Eternity's Blade, page 25
What happens now?
Soh’shoro had no answer. He could not guess which dream was real: the bright or the broken. All he knew for certain was that by freeing the Valley, he had also unleashed forces upon it he barely understood. He had been strong enough to deliver this future to his people.
But am I strong enough to lead us into it?
After, Soh’shoro sutured his ravaged body with scavenged epoxy and discarded silks, his stitching accompanied by no Voice except cicada calls. Thus he found her final gift. For the wound of his self-impalement stung with eerie familiarity, its scabbing completing still-older scars. As if his mother had shown him with An-go’yi’ki’s first death how to survive his own.
You taught me so much. Soh’shoro winced as he poulticed salt and rice wine over the wound. But not enough to understand. Because if the Onan’ji had spoken the truth, his mother was still out there. So why not return? What keeps you away?
What do you fear?
He contemplated that question for days, as his injuries set well enough for travel. He knew he needed to rally his people; to reconstitute his court; to reunite with the Black Cloaks and chirurgeons. But all these obligations, and every other he must face as last of the Valley’s lords, would wait.
First, he needed to hold her again.
So he dreamed feverishly each night, as he journeyed beneath the unmasked stars, of his love. Of the princess’s body purified by surgery, like an autumn dream made flesh; shimmering in pulchritude and splendor, shuddering against him with bloated softness; as bones fattened and pocks receded; as shoulders ceased to stretch and any final stains stalled beneath eager chirurgical knives.
He almost felt her suffering.
You can be more than your darkness. The words were Yei’an’s final warning, whispered as her winter bur and honey fled for the seas. But the sidereal price his selfish passion forced the princess to pay suggested otherwise. You do not have to choose Death.
But he had.
Then that morning—
Soh’shoro rose early to summit the Valley’s peaks, hiking verdant snow lines knifing into ancient places he’d once wandered with the Onan’ji, beside Qu’en Shards suddenly silenced and nevermore marking the limits of the world. Soon his eyes kissed Outside, sweeping its amaranthine plains and cerulean swells, its cream-cored clouds like polished glass, contemplating that new Eternity: a horizon undefined.
Here, at the edge of both Valley and vastness, he drew his mother’s blade. The shards slipped far too easily from their ossuary, as cranes failed to catch their tempered gold. A lonely lily petal, desiccated and quiescent, clung to the sword’s cracked spine, still caked with Qu’en blood.
Now he polished the blade, using only what he had: the sleeves of his robe and coarse salt for abrasion. A thin skim of lily juice completed the brightening paste, bled by the petal pulling free. Soh’shoro worked lovingly and carefully, cradling the steel as if it were his mother’s hand, treasuring its ancestral touch, marveling as its silver sacrifice sparkled ever more vividly with each purifying pass. For the first time, though he now knew it measured, he dreamed only of peace. As all the blood of the past washed away, until only the broken beauty beneath remained. So bright and bare, the prince could see it:
The creeping no-place, atramental and empty as the newly beating heart of its discarded doll.
The power of its hand is invisible.
And again and again Soh’shoro called out for her, as he realized what it was he had done.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the tireless help and support of so many wonderful readers, editors, and friends.
First I would like to acknowledge my parents for encouraging me to write starting in elementary school. And in particular my mother, who printed out dozens of copies of my first completed manuscript to encourage me to fearlessly share my work.
Next my incredible wife, Nahoko, who provided endless inspiration for Eternity’s Blade. Many ideas and entire plots in this book are the direct result of her clever thinking, from kintsugi to cranes, and all have vastly enriched the novel’s world.
To my incredible friend Manoli, who listened to me discuss this book for countless hours and read its many drafts over many years. (I’m sure you’ll be surprised by how much has changed!)
Next to my agent, Tim Wojcik, who first took a chance on my nonfiction with The Book of Esports. Tim believed enough in my writing to double down by representing Eternity’s Blade, making this manuscript his first foray into literary fantasy.
To my editors. First Francine LaSala, who previously edited The Book of Esports and who gave Eternity’s Blade an amazing first pass to sharpen it for publisher submissions. Then to Diana Gill, who provided some of the most incisive, thoughtful, and structurally smart feedback I have ever received on my writing. Huge improvements to the core narrative and its thematic arcs can be fully credited to her.
Furthermore, I’d like to thank my publisher, Blackstone, and their senior acquisitions editor Daniel Ehrenhaft for publishing Eternity’s Blade. I truly believe they are as proud of this novel as I am. Here’s to many more books together!
Lastly, countless others helped shape this novel in myriad ways. While I can’t thank them all, I would like to specifically mention Peter Olson, Lee Child, Bree Barton, and my Japanese language and literature professors, including Wako Tawa, Trent Maxey, and—perhaps most crucially—Patrick Caddeau, for his incredible Tale of Genji scholarship. While the world of Eternity’s Blade is obviously not Heian Japan, I have tried my best to capture some of the wonder and beauty of Genji’s court.
An acknowledgment section is by necessity always too brief. To all those others who helped sharpen Eternity’s Blade, thank you so, so much.
William Collis
About the Author
William Collis graduated from Amherst and Harvard. The cofounder of the esports pro team OXG, he previously authored The Book of Esports, whose TED talk garnered over 1.5 million views. Eternity’s Blade combines his love of action-packed fantasy with a lifelong passion for Japanese history. He has been featured in the Japan Times and various Japan-related TV programs, including as a Tale of Genji scholar.
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William Collis, Eternity's Blade
