“You’re not the first to tell me that,” Zezili said. “Are you coming?”
Lilia limped after the legionnaire. Her lungs burned and her body ached. She could barely see straight. She kept seeing the bloody haze flit across her vision. The air here felt strange. She stopped after a few paces to vomit.
The legionnaire, Zezili, urged her on.
She wasn’t sure how long they walked until she realized they were following the scent of something. Maybe it wasn’t a scent but a… breath. She saw a reddish haze floating on the air. At first, she thought it was her eyes again, but it was a trail of red, not a gauze across her vision. As they walked, the trail got thicker, heavier. Lilia put out her hands, expecting to feel a damp mist, like the blood that had merged to form the gate. But she felt nothing. She even tasted the air.
“What are you doing?” Zezili asked.
Lilia had stuck her tongue out. “The red mist,” she said. “Don’t you see it?”
“No,” Zezili said. “That’s what gifted people see. When people use your star to make something.”
Lilia shook her head. “I’m not… I… Oh.”
“You murdered my women back there,” Zezili said, “and it wasn’t with air. You’ve got the dark star in your blood. It’s crept in, and it’s not going away.”
Lilia could see a blue tower ahead of them, at the bottom of the charred rise, and something beyond it. The hazy red trail continued on past the tower, toward a glint of silver-red metal that looked like some massive arch.
“It leads to the arch,” Lilia said.
“The mirror,” Zezili said. “Come and see what your mother made. It’s how I knew she was alive. Isoail said her gates all opened here.”
They walked together to the tower. Zezili drew her blade and went inside. Lilia waited in the foyer. Blue and amber tiles glinted from the floor.
Lilia turned away from the tower and walked around to the other side. In the valley below, she saw the full height of the mirror for the first time. It was at least as tall as the Temple of Oma. The border of the mirror glistened a startling ruby red. As Lilia stared at it, she couldn’t even think of it as a mirror. It was a looking glass, a window onto another world. Inside the face of the mirror was another sky, another place. She knew that lavender-tinged sky. It was the world they had just come from. And it was where the swirling trail of red mist ended. The tails of red trailed off in every direction, breathy wisps leading out into the hills around the mirror.
And stretching beyond the face of the massive mirror, on and on across the hills for as far as she could see, the ground bristled with thousands… tens of thousands… hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It was the most massive army Lilia had ever seen… the Dhai army. The army in the valley. High red flags flew among them.
Zezili stepped up beside her. “Tower’s empty,” she said. “We’re too late.”
Lilia pointed to something at the top of the mirror, a strange, elongated figure that seemed to be moving. “What is that?” she said.
“I don’t know,” Zezili said. “Rhea’s tits. Where are they sending this army? That’s not tundra. That’s not Saiduan.”
Lilia stared at the figure. She watched the twisting strands of red mist that circled around the mirror, snaking up and up, to the captured figure at the top of the mirror. Lilia knew who it was immediately.
“This was a fucked idea from the start,” Zezili said.
Lilia pointed to the figure at the top of the mirror. “That’s my mother,” she said.
45
Seventy-five Oras and one hundred militia from the Kuallina Stronghold arrived in Clan Raona six days after Ghrasia came back to the clan square. Ahkio stood with Ghrasia in the common room of the council house with twelve multicolored sparrow cages and a map of Dhai laid out on the table. Four of the cages were already empty, their sparrows attached to a fine string knotted to the wrist of an Ora, and four militia members and two more Oras were sent out to accompany each of them.
Ahkio hadn’t slept the night before. He had sat up with Ghrasia, explaining how the invaders rising with Oma during this turn were not some foreign force, but some darker, different version of themselves. She had poured them both very strong drinks and passed out on the divan in his room. He had sat across from her for an hour, watching the light and shadow move across her face, before going downstairs to sleep in one of the oversized chairs. His back still hurt.
Liaro was out helping a group of day laborers store barrels of oil in the council house’s cellar. Ahkio had called for a stop on all unescorted travel and commerce into or out of Raona for the duration of their hunt, which had put a pinch on warehouse space. While the teams went out, an additional force of Oras and militia were moving in from the perimeter they’d set up around the three surrounding clans. They used a wall of air to flush vagrants and exiles from the toxic surroundings of the clans, creeping their circle ever closer to Raona.
Ahkio took a sheaf of correspondence from Caisa as Ghrasia marked a spot on the map as clear. The runner who’d delivered the news was a young woman, maybe twenty, who looked at Ghrasia with such intense awe, it made Ahkio smile. Ghrasia hardly looked at her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll need a run of this area here, near the old homestead that makes that fish meal. You remember it?”
“I do,” the woman said.
“Good, thank you.” Ghrasia raised her gaze. “That’s all. You’re dismissed.”
The woman looked disappointed. She turned away.
When she was gone, Ahkio said, “You’ve made an impression on them here. A far better one than I have.”
Ghrasia stared at the map. She moved two more markers forward, representing one of their teams along the perimeter. “It’s midday. The other runner should be here by now.” She began to move the other markers forward as well. Her hands were still wrapped in salve-soaked muslin, but the blisters had already healed. Raona had an especially sensitive tirajista in residence and a very fine physician. Ahkio suspected she wouldn’t even have scars.
“Ghrasia, I–”
“How is the Catori, Kai?”
“Mohrai? At the harbor with her family, of course. Waiting on our orders.”
“Good. We need more caution.”
“You’re one to talk of caution,” he said. “You hunted–”
“I was just fulfilling my obligation to Dhai,” she said. “Now we will flush them out.”
“Have I done something to offend you?”
She finally looked up from the map. “Not at all,” she said. “I apologize. A good boy died under my watch. I don’t like death. It’s my job to ensure there’s less of it, not deal it out. And killing my own people… It’s a difficult thing to live with.”
“I’m sorry,” Ahkio said. “I know how… I have an idea of how death can weigh on a person.”
“Do you?” Ghrasia said. She peered at him. “Have you ever killed a person, Kai? Do you understand that killing these other Dhai is the same to me as killing you or Liaro?”
“I’ve sent enough people to their deaths. I agreed to this venture. These deaths are on me as much as you.”
“I’m sorry. People say I’m too serious.”
“I’ve heard that a few times myself.”
“I’m better at leading people than dancing,” she said.
“I’m actually a pretty fair dancer.”
“I’m going to get an hour or so of sleep before the next runner comes in. You’ll lock this door?”
“I will.”
Ghrasia moved past him. Ahkio stepped away to let her pass and caught himself watching her form as she went by. He glanced back at the map on the table. Ghrasia had shared concerns about spies inside the clan square, so they had taken to locking the strategy room, and Ahkio posted a member of the militia at his door each night.
He took his correspondence back to his room. Clan Leader Talisa had given him her own room, and he was not fond of her style. The bed was big enough for four people; not an unusual thing in Dhai, but Talisa only had one spouse. Above the bed was a portrait of the Temple of Para and Talisa’s great-grandmother, once the Elder Ora of that temple, and her family – six husbands, four wives, and twenty-one children. Ahkio found it oddly creepy but didn’t have the heart to take it down. If Talisa saw that he’d removed it, she might see it as an insult.
Kirana and Yisaoh’s trunks of papers were there, too. He’d spent hours with the temple maps and Kirana’s strange notes, and still had no idea what she and the Garikas had been up to.
Ahkio started going through correspondence. He found two from Nasaka and left those to last. Buried in with the rest was a tattered piece of green paper with a return stamp made up of Saiduan characters. He thought for a moment it was from Roh, but the handwriting looked too formal for a sixteen year-old boy. He broke the seal and read:
Kai Ahkio Javia Garika,
With a devastated soul, we remind you that treason against our Empire is dealt with swiftly. Your citizens have been given the full measure of compassion they deserve for committing the crime of deceit against the Empire of Saiduan. Their actions have resulted in the renunciation of their citizenship. They have become assets of the Empire. Their dishonesty invalidates all previous treaties, and we no longer require the assistance of the Commonwealth of Dhai now or in the future.
Know that your betrayal also constitutes an act of war. We show great mercy in meting out justice to your scholar-assassins but sparing the autonomy of your country. We would caution you to remember this mercy in any future interactions.
We remain,
Keeper Takanaa of Kuonrada for Patron Alaar Masoth Taar, Imperator of Saiduan, Father of the Eight-Point Commonwealth, Divine Light of Oma, Keeper of the Twelve Thresholds…
Ahkio did not make it through the other dozen titles.
He sat at the desk as a wave of fear rolled over him. If the scholars were still alive, he needed a diplomatic intervention. He needed to talk to Nasaka about it and the Elder Oras. Five of his own people – people he had put in harm’s way – were dead or dying, and he had no way to stop it.
“Stupid,” he said aloud. He had sent Roh there. The treaty was his idea. The mess was his. He threw the letter onto the desk. He pressed his hands to his face and sat very still. He would have to call on Nasaka to help him fix this. And he hated himself for that. For his own inability to manage the issue himself. Would he have to send another emissary there to apologize? Someone else the Patron would kill?
“Caisa?” he called.
She entered. More often than not, she was the one posted to his door. “I need you to pen a letter to Nasaka. Call her here, please.”
“Should I call her a boar?”
“What?”
She grinned. “Sorry. A joke.”
“Oma’s breath,” he muttered.
“Liaro thought it was hilarious.”
“Have one of the secretaries write it, and I’ll sign it,” he said. “Something simple.” It would be easier if someone else wrote it. Just the idea of writing to Nasaka for help angered him. He should have been prepared for something terrible to happen. The danger was supposed to have been the Tai Mora, not the Saiduan. He’d been so caught up with politics and the mystery of his sister’s death that he was losing his grasp on important matters. And it was costing lives.
“Yes, Kai.”
Ahkio changed his clothes and went downstairs. The common room was surprisingly empty. Night was beginning to fall. In any other clan, the common room would be packed with people and laughter. Instead, he saw only three militia at a table in the back and a very tired-looking barkeep nodding off into her palm.
In the very back, near the fire, he saw a slender figure nursing a cup. It was Ghrasia.
He walked over to her. “I thought you were taking a nap,” he said.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “You?”
“Bad news,” he said. He sat across from her in an oversized chair.
“Seems that’s the only kind,” she said.
“Yours was good.”
Ghrasia sighed. “Maybe.”
“How’s the girl you brought back? The… feral one.”
“Still living in some hidey-hole at the edge of the clan square,” Ghrasia said. Her look was so solemn, Ahkio’s heart ached. He wanted to hold her, and far more. Ahkio realized that it wasn’t a drink he’d really wanted. He had spent much of his life drowning sorrow by spending his time in the arms of others.
“You stopped a monster, Ghrasia.”
“I’m worried that catching monsters will turn me into one,” she said.
Ahkio stared into the fire. “None of us could do what these people are doing,” he said.
“You’re wrong,” she said. “Any one of us could. You. Me. Liaro. They
are
us, Ahkio.”
He leaned forward. “They won’t break us,” he said. He reached out to her. “May I touch your knee?”
She started. Knit her brows. He felt a little foolish. “I apologize if I–”
“It’s all right,” she said. “You may.”
He pressed his hand to her knee and realized he was doing it to comfort himself more than her. “If there’s anyone I know who could come out of this alive without sacrificing her humanity, it’s you,” he said.
“Did you know I was your mother’s lover?” she said.
He pulled his hand away. “I did,” he said.
“If I told you I wanted to spend the night with you, would you worry it was because I loved your mother?”
“I… No, I would not.” Ahkio did wonder, though, if she would think differently about him if she knew who his mother really was. Would she still stand with him? Would she be looking at him like that right now?
“Is it a mutual desire?” she asked.
Ahkio had to look away from her then. It was still frightening, sometimes, to talk so frankly about desire. But this was Ghrasia, the woman who turned back the Dorinahs at the pass. He should have known she would speak of it plainly instead of continuing to dart around it.