Keeper of the Broken: The Keeper Trilogy, #2

By Alyssa Lauseng

As a deserter and a traitor to the crown, Hikaru is no stranger to pain. Although a lifetime of tragedy drives him to the brink of insanity, he makes peace with his demons in the security of living with Sonika and Kulako.

 

Not only must they hide Hikaru's survival, but held under Emperor Akuko's intense scrutiny, Kulako and Sonika are sworn to keep an impossible promise.

 

With an innocent child's freedom hanging in the balance against a divided world, Hikaru's words of revenge and revolution are Kulako's chance to take a stand and protect his family. Watching it all through the eyes of one who is half-Okami and half-Northern Nomadic, Kohaku's only hope is the eradication of the Giahatio.

 

However, as the saying goes: "To deny the Empire is to deny the gods."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shadow Spark Publishing
• Release date: Jul 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201012113

Alyssa Lauseng

Alyssa Lauseng is a fantasy writer who lives in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula with her husband, two warrior princesses, and moose-dog. When not writing or momm-ing, she practices Kuk Sool Won, listens to metal, and tries to draw. Her upcoming novel, keeper of the fallen, is a light adult fantasy which includes romantic themes, fighting for what is right, and having the courage to do so. She can be found on Twitter @5FeetofRedFury and will nerd out about just about anything with you.

Book preview

One: Prelude

Hikaru’s life began in a small, isolated village along Perena’s frigid northwestern coast. He and his mother lived there alone at the direction of a man they both deeply loved, whom Hikaru had never met. His mother told him his father was an elite soldier in the Giahatian military, therefore, she never knew when he would come home.

In the Naogui Province where Hikaru’s village lay, the Giahatio’s influence was small and generally kept to a single larger town and a training institute, both of which were much further to the north. Because of the Giahatio’s minimal existence, those who lived in this region of Perena were still of solely Perenin heritage. Hikaru had no reason to suspect his mother was any different, despite the glowing of her bright green eyes during the darkest hours in the night.

Regardless of Hikaru’s beliefs about his mother’s bloodline, he never failed to notice how the other citizens in their town treated her. Always as an outsider, relentlessly implying the same if they spoke to her. No one said where they thought she was from. Her sorrow ran deep, as did her love for Hikaru, she made sure he knew it. A sadness he did not understand the meaning behind often sank into her smile, causing her to retreat to a box of old letters she never read aloud.

Hikaru’s curiosity was insatiable. He once asked her to share the content in the letters. With tears in her eyes, she eventually answered, These letters are from a dear friend of mine, my sweet boy. She fell ill and passed from our world not long after you were born.

Watching her warmth fade with the explanation, he determined the letters were something he no longer needed to concern himself with, and he ended the conversation by hugging her.

Hikaru’s seventh summer was unforgettable. One day, his mother acted peculiarly, with an uncharacteristic edge, as if she could sense something was wrong. She paced about their tiny cabin, praying to ancestors and spirits Hikaru had never heard of from the Perenins. Near sundown, his mother made her intention to flee the village clear. When they started on the dirt path which would lead them away from home, he heard her utter, Guide us, Lady Izumi.

His mother led them around suspicious men with swords at their hips and arms wrapped in steel guards with an incredible amount of swiftness and dexterity. They were nearly to the mouth of the trail, which would take them into a dense forest and guarantee their escape, when two men stopped them in the Emperor’s name, making Hikaru’s skin crawl with fear. One man grabbed Hikaru, who futilely fought against his captor to be near his mother. She growled with abrupt ferocity, baring her prominent canines. Her captor held her by the hair, the edge of his katana to her throat as tears streamed from her eyes. She told Hikaru she loved him one last time, his name on her final breath when the blade split her jugular and a spray of dark red streaked down her dress. A piece of blue glass fell from her left eye, shattering on a rock in the trail, but Hikaru couldn’t force himself to catch a glimpse of what had been hiding underneath.

One of the soldiers laughed cruelly. Look at that, a stray from the pack, now dead like the rest.

Hikaru recalled little of what happened after his mother’s senseless murder. He memorized the walk to the foreboding iron fates belonging to a fortress called Genjing, a place housing only the best and the brightest for the Empire. Through grappling with loss, he realized the darkness of the fortress, his senses warning him that he should not mourn as the other boys did—some were from his village, while others were from different provinces. Hikaru detected danger, and worried if he showed the same vulnerabilities, he might not survive the next phase.

One of the first things he did recall about Genjing was the metallic smell of blood constantly lingering in the air and in the tight confines of his room. The room would come to be shared with a consistent cycle of others over the years, along with a boy named Junko, the only one who didn’t die. As cruel as the men who ended his childhood, Junko made hating him easy for Hikaru. He retained how masters sheared his head and the heads of all the boys to make them appear the same, speaking to the children as if they were less than cattle. While his head was getting shaved, Hikaru overheard a conversation between the ominous adults about village raids being more complicated than visiting the slave island. In Okara, slaves would trade their sons for coin. Hikaru hated the masters. He hated the slaves, too.

Hikaru’s years passed in a blur of violence and suffering. He lost himself along with his feelings to his training as an assassin. When he made a mistake or acted in ways the masters didn’t approve of, they flogged him, beating him countless times for any number of reasons. Demonstrating their staunch beliefs in negative reinforcement, they whipped the bottoms of his feet during stealth tests each time he made a noise. Eventually, Hikaru learned how to move soundlessly.

These practices alone were not the reasons why Genjing held a reputation of worse conditions than Kurushima, the training facility hidden away in the steep mountain foothills outside the Giahatian Capital. The Empire built Genjing second after expanding northward in its hunt for precious metals, thus borrowing most of its examples from the original training school. Students in the Capital didn’t hold a live blade until several months in training had passed. They’d usually use a wooden sword or sturdy stick of some sort to become accustomed to the weight and movement of carrying a weapon; Hikaru held a katana the first morning of his training. At Kurushima, masters designed matches between the trainees to weed out the weakest among them. At Genjing, the trainees resolved contests of will and strength, within seconds, sooner than the masters could intervene.

Determined to live through every challenge they threw at him, Hikaru relied on his anger and hatred to get him through each day. Compassion or concern for his fellow man no longer existed, leaving behind the inner beasts they revealed to one another. To Hikaru, it seemed closing emotions off lent strength to his other senses. His unique vision made his eyes the sharpest, outshining all other students. He heard almost everything, his sense of smell guided him during nocturnal challenges when the others could do nothing but sit around, waiting for the sun to rise.

He had been taught pride in his Perenin heritage, fear toward the mother Goddess Hikari, and disdain toward those weaker than himself. Hikaru learned the heart of a hitokiri saved no room for compassion. He viewed mercy as a wasted kindness. The masters approached him at age fourteen, two weeks shy of when he would turn fifteen, and offered early graduation. Hikaru gathered that they could not contain his fury any longer, and he had one more challenge to prove himself.

After effortlessly spilling the blood of eight other competitors, Hikaru whirled around to face Junko, excitement increasing the clarity in his eyes.

I always hoped we would face each other, Junko snidely remarked from across the ring.

You seem awfully excited to die, Hikaru retorted confidently, his memory rippling with the times he’d been taunted, punched, framed for petty thefts or infractions, and subsequently punished, all because of Junko.

Rage eliminated all else as his urge to kill intensified. Hikaru’s hatred became his focus, his mind set on victory while quickly twisting and snaking around each of Junko’s attacks. Finally, Hikaru swung his knife directly into his opponent’s right temple, using all his weight to push until they were both on the ground. Junko screamed, struggling for his life, but Hikaru did not relent. Junko’s skull cracked beneath Hikaru’s power.

The masters wasted no time in giving Hikaru his first assignment, sending him to Iki Isle to protect the princess of the Yuan family. The Yuans were cousins to the Higia family, whom had always held the throne to the Giahatian Empire. Iki Isle was set across the Yanshi Strait off Perena’s western coast, a strait filled with dangerous rocks which required expert navigation to cross. The wind always howled on Iki. Hikaru vaguely recalled one of the ship’s crewmembers telling him how the constant gusts and waves over thousands of years had sculpted the isle’s distinguished cliff faces. The same crewmember commented on the island’s beauty. Hikaru supposed it was, though nature never had moved his heart. All he understood was the twinge of relief in acknowledging that Genjing was no longer home.

When he stepped through the ornate doors to the Yuan palace, the Emperor’s second cousin and lord of the land glided forward to greet him. Prince Jun wore elegant robes, his hair pinned back tightly beneath a delicate circlet of braided silver. Despite his stern appearance, the prince spoke softly, his gentle tones evidently a disguise for threats of what Hikaru should expect if the prince found him incompetent. They’d wanted to hire a hitokiri named Nightshade—some stupid fuck from Kurushima, Hikaru knew the name well and fought to keep his visceral disgust to himself—but Nightshade was unavailable.

After being shown to private rooms substantially and shockingly larger than the closet he’d had at Genjing, Hikaru sat alone in pensive silence, gazing blankly at the uncharacteristic pallor which moonlight cast on his hands. His hair was long enough for him to look identical to any real hitokiri, and the katana which lay across his lap had been weaved from fine Giahatian steel, but Hikaru did not feel like an assassin. He could not place what he experienced, so he settled on the familiar nothingness which had kept his head afloat for so many years.

Prince Jun introduced Hikaru’s charge, Princess Hanako, a few days later. Ebony hair kept in intricate braids, her face was painted white, bringing out the crimson of her lip paint and making her dark eyes glisten. Her voice was rich, sultry, as commanding as Hikaru imagined a royal would be. An enchantress.

The soft manner with which she spoke to him disrupted his emotional guard, making him want to keep his distance from her; he didn’t need to be directly at her side while protecting her. He became nervous or clumsy around her—disgraceful for someone with such noted prowess as a fifteen-year-old Genjing graduate.

Slowly, patiently, Hanako coaxed Hikaru from the shadows where he lurked, eventually allowing himself to sit approximately ten feet away from her. From her distance, Hanako would tell him stories about her childhood, the mischievous games she and her older brother would play, how she admired the man and soldier her brother had become. One day, she turned to Hikaru with a warm smile, telling him she admired him, too. His icy defenses shattered at the confession.

Hikaru protected her more closely and fiercely from then on, soon becoming involved in a deep, secret relationship. Hanako stole kisses from him in the rose gardens, and fell into his embrace in empty corridors. One night when she visited his room, they made love in attempted silence.

Perhaps there are places for monsters like me in this world, Hikaru thought, breathing easily for the first time in years with hope. If he had been slightly less naïve, he would’ve spared himself the heartbreak involved with believing he loved her.

His attentiveness to his duties greatly impressed Prince Jun. By the time he’d been on Iki for six months, the prince arranged a private meeting, declaring his intentions to write to Emperor Akuko and ask for an extension on Hikaru’s contract. Elated, heart reaching skyward at the decision, he went in search of Hanako, eager to share the news.

Stopping outside her chamber doors, he prepared to announce himself when the sound of hushed voices reached his sensitive ears, forcing him to pause. One voice belonged to Hanako, giggling madly—by the way she sounded, Hikaru assumed she was intoxicated—the other belonged to her brother, Prince Hideo. He leaned closer to the door, taking care not to make a single noise.

How could I forget? There’s still the poor, stupid boy, Hanako snickered, freezing Hikaru in place.

He listened, horrified, as Hanako confessed that two months prior, a Healer confirmed she was with child; her brother’s spawn. She’d coerced the Healer into not saying a word to anyone else in the family, threatening the poor woman with death. However, misfortune—no, fortune, she corrected herself with a hiccup—had guided fate. She revealed she was no longer pregnant, saving her from taking action. She would have told her father that Hikaru had forced himself on her.

He makes an easy target, she said, and is entirely wrapped around my finger.

You are a devious beauty, her brother complimented. The sound of their lips meeting afterward ignited Hikaru’s fire.

Rage filled his stomach similar to bile, reaching all the way to burn in his throat. He allowed the fire to take hold of him once again. Bursting through the door, he drew his katana, eyes wide with horror as he digested the scene before him. Hanako’s long hair was free from coils in a rumpled mess, and she lay naked on the bed with Prince Hideo beside her in the same fashion. An empty wine flagon sat between them on a tray, the evidence of what transpired littering the room and the bed in forms of discarded clothing and scrunched sheets. Her crimson lip paint was smeared across the fabric of the bedding. Screaming, Hanako pleaded for mercy when he slit Hideo’s throat, also covered in her markings. Hikaru was numb to it all when he plunged the tip of the katana through her abdomen.

A snarl rumbled in his throat as he moved through the palace, killing every guard or servant who crossed his path to Prince Jun’s rooms. Remorse nonexistent, he slew the sleeping man. With even less regret he backtracked through to the front gardens, spilling more blood as he went. He screamed in agony, madness flooding into him as he released his hair from its secure tie, furiously cutting at chunks of it with a kunai. He’d never experienced so much anger at himself, at the world. He felt betrayed, stupid, blind, and heartbroken. Vision blurring from the intensity of his emotions, he realized the heel to his left foot was teetering on a cliff’s .

The blackened waters below rolled into white froth against the deadly, jagged rocks, invisible to untrained eyes and unsuspecting mariners. Hikaru knew his crimes to be worthy of execution, but reviling the idea of dying for the Giahatio, decided he wouldn’t easily give his life to the Empire. It had caused enough of his suffering. Hikaru closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and dove backward off the ledge.

*

Hikaru sighed deeply, gazing at a scar on his forearm crossing out the brand for honor, until the heavy silence became irritating. His eyes went to Sonika, who seemed lost for words as she absorbed the truth about his past. If not for her medical skills, he would’ve died in incoherent turmoil not long after the waves brought him to Itake. He still wasn’t sure if Hikari made the right choice in giving him a second chance at his wretched life.

Although the Giahatio had similarly left her with a multitude of physical and emotional wounds, trusting the Okami woman came slowly. Three months later, he was beginning to learn, but trust hadn’t prompted Hikaru into baring his soul. Flashes of Genjing had caused a blur between past and present, resulting in an involuntary sweep with his arm throwing an unsuspecting Sonika into a wall. He’d returned to reality when he heard her hit, slightly dazed when she raised her voice to ask what he thought he was doing. Panic surged through his system at the confrontation, and he yelled back at her, which was when Kulako entered the sitting room. His presence escalated Hikaru’s sense of danger, but Sonika stepped between them, demanding an explanation for Hikaru’s behavior. He hadn’t known where else to start.

Hikaru saw Kulako’s left hand move in his periphery, a defensive growl already rumbling at the back of his throat when he turned to the assassin. Hitokiri Nightshade, the Giahatio’s most lethal killer, had information no one with connections in the Capital should. Though a seemingly passive man and Sonika’s partner, Hikaru couldn’t easily gauge his intentions. Even as Hikaru glared at him, Kulako’s expression remained unreadable.

Hikaru, Sonika whispered, breaking his concentration and stopping his growl. Is there anything we can do?

As a matter of fact, yes, you can leave me the fuck alone.

With his retelling over and nothing further to say, Hikaru retreated into the isolated safety of his room. Not long after, Sonika and Kulako looked at one another in concern when they heard the bedroom window opening. Hikaru moved through it to escape into the outdoors.

Hours later, Sonika sat cross-legged on the sofa by herself, blankly staring into an unlit hearth, hardly aware of time passing around her. Although she’d dressed for bed hours ago, sleep seemed far off. She anxiously twisted and unwound the hair over her left shoulder. Hikaru’s story constantly turned over in her mind—it at least explained how she’d found him in such a devastated state. Her heart broke for him. Hanako hadn’t deserved to die, nor had Hikaru deserved the lifetime of disastrous grief which resulted in his mental break. The Giahatio caused sorrow no matter where it went. Yet another tragic tale left in the Empire’s wake.

She sighed heavily when a candle’s light caught her attention, looking up as Kulako’s silhouette followed. He placed the candle near the hearth then sat next to Sonika, and for a moment, they watched the empty fireplace together in silence.

You should come to bed, Kulako eventually suggested. It’s getting late.

Sonika nuzzled his neck, breathing in his scent. One doesn’t have an easy life as a child and act the same ways as Hikaru when they become an adult. I knew it would be a painful conversation, I shouldn’t have pried.

Kulako shifted, his movement causing her to peek at him. Though he hoped it was obvious he empathized with Hikaru, he also knew he struggled to show it. "You know, he has been living here for a few months without telling us anything."

Sonika flushed a little, grateful for the poor light from the candle which hid it.The Giahatio scars its military men for a lifetime, Kulako reminded her. Nothing will ever be able to change Hikaru’s past.

True as it may be— Prepared to speak defensively, Sonika dropped her guard with a sigh when Kulako smiled at her. I guess I hoped he’d remember he’s safe here.

Hikaru doesn’t need anyone to fix him. He’ll find a way to get better eventually, but he has to choose it. If he’s talking, he’s already made the choice, Kulako kissed her. Come on, time for bed. 

Two: Broken Spirit

Kulako ran desperately through torrential rainfall, dreading what he would meet when he came to the edge of the endless plain. The surrounding land stretched vast and barren, unlike any he had ever seen. Wet ashes from an extinguished fire coated every inch of rock or grass. A raven cawed incessantly, circling above him. War cries from invisible men echoed from every direction. Mountains shattered the earth, rising suddenly from the horizon. He came to a halt just as abruptly, stopping himself seconds before his leading foot would have slipped and plunged him into a misty valley below. The fog slowly cleared from the pit, and as it did, black flags bearing the red and gold seal of the Empire shot up over a sea of dead bodies. The flags rose higher than Kulako’s head, billowing above him in gusting winds, enshrouding him and the corpses in darkness.

Kulako!

Hikaru’s voice thundered in his ears, hurling him from the dream. Startled, still half-asleep, Kulako grabbed the hilt of his katana out of reflex. A second passed as awareness kicked in, reminding him that he’d dozed off at home on Itake. Kulako released the hilt, wild eyes blinking, adjusting to the afternoon sun. His heart still pounding, he registered the sound of a blade sinking into the wooden post on his left.

Hikaru’s sleek features pulled into a taunting grin as Kulako shook his head and shrugged the weight of the sword from his shoulder. How useless does a hitokiri have to be to fall so deeply asleep? I’ve been playing target practice next to your thick skull for nearly an hour, now.

Kulako looked at the support post for the porch’s overhang, where a collection of knives were lodged into the woodgrain. Hikaru had made a square with the weapons in a tiny space; the marksmanship impressed Kulako. Had Hikaru been aiming for his feet at one point?

Hikaru smirked again, his mischievousness exposing his good mood. "If you’re going to be this useless, maybe I should do us all a favor and put you out of your misery."

Kulako dislodged one of the weapons, then tossed it back at Hikaru’s feet. "If you insist on putting this many holes in the house, you’ll be answering to Sonika before you get around