“Don’t tell me your prized boy has become headstrong,” she said, but she was not looking at Nasaka. She was looking off to the left at some commotion.
“I didn’t know about Kirana’s quarters in Garika,” Nasaka said. “By the time I arrived to clear them out, he’d already done it. I had no idea she was meeting with the Garikas behind my back. But our deal still holds.”
“What?” Kirana glanced back at her. “Yes, of course. So long as you control him, he’s no threat to me. You can have the boy. To be honest, I was always surprised you asked for nothing else.”
Nasaka sometimes wondered how different things would be now, if her Kirana had been the sort of leader this one was. But their worlds were different. Her Kirana had not been raised in a world that would produce such a person. But it produced me, Nasaka thought. It was I who failed. I should have raised her to be a soldier. A fighter. If I had raised her to such a vocation, we wouldn’t be in this place.
“I’ve seen how you deliver on your promises,” Nasaka said.
Kirana raised her brows. “You got your boy on the seat. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“You asked me to kill a good many people, and lie and betray far more, to get there.”
“It’s not as if lying is a new exercise for a woman in your position.”
“Kirana’s death nearly split the country apart,” Nasaka said.
“That was her fault,” Kirana said. “She should have parlayed. Instead, she chose the coward’s way,” Kirana said. The air between them wavered. “I don’t have much time. Will the harbor gates be open or not?”
“I need time.”
“I thought you controlled Ahkio,” Kirana said coolly. “If
you can’t control him, he’s not necessary. I can have him easily replaced with any number of my own people.”
“Like Yisaoh?”
“Yisaoh?” Kirana seemed genuinely surprised, then laughed. “I am often heartened by the amount of ignorance you display in these conversations, Nasaka.”
Nasaka gripped her sword hilt hard. The willowthorn branch snaked out, wrapping around her wrist. She bared her teeth. “He’ll do as I ask.” And if he wouldn’t, his wife would.
“Good.” Kirana pulled back on her gauntlet and barked something at her generals in the Dhai dialect they used. Nasaka had picked it up over the decade of their discussions, but the gate between them was becoming unstable, and the words were garbled.
“My son,” Nasaka said, loudly. “He’ll do as you ask.” Just in case she had not heard.
Kirana glanced back at her, and flashed a grin. It was a confident, reassuring grin that Nasaka had seen her own Kirana employ while charming clan leaders and Oras alike. It squeezed at Nasaka’s heart.
“I know he will,” Kirana said.
The air pressure suddenly decreased. Nasaka’s ears popped. The air shivered. The rents between the worlds snapped shut.
Nasaka let out her breath. She stood alone in the field. Her grip on her sword eased. She let herself fall to one knee in the poppies. Her heart was pounding fast. The surge of adrenaline was nearly overwhelming. She had wanted to cut across the portal and sever Kirana in two. But the war was coming. Oma was rising. And the Dhai in this world were not prepared for it.
The outcome was clear to her from the first moment the other Kirana dragged her through to witness a death that even now, Nasaka could not bear to think about. This Kirana would win. It would be a route. The army that flooded Saiduan now was just a taste of what they were about to experience. Kirana had already destroyed her own world. Now she was coming for theirs.
Nasaka waited until her pulse slowed, and then rose. The hourglass of the suns had tipped behind the mountains. The world went turquoise, then violet. Nasaka followed the hunting trail back through the field of poppies, down into the snowy foothills, back to the Temple of Oma, and the son who despised her, though she was the only thing standing between him and death.
She was no fool, of course. She knew Kirana would come for them soon enough. But Nasaka had other plans. Plans she needed far more time to put into motion.
When Nasaka reached the temple, it was full dark; her way lit only by the moons. She pushed open the sally port and mounted the long tongue of the grand staircase.
Una, the gatekeeper, met her on the stair.
“He was in the basements a long time before they called him to Liona,” Una said. “He wouldn’t tell me what he was up to, but he had some kind of maps.”
“Did he find Meyna? She’s still secure in the gaol?”
“She is,” Una said. “Don’t worry about that. What was he looking for down there, Ora Nasaka?”
“I don’t know,” Nasaka said, “But I intend to find out.”
END BOOK ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kameron Hurley is an award-winning author, advertising copywriter, and online scribe. Hurley grew up in Washington State, and has lived in Fairbanks, Alaska; Durban, South Africa; and Chicago. She has degrees in historical studies from the University of Alaska and the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, specializing in the history of South African resistance movements.
Hurley is the author of God’s War, Infidel, and Rapture, a science-fantasy noir series which earned her the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer and the Kitschy Award for Best Debut Novel. She has been a finalist for the Nebula Award and the Locus Award. Her work has also been included on the Tiptree Award Honor List.
Hurley’s short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed, EscapePod, and Strange Horizons, and anthologies such as The Lowest Heaven and Year’s Best SF. Her fiction has been translated into Romanian, Swedish, and Russian. She is also a graduate of Clarion West.
kameronhurley.com
twitter.com/KameronHurley
ALSO BY KAMERON HURLEY
God’s War
Infidel
Rapture
PRAISE FOR KAMERON HURLEY
“Kameron Hurley’s a brave, unflinching, truly original writer with a unique vision – her fiction burns right through your brain and your heart.” author of Finch”
Jeff VanderMeer, author of Finch and City of Saints and Madmen
“Kameron Hurley is ferociously imaginative – with the emphasis on the ferocious. She writes novels that are smart, dark, visceral and wonderfully, hectically entertaining.”
Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City and The Shining Girls
“Kameron Hurley’s writing is the most exciting thing I’ve seen on the genre page… What Hurley’s writing has (and it’s something not one in a dozen genre practitioners seems able to generate) is passion. It doesn’t hurt that there’s also a rare freshness to the material, and a heady dash of high octane noir worked into the mix.”
Richard K Morgan, author of The Steel Remains and the Takeshi Kovacs novels
“…where some writers might focus on high-tech weapons or explosive battles in space, Hurley brings things down to a personal level, recalling more the tough-minded realism of Chris Moriarty’s Spin State…”
New York Review of Science Fiction
“God’s War was part slow burn, part explosive action… in the end the novel was utterly compelling.”
Tor.com
“Hurley’s world-building is phenomenal… (she) smoothly handles tricky themes such as race, class, religion, and gender without sacrificing action.”
Publishers Weekly
“The ostensibly ground-breaking, jaw-dropping ultra-progressive newness of God’s War is important because it isn’t important. God’s War is remarkable not because it pushes the boundaries of science fiction, but because it is a novel in which those boundaries are already gone.”
Jared Shurin, Pornokitsch
ends
The Mirror Empire Page 50
