Hanako Tepes's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

Two nights before the mountain meeting, Hanako climbed to the training arena where her uncle waited. She could freeze one target now. But the courier cell held five men, maybe more. If her rage slipped for a breath, she would kill every witness she needed alive. She needed to hold the cold wide and steady, not narrow. She needed Jiro. Jiro Minamoto did not greet her. He stood at the center of the arena floor, his gold-and-silver katana already drawn, watching her hands. He was the General of Dracula's armies and the man who had trained her to fight before she could speak full sentences. He trained by repetition, until the body struck before the mind spoke. "Show me," he said. Hanako drew her own diamond-edged blade. She pointed at a wooden post. Ice sheeted over it and stopped. "One thing," she said. "The Mother taught me that." "One thing is not enough for five men," Jiro said. He set his sword down. "Your power is not just witch blood. It is older. It has a name." She lowered the blade. "What name?" "Kuraokami. Dragon of snow and rain. Our clan prayed to him before the hunters drove us from Japan." He walked to the balcony overlooking the whole valley of Walachia. "The Mother taught you to aim a knife. I will teach you to open a storm. A storm does not choose. It covers all and spares what you decide." "That is the opposite of control," Hanako said. "No." He pointed at the city below, the towers and rooftops and river. "Do not hold one target. Hold the whole thing at once. Feel every roof. Then pull the cold back from the ones you choose." Hanako gripped the railing. Rage rose, the same fury that always fed the ice. She did not narrow it this time. She let it spread. Cold poured off her skin and rolled down the mountain. Clouds boiled overhead. Snow fell in sheets. Within minutes frost climbed every wall, every spruce, every cobblestone. All of Walachia went white. "Now," Jiro said. "The arena below us. Full of my recruits. Spare them." Hanako's chest clenched. She pictured the warriors inside the halls beneath her. She pulled the cold back from them alone, an island of warmth in a frozen kingdom. The storm held everywhere else. Her eyes burned white, then steadied. She let the storm die. Snow stopped. Ice thawed under her will. Below, eighty of Jiro's soldiers walked out unharmed while the rest of the city dripped. Jiro picked up his katana. "Now you can walk into five men and choose which four live." Hanako sheathed her blade. Her hands did not shake. She could hold the cold wide and pick her survivors. But the storm had covered all of Walachia. Every clan had seen it. By dawn, whoever the traitor was would know exactly what she had become.