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  “Damn it!” She yanked back, trying to extricate her lasers, ignoring the warning shriek of her DI as her temp climbed. She could figure out the problem without the help of her diagnostic interpretation computer, thank you very much.

  “Katana!” Theodore yelled, his voice hitching. There was a series of dull sonic booms, and Katana spared a quick glance and, horrified, saw a lance of saucer-shaped Sholagar fighters scream from the sky. Lasers pricked the Shiro’s back, needling the cockpit, just as a spread of LRMs bulleted against Theodore’s right torso, directly over his store of missiles. A blinding series of explosions blossomed bright and hard as suns gone nova: BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! The roars reverberated across the canyon, redoubling as echoes—and then Theodore’s armor plating turned to sludge, to molten welts, the edges humping like badly formed scars. The Sholagars sped by the Shiro, then broke right and left, turning now, rocketing for the ’Mech, lasers slicing away the Shiro’s twin banners, the ones decorated with the Kurita dragon.

  “Katana!” Theodore shouted, his voice broken by bursts of static. “My firing system’s frozen, locked out, and my emergency dump’s off-line!”

  My God, he’s too close to the edge, too close! “Theodore! You can’t do any more good here, just get the hell . . . !” She broke off as the air overhead screamed with the passage of LRMs loosed by the Zeus, rocketing streamers of death. She gauged their trajectory, and understood their enemy’s strategy, too late. “Theodore! The ridge! Back up, back up!”

  But Theodore was already reeling, the Shiro lurching left, its leg swinging to broaden its stance—and then the ’Mech froze, right leg locked and still too close to the edge.

  Helpless, Katana watched as the missiles plowed into the ridge, shattering rock like fragile glass, the concussive power of the blasts so strong that chunks of the mountain rained over her canopy, bulleting against ferroglass and armor. The ridge splintered, and the rock beneath Theodore’s feet disintegrated. The edge crumbled to dust—with Theodore still there, still frozen.

  And then the rock face suddenly slid free, like an iceberg calving from a glacier. The Shiro rode a wave of pulverized rock and debris that evaporated beneath its feet. Screaming, Theodore was in free fall, pulling an avalanche in his wake, his blade snapping in two as his ’Mech rebounded off a protruding rock shelf, the Shiro turning a somersault just before its munitions blew. A series of blasts, each more powerful than the next, billowed fiery orange and bloodred.

  And then there was only silence because Theodore was gone.

  “Onore!” Katana roared, the simmering magma of her fury erupting in an explosion of venomous hate. “Koro shite yaru! I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch!” She swung round, brought her autocannon to bear. But the Zeus was already on the move, disappearing as it retreated from the rim. The Sholagars had regrouped but very far away and circling, not initiating another attack run. Waiting. And then, when the Zeus maneuvered onto a jutting portion of ridgeline north of her position, she understood at once.

  Long-range missiles, and me trapped like a fly on sticky paper. No way to get free unless I try to break off the arm, but then . . .

  A flash as her adversary’s missiles roared from their rack, arrowing right for her but . . . What was going on? She gaped, wondered if her enemy had lost his mind, because she saw that the missiles were going to fall short, not hit her at all. . . .

  “Oh, my God,” she said, a clutch of sickening cold knotting her stomach and then flowing like ice water through her veins.

  He wasn’t aiming at her at all. Instead, he’d targeted the canyon wall.

  The missiles thundered into the canyon wall above and short of where she sprawled, her lasers mired in a trap devised by her folly and petty pride. Beneath her feet, the ground shook with the violence of an earthquake, of the earth splitting in two. Then she wasn’t standing on solid ground anymore but hanging for a brief, tenuous two or perhaps three seconds before her laser arm, unable to hold her ’Mech’s tonnage, snapped.

  The shrieking ululation of alarm klaxons mingled with her screams as she tumbled down amid rocks and debris. Her Kozo skidded right and then hit with a tremendous BOOOM, the autocannon mounted on its right shoulder shearing and then tearing free as the ’Mech turned head over heels. Trapped in her command couch, her body bounced and strained against her harness, jouncing like the hopeless struggles of an insect stuck in a web. The world dissolved into a gray blur and black smoke, spinning, cartwheeling . . .

  Desperate, she wrenched her upper torso, trying to fling her ’Mech flat, and flailed with her right arm. Her ’Mech responded, mirroring her movements: its twin-headed dragon sickle flashed forward, grabbing at rock. The principle was the same as an ice climber using his ax to stop a fatal slide. She felt the sickle snag and leaned into it, grimacing with the effort, the ’Mech’s temperatures now so high that the scream of her alarms was one continual, piercing note.

  Against all odds, she stopped falling. The sickle caught, and held. It shouldn’t have. The sickle should’ve snapped because a ’Mech was proportionately so much heavier than a human—but it didn’t.

  Yes, yes! Her heart rebounded with a tremendous thump against her ribs. Not much time, get moving, get moving! Grunting, she swung her legs, battering the rock, trying to gouge footholds. But then her ax jerked and pulled free with a groan of metal, and her Kozo peeled away from the mountain, its limbs splayed like a four-pointed star.

  Beyond her canopy, the sky retreated and grew darker as she plunged toward the river. She couldn’t eject, couldn’t use the jump jets. She hurtled down the abyss and suddenly understood the despair of the damned.

  She hit the water, very hard. Hard enough that it was as if the water were solid, an open palm that smacked her in the back. Momentum slammed her body, trying to thrust her out of her command couch. Her harness, strained beyond the breaking point, ruptured, and she barely had time to throw her arms up to shield her face before she smacked face-first into her canopy. Later, the diagnostics would show that the bones of her face shattered with the impact. Water rushed over her canopy, and the sky—so far away now—wavered, shimmered, disappeared.

  But not before a final image was forever branded on her brain: the Zeus, wreathed by flame, a nightmare demon from an underworld she couldn’t imagine.

  And then everything fizzled, broke apart into multicolored pixels as the sim terminated and went black.

  Silence.

  Then a voice she heard even over the roar of her heart in her temples and the bellows of her gasping lungs:

  “I believe,” said Matsuhari Toranaga, Warlord of New Samarkand, “you are quite, quite dead.”

  2

  Imperial City, Luthien

  Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

  13 June 3136

  Her personal bodyguard, Joji Ashido, had pulled back the easternmost shoji overlooking a kidney-shaped pond ornamented with jade-green saucers of water lilies and the paler hues of a lush silver water grass. The Kuritas’ latest treasure perched on a high berm: a weeping cherry crowned with purple-pink blooms so plump and densely packed its branches bowed.

  Yet, in the midst of this tranquility, Emi Kurita spied a storm brewing in the distance. Slate-colored, heavy-bellied clouds unfurled, loosing a pillow of air that smelled of ozone and wet metal.

  And so. Emi Kurita knelt upon a tatami mat and tipped fragrant, steaming green tea from a tetsubin iron teapot into a peacock-blue, crackle-glazed ceramic cup. Let the games commence.

  Proffering the cup, she said, “Brother, you must not take this so to heart. Tai-shu Toranaga had superior forces, positioned to better advantage. You did your best.”

  Grunting, Theodore accepted the tea with his right hand, something Emi noted with dismay. He’d shaved—nicking his throat several times, judging from the beads of dried blood. There was more silver brushing his temples than she remembered, and he’d lost weight. His cheeks were sharper, his chin a little more square. He was haggard, as if wearied
beyond fatigue.

  And yet . . . and yet, his attire revealed much about his state of mind: a pair of flowing black hakama trousers and matching keiko-gi jacket, belted at the waist with a twist of Kurita-red sash. A man ready for kendo kata, and other drills aimed at honing a warrior’s mind. A man prepared for battle.

  But are you a match for this, the fight of your life, my brother?

  Replacing the pot upon a matching round iron trivet, she peered into her tea, as if to divine its mysteries, or their future. But the tea was just tea.

  Theodore said, “A shame my best wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t hold my own.”

  “You performed admirably,” Emi said, her tone a study in neutrality. Yes, I will speak to him of our shared disaster, but I must approach this with caution. Bad enough his body betrays him. He doesn’t need a sister’s sharp tongue to cut him to the bone. “Besides, you were a tad outnumbered.”

  “I know,” Theodore said. “The hell of it was Katana really didn’t have a choice. Toranaga issued a challenge. She couldn’t very well refuse, not in front of Father.”

  “Would you have wanted her to?”

  “No. It’s just . . . Emi, she brought on this defeat herself, maybe to prove how tough she is. I don’t know. If she’d only listened—”

  “She did not, and that is her bitter pill, not yours. Brother, you cannot save her from herself. She will either fall, or rise and make Dieron whole.”

  “With what, exactly? She’s got a fractured district, virtually surrounded on all sides by enemies nibbling away at the margins. Even the worlds we thought we’d sewn up—Styx, Saffel—they’re still not completely secured. Katana’s got to push back and forward at the same time, with limited resources and, on some planets, populations that aren’t exactly welcoming. The task is nearly impossible: raising troops and matériel, while fending off attacks in her realm.” Theodore stared down into his cup, his face set in something just shy of a glower. “Imagine how much more trouble she’ll have when Father names the new warlord for the Benjamin District tomorrow. Then she’ll have to watch her back, too, and then there’s Toranaga.”

  “I thought we were all part of the same, happy Combine.”

  Theodore gave her a narrow look. “Don’t playact at naïveté, Sister. It’s beneath you. Katana was Toranaga’s enemy today, but he surely is poised to become our enemy tomorrow.”

  “You mean Yori.” Emi sipped from her cup. The slightly sweet green tea was still quite hot and scorched her tongue. Yori Kurita had arrived with her patron, Toranaga, a week ago. There were wheels upon wheels turning in that young head, yet she carried herself with a self-possessed, cautious air that bordered on chilly. “Yori is a threat, even if she does not know or wish it. She may be the granddaughter of a bastard, but she’s taken our name. That reveals which way the wind blows, and it hails from New Samarkand, Brother. This may yet be the storm that sinks us.”

  Theodore gave her an odd look. “You’ve grown blunt, Sister.”

  “I am Keeper of the House Honor, but I am my father’s daughter, your sister, and a Kurita above all else. Why do you think Father installed the sim in the palace? To broadcast that we still have plenty of teeth.” She added, more gently, “Though I do not think we saw yours, Brother.”

  “Since when have you become a critic?”

  She touched his arm to soften the sting. “Since I drilled kendo with you, Brother. I know how formidable you can be.”

  “And I remember you ducking under my shinai and thwacking my bottom more times than I care to recall.” Theodore grinned with genuine pleasure at the memory. “We were happier then.”

  “You mean before Mother and Ryuhiko,” Emi said. It was not a question, and it hurt her heart when Theodore’s smile dribbled away, like water leaking through a sieve. But she needed her brother to be realistic and face facts. “Brother, kimi o ai shiteru. You know that.”

  “I love you, too.” Theodore’s voice was hoarse. He blinked and looked away, his gaze drifting to the garden. “That’s a lovely cherry tree.”

  “Yes, it is. But all flowers fade, Brother. Everything dies, even the most beautiful, the strongest. Even the best may die young.”

  “Die young.” And then he did meet her eyes, and what she saw there dug a talon of grief into her heart. “Don’t you mean me, Emi?”

  They stared at one another for several seconds, the silence filled by the warble of a distant songbird. Finally, Emi said, “Chomie hasn’t produced an heir. You must continue the line. Father will die someday, or he will become infirm. Then you will lead, but you cannot if you have no heir. You and Chomie have tried for years, and failed, and you are not getting younger. That is Yori’s danger, Brother. She is young; she is a Kurita; she is wedded to Toranaga by will or design, and that could not be worse than the devil himself. Why not take a lover? Perhaps Katana—”

  “No.” Theodore’s tone was flat, final. “Not Katana. Not because she isn’t attractive or strong, she is. But I’ll not plant my seed in Katana, or any other woman. I love my wife.”

  “Your duty is to the Combine.”

  Theodore flared. “It is no service if I betray my wife. I can no more contemplate that than . . . well,” he made a vague gesture, “than you might entertain compromising tradition by taking a lover.”

  “Tradition?” Emi arched an eyebrow. “Omi Kurita’s spinning in her grave.”

  “Don’t be coy. You might break with tradition, but I suspect you’d do so only for life or death. Anyway, we both know that this goes beyond having another woman, Emi.” He let out his breath in a long sigh of weariness tinged with despair. “The curse is in our blood. All the wishing in the world won’t change that.”

  Emi waited a beat. “Do you have an alternative, a plan?”

  “Yes. But Chomie’s against it.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why?”

  Mute, he shook his head, shrugged. Stared at his hands, the right covering the ball of his left fist. When he didn’t speak, Emi said, “Brother, are you well? Have you seen a physician?” When he shook his head, she pressed, “But you must. You know you must. You are not concerned enough already? Despite your defeat today? Despite the fact that I saw your right leg, how it locked? Despite the fact that you drink tea with your right hand? You are left-handed, Brother. Your Shiro has been modified, the naginata blade wedded to your left hand, not the right. If there is nothing wrong, show me your hand.”

  “This is absurd.” Theodore reached for his tea. “I don’t have a problem. This is pure fool—” He broke off as his body betrayed him, as the fingers of his left hand and then the hand itself quaked. Tea sloshed over his fingers.

  Emi tried reaching for him. “Theodore, it’s all right, it’s all—”

  “Damn you, damn you!” Wrenching free, Theodore sprang to his feet and unleashed his fury in a sudden howl, hurling the cup with all his might. The cup tumbled through the air, end over end, spattering tea and shattering against a far wall with such force that Ashido, standing sentry outside the room, was there in a second, his hand on the butt of a laser pistol.

  “Mistress.” Ashido was as tall as Theodore, but his black hair was much longer, spilling across his broad shoulders. His deep brown eyes took in Theodore, and then clicked to Emi. “There was a—” he seemed to choose the word with care, “commotion.”

  “It’s fine,” Emi said. She didn’t even try to smile. “Thank you, Joji. You may go. We’ll take care of the mess later.” She waited until Ashido bowed and then retreated before going to her brother. “Theodore, we can talk about this, we can . . .”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Theodore said. His words were clipped and terse. His hands fisted, released, and fisted again. “I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Oh, Brother.” And then, before he could pull away, Emi cradled her brother’s trembling left hand in hers. When she pressed his fingers to her lips, tears wet her cheeks. “Mine own brother, my heart,” she said, and then he
r voice broke. “You know there is.”

  3

  Imperial City, Luthien

  13 June 3136

  Vincent Kurita dipped an ink stick into water, tapped away a stray drop, and then bent to grind his stick against his suzuri stone. This was the magic: transforming this stick of glue and camphor, soot from burnt pinewood and lampblack, into creamy black ink. His shoji was open to the garden, and he worked on the balcony, his easel a long, low meditation table that normally rested alongside his suit of armor.

  He hadn’t painted for a very long time. But the urge had come on the heels of his dreams. Nightmares, really: desperate and black. Violent. Those dreams meant something, though. Vincent was not a religious man, or superstitious. His wife—his Ramiko whom he married very young and loved well before she was taken from him—she was always the one for that, chanting her prayers and divining the workings of spirits and demons. Yet he did believe in the workings of the unconscious mind, and so he painted, adopting the same kind of restful alertness he brought to the dojo and a good, sweaty session of kendo kata.

  He painted. His brush scored snowy-white rice paper, the kami, with black whorls. Odd, now that he thought of it: The kami also were the gods of Shinto, those divine forces of nature that imbued a waterfall or a storm with its power. Vincent paused, bamboo brush in midair, not really seeing what he painted but turning over this new concept. The kami were like avatars, crossing over from their spirit world to this physical, tangible world. Yet they were not omnipotent.