Mamoru.

Find the words, Misaki.

She took a painful breath. “When you left Mamoru to hold the line, you were just a second son, following orders, but you’re more than that now. You’re the head of the Matsuda house.”

“But I was never supposed to be. It was peacetime. None of this was supposed to happen.”

“I know.” Emotion choked Misaki and she was overcome by a sudden urge to do something she had never remotely wanted to do before. She wanted to rush to Takeru. She wanted to hold him... and to have him hold her. In the same moment, she realized that that was not an option. They weren’t children. They needed more than a protective pair of arms. They needed to be more.

“Whether or not my failures are forgiven, I am not equipped to protect our village,” Takeru said, his frustration palpable, painful. “A force of fighters, I might be able to lead, but I don’t know how to care for a group of widows and orphans with no homes, no resources, and no support from the Empire.”

“But you have to. You realize that, don’t you?” Misaki said. “If you don’t assume the role of village leader, the government will send someone else. We’ll be at their mercy and that will be your doing.”

That gave Takeru pause.

“Look. Maybe you’re not at fault for everything that’s happened up until now. Maybe I can’t hold you responsible for the decisions of your father and brother, but you are responsible for what happens next.” As was she. She understood that now, and she wouldn’t fail. Not again.

“Fighting the Ranganese is one thing—it is what I was born to do—but defying the Empire…” Takeru shook his head, “that is beyond my ability. It’s impossible.”

“It is impossible for ice to cut through steel. It is impossible for a jijaka to stop a tornado. You’re a Matsuda. The impossible is a day at the dojo for you.”

“But—in the letter you wrote—”

“Forget what I wrote!” Stepping forward, Misaki tore the letter from Takeru’s hand and ripped it apart. “I rescind my challenge.”

“You can’t just—”

“Here is my new challenge.” She pointed her blade at him as the torn pieces of kayiri fluttered to her feet. “You agree to be a man and make this up to me. You are going to do whatever you have to in order to protect this family and this village, with or without the support of the government.

“Misaki—” Takeru started to rise, but she put Siradenyaa to his neck and he froze.

“No,” she said coldly. “You don’t stand up until you are ready to accept my new challenge. Do you accept, Matsuda Takeru?”

“I have already told you that I don’t know how to protect Takayubi, woman.” Even in his self-doubt, Takeru somehow still managed to sound condescending. “I can’t—”

“You can,” Misaki cut him off angrily.

“What makes you so certain?”

“Because this time, when we head up that path, we do it together. This time, you will have me. Do you accept my terms and my help?”

“I accept,” he said, but his face was blank. There was no fear, but no conviction either. It was not enough.

“Then prove it,” Misaki said.

His brow creased in confusion. “What?”

“I can’t take your word that you will accept my help when you have done nothing but disregard my advice and my feelings since I married you,” she said coldly, “and I can’t take your word that you will stand to defend Takayubi when you won’t even stand to defend yourself.”

“What do you want from me?”

In answer, Misaki put the flat of Siradenyaa to his cheek. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

His eyes flicked to the black blade pressed to his pale skin. “Yammanka obsidian?”

“It’s Zilazen glass. Experience, science, and ancient Yammanka religion say no other weapon can put a scratch on it. When you get up, you’re going to prove yourself equal to the challenge. Prove that you’re ready to do the impossible. If you can’t manage that...” Nami, I hope I know what I’m doing. “Then this village has no use for you, and neither do I.”

She slashed downward.

Takeru moved so fast it might have been pure reflex. Misaki barely saw the Whispering Blade before the icy weapon rang against Siradenyaa, knocking it away from its target. The impact of ice against glass was so intense that Misaki had no idea how she kept her grip on her sword.

Takeru was on his feet.

As the snow rose around him, Misaki’s jiya rose as well, not around her, but inside her.

She was still in the dark halls of the Matsuda compound, fighting for her family. In her mind, she had never left. She couldn’t, she now realized, until she faced this last and most dangerous opponent.

The enemy that loomed before her now was not Matsuda Takeru himself, but the bitterness of silence that had built up between them over fifteen years. She would fight it, kill it. And when she was done, she would have a husband. Her children would have a father. Takayubi would have a leader. Mamoru could rest.

Their blades crashed together, and Misaki experienced a moment of satisfaction when she realized that Takeru had not held back but struck with full, bone-breaking force. This was followed by a moment of utter surprise when she realized that her bones were not broken. She and little Siradenyaa had withstood a stroke of Takeru’s Whispering Blade. Not only that but, as the Zilazen glass guard locked with Sasayaiba’s ice one, Misaki stepped forward and with an inhuman burst of power, shoved Takeru back.

He recovered smoothly, his feet quickly finding their stance again in the gathering snow, but he looked stunned. The feat of strength, from such a diminutive theonite, should not have been possible.

“What are you?” Takeru whispered.

Something bigger than myself, she realized. “I’m Matsuda Misaki,” she said with pride and honesty she never attached to those words before. “I’m your wife.”

And she attacked him.

The speed of her youth seemed to surge into her limbs—but more than that. She was something more than Tsusano Misaki or Sirawu, the Shadow. She was fighting for something greater than one life, or five, or ten. Takeru’s will to live, Mamoru’s soul, her family’s future, the survival of Takayubi itself, all hung on her blade edge. That was something the Shadow, in all her blind love and ruthlessness, would never have understood.

Like Kazu, Tou-sama, and the Giant, Tsusano Raiden, had borne the weight of Anryuu in battles past, she bore Takeru’s attacks and forced him back. Takeru responded with his flawless form, leaving no openings, but he was on the defensive as Misaki drove forward.

In all her years of training at Daybreak, Misaki had never had the skill to match a master swordsman in combat. But unencumbered by the tight kimono or the childish cowardice that had bound her for years, she had become a new creature, more fluid and boundless than a girl but more solid than a shadow—a woman of lightning sinew and roaring blood.

For once in her life, her body kept pace with her mind. The moment she visualized a swing, the blade was there. The moment she registered an opening, she was inside it. If she willed her stance to hold, it held. She was breathing hard, but it occurred to her that for the first time since the Soul Pull, the heaving breaths were not hurting her lungs.

Three times, the Whispering Blade cracked, but Takeru was quick to reform it. Good. If he could withstand Siradenyaa, if he could fight through this, then there was hope for Takayubi yet. Snow whirled faster around them as Misaki crashed into the Whispering Blade a fourth time—shattering it.

The moment was jarring. With her blood serving as an extension of her will, Misaki didn’t feel the impact in her muscles and joints. Instead, she felt it in her soul—and it felt unnatural. The Whispering Blade was not supposed to break. She may have extended her willpower throughout her own body, but that still was not good enough. She needed it to reach beyond herself. She needed it to reach him.

Show me better, she willed Takeru as she pressed forward. Show me the impossible.

He gave a calculated amount of ground, but instead of using the retreat to reform his Sasayaiba, he changed tactics, making a broad sweeping motion with his open hands. Snow rose to the flow of his jiya and a serpent reared from the ground before Misaki—not quite a Matsuda Dragon; that technique required the power of two full-grown Matsudas, but the creature was far bigger than any ice snake Misaki had ever seen an individual jijaka form.

The serpent slung razor-scaled coils protectively about Takeru and then raised itself up to face Misaki, ice shard eyes gleaming. It was taller than a house, its fanged jaws open wide enough to bite her in half. It was a good attempt at intimidation but Matsuda Takeru needed to be more than outwardly intimidating; he needed to be invincible to the core.

Misaki hoped the icy creature was as mighty as it looked, but there was only one way find out. As the creature struck, she stood her ground. Ice met glass.

In two lightning strikes of Shadow’s Daughter, Misaki shattered the serpent’s head. Flipping Siradenyaa into a single-handed reverse grip, she extended her open hand to the creature’s headless neck and seized control of the water inside it. Even at her strongest, she could not fight Matsuda Takeru for control of the snake’s spines and scales. Ice was his undisputed domain, but Takashi had been the one with the decisively fluid energy to power the inside of the Matsuda Dragon, and Takashi was gone.

With a roar, Misaki heaved her arm back. Her jiya ripped the liquid interior from the serpent as if pulling the spinal cord from a living snake. The formation collapsed like a skeleton with no spine.

Do better. Misaki exploded through the rain of scales. Give me more.

TAKERU

Matsuda Takeru buckled.

He had never lost control of the dragon’s armor. Even when Takashi’s water moved at blinding speeds or changed direction sharply, he had been able to move with it. Following had never been difficult for him.

He had assumed that Misaki, like most fighters, would attack the dragon’s invincible exterior, but she had gone for the unstable interior—for Takashi’s absence. The emptiness shook the heart of him while the impact sent his armor scattering in all directions.

Flayed and boneless, he faced the creature he had awakened, this woman of gods’ blood and fury.

Her face was flushed, strands of hair flying free of her bun, as she swept her glass sword through what remained of the dragon. Then she came at him, black eyes gleaming as bright and sharp as the obsidian. So many years, he had avoided touching this porcelain doll he had been given for fear of breaking her. He hadn’t wanted to see this beautiful, strange woman crumble the way his mother had. Somehow, he had broken her anyway, but she hadn’t broken quietly like porcelain. She had broken like black glass and ice—jagged and more dangerous than ever.

Takeru summoned enough willpower to pull some of the dragon’s scales toward his hands to form his Whispering Blade. The reflexive cold and pressure of his jiya produced a sword hard enough that it wouldn’t break against Misaki’s glass weapon, but it would never cut through the Zilazen glass. He knew that with damning certainty before their blades even met again.

A true Whispering Blade required pure focus and resolve. The blades he was forming now might cut through flesh and bone. They might even cut through metal, but they were not perfect Whispering Blades. They were off by a few molecules.

The black sword slammed into Takeru’s guard and he stumbled back. He had never had any trouble focusing his jiya before. His blade had been perfect since he was a teenager. It had been perfect when he fought the Ranganese, perfect when he faced Mamoru in the dojo that day and called him weak. The irony was that Mamoru had been right—about the Empire, about the Kwangs, about the Ranganese—and Takeru had called him weak.

In the uncertainty of youth, Mamoru had been closer to true clarity than his father ever had been. Takeru had demanded that Mamoru stand and fight for his truth. Now that his wife was asking him to stand, all he could do was shatter, and shatter, and shatter.

Misaki didn’t slow, didn’t give a koyin of ground. Something had taken place inside the woman’s body—some deep Tsusano blood magic that Takeru didn’t understand—lending her inhuman strength. But strength alone couldn’t move a fighter with such grace. As the tiny woman matched his steps, Takeru was forced to realize that he had spent fifteen years sleeping obliviously next to a combatant very nearly his equal in skill.

How had he never noticed? Or had he noticed and turned a blind eye to it, as he turned a blind eye to everything that unsettled him? So much of his life had been lost in the haze of snow, mist, and meditation that he didn’t even know.

Sasayaiba cracked against a brutal blow of Misaki’s sword. Instead of taking a moment to recover from the impact, she sped up with fresh fury, spinning into a stab. Takeru blocked and his ice broke apart, barely deflecting the obsidian sword before it could drive into his chest.

She wouldn’t really kill him… would she?

He had never truly grown to know the woman who lived inside the doll, and it was hard to fight an enemy one didn’t know. He attempted an offensive cut with a new Sasayaiba, only to have it break against his wife’s more decisive counterstrike.

Matsuda Takeru the First had found his Whispering Blade in perfect clarity. He had studied every corner of his world, from the koro’s castle to the numu’s forge, from the old religion to the new, and understood it all intimately. Unlike his ancestor, Takeru had only ever found the focus to form a Whispering Blade by retreating into the obscuring white of the mountain, where he was blind to his country, his wife, even his own emotions. What sort of a man closed his eyes to the world and called it clarity?

All Takeru could see of this woman was that she was angry—and each time something cracked or shattered, she seemed to grow angrier, her movements more erratic, more ferocious, harder to read. There was pain in her fighting, coursing alongside the strength, pitching and rising like storm waves with each stroke of her sword. She was in agony, and it was his fault. He had never meant to do this to her, but with each defensive step back, he only seemed to make it worse—and he couldn’t bear it. In her growl, he heard his father’s bitterness, his mother’s tears. Mamoru boiled from her eyes.

He had to make it stop.

He searched for an opening to grab hold of her, but she was too fast and showed no signs of tiring. If he pressed in with his imperfect Sasayaiba, her obsidian blade would take his arm off. Shifting tactics, Takeru used his physical body as a focal point for her attacks while raising the snow around her in a trap.

At the touch of his nyama, the frenzied snow rushed to answer its master. Despite the physical strength Misaki had manifested, her sense of the water around her was still dull compared to a born Matsuda’s. In the spinning confusion of snow, she didn’t notice the water molecules massing behind her.

Letting his blade shatter against hers, Takeru opened both hands and pulled the water toward them in a broad wave. Misaki screamed in surprise as the wave engulfed her from the shoulders down. She reacted with the speed of a trained fighter, dropping her sword to use both hands in an attempt to throw the water from her body. But Takeru was already freezing the liquid and her jiya was nothing against his. The wave froze solid, immobilizing her.

“Yield,” Takeru said, covering his fatigue under a commanding tone.

Her glare pierced him—not like a blade, but like claws that dug in and held tight, making it impossible to pull free.

“That was underhanded, Matsuda Takeru,” she hissed as they locked eyes, equally immobilized. “I would be impressed if it weren’t such an obvious sign of weakness. I didn’t take you for a cheater.”

“You never specified terms of combat,” Takeru said. It was a pitiful excuse. Few terms of combat allowed techniques that restrained the opponent. Then again, jijaka terms of combat had never been intended for duels between spouses. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” Misaki’s breath, cold as it was, made steam in Takeru’s sub-zero aura. She looked, if possible, more agonized than she had in the flurry of combat. “This...” Her eyes flicked down to the ice encasing her body. “This is how you try to ease my pain?”

“I...” Takeru had the feeling he was missing something. “I can’t bring Mamoru back,” he said.

“But you can be better.” She glared at him again, and merciful Nami, wouldn’t those claws loosen their grip? “You can be better than the man who couldn’t save him.”

“I will,” Takeru promised. “I’m not going to hurt you again.”

“If you don’t want to hurt me, you will face me like a real fighter,” Misaki’s teeth ground together in a snarl, “with respect.”

Takeru was used to other theonites’ nyama falling still once they were encased in his ice. Unable to move their limbs, most had trouble using their powers to affect the world around them. But Misaki’s power was not around her; it was inside, lending her little body godlike strength as it strained against its prison. Her pain screeched against him like claws on stone and he struggled not to cringe.

“This fight is over, woman,” he insisted as though speaking the words aloud could make them true. “You have no weapon. Yield.”

“I won’t. I can’t. You haven’t accepted my challenge yet.”

“I have—”

“You haven’t fought me like a Matsuda.”

Her body heaved against the ice—and cracked it.

The break sent a jolt through Takeru’s soul. He was a little boy, curled up on his side, shaking with the aftershocks of his father’s fists, unable to understand where his mother had gone, why she had left, why his father hated him so much. Tou-sama had stomped on him twice, leaving a heel-sized bruise on his cheek and a lance of pain in his ribs.

Knowing he would not be able to stand, he rolled onto his side and crawled. He was distantly aware that his brother must have stepped in to protect him, which meant that Takashi was probably hurt worse than he was. It wasn’t a comforting thought. Guilt wound itself in with the confusion and broken blood vessels, creating a new, worse kind of pain.

He knew that if he lay still and listened, he would hear Takashi crying, feel his brother’s pain answering his own like an echo. So instead of listening, Takeru crawled faster, fingernails scratching across the tatami in desperation. Hand over hand, he dragged himself forward until he reached the deck overlooking the snow-covered courtyard. Hauling himself to the edge, he rolled over it, into the white embrace below.

He landed hard on his side, probably adding to the bruises, but everything was alright now. The moment he hit the ground, the snow rushed to cradle him like his mother’s arms, and he was safe. Spreading his fingers out in the whiteness, Takeru let everything flow to the mountain. The pain dispersed into a thousand snowflakes, then ten thousand, thinning like mist to the morning.

For his whole life, Takeru had been certain that he was right to cast his pain off on the mountain, that it was the only way—because how could one possibly hold so much suffering in something as small as a human form?

Yet here was this this woman who held everything inside a little body of flesh and blood without breaking. It was as though all that pain had compressed in her slight figure like the molecules of a Whispering Blade or thousand-fold steel beaten to a blade in the forge. She had taken every drop of hardship like a stroke of the hammer, turning it to strength, and she was stronger than Takeru. She was breaking him.

“Stop,” he commanded, but she continued to struggle.

The splitting ice screamed with Takashi’s voice, with Mamoru’s, everything he had tried so hard to push away. He held his open hand ineffectually before him.

“Stop!” He bellowed, his voice no longer commanding. Begging. “Stop! Stop!”

One of Misaki’s hands burst free. The ice had left scratches on her arms, red over the white scars from her fight with the fonyakalu. Crashing out of her restraints, she raced forward. She had no weapon, but she came at him anyway.

In that moment of awe, Takeru realized how much he owed this woman, who had borne his children, who had fought, and fought, and fought for a family she had never asked for. She had given him her life and demanded nothing in return. Mamoru hadn’t inherited his strength from his father. It had come from her.

Perhaps she was stronger than he was. Perhaps it was impossible for him to overcome this woman who seemed to carry the force of an army inside her. But she was right. A Matsuda didn’t balk before the impossible.

Takeru extended his jiya to form a blade, but Misaki was ahead of him. She tore the sheath from her hip and slammed it into Takeru’s face. The sheath must have been made of the same Zilazen glass as her blade because it hit harder than any ice or metal Takeru had ever encountered.

As he reeled, she threw a kick into his stomach. It had been decades since someone had struck him hard enough to knock him down, but in Misaki’s monstrously powerful state, her foot slammed the breath from his body and sent him tumbling through the snow.

When he uncurled onto his hands and knees, Misaki stood before him, breathing hard, her hair flying freely in the wind. She had retrieved her sword, though the sheath was still clutched in her left hand like a second blade. Through the knives of pain in his ribs, Takeru recognized a stance similar to Takashi’s and wondered where she had learned to dual wield... Where had she found so much strength? No one had hit him this hard since his father.

The snow pulled at Takeru, offering tenderly to take the pain away. His fingers spread out in its beckoning cold, ready to oblige—but Misaki was still looking at him with expectation in her eyes. That gaze clutched him like claws—or a pair of arms—holding him.

So, instead of giving himself to the snow, Takeru dug his hands into it hard. His fist tightened and the snow rushed up to him. In an agonizing surge, it seemed to give back everything he had sent out into it over forty years: his brother’s bruises, his mother’s screams of impotent anger, his nineteen-year-old bride, holding her face in her hands as she fought to stifle her sobs, his father holding a bamboo rod and cracking it down on him.

The stick hit his ear and became the crash of bombs on Takayubi’s slopes. It hit his back and became Kotetsu Atsushi’s fists as he begged Takeru to go back for his father—“Please! Matsuda-dono! Please!” It hit his arm and became Misaki’s Blood Needle. It hit his knuckles and he felt them crash into Mamoru’s teeth, bloodying the boy’s mouth.

Hold the line, he had said as his son looked at him in fear.

And Mamoru had. He had protected Takayubi with everything he had.

Now it was Takeru’s turn.

Clutching the truth of his life in his hands, he stood.

Misaki was rushing toward him now, the final, most important part of his life bearing down on him. And he saw them both for what they were: a woman who needed her husband, and a man who needed his wife.

That clarity sharpened to an edge.

The Whispering Blade met Misaki’s obsidian sheath and sheared through it. Her eyes went wide, and she smiled—Gods in the Deep, she smiled—a raw, open smile, and it was the most beautiful thing in all the Duna.

Her sword hit the broad side of Takeru’s Whispering Blade, knocking it off course, but this time, the ice didn’t shatter. It didn’t even crack.

Discarding the sliced-off half of her sheath, Misaki attacked Takeru with new energy. For the first time, they met each other—not a frozen mountain and a doll, but living flesh, a man and a woman. Misaki’s smile grew. She had what she needed from him.

But in his new clarity, Takeru realized that there was one more thing he needed from her—as a man. She spun in to cut at his neck and he lowered his arm.

MISAKI

Misaki threw her entire body into the attack, knowing the Whispering Blade would be there to meet her, ready to smash through it or break in the effort.

The impact didn’t come.

Panic jolted through her fighter’s high. Even in her state of heightened reflexes, she barely managed to jerk to a stop before her blade sheared Takeru’s head from his shoulders. The black glass bit into his neck, and the world spun to a halt, the snow itself seeming to pause in shock.

Misaki stood there, breathless, heart hammering, as two drops of blood beaded on Takeru’s neck. Two drops. She hadn’t killed him. But it had been a close thing.

Why? She thought furiously. Why didn’t he block?

He should have had time to counter, so why hadn’t he? Had he been trying to trick her into killing him? Had he been testing her?

But when she looked into her husband’s face, his expression wasn’t smug or knowing. It was openly surprised. Then, as she watched, that surprise melted into something softer than triumph.

Relief.

They looked at each other, chests heaving with exertion, Siradenyaa still resting at his neck. Then the Whispering Blade turned to snow, fluttering down to rest at their feet. Takeru’s fingers touched her sword hand.

“I accept,” he said and for once, his voice was full—overflowing with gratitude, and strength, and the determined bite of winter.

And Misaki somehow understood why he had given her that last opening. If she truly wanted to kill him, then he was alone. He was willing to stand and fight, but he would rather die than do it alone. It wasn’t just the challenge of responsibility he was accepting as his hand touched hers; he was accepting her.

Cool fingers ran over Misaki’s sword hand, over her sleeve to brush the hair back from her face. In the falling snow, Takeru stared at the woman he had married and saw her for the first time.

“I accept.”