Page 58 of Night of the Dragon

Finally, the lightning storm ceased. For a moment, I saw Lady Hanshou floating there, her withered form now a charred, blackened husk, wings torn away, eyes blank and unseeing, before she dropped from the sky like a bundle of old twigs and rags, vanished into the swirling clouds below, and was gone.

I swallowed the sickness in my throat, and Tatsumi leaped from the carriage. Kamigoroshi blazing in his hand, he fell toward the Dragon, hair and clothes flapping in the wind, the deadly sword raised over his head. Eyes narrowed, he landed between the Kami’s sweeping, antlered horns and plunged Kamigoroshi point down into the Dragon’s skull.

The Dragon screamed. Its great body convulsed, thrashing and writhing in the air like it had been stuck with one of its own lightning bolts. The agonized wail tore through me like a hundred arrows, and in the echo of the storm, I could hear millions of voices raised in answering cries, the kami of the island, of perhaps the whole empire, reacting to the death of the great Dragon, the Lord of Tides and the Harbinger of Change.

A sob rose to my throat. But as the voices continued to scream, a shadow fell over me from behind, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I spun and saw silver hair, golden eyes and multiple tails as Seigetsu stared down at me, his gaze terrible and cold in the flickering light of the storm.

My heart stood still. “Seigetsu! How—?”

With lightning speed, the ninetail grabbed my wrist and lifted me off my feet. I gasped at the sudden pain, dangling in his grip, as Seigetsu regarded me with a smile.

“You have something of mine.”

I snarled at him, foxfire springing to my fingers, but he raised his other hand, and my stomach gave a violent lurch as if trying to expel an awful sickness. I gagged, mouth gaping open, as something forced its way up my throat, leaving a trail of cold fire behind it. A small globe the color of the moon slid between my jaws and into Seigetsu’s open palm. The ninetail gave a grim nod, and the ball vanished into his robes. I suddenly felt hollow and cold, like the flames that had been smoldering in the pit of my stomach had been snuffed out. Seigetsu gave me a sympathetic look, as if he knew what I was feeling.

“Thank you, daughter,” he told me. “Truly, I could not have done any of this without you. You have played your role admirably, but I’m afraid your part in this game is done. Say hello to Kiyomi when you reach the other side.”

And he hurled me out of the carriage.

A shriek lodged in my throat, terror flooding my body, as I flew into open air and started to plummet. I twisted, grasping desperately at nothing as tears streamed from my eyes and the wind tore at my hair and clothes, but only the roiling sky rose to embrace me.

Then there was a ripple of darkness, the glint of blue-black scales, and I struck something solid and unyielding that crushed my arm and drove the breath from me. Before I could comprehend what had happened, the thing I had landed on—the Dragon!—twisted sharply, sending me rolling. I gave a yelp and lashed out wildly, but my fingers slipped on the Harbinger’s smooth, hard scales and I slid steadily toward the edge of what could only be the Dragon’s skull.

As my feet slid over the Kami’s head into open air, my fingers closed on a handful of the Dragon’s long rippling mane, finally stopping my plunge into oblivion. Gasping, paralyzed with fear, I clung to the lifeline with both hands, seeing nothing beyond my sandals but swirling clouds.

“Yumeko!”

At Tatsumi’s frantic voice, I finally wrenched my wide-eyed stare from the drop past my feet and looked at the top of the Dragon’s head. Painfully, I pulled myself up the mane and saw a figure in the center of the Kami’s skull, still clutching the hilt of a sword as the Dragon’s body twisted and writhed beneath him in agony. Tatsumi met my gaze over the pitching of the Harbinger, his expression tortured, as if he was torn between slaying the Dragon and going to me.

As I took a breath to call to him, a pale shadow fell from the sky overhead. The demonslayer glanced up, and Seigetsu dropped onto the Dragon’s head and slashed his sword across Tatsumi’s chest. Blood arced from the demonslayer in a vivid stream, misting into the air, and Tatsumi fell backward, losing his hold on Kamigoroshi. I screamed his name in horror.

Seigetsu’s gaze flickered to me for the briefest of moments, before he turned away. Grasping the hilt of Kamigoroshi, still plunged halfway into the Dragon’s head, he paused, eyes narrowed and contemplative, and I wondered if he was going to pull it free.

The ninetail gave a terrible smile...and shoved the Godslayer the rest of the way into the Dragon’s head, sinking it past the hilt.

The Dragon jerked, jaws gaping, though no sound escaped it this time. But I saw its eye roll back, saw the moment the light faded from the Kami’s gaze and felt a sickness I’d never known spread from my heart to the rest of my soul.

Numb, I looked at Seigetsu, who straightened, hair and tails whipping around him, to stare at the Dragon’s head. Slowly, his hand rose, palm down and fingers spread, still gazing down at the Kami he had slain. Something flared in the Dragon’s forehead, glimmering like a fallen star. It floated steadily into the air, a tiny pearl, iridescent and beautiful, shining brighter than the moon itself. Seigetsu tilted his palm, and the jewel drifted into it, illuminating the kitsune’s face and the terrible, terrible triumph in his golden eyes.

“At last,” he whispered, his voice actually trembling as his fingers closed around the pearl. Tangling my fingers in the Dragon’s mane, I choked out an apology and pulled, yanking a few long, silky strands free, as Seigetsu’s voice continued overhead.

“One thousand years,” he murmured. “A millennia of planning, scheming, nudging the waters of fate, changing the destiny of countless lives, moving the pieces on the board without a single mistake. The game is finally over. The Fushi no Tama is mine.” He brought his fist to his face, the light from the jewel shining through his fingers. “I will be a god.”

“Seigetsu!” I pulled myself up the Dragon’s mane, using the last of my strength as I crawled onto the Harbinger’s skull. The ninetail lowered his arm and gazed at me as I opened my palms, calling my foxfire to life. One elegant eyebrow rose, and the kitsune smiled.

“What are you doing, daughter?” he asked, shaking his head as if I were an impertinent child. Below us, the Dragon’s body seemed to defy nature as it hovered motionless in the air, as if it were a feather floating on the surface of a pond. Seigetsu’s hair streamed around him as he tucked his hands into his sleeves, and the jewel vanished from sight. “It is over. The game is done, and the winner takes the prize.”

“That’s what you were after this whole time?” I panted. “A jewel? Why...?”

The words caught in my throat. A memory came to me then, from a lifetime ago. Sitting in a tiny room with Master Isao, listening to a story of an arrogant mortal and the jewel in the Dragon’s head.

“The Fushi no Tama grants immortality to anyone who possesses it.” Seigetsu’s voice echoed over the wind, and the eyes of the ninetail glowed yellow in the darkness. “The Harbinger’s wishes have brought nothing but ruin to this world. It is time for a new god to rise, one who is unconcerned with the desires of mortal men. I will shape this world anew and purge the greed of humans from the land once and for all. The Dragon is gone. A new Harbinger of Change has come!”

A shudder went through the Dragon. I felt the shiver ripple through the huge body, as whatever force was holding the mighty creature aloft departed. For a heartbeat, the Kami hung in the clouds, and in the second before it started to fall, Tatsumi lunged forward, yanked Kamigoroshi from the Dragon’s head and slashed it at the ninetail.

Seigetsu whirled, moving his head just enough so that the sword missed his face by a hairbreadth. A few strands of silver hair tumbled free and danced away on the wind. Tatsumi, the front of his haori drenched with blood, blinked as Seigetsu smiled.

“Not this time, Hakaimono. Now you face a god.”

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