Liaro came into the room behind him, swearing and huffing. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not here,” Ahkio said.
“You aren’t making sense.”
“I have extra time,” he said. “Why was I given extra time? Why did I jump from one day to another and back again?”
“Maybe it means nothing, Ahkio. It’s not all signs and portents. The sky is in chaos. There are people from other worlds running around. Everything is mad and means nothing.”
“No,” Ahkio said firmly. “It’s time.” He turned to head back downstairs.
“Where are you going?”
“To Hofsha. Call Ora Jakobi and Ora Naori. Have them meet me in the foyer.”
“No, wait–”
But Ahkio did not wait. He needed to put her out of the temple. She wasn’t going to walk around like she owned it any longer. He had delayed enough. The longer she was here, the longer she and Nasaka schemed. The one thing he had not done the day before was finish things with Hofsha. He had let her stay here, continuing her long and oppressive occupation of their temple. Now was his chance to act.
He asked for and found Hofsha in the Sanctuary. The evening was warm. The light of the moons glittered against his skin. He moved as if he were in some dream. A day repeated. He had spent this day doing nothing but arguing over paper. He had spent the night alone while Liaro went out with Ohanni. A wasted day. He would not waste it again.
Hofsha raised her head when he entered. “Kai,” she said, as he crossed the broad room. Her smile was large and ungainly, if only because it showed so many teeth. It put him in mind of the posturing of some predator.
“I’ve come with a response to your offer.”
“So soon? I’ve enjoyed the hospitality of your temple the last two weeks. We can wait a while longer.”
“Your boats block our harbor. It gave the impression you would like a quick resolution.”
She returned the book she held to the shelf. He made note of it – she was in the section containing the epic romances, the great early stories of Faith Ahya and Hahko forging their way across the wilderness from Dorinah to Dhai. They were operatic tales of alliances and betrayals, hardship and the tornadic nature of love.
“Where is Ora Nasaka?” she asked. The smile remained. Her tone was light.
“I fear you may have been mistaken about Nasaka’s role in this country,” Ahkio said. “She is my religious and political advisor. To that end, I’m happy to listen to her counsel on all matters. But at day’s end, I must be the one to speak for Dhai.”
“Of course,” Hofsha said. She folded her hands in front of her.
He squared his stance, but did not take a step back. “I appreciate your own Kai’s… your… Empress? Well, I appreciate that she took the time to make this offer. We’ve been happy to host you. Unfortunately, I’ll need you to tell her–”
Hofsha raised a hand. Her smile was less boisterous now. She showed no teeth. “Before you continue, I urge you to remember our ships lie ready.” She leaned over, and picked up the cage of birds. She set them on the table beside her. The birds twittered madly, fluttering their little wings, hurling themselves at the cage.
“I remember.”
She folded her hands again, standing just behind the cage so he had to look past it to see her. “Very well.”
He hesitated. The droop of her shoulders, the look of resignation, surprised him. “How many others have you made this offer to?”
“A few.”
“And how many take it?”
“Not enough,” Hofsha said. The birds rattled the cage.
“You know, then, that I must refuse.”
“Perhaps you should speak to Ora Nasaka again,” Hofsha said. “I could stay another day or two–”
“I’m afraid that’s my final word, Hofsha. Now you will leave peaceably.”
She reached for her hat on the table, a broad-brimmed thing that Ahkio had only ever seen Aaldians wear. She ran her fingers over the brim.
“Spring is here,” Hofsha said, “and that’s not so bad, is it? You’ll be dead before you have to see another winter.” She put on her hat, and took up the cage with the other hand.
“What are those for?” he asked.
“Oh, these?” she held the cage aloft, smiled brightly. “I love birds. I love to cage them, you see, because when you first do it, they fight so terribly hard. They are so alive, so defiant. I measure how long it takes for them to lose their spirit. To stop fighting. To resign themselves to their fate.”
“And how long does that take?”
“It depends,” she said.
“I’m sure there are some who never give up,” he said.
“Oh no,” she said. “They all give up, eventually. They are all in a cage, you see. There is no way out.” She touched the brim of her hat and strode to the door, swinging the cage.
“Hofsha?”
She paused, hand on the door. “Kai?” Hopeful.
“What were you looking for in Saiduan?”
She grinned. “A very good question, isn’t it?”
Hofsha opened the doors, and left him.
Ahkio stood alone in the Sanctuary for a long time, wondering what would happen on the day Nasaka decided he wasn’t worth saving anymore, either. Would she burn the temple down around them?
The door opened, and, as if thinking summoned her, Nasaka entered. “Was that Hofsha I saw in the foyer? Tell me you didn’t speak a word without me. Tell me you had the sense to call on Ghrasia and Mohrai first.”
“It will take time for Hofsha to–”
“No it won’t, you fool,” Nasaka said. “You’re lucky Liaro came for me. They open tears between worlds to send messages. That invasion is going to start. There’s no time to warn the harbor. They could be inundated as we speak.”
“How do you know that, Nasaka? How do you know how they communicate?” He knew, though. He had always known.
“The invasion has been primed for just this moment. All she waited on was your refusal.”
He pushed past her and into the hall.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“We need strong lines of supply,” Ahkio said. “You’ll be stepping down as my political and religious advisor. I’ll be appointing Ora Shanigan.”
“What?”
“You’re confined to your quarters,” Ahkio said, “until further notice.”
Nasaka barked out a laugh. “And who will hold me?”
Ahkio peered further down the corridor where Jakobi and Naori waited. He called for them, and turned back to Nasaka. He had thought he would need their help to escort Hofsha out. It was a bitter irony that it was not Hofsha he had to use force against.
“We’ll start with Ora Jakobi and Ora Naori,” Ahkio said. “I have no problem using the gifted arts against a woman who refuses my order.”
“You’re very lucky my star is in decline,” Nasaka said, low. “You have committed us to war.”
“No,” Ahkio said. “You did that when you betrayed me this country.”
19
Lilia sat in a tiny room nestled in the harbor’s eastern gate, rubbing her twisted foot. The stairs were laborious, never-ending. Everyone wanted to meet on every which floor, without a care that it took her three times as long to navigate them as everyone else. She grimaced and bore it, but the pain was getting worse. It was one of those days when the idea of Taigan cutting off her leg and taking a year to regrow it didn’t sound so bad. She had spent two weeks at the harbor wall arguing with people about how to execute what she thought was a very simple plan, but it turned out she was better at coming up with plans than convincing people to follow them.
Lilia had taken the Line to Kuallina twice in that time to check on the refugees. They were having trouble finding places in the clans for them. No one wanted them, even the smaller family groups. She spent endless hours arguing with Gorosa Malia Osono, the head of the hold, about his efforts to place the refugees. His a
ttitude was no better than that of the Kai. She could feel his disdain for them, and for her.
Lilia tried to keep their spirits up. Eventually, if every clan took in a few, they could blend seamlessly in with the rest of Dhai. It would just… take time. Time, she admitted, that Dhai did not have. What were the Tai Mora waiting for? How much longer before they moved?
Dusk had fallen. She had left Taigan and Gian to eat downstairs, and climbed back up here hungry. It was preferable to the company that met in the dining hall. One of the things she liked, living in Oma's Temple, was being invisible. Hardly anyone noticed her but Roh. Even when she routed someone at a strategy game, she was so unremarkable otherwise, it never drew their ire. But perhaps, as Taigan said, that invisibility had been her mother’s gift to her, seared into her flesh with the ward Taigan had later removed.
Pain still shot up her twisted leg. She winced and lay back on the bed. There was just one narrow window. From there she could see the misty green lights of the Tai Mora lanterns stretching across the water as they lit them, one by one. It was beautiful, really, this view of the enemy. The sound of the water and bobbing of the lights put her to sleep every night.
The door opened, and Gian entered. She had found more suitable clothes – a long clean blue tunic stitched in silver and bright red trousers that fit her remarkably well after she tailored them to her own frame.
“Rice?” Gian asked. She pulled a sticky rice ball from her tunic pocket.
Lilia shook her head. Her stomach growled.
“I can hear that,” Gian said. She sat next to Lilia on the bed. “I worry when you sit up here alone.”
“I don’t like people very much.” It was the voices she couldn’t stand. People speaking in loud voices about things they didn’t understand, making what sounded like factual assertions about the enemy – about who they were, where they came from – that were utter nonsense. She wondered that the Kai hadn’t done a better job telling people about the enemy. But how to give people that message without causing panic? That was a challenge, wasn’t it?
“I can handle the people,” Gian said, “if you like. I don’t mind talking to people.”
“Is that what you did in Dorinah?”
Gian began to eat the rice ball.
Lilia folded her hands across her stomach, and let the silence stretch.
“I refused to go to the Seekers,” Gian said. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Some terrible story about my life?”
Lilia pushed herself up on her elbows. “Of course you’re gifted, just like–” Like my Gian, she wanted to say, but that was unfair. “You’re a parajista?”
“That’s a good guess. That’s what they said. I don’t notice much of anything. I can’t do the things you can do… it’s just… I’m aware of Para. I can see the blue mist, sometimes. But that’s all.”
“Why didn’t you go into training?”
“Do you know how dajian jistas are treated, among the Seekers? No, you wouldn’t. We burn out very quickly. They use us at the front lines, like dogs. They’d rather risk us than each other.”
“So you–”
“I killed a woman,” Gian said. She didn’t look at Lilia, but she had ceased eating.
Lilia moved closer. “May I hug you, Gian? Do you need comfort?”
Gian shook her head. She wiped her face with her sleeve. “That’s what happened. That’s all. I ran away to the Daorian. They didn’t know who I was, so I got sold into the scullery without being tested. But someone found out, the daughter to the Empress’s secretary. She had me thrown onto a cart and dumped at that camp.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilia said. She thought of Kalinda teaching the first Gian how to pull on Para in secret, so she didn’t have to join the temples. Different worlds, different lives, but far too many parallels. It was the parallels that bothered Lilia. How could two places be so different, but its people so much the same?
“I’m tired of talking about terrible things,” Gian said. “All we ever do is talk about terrible things, did you know that? Weeks of terrible things.”
“With Emlee, we didn’t.”
“I miss Emlee,” Gian said. “Do you think that rumor is true, that she came in with the last of the refugees?”
“We’ll look for her at Kuallina after things here are done.”
Gian looked out across the water at the green lights. “What are they waiting for?”
“Orders,” Lilia said. “Mohrai is finally sending swimmers out in the morning to do reconnaissance.”
“Swimmers?”
“It was something I worked out with Elder Ora Naldri,” Lilia said. She had kept quiet about her idea outside the campaign room, mostly because she wasn’t sure anyone was going to do anything with it after all. “I asked him if parajistas ever used Para to breathe longer. He said yes – they just make this bubble of air around their bodies. It doesn’t last long, but long enough to make it from the black cliffs to the ships and back.”
“What then?”
Lilia swung her feet off the bed. Her leg still throbbed, but she noticed it less now. She pulled over the strategy board she kept near her bed, the one she had lined with stone markers to represent the ships, and sticks for the gates.
“Sinajistas can create these tangled bursts of energy with Para, like a packet of flame, and they go off when the jista says so. They’re hard to make, and they can’t be very large. It takes a lot of effort to make them with Sina descendent, and Elder Ora Naldri only has one sinajista strong enough to make them, but I’ve seen them work. I think they could set fire to the ships.”
“Couldn’t they put them out with Para?”
“The parajistas are going to put wards on them, so they’re immune to parajistas.”
“Omajistas?”
“That’s what me and Taigan are for.”
Gian regarded the board. “Conflict is complicated, with jistas.”
“It’s like anything else,” Lilia said. “You have to think ahead of your opponent.”
Gian jabbed a finger at the stone markers. “They aren’t going to expect us to attack them first?”
“They think we’re going to wait, the way we’ve been doing. That’s our advantage. They think we’re pacifists.”
“Aren’t we?”
Lilia frowned. “I still have to convince some people. They don’t want to listen. They think there’s a peaceful solution. But I’ve been there, Gian. I’ve seen the army. I know.”
Gian reached for her hand, hesitated. “May I hold your hand?”
Lilia nodded.
Gian took her clawed hand into her warm, calloused one. “We’ll win with you here. You’re the smartest, the most powerful–”
Lilia felt heat rising on her face. She pulled her hand away. “You don’t have to flatter me. I’m not some special person.”
“You’re brave.”
“It’s not brave to send other people off to die,” Lilia said. “Those parajistas are brave. Ghrasia is brave.”
“Can I… that’s… would you mind if I… Lilia, I would like to kiss you.”
“Yes,” Lilia said.
Gian leaned into her, and for a long, lovely moment, Lilia allowed herself to imagine it was the other Gian pressing her lips to hers.
“I need you,” Lilia said, “your hands on me. Please touch me, take me away from here. Do you consent?”
Gian needed nothing else. She pulled at Lilia’s tunic and pressed her back onto the bed. Her hot mouth found Lilia’s breast, and every part of Lilia seemed to light up like the boats on the water. A warm, desperate desire flushed through her whole body. She yanked at Gian’s clothes. Her long black hair tickled Lilia’s face.
“Gian,” Lilia said, and she remembered the way Gian’s body had moved in the woodlands – shirtless Gian, swinging her machete. Gian, who had massaged her cramping legs and feet. Gian, who had told her, wounded and delirious, that she loved her.
Gian tugged off Lilia’s trousers and pressed her lips
between Lilia’s legs. Lilia gasped.
The boats. The lights in the boats.
The only light came now from the moons and boats, and the sickly green glow of them suffused Lilia’s room. The lights were different, though. They blinked on and off, as if someone were shuttering and unshuttering the lanterns.
Lilia gasped. She cupped Gian’s head with her good hand, tangling her fingers in her hair. “Please!” She wasn’t even sure what she was asking, but Gian pulled her hips closer.
The lights in the harbor went out.
Lilia squeezed her eyes shut. She released Gian’s hair and gripped the sheets, cried out.
The door banged open.
Lilia jerked away from Gian. Gian raised her head. Lilia resisted the urge to drag her closer. Her heart was pounding loudly now, with more than just desire.
“Lilia–” Taigan strode in. She hesitated a half moment, frowning at the two of them. “Get dressed,” Taigan said. She took Lilia’s clothes off the floor and threw them at her.
“You’re rude,” Lilia said.
“I hope you’ve had a pleasant evening,” Taigan said. “The ships just docked at the piers.”
Gian wiped her mouth on the sheets and pulled on her tunic. “The Tai Mora ships?”
“Are there any other ships?” Taigan snapped.
Lilia pulled on her linen undergarments, and her trousers. “Why are they attacking now?” She was trembling, a terrible mix of emotions.
“If I knew that, I’d be King of the Dhai.”
“We don’t have a king.”
“Maybe you should. Mohrai wants you on the wall. They’ve called all the parajistas, too. The Seekers will meet you there. Hurry.”
20
It was a good day for an invasion.
“Tear it open,” Kirana said.
She stood on a broad wooden walkway erected for just this purpose – to help propel her army over the swamp and through the gate as quickly as possible, before it closed. In the other world, the new world, there was a lake where she stood. On this side her people had filled it in long before, but as the climate changed with the blazing star, the glaciers on the surrounding mountains had sloughed off and turned the lowlands into a tepid swamp.
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 72
