The Mirror Empire

by Kameron Hurley

  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.

  43.

  Seventy-five Oras and one hundred milita 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 multi-colored 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 team.

  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 raised 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 milita 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 surrounds 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 man, maybe twenty, who looked at Ghrasia with such intense awe it made Ahkio smile. Ghrasia hardly looked at him.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll need a run of this area here, near the old fish meal homestead. You remember it?”

  “I do,” the man said.

  “Good, thank you.” Ghrasia raised her gaze. “That’s all. You’re dismissed.”

  The man’s face darkened. He turned away.

  When he 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. They should be here by now.” She began to move the others 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 doctor. 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.

  “Ghrasia? 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,” he said.

  “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 dagger of icy fear cut through his belly. 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 foolishness, and inability to manage the issue himself. Would he have to send another emissary there, to apologize? Someone else the Patron would kill.

  Every time he thought he might have done something right, the world fell apart somewhere else. Who else could he tell? Liaro? Maybe. Whatever had been done to his people in Saiduan had been done weeks ago. All he could do was drown the sorrow.

  “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. “Anyone of us could. You. Me. Liaro. Any one of us. They are us, Ahkio.”

  “Liaro doesn’t even eat insects,” Ahkio said. “He’s soft as ripe fruit.”

  “We need be careful,” Ghrasia said.

  “I’d rather we lived.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want to live,” Ghrasia said, “if it turned me into what that man was.”

  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, but persisted. “I apologize if I –”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “You may.”

  He pressed his hand to her knee. “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 he 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. He couldn’t help but remember his night with Mohrai, and how ugly he’d felt afterward. He shouldn’t have cared about Mohrai’s consent to an affair after what she’d done to him. But he found himself saying, anyway -

  “I’m married.”

  “As am I,” she said.

  “I don’t expect Mohrai will give her permission for such an affair,” he said, “even if your husbands did.”

  “I’m barren,” Ghrasia said, “though I expect that will not dissuade her.”

  “No,” Ahkio said. “Barren with your husbands does not mean barren with me.” He wanted that to be the end of it. But he opened his mouth again and said, “Our desire would need to have limits.”

  “I’ve heard your wife has an eye on your seat,” Ghrasia said.

  “She does,” he said. “And some days I have a mind to let her have it.”

  “Why is it you didn’t just turn it over to her? We all knew you didn’t want to be Kai.”

  “Maybe that’s why,” he said. “I always did like being contrary.”

  “So let’s pretend I didn’t ask about an affair,” she said.

  Ahkio wanted to touch her again. He was already on fire with images of the two of them together. He’d been dreaming of her for weeks. He wanted to own his desire again, and regain the autonomy Mohrai had tried to strip from him when she took him without his consent.

  “I think I’m afraid of having a happy moment,” Ahkio said.

  Ghrasia reached out her hand. He took it. He wanted her so desperately he nearly fell into her lap.

  “I’m far more afraid of never dancing again,” she said, and led him upstairs.

  Ahkio lay awake staring at the ceiling. He heard voices from the courtyard. They faded before he could make out the words. He thought about Roh, and Dasai, and wondered what had become of them. Were they awake, too? Or dead? The moons’ light bled in from the window. He had forgotten to draw the curtains, and now regretted it. He did not often desire or require privacy.

  He went to the window. The air was cold against his bare skin. The fire in the hearth was low. He gazed out at the lighted square.

  Saw no one.

  “What is it?” Ghrasia asked. She propped herself up on one elbow. She was captivating in the low light. The moons’ light made her skin glow. Her hair was unbound, and spilled across the sheets. It reminded him suddenly of Meyna. A lifetime ago.

  “Thought I heard something,” he said. He climbed back into bed next to her, drawn back to the warmth of their shared bodies.

  She took his scarred hands and kissed them.

  He made to pull away, suddenly self-conscious, but she held his wrists. “What really happened in that camp?” she said. She pressed her thumbs to his smooth palms. “I know the stories, but I also know stories lie.”

  Ahkio pulled his hands away a second time. She released him. He traced the lines of her cheek. “My mother took us to a big refugee camp on the other side of the Liona Stronghold. I still don’t know why. She said it was to enlighten people. Maybe she was searching for someone. She hadn’t exiled her sister yet, and people thought maybe Etena would take the title. Maybe Javia thought that too. Did she tell you?”

  Ghrasia shook her head. “Your mother and I… had a falling out. Soon after you were born.”

  “She took us with her,” he said. “A mad thing, by all counts. We lived in that refugee camp for years while she met with all sorts of people – farm workers and scullery drudges and servants. I don’t remember what they talked about. But there was an uprising in the camp. She was certainly a part of it. How much, I don’t know. But when the rebellion came, the Dorinahs were ready.”

  “They burned the camp,” Ghrasia said.

  “Yes,” he said. He flexed his fingers. “I still remember. There was this legionnaire. She looked old to me, but I guess she must have been young, maybe as old as I am now, and it was so strange. She looked Dhai. Mostly Dhai, anyway. And she torched our house, and the houses of those around us. My father went out to kill the legionnaire, but she cut him down.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ghrasia said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have –”

  “It’s all right,” he said. He expected his hands to tremble, but they did not. “
I didn’t know how to use a sword. So I ran back inside the house, to find my mother. She was ill. When I got in… she was burning. Her hair was on fire, her clothes…” He could still smell the stink of her burning hair and flesh, even now. “So I just grabbed her.” He held out his hands. “I don’t know what they burned the houses with. Some tirajista-created thing, maybe, because it stuck to me. The fire just licked up my arms. My own hair caught fire.”

  “Did Ora Nasaka really –”

  He grimaced. “Yes. Nasaka pulled me out. She left my mother to burn up, but she pulled me out and rolled me in the dirt until all that was left was the pain. Then she pulled out that sword of hers. She made quick work of the legionnaires, after that. But she didn’t go back for my mother.”

  Ghrasia pressed her hand to his face. “It’s a horrible thing. I’m sorry it happened to you.”

  “It’s done,” he said. He pushed out of bed. “I think I’m going to stay up and read for a bit. Do you mind?”

  “What is it? A religious text?”

  “A book of Kirana’s. Some lurid Dorinah romance.”

  “That will do the trick,” she said.

  He walked over to his tunic draped on the back of a chair and grabbed the book in his tunic pocket.

  “You know what haunts me?” he said, “about Dorinah? Besides all the burning?”

  “The legionnaire,” she said.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Dhai killing Dhai,” she said. “The first time you see it… it breaks the world, a little bit.”

  Ahkio crawled back into bed. He pressed himself against her, savoring the heat, as he opened the book.

  “It’s odd to see all her things stacked up here,” Ghrasia said, pointing to the trunks. “I’ve been trying to think of where I saw those maps of the basements before. She requested six of the militia in Kuallina about, oh, four years ago? To help her go through and confirm some maps. They were just like those.”

  “Why would she need militia to help with that?”