Alarms clanged in her brain. Now, she’s coming right now! Chinn didn’t think; she acted. As Katana gave a loud kiai at the same instant that she attacked, Chinn’s blade was already shooting out. Their swords made contact, and Chinn heaved up and out with her left hand, hard. Katana’s sword cut on empty air; before she could retreat, Chinn leapt, her blade cutting for Katana’s head. Katana ducked and bobbed to her left. Momentarily off-balance, Chinn’s forward momentum carried her past Katana on her right and, for an instant, she thought about fighting gravity, struggling around for a quick counterattack. But instead she let herself fall past Katana, twisting on the ball of her left foot and whirling in a complete circle until she faced forward. Just in time, too: Katana’s left knee pistoned as she sprinted toward Chinn.

A flash of insight: She expects me to pull back. So Chinn did the opposite. Howling her kiai, Chinn erased the distance between them. Their blades clashed as their bodies collided; Chinn, who was the smaller and lighter of the two, staggered, then righted; and suddenly, they were nearly eye to eye, two lengths of glittering steel bracketing their faces in a shiny V, and so close Chinn felt Katana’s hot breath slash her cheeks.

Got to get out of here. They were in taiatari, blades locked, the most dangerous position in which two swordsmen could find themselves. Chinn knew that the only way she could escape would be to move Katana’s sword from center while angling her body away and trying to push Katana off balance. The problem was that Chinn was too small, and she could already feel Katana pushing, forcing Chinn’s blade out of line. Grunting, Chinn tried holding the stance until her shoulders and forearms screamed with pain. Gathering her strength, Chinn pushed back with all her might, up and left; and just when she thought she couldn’t hold Katana anymore, she sucked in one last breath of air and thought: Push up and then drop into a squat and then when she’s fallen past…

And then Katana let go.

Startled, Chinn gave a yelp of surprise as she staggered forward, realizing much too late that, somehow, she’d betrayed herself again, and then she stopped thinking as she heard the high zing of metal slicing air, saw the cut coming fast as lightning.

The Old Master shouted at the last possible second. “Yame!”

Katana froze, and Chinn felt the bite of metal on the sensitive skin along the right side of her neck. She closed her eyes, aware that there was blood trickling into the hollow between her breasts; aware, too, that Katana’s breathing was harsh and rapid; aware that, when she saw the cut coming, she’d thought she might really die.

Opening her eyes, Chinn looked into the eyes of her tai-sho and then let her sword clatter to the floor. “And so you’ve killed me,” she said.

For a moment, Katana did not reply, and then Chinn saw the bunched muscles of Katana’s jaw relax, her shoulders slacken. Katana lifted her blade from Chinn’s neck, and Chinn saw that the steel was marred by a smear of bright red blood.

“Killed you? No,” said Katana. Then she moved closer, and in the next instant Chinn felt Katana’s tongue tease her neck, linger over her cut flesh. Chinn’s knees went to water, and her breath caught as a sudden wave of hot desire flooded her veins.

Katana took Chinn’s face in her hands. “I haven’t killed you yet,” she whispered, running her tongue along Chinn’s lips, and Chinn tasted the salty metallic tang of her own blood. Moaning, Chinn closed her eyes, drowning in sensation, and she heard Katana say, softly, “Not quite yet.”

Imperial City, Luthien

Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

15 December 3134

Vincent Kurita ceased speaking, and the resulting silence in the Black Room was so complete that it was almost a sound itself. ISF Director Ramadeep Bhatia was aware of the rush of his breath whistling through his nostrils, the creak of a leather boot as an aide shifted uneasily. Yet silence was also valuable, a tool that was as useful and potentially lethal as the most accurate assassin if one knew how to use it, when to exploit it. Bhatia did, and silence was, he decided, one of Vincent Kurita’s few talents—such as they were.

Bhatia looked through his lashes, his coal black eyes sliding round to the others gathered at the table, the warlords he could observe with relative ease because they sat directly opposite, ranged down the long axis of the smoky glass-topped table. (There were also three irrelevant aides hugging the far wall, one for each tai-shu.) One warlord who had not been the target of the coordinator’s pointed remarks—Pesht’s Doppo Saito—looked decidedly uncomfortable, even a little frightened, and this was probably a good thing because a frightened man was easily tamed. Saito might not be a weakling but he was a worm nonetheless, corrupted by luxury: a florid, doughy man, with puffy cheeks and stubby, bejeweled fingers, fat around as sausages and dimpled at the joints.

By contrast, Bhatia thought that New Samarkand’s Tai-shu Matsuhari Toranaga looked hungry. Solidly built, of above-average height, Toranaga had a square face lit by glittering black eyes. More and more, he always wants more, though his territory is the largest and borders on the Federated Suns. Highly intelligent and motivated by a boundless avarice for more and more power, yet able to bide his time, Toranaga was, Bhatia thought, just the man he might require.

Might. Bhatia’s eyes slid to the third man, a bull: Mits-ura Sakamoto, Warlord of Benjamin, descendant of Ta-hara Sakamoto of the First Sword of Light… and a damnable hothead. If he wasn’t so valuable, I’d leave Sakamoto to his wine and women and focus on Toranaga, and what my spies tell me is a rather interesting wild card. But not just yet.

The silence was broken when Sakamoto swallowed hard. “Tono, I must protest. I have nothing to apologize for, and even less to explain.”

And let us see how the Peacock handles that. Bhatia kept his eyes averted, as custom and manners demanded. One did not look to the coordinator for answers until the coordinator deigned to speak, yet Bhatia saw him well enough. The glass was polished to a high gloss; the coordinator was to his immediate left; and from beneath his hooded lids Bhatia observed Kurita’s reflection: ghostlike and a little eerie, the head seemingly floating above the jet shou jacket shot through with rich golden embroidery that twinkled like the light of faraway stars. Yes, Vincent Kurita was a peacock, all pomp and showy feathers and hollow at the core; a bitter pill, and one the Combine had to swallow—for the time being.

“No?” Kurita’s tone was mild, and Bhatia strained to detect any undercurrents—of displeasure or malice—and found none. Bhatia suppressed a sigh. And just what will shake this man from his complacency? He looked up, already knowing what he would see: a broad smooth brow surmounted by raven-black hair coiffed into a high powder puff like a storm cloud (more tinsel and glitter: Bhatia knew that Kurita’s real hair was white as spun sugar); hazel eyes set in an oval, delicate, slightly feminine face just beginning to show its years in the tracery of fine wrinkles fanning from the corner of each eye. Kurita’s features were bland, the corners of his mouth hooked in the quizzical, politic expression of a host who can’t quite place the name of the man to whom he’s just been introduced.

Kurita steepled his delicate, manicured fingers. “You deliberately cross the border into Prefecture I; not once, not twice, but a dozen times? You risk good men and valuable materiel? For what purpose?”