Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World & Other Stories by Caroline M. Yoachim

Author:Caroline M. Yoachim [Yoachim, Caroline M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Relato, Ciencia ficción, Fantástico
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2016-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

SEASONS SET IN SKIN

Cherry Blossoms

Spring followed Horimachi as she hiked up the steep trail. The branches of the cherry trees had been heavy with flowers when she left the capital at the end of March, but here the cold mountain air hindered even the turning of the seasons. She was condemned to make her entire trek under pink petals that drifted down from the trees like snow.

It reminded her of the cherry blossoms that she’d tattooed into her daughter’s skin. Months of pain, and the faeries killed her anyway. After ten years’ service as an artist for the Imperial Army, Horimachi had left the capital in shame. Her tattoos were failing, and soldiers were dying for it.

Aya had died for it.

The ancient road that Horimachi walked was lined with abandoned shrines and thousand-year trees. There were no other travelers. Forests were the domain of the gaijin fae, invaders from the West, and there were dark rumors even in the most isolated villages. Horimachi had done hundreds of tattoos for the Imperial Army, but her own skin was unprotected. Her tattoos were from before the war, when black ink was made of soot instead of faery blood. The only color on Horimachi’s skin was a cadmium red, not the deeper crimson of ground faery wings. She carried the protective inks with her, but she had vowed never to use them. She was done with soldiers, and cities, and war.

Horimachi hesitated at the edge of the village, at the bottom of the hundred stone steps that led up to the outermost temple. She’d lost her eldest daughter to the war, but not her youngest. Suki had been too small to go to the capital, only twelve when Horimachi left with Aya. She had always been respectful in the messages they exchanged—tiny scrolls of paper tied to the legs of gray waxwings—but a relationship only on paper was not the same as living under the same roof. Horimachi’s last scroll, the one she could not force herself to send, was in the breast pocket of her shirt, close to her heart. It bore the news of Aya’s death.

Swords clashed in the temple courtyard. Two women fought with wakizashi, short swords like the one Aya had practiced with before she joined the Imperial Army and graduated to a longer katana. When the women noticed her, they stopped their practice, and one of them rushed over to greet her.

“Mother?”

The woman who approached bore an eerie resemblance to Aya. Suki was a nurse now, tending the fae-addled veterans who had retired from the war, but Horimachi still remembered her as a skinny twelve-year-old girl who had bravely fought back tears the day she and Aya had left. The sword tied to Suki’s waist sash was Aya’s practice sword.

Horimachi bowed her head. “Suki. I’m so sorry. I didn’t protect her well enough.”

“Aya.” Suki mouthed the word but had no voice to speak.

They held each other and cried.

The cold mountain air had not kept away the destruction of war.

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