Chapter Text

Prologue

Lifebreath. It goes by many names: Qi, Ashe, Power, Prana, Mana, Energy. And it is what makes us be.

It binds the life within itself and connects it to the outer world. Without it, we simply exist. But with it, we are so much more. We are fluid. We are heat. We are strength. Infinite and sudden.

You can sense the vastness of this Power through meditation, observe it from a safe remove. To grip it tight, to channel its full force—that demands something else entirely. It is woven into your very being, a legacy passed down like the color of your eyes. It strengthens in some bloodlines and winks out in others, flickering through the generations.

Your form shapes your Lifebreath. And in return, it shapes you. By wielding it, you are tethered to a universal principle. As above, so below. The War of Wings rages eternal, so compulsion requires us to do the same.

I chose the hardship of suppression to keep my children safe. My name is Ren. Isamu and Chou are my life now. The chaos of battle attracts some wielders more intensely than others, but it attracts us all. Left without, we usually search to start our own. I don’t want this for them.

Therefore, it’s not my story I wish to tell, but that of my beloved. A walking legend in the flesh, renowned as a weapon by respected leaders, yet called a hero by the young. He is neither. He is a wingless angel—living with the amount of Lifebreath equal to that of an Angel, trapped in a mortal body.

And he is my brother.

Being what he is, made his very existence a challenge in a world that refused to stop chipping away at him. As a soldier, he fought battles and spilled blood. As a friend, he faced betrayal and lost loved ones. Until he was finally left alone, mangled. Life of scars that will never truly heal.

But his most challenging trial was leaving all of that behind. To find enough strength and common sense to distance himself from the heated struggles. To accept that his participation did more to ignite the passionate fires in the souls of battles than quench them. To know that if he wanted to live on, he had to stomp out that need to clash. And he had to start with himself.

And he pulled it off. As a wingless angel, a prime specimen of what a wielder could do, he lived a suppressed life as a wandering person without a battle on the horizon.

He really did.

For four whole years ...

Until that week came.

DAY ONE

Friday

* * * * *

Ren

My already busy Friday went straight to hell when my cellular phone started thrumming on the other end of the kitchen counter. A broad array of raw food occupied the space between my stocky figure and it, and I intended to keep it that way. The Koizumi’s Red Dragon restaurant had to get ready for the lunchtime crowd. I had a more imminent assignment anyway—the vegetables. One ear to Mr. Koizumi’s grumble and my son’s high tone as they wrapped dumplings at the other counter. I worried Isamu would pick up some of the head chef’s foul language, but the eight-year-old hasn’t yet reached his rebellious stage. Telling him once was enough.

Mrs. Koizumi repeated a question or an order from the front of the restaurant. I didn’t hear which over the rattle of the phone, bubbling soup, and my son’s scream as he stumbled with a platter full of prepared dumplings. My daughter was there to catch the other side of the prepared dish. She was always quick to act when it came to her brother.

I looked at them, and they looked at me. Such different emotions in their too-bright eyes. Isamu seemed subdued and, as always, ready to apologize for his clumsiness. Chou—who was an inch taller than him—with the proficiency of a much older person, looked ready to tackle the busy day all by herself. Both of their mouths open, one to self-blame and one to repeat whatever Mrs. Koizumi demanded from the dining area. Their emotions were reflected in their dark-brown, slightly curly hair, which framed their faces.

In the momentary silence with only the soup hissing over the pot’s rim, the buzz of my phone could not be ignored.

“Is it Uncle Eli?” Isamu asked, panic forgotten. “Is he coming by?”

It was hard to deny that hopeful voice anything, yet it was what I had to do. “I don’t think so, Isamu.”

“Why won’t you answer it?” Chou asked just as Mr. Koizumi shifted the soup pot with a curse of a drunken bandit.  

My daughter’s words could very well be a demand. I glared at her for a second, then turned back to chopping vegetables. Perhaps there was a bit more force in my knife strokes than necessary.

“It won’t stop, Mom.”

She was right, of course. Sometimes, I wondered which of us was the parent.

To myself, I murmured, “He’s not here.”

Mr. Koizumi cursed the ancestors of the cow, the meat of which wouldn’t separate from the bone smoothly enough.

Mrs. Koizumi yelled her order again. Through the now-open door, I heard her demanding the clean dishes for the tables.

Isamu gingerly set down the dumplings and picked up the set of plates. Chou took more than half of the stack from him to help. With another glance that spoke volumes, she said, “It won’t stop, Mom. Just take the call.” Then they were through the door that swung behind them.

With a huff, I stabbed the knife through the fresh daikon into the chopping board. I took off my kitchen gloves and walked to the phone, straight-backed, picking it up. Before the person on the other side of the line could utter a word, I told them in no uncertain terms, “I’m his sister, not his sitter. He. Is. NOT. Here.”

The silence lasted long enough that it made me wonder if the line had disconnected before I answered it at all. Good. It wouldn’t be any new information to them. I have already stated this five times in the last week. I was sure they’d send a person disguised as a customer to the restaurant to check by now.

I heard a sigh from across the line.

Not disconnected.

“That’s fine, Miss Motou. We just wanted to inform you that someone was sent to retrieve him.”

The old fighting spirit flared within me. I walked into the open pantry to keep the phone call as private as possible. Standing in the semi-dark amongst the vegetables, I spoke through gritted teeth, “He doesn’t want to be retrieved! He only wants to be left alone! We want to be left alone!”

“We don’t want to disturb your peace, Miss Motou,” came the sharply reflected answer, more distressed than I expected. “However, we must get every advantage we can against them!”

I paused. “The Black Snake?” I had a reason to worry if they were riled up. My children and I were hidden but without protection in the city. “What are they up to?”

“That is not a conversation to have over the phone—”

“That’s bull—”

“It’s the White Crane’s job to ward them off!” The guy never liked being interrupted. His tone left me both remorseful that I had done so, and annoyed that he dared to presume so much as to scold me for it.

I rolled my eyes. “Right.”

“He’s our most powerful weapon.”

The bashfulness fell into the body of water. I could feel the ripples it left behind swirl within me. Wide and disturbing the surface. I wanted to hit something. “He is not a thing! He is a human being! He’s my brother!”

“We both agree that you two are blood-related … but talking Breath, he’s a most valuable asset.”

“You son of a—”

“We shall call you when we know his whereabouts. Goodbye for now, Miss Motou.” He hung up and left me staring at the melon I considered throwing against the ground.

“Mom?”

I turned and saw my children blocking the pantry doorway. These two would be a great duo if I’d let myself think about putting them into the Qi’sea Sanctum for training. But our children deserve better than what their parents had.

I reached to my covered forearm, where, just by the elbow, a small tattoo was hidden under the sleeve. An outlined feather filled with white, no larger than two fingers across. Isamu, across from me, reached up to his own—a stain on his perfect, innocent child’s skin. A symbol of Sanctum’s protection in this chaotic world. A wielder does not follow all the same rules as a regular person. They are too dangerous for that. And the regulars act like fire-ants when they find a wielder they cannot place. Koizumi’s don’t know about my Qi ability or my children’s potential.

I refuse to see anyone of my blood as an asset.

“What’s wrong?” asked Chou, with a tone that I often use myself.

What was I supposed to say? ‘Mommy thinks we might be in trouble very soon.’ ‘Our sanctuary—your place of birth, the place I told you was the safest in the whole world—somehow needs the help of a wingless angel, who is also your Uncle.’ ‘The enemy probably made a move that worries the usually calm and collected leaders, one of whom I would trust with my life.’

“Is Uncle Eli in trouble?” My son wasn’t old enough to understand rhetorical questions. However, he was apparently old enough to mouth one.

Kiyoshel’s life was trouble. I would have to slap him silly even to get him to consider staying out of it. He was merely taking a vacation from it for the last four years.

They sent someone to fetch him. Well, that should be hilarious to see. Seeing as he Sensed them coming from a mile away, my brother could avoid anyone.

But I knew my brother. The question of could wasn’t a problem. The one of would was.

“No,” I answered half-truthfully. Not yet.