Whisper of Blade | ✓ (Crimson #1)

Chapter 4: Tempered Blade

Minerva progressed through the eerily silent passages below the Imperial Palace, torch held aloft in her hand. She climbed cracking stone steps, the walls damp and blackened with musty-smelling mold. Rats scurried back into their holes just beyond her circle of firelight. Her hand still shook, causing the light to waver.

As she walked—passing from one persona to the other—her shoulders drooped, head bowing from an invisible weight. But her hands stopped trembling.

The encounter with the Hydro entourage and her subsequent scare evaporated from the surface of her thoughts like morning dew. More pressing matters took their place, stirred to the top by the remembrance of spears with further reach than any Pyro sword.

Like skewers for meat.

War is inevitable. You can only delay it, the methods you use to prolong the peace often being the very ones to cause the first bloodshed.

The wise words of Matsudo Kavighn. Former general of the Empire, a man of battle.

He'd taught her everything, from how to recognize the perfectly balanced weapon to the signs of coming conflict.

How to be the last one standing when the conflict came.

A pair of eyes appeared at the edge where the light ended and the shadows began. They shone like burnished copper coins.

"Greetings, majestic one," Minerva said.

Azuki jumped down from the crevasse in the wall where the stone had crumbled. No one had bothered to clean up the jumble of rocks, but Azuki stepped over them with ease, not a pebble coming loose.

Minerva doubted his feet even touched them—the seven-tailed defied the falling force.

"I've told you not to call me by honorific," Azuki chided, pointedly waving his three golden and white-striped tails.

Kats often specialized in one of their abilities—or just preferred it over the others, Minerva could never tell which. Azuki chose to hide four of his seven tails by illusion and pass for a three-tailed.

"Humans demand too much of power," he'd said when Minerva inquired. "I'd hate to spend all my time setting them in their place."

Yet he never minded putting Minerva in hers. It could almost be affection.

"There isn't anyone to hear me," Minerva answered.

"You insult the rats."

They'd arrived at the upper halls, where servants had swept the floor clean of dirt and the ceiling of cobwebs. Torches dotted the walls and Minerva slipped hers into an empty sconce.

"Why do you like fire?" Azuki asked, his voice seeming to come from the ceiling. He enjoyed pretending to be taller than her.

"It keeps us warm, lets us see."

Azuki gave the kat version of a laugh—somewhere between a purr and choking up a hairball. Human laughter was one of the few things they couldn't mimic. "You can see in the dark as well as I now. Why the light then?"

Kats. Ever candid and lacking tact.

Taking the spiral of stairs that led to her room's floor, Minerva deferred her answer. Azuki wouldn't mind, kats could leave off a conversation and pick it back up days later. Once they asked a question, however, they'd badger until the answer satisfied. If it didn't, they'd pry further until it did.

"The tea, Azuki?" I need a good report after this toka crap of a day.

"The old one went on rampage again." Nola.