Nasaka placed her hands on her knees and regarded the violet orb. “I had reports last week of a dead way house keeper.”
“Don’t avoid my–”
“Dead right there in her house, untouched… surrounded by the mangled bodies of three men. Men we still haven’t been able to identify. Dhai men without families. Impossible, wouldn’t you say?”
“There are dead Garikas in there accusing me of not being my mother’s child, saying I’m a man with no right to this seat, and you’re going on about a way house keeper?”
“You know what’s important, Ahkio? That this country has a legitimate Kai. Especially now.”
“Ah, yes.
Now
,” Ahkio said. “Yisaoh tells me you and Kirana knew about the coming of Oma for years. Is that true, too?” He hadn’t wanted to bring it up; Yisaoh played a good game of dividing allies against one another, but if Nasaka conspired to lie to him about his own birth, he couldn’t imagine how many other lies she’d told him.
Nasaka stood. She gestured to the wooded gardens all around them, and lowered her voice. “Can you imagine a time when none of this exists? All turned to dust. Eaten by fire. Did Kirana and I entertain ideas of Oma’s rise? Certainly. But Oma has been spoken of for centuries. It so happens the Garikas were within a decade of being right. Sometimes prophets of the cataclysm get lucky. I have more important things to concern myself with now than the mad rumors of a power-hungry clan trying to get us to eat each other.”
“If I married Meyna–”
“Meyna! Have you learned nothing yet?”
“I’ve learned plenty,” Ahkio snapped. “I know that path is closed.”
“And which have you picked? Or will you mire yourself in this rumor? Curl up and weep on that bloody floor in there and piss about how your life turned out?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll go to Garika and return their kin. And I’ll exile them. Every last one of them.”
Nasaka stiffened. It was a rare day he could shock her, and he found himself grimly pleased.
“If you exile the Garikas, you’ll exile–”
“I know who I’ll be exiling,” he said.
“This is–”
“And I need an assistant, someone I can trust, to start helping me here. Not you or someone bound to you.”
“I’ll find–”
“I want Caisa, that novice parajista who fought with us today.”
“That… would not be my first choice.”
“An even better reason to have her next to me,” Ahkio said. “You’ll be sending scholars north with Ora Dasai soon, is that right? That hasn’t changed?”
“He’s selecting his scholars, yes.”
“Have him send Rohinmey.”
“The novice who attacked Ora Almeysia? Absolutely not.”
“He was defending me from harm. I have my reasons.”
“What does that boy have to do with anything? You realize we just bartered away a kitchen drudge for that boy’s life, and you want to send him to Saiduan?”
“I’m Kai,” Ahkio said. “It’s my business. Do you understand now, Nasaka, or should I repeat myself?”
“I can hear.”
“Good. You’ll be interrogating Ora Almeysia?”
“Naturally.”
“Bring her to Osono when you can get her to speak.”
“Why Osono?”
“Because that’s where I’m going after Garika. I want the person who killed my sister, Nasaka. I have no trouble angering you, or Ghrasia, or any of the rest, to find that out.”
“You realize, boy, that you will only sit that seat so long as you have people, like myself, loyal enough to keep you on it.”
“Dead babies,” Ahkio said. Nasaka’s expression was icy. Bile rose in his throat, but if she dared threaten him, he’d call her bluff. “I think you’ll be loyal to the bitter end. As any kin of mine would.”
Ahkio turned on his heel. He felt sick, but he pushed on without looking back. He managed to make it halfway back to the temple before he stepped discreetly behind a stand of willowthorn trees and vomited. He crumpled to the ground and stayed very still in the shadow of the trees.
Nasaka could crush him, he knew. But she would not crush her own son. Not after she’d worked so hard to give him this bloody title.
The massive Ora libraries took up the entire eleventh floor of the temple. Roh bounced in one of the grand chaises in the central reading room while Dasai stood nearby, scowling. After the fighting downstairs, most of the novices were confined to quarters, and the Oras were helping with cleanup. Roh tried to still himself under Dasai’s gaze, but it took a great bout of effort. They waited for the Kai, who’d insisted on seeing them in the libraries instead of his study. It was an odd request, and Roh suspected it made Dasai even more nervous than it did him.
Roh stared at the glass-encased shelves that stretched twenty feet up the walls. He remembered spending hours in here just a few weeks before, searching through old historical texts and geography books for the symbol Lilia had drawn in the back of a book of Saiduan poetry. If caught doing research for a drudge, he expected he could lie his way out of it. Attacking an Ora, though… there was no way to talk himself out of that.
“You think he’ll exile me?” Roh asked Dasai.
“Let’s hope so,” Dasai said. “Using the gifted arts against another Dhai… you knew better.”
“I was defending myself,” Roh said, “and the Kai – the Kai! – against an Ora. We can use our gifts against other Oras.”
“How is it you go from your death bed to attempted murder?”
“It was self-defense!”
“Causing the death of another is always murder,” Dasai said. “All that changes is the punishment.”
“I think she was the one who attacked me,” Roh said. “She stabbed me, Ora Dasai, because she saw me with Yisaoh.”
“Yisaoh Alais?”
Roh started at the voice. It was the Kai, stepping through the broad double doors. He closed the doors behind him. His hair was still caked in the blood of the former Kai, twisted back from his face with a fireweed cord. “Ora Dasai,” the Kai said. “I didn’t expect you.”
“The boy is my student,” Dasai said. “In Ora Almeysia’s absence, I wished to speak for him.”
“There’s nothing to speak of,” the Kai said. “Rohinmey… Roh, correct?” Roh nodded. “Roh and I have some things to speak about. More than I thought, it seems. Ora Dasai, I expect you’ll have preparations to make for your journey to Saiduan.”
“We were waiting on Ora Chali, Rohinmey’s brother. He is among my finest Saiduan speakers, and he had some business to complete here before we went north.”
“Roh’s brother? That’s excellent. Excuse us now, Ora Dasai.”
Roh looked to Dasai for direction, but Dasai merely pressed thumb to forehead and retreated. He paused at the big double doors and fixed Roh with a final stern stare before closing them.
Roh started bouncing on his seat again.
“Are you all right?” the Kai asked.
“Yes, Kai. Just… nerves.”
“Ahkio, please.”
Ahkio sat on a chaise at Roh’s right, settling back against the pillows.
“Are you going to exile me?” Roh asked.
“Exile?” Ahkio laughed. He had a good laugh, though there was a bitter bite to it. “No, I’m not going to exile you.”
The threat of exile unraveled, Roh had an irrational hope that this was going to be a romantic encounter. Would the Kai praise him for helping him, and be in Roh’s debt?
“So, you believe it was Yisaoh Alais who attacked you?”
“I know it,” Roh said. He told Ahkio what he remembered of the encounter, and felt suddenly light-headed. He rubbed at his belly, where the knife had pierced him. “Is it odd she used a blade,” he said, “and not an infused weapon?”
“Infused weapons are registered to their owners,” Ahkio said. “A skilled jista could have tied it back to the Ora or militia member it was gifted to. It makes sense she would use a blade.”
“What did I see that I had to die for?” Roh said.
“Yisaoh doesn’t want me on this seat,” Ahkio said. “That’s no secret. But it does interest me that… well, I have others to speak to about that. This isn’t why I brought you here.”
Roh leaned forward.
“You want to go to Saiduan,” Ahkio said. “I’ve heard Ora Dasai and Ora Nasaka debating it, these weeks they thought you dead.”
“I want it more than anything,” Roh said.
“Even now?”
“Especially now.”
“Where do your loyalties lie?” Ahkio asked.
“My… Oh.” Yisaoh and the dead people downstairs were from Clan Garika, just like him. “I know I’m a Garika, but that’s just my clan. I’m not related to Tir’s kin.”
“You showed me that in the temple this morning,” Ahkio said. “What I want to know is if you’re an Ora first, or a Dhai.”
“If you asked me to swear an oath to you, I would,” Roh said.
“Ora Dasai will permit you to go north,” Ahkio said.
“But… he really doesn’t–”
“He’ll take you with him. I’ve asked Ora Nasaka to speak to him. But there’s a condition.”
“I’ll do it,” Roh said. He pushed his hands under his thighs, because he wanted to jump out of his seat and hug the Kai. A profound sense of relief washed over him. He had pulled on Para, and faced down an Ora in defense of the Kai, and changed his fate. He’d known all along he could do it. He caught himself grinning.
“You’re happy to obey Ora Dasai?” Ahkio asked. His tone was somber. Roh’s grin faded.
“I… well, shouldn’t I?”
“I need you to obey me first,” Ahkio said. “It’s no secret things are very bad and people are divided. I need someone I can trust in Saiduan. You’re a talented boy and a Garika who’ll still defend the Kai. I need you to work for me now, for Dhai. You understand?”
“I think so.” He really didn’t care to understand. All he cared about was seeing the tundra for the first time, and fighting with sanisi, and building some big life outside a farmhouse.
Ahkio said, “My sister, Kai Kirana, is dead. It wasn’t a natural death. There are many who would want her dead, the Saiduan among them.”
“How… how could
I
help?”
Ahkio pulled something from his tunic pocket – a sheet of green paper with neat rows of Dhai characters set beside jagged lines of script.
“I’m not asking you to uncover any great plot. I’m just asking you to tell me the truth as you see it. I need someone there with fresh eyes who isn’t Ora Dasai. Will you go to Saiduan and tell me all you see?”
“I will,” Roh said. His grin was back, and this time, he could not suppress it. “Thank you, Kai.”
But the Kai’s face was somber. Roh tried to match his expression.
“This is the cipher of the Kai,” Ahkio said. “We’ve used it for thousands of years to pass messages among kin. Today, I’m going to count you as kin and turn it over to you. It’s how you’ll send word of what you see in Saiduan and how the battle is progressing there.”
Roh nodded.
“I know you’re a smart boy,” he said. “Ora Dasai does not speak highly of the dim-witted, nor does he try to keep them from being exiled. Hopefully, you can learn this in a few afternoons.”
“I will. I promise.”
“Roh, this part is important,” Ahkio said. Roh sat up a little straighter. “You’re not to tell anyone else what you’re doing. Not Ora Dasai. Not Nasaka. No one but me. Put your trust in me, and if anything happens to you, know that I’ll do everything in my power to help.”
“I believe you,” Roh said.
Ahkio gestured to the massive wall of shelves. “Then select a few books, and let’s begin.”
19
“If there are two Kais,” Lilia said, “it means there could be two of everyone, doesn’t it?”
Gian picked at the remains of the man’s liver. The suns had set, and cool darkness blanketed the clearing.
“I know it’s hard to wrap your head around,” Gian said. “It was hard for me, too, when I first came here. I had a sister over there, a twin. She had to stay. She couldn’t come through because she already existed here. We’re twins there, but here… just one of us. Just her. So I could cross. She couldn’t, unless we found the woman here with my face and… killed her. That’s the rules.” She shrugged. “I keep expecting to find my sister here someday. Keep expecting to look up and see my own face.”
“Two of everyone,” Lilia said. “Two of my mother?”
Gian’s expression was difficult to read in the low light of the fire. “Yes,” she said. “Two of your mother. But not of you. That’s why Kalinda could bring you here. You can’t bring someone over if they’re still alive here. That’s why my sister had to stay but I didn’t.”
“Where’s my mother?” Lilia said. “If there’s two of everyone, then, my mother–”
“Listen, Lilia, this may be difficult–”
“Where?”
“Your mother here isn’t the person you knew,” Gian said. “Kalinda already tried to get your mother here to join with us. But she’s… she’s Dorinah. And very loyal to Dorinah.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Believe me or don’t, but the version of your mother as she exists here, the one you’re so keen to find, serves the Empress. Your real mother, Nava… I’m sorry, Lilia, but she’s dead and gone and you must forget her. Come with us the way she wanted. Our worlds are coming together, and only one is going to live. You can help decide which one.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“Has anyone else had answers for you but Kalinda? Trust me, Lilia. Your mother delivered you to Kalinda, and Kalinda turned you over to me. You have to trust that you’re on the right side.”
“I’ll find my mother in Dorinah, then.”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?” Gian tapped the butt of her weapon. “I’m a parajista with a sword, Lilia, and I’m telling you now – we’re not going to Dorinah so you can track down some shadow working for the Empress.”
Outside the temple, it was people with weapons and strength who pushed others around. If Gian was a stone defender on a screes board, Lilia would employ a flanking defense to sweep her off it. But Lilia had no pieces. And no sword.