The knife's edge was an impossibly thin, hot line pressed against the side of my neck. Hikami stirred underneath my clothes and I willed him to be still.

"Move slow. You get up." The voice was low and soft, as if he was trying not startle me. It struck me as absurd, but then the rest of the manor might still be asleep. Had I been given a room by myself for this reason, so that they could take me away in the night without anyone knowing?

"Up." There was something else about the voice. He was speaking kantonese, but there was a thick accent I couldn't place. The knife's pressure eased enough that I could sit up. Then I was chivvied into the hall where I got a glimpse of my kidnapper.

He was shirtless, scars decorating his upper body along with dark paints in swirls like wind and water. Leathers protected his legs, and the knife seemed to be his only weapon. It had a bone handle.

We took soft, shuffling steps into the main dining room where I saw others had already been deposited. Servants were bound along the wall, and when we stopped the man removed the knife from my neck long enough to tie my hands behind my back before having me sit at the table. The landgrave and his wife, Charlotte, were also there along with handlers like mine. Marisa, Havella, and Tokar were at the table but not the Baker. Thomas was delivered by two men, one of whom was bleeding from his mouth and nose.

Thomas wore ruffled bedclothes and expression of tightly controlled rage, veins stood out against his neck.

"What is the meaning of this?" The landgrave said. His fear was evident, and it came out as more of a request than a demand.

"You should know what this means already." A single candle had been lit at the center of the long table. The new voice came out of the shadows in the hallway. His kantonese was much smoother, though there was still that accent that I couldn't place.

"Who are you?" The landgrave said. "Do you know what sort of crime this is?"

"You will all be hung," Thomas said as his hands were double tied and they shoved him into his chair.

"Do they hang dead men in Kanto?" The figure approached the table, his hands and some of his lower body were revealed, but they were wrapped in bandages that had been stained and reused.

"Who are you?" The landgrave asked.

"We are the ghosts of the people your people destroyed. We are the Skin Takers, and I am our leader, Makoto."

A chill ran through me as I strained eyes to better make out the leathers all the men wore. Skin Takers? The landgrave knew what it meant, he began to shake in his seat.

"You're outlaws," Thomas said, "nothing more."

"Why are you here?" Charlotte was steadier than her husband, gazing soberly into the darkness where Makoto's face should have been.

"Vengeance." Makoto uttered the word as if it were a sacrament.

"You have no right," Thomas said stiffly. "This is outside of the law."

"What you did to my people was unforgivable," Makoto said, moving around the table. "But I see some of you are travellers who have no stake in this. What are you?"

"I am Tokar, of Gracia, but I was born in Kostcon."

"How did you come here?"

"My master sent me on an errand to escort these women."

"No. How did you come to be out of your own lands?"

"I was taken as a captive when I was young. Then I was sold into service with a Gracian family."

"Then I think you have more in common with my people than you know. These women you are with, are they Gracian?"

"They are."

"Do you wish to keep them?"

"I do." Tokar was comporting himself respectfully, but speaking as an equal.

"We found a box in your room filled with coins. Since we have taken these women for ourselves, we will allow you to buy them back from us with those coins."

"I accept," Tokar said. Though he was outwardly calm, there was an unmistakable tightness to his words.

"Those two are with you?"

"And her," Tokar nodded toward me.

"Then you are free." Makoto gestured to one of his men. "Take them to the edge of town and cut their bindings, then give them water for the journey."

"What are you going to do to these people?" I asked.

Makoto did not answer immediately. "I can see you are different," he said. "You have skin like ours, and your eyes. Why do you care what happens to the Kanto?"

"He is my betrothed," I said, inclining my head toward Thomas, who jerked in his seat like he'd been stabbed. It took me a moment to realize why.

"Then you will stay," Makoto said.

"No!" Tokar rose, and there were immediately hands upon his shoulders.

"Don't mistake me," Makoto warned, "the three of you may go, but the honor extends no further. If you fight, you will die like them."

"Joi." Marisa sounded like she would break.

"It's okay," I said. "The spirits are with me."

Another warrior entered the dining room carrying a broadsword. They exchanged a few words in a language that sounded soft around the edges, like a wolf with winter fur.

It was the Baker's sword, his instincts and an inability to sleep through the night had allowed him to avoid capture. My heart lifted, and I tried not to let it show.

"Keep searching," Makoto said. "And you, take them out." He snapped at the men holding Tokar.

Marisa, Havella, and Tokar were taken away, and I breathed out my relief. That left Thomas, Charlotte, the landgrave and three servants along with myself, four outlaws and Makoto.

"The missing warrior," Makoto said. "What do you know of him?"

"I will not answer," Thomas said.

"The famed Kanto honesty." Makoto unsheathed a sword, a sanso. It had to be Thomas's. With deliberate care, he touched the tip to my right temple.

"Care to reconsider?"

"I don't. I will not negotiate with an outlaw."

I barely felt the sword tip slide down the side of my face, jerking away a moment too late. It was so sharp, it just felt cold, then warm liquid began to drip down my cheek and jaw onto my neck. Hikami moved, and I willed him still again.

"I think you are a coward," Thomas said, standing straight up and knocking his chair back.

The sanso was at my windpipe, not touching, because the barest touch would be enough to cut me, but very close. One of the outlaws righted Thomas's chair, and he sat rigidly back down.

"And I, you," Makoto said. "You may as well answer if you know," he addressed me. "This one is a true son of Kanto, and he is realizing that he spoke out of haste and privilege, but he has sworn not to say a word. He won't make a liar of himself for me. He won't do it even if he sees you choking on your own blood."

Thomas's face was set. Without the topknot, his hair hung down to his shoulders and gave him a wild air. My betrothed was going to let me die rather than give in on a point of honor.

"The sword belongs to my manservant. He protected me while I was on my journey to Kanto."

"Good." Makoto rested the flat of the sanso on my shoulder. "They have not corrupted you completely. Do you even know what they did to my people?"

"I know nothing."

"They're savages." Thomas bared his teeth. He was so angry I was surprised he could form words at all.

"We are savages? Yes, I suppose we are. That is why you were able to cheat us of our lands and drive us into extinction."

"My father dealt fairly with you."

"Your father is a thief, as are you."

"You were paid!"

"Our parents were given trinkets for signing papers they could not read. They thought that they would share the land with the pale men from the north. Instead, they were butchered when they tried to remain in their homes."

"They wanted to remain independent. Without a baron, they were owed no protections under our law."

"So you slaughtered them all and took the land from under their feet."

"They sold their land."

"Land belongs to no one but the gods. It cannot be bought and sold. You convinced our people we would be friends and equals. My father was a chief, and when he refused to move, you burned him alive. I was in our hut. I also burned."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"What?" Makoto looked like he had forgotten I was there.

"What happened to you was horrible. I'm sorry for what they did."

"We followed the law." Thomas was adamant.

"No one should have to suffer like that," I said.

"The pain never leaves me," Makoto whispered.

"What happened between your forefathers does not have to play out again between you."

"He is the same as his father," Makoto said, and Thomas straightened proudly, as if he couldn't lie even with his body.

"And if he was different, I would still do this. For we are the ghosts of a people, and cannot live again."

"What are you going to do?"

"We will kill him and the landgrave, along with other men, take what we need, and burn everything else."

"You mustn't!" The landgrave managed.

"They are savages," Thomas said.

"Yes, we are savage." They tied Thomas and the landgrave to their chairs and carried them while the rest of us were escorted out.

Charlotte was beside me, holding her own.

"Is what he says true?" I asked her.

"Our duty is to the law," she said stiffly, "not to assuage the pain of savages who regret their choices."

Fires had been lit outside with furniture and bedding so that the main street could be seen in their shivering orange glow. There were easily a hundred other captives sitting on their heels with their hands tied behind their backs lining one side of the road. My friends weren't among them, for which I was grateful.

The servants were settled with the other prisoners, but the four of us we placed in positions of prominence in front of the manor.

Charlotte was put on the landgrave's left side, and I was on Thomas's right.

"Tora," I heard Makoto address one of his men. "Where is Kumo?"

The man hr called Tora said something in the other language.

"The bodyguard then."

"We are the Skin Takers!" Makoto announced himself to the crowd. "You see before you all that there are left."

There were less than half as many Skin Takers as hostages, all of them armed and wrapped in hides. Now that there was light I could see many of them were actually women, some of whom bared their chests as the men did. All of them had long blak hair braided with small trinkets. Makoto was wrapped in the same old bandages that covered his arms and abdomen. He had no eyebrows, and what skin there was visible was wrinkled and shiny scar tissue.

"We will earn our name tonight!" Hoots and calls went up from his little army.

The landgrave was lifted in his chair and brought forward. His bonds were cut, and he was allowed to stand surrounded by Skin Takers.

"Begin!"

The landgrave tried to run, they had left a gap invitingly clear. A knife plunged into his stomach before his first step touched the earth, and the blade was pulled up and out in a single practiced motion.

I looked away, but the sounds were bad enough. The landgrave didn't survive long, just seconds of screaming and flopping before his insides were pulled out and he couldn't possibly be alive anymore. The wailing was his wife, not loud enough to drown out the slick, intermittent noise of a man being skinned like a hair. The crowd was being silenced with swift kicks and strikes.

"We are ghosts," Makoto said, "come out of the earth to wear our revenge." They were already erecting a framework to hang the skin so it could be scraped and dried. It occurred to me that this was a beginning, they were going to kill everyone, or every man at least.

I forced myself to look at the thing they were doing. The corpse was unrecognizable, just a shape of meat.

"This is evil," I said.

Makoto spun on me. "There is no good, no evil," he growled, "only power."

"That isn't true. You have to know that this is wrong."

"Tell that to the soldiers who burned me alive! When they come to this place, I will give them a vision of what my life has been."

"What they did to your people was awful, but that doesn't make this right."

"Nothing is right or wrong," Makoto held out the sanso blade, its edge a reflecting firelight, "we only are. There is wanting and not wanting, and all your betrothed's petty laws are nothing more than a rationalization for his people's natural greed."

"Law is universal," Thomas said, and then he did something ridiculous. He jumped up and over the back of his chair, and because his ankles were bound to its legs the chair flipped over itself and its back slapped the blade out of Makoto's hand. Thomas landed on his shoulders with his spine and legs arched up as if he practiced this maneuver every day, and he flicked the chair up with his ankles before slamming it onto the ground with such force that it shattered.

There was a moment of stunned silence before violence broke loose like a goaded bull. The Skin Takers swarmed over Thomas, who had brought his wrists down over his heels and hopped up with his hands tied in front instead of behind. He caught a thrusting knife in the ropes that tied his wrists and twisted so that it was thrown up, and as a coda to that motion he caught the knife and jabbed it down into his assailant's throat. Even doing this, he suffered a long gash to his back and had to expend all his efforts in the next few moments just staying alive.

Across the street, another struggle had begun. A huge figure was wading among the Skin Takers, knocking them about like children, while a dark skinned man cut free captives to join the fray. My heart lifted, the baker and Tokar had come back for us.

"Hikami," I murmured, and felt sharp heat build between my wrists. Then I was free.

I started to stand, but the sanso was again at my throat.

"Enough!" Makoto's voice rang over the shouting, and the viscious skirmish froze. "Look here, honorable Kanton. Her life is in your hands."

He'd seemed ready to let me die over a quibble before, but to my amazement, Thomas dropped his stolen dagger. The other battle was slower to come to a close, but my friends had been vastly outnumbered and out armed to begin with. The Skin Takers had responded quickly to kill the freed captives, so Tokar and the Baker were ringed round with enemies.

"You're going to stop this," I told Makoto.

"It is already finished," he said.

"You won't hurt my friends."

"Why is that?"

"Because I will burn you if you do."

The blade wavered, and I took the chance to stand. Makoto's mind was as scarred as his body by the tragedy that had befallen him. I needed to speak to him in his own language. As he had said, there was no law but power.

"You are my hostage," he growled.

"No," I said. "You are mine." Hikami slithered out of my tunic and onto the sanso. He was almost to the hilt when Makoto's eyes went wide with fright and he dropped the sword.

"Mother of spirits!" He retreated, and Hikami followed. Thomas took advantage of the distraction to tumble through the men who had him at knife point and came up holding his no longer burning sword.

He stood at guard before me, and when the Skin Takers charged him there was no equality between them. His sanso moved faster than I could follow. Limbs were severed, and so much blood sprayed that it spattered my clothes and I gagged.

Makoto, maddened by the sight of living, hunting flame, broke and ran. Hikami, for his part, had grown to the size of a dog and was pursuing him on the semblence of legs. The Skin Takers on the other side of the street still had a disinct advantage, but seeing their leader fleeing before a vengeful spirit demoralized them, and the Baker struck out as if he were himself a creature of elemental rage.

My focus was on Hikami, but when I came back to myself I saw Thomas and I were surrounded by at least seven bodies in addition to the skinless horror that had been the local landgrave. Tokar was freeing captives, and the Baker was wrapping the wounds that had appeared on his chest and arms.

I went inside, sat at the table where we had been minutes before, and waited for the ringing in my ears to stop. Before tonight, the worst thing I'd seen in my life was my sister at the mercy of Ahriman. After this, I was forced to wonder whether my father hadn't understood more of the world beyond Euphoria than I'd given him credit for.