The Black Tides of Heaven

by JY Yang

  “We need to tell somebody,” Mokoya said.

  This time it was Akeha’s turn to ball their hands into fists. “And who are we supposed to tell?”

  “One of the adults.” As Akeha’s face worked into a scowl, Mokoya said, “We have to tell someone. We can’t fix this by ourselves.”

  “Who says we have to fix anything?”

  “People are going to get hurt if we do nothing, Keha. I have to tell someone.”

  Akeha hated the way Mokoya emphasized the word “I.” It was a clear division, almost a threat. Hadn’t they agreed to do everything together? “They’re not going to believe you.”

  “They will. The Head Abbot will.”

  “And if he believes you? What happens then? Do they call you a prophet?”

  Mokoya coiled their shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. Who cares? It’s more important to stop the dream from happening.”

  Akeha sat back on their heels and blew a hot breath through their teeth. They weren’t sure what to say.

  “I’m going to tell him tomorrow,” Mokoya said.

  “Fine.” Akeha unfolded from their crouch and went back to their side of the sleeping mat. They could sense Mokoya’s stare as they curled up on the roughly woven surface and shut their eyes.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “No,” they said, but they didn’t turn around. “Go back to sleep.”

  Chapter Four

  AKEHA PROWLED THE INN’S upper-floor balcony. The creaky strip of wine-stained wood overlooked the thoroughfare through which the spring procession clanged, swayed, spun, and marched. On either side, the balconies bulged with cheering, laughing, red-cheeked citizens. In contrast, this one was still and silent, lined with a full troupe of pugilists hand-selected from the most senior acolytes in the Grand Monastery. And then there was the Head Abbot himself, breathing slowly and evenly, calm and implacable as a mountain.

  “Stop that,” Mokoya hissed, as Akeha turned on an impatient foot to begin a new circuit of the balcony.

  Mokoya had lied to the Head Abbot in order to bring them all here. They’d said nothing about the kirin in the forest, or the broken fence. Instead they claimed to have foreseen the incident last week where two of the junior acolytes broke the statues of Patience and Gratitude that guarded the front pavilion. Akeha had laughed about them lying to an adult, and had gotten kicked in the shins for their trouble.

  More surprising was the fact that the Head Abbot had believed them without question. Every now and then, Akeha caught him staring across the length of the balcony at Mokoya, whose gaze was trained unwaveringly on the sky. Akeha felt like he knew something, something he wasn’t telling either of them.

  They rocked back and forth on the balls of their feet, humming tunelessly. Mokoya glared.

  Downstairs, the procession continued on its multihued, clamorous way, unaware of the tensions strung overhead. The dancers and floats would thread their way through Chengbee’s ant-nest streets before passing by the Imperial Square, to present themselves to the Protector and the upper echelons of the Tensorate. The Protector’s family were expected to be in attendance as well. Sonami would be there. Everybody would.

  Everybody except for us, Akeha thought. Did they even count as the Protector’s family anymore?

  Nearby, Mokoya went suddenly still and alert. What is it? Akeha thought at them.

  I don’t know. It’s something.

  The empty skies darkened from gray to blue as sunfall came. Along the thoroughfare, sunballs winked to life, illuminating the excitement-flushed crowd with a soft glow.

  Wasn’t it at sunfall, your vision?

  Mokoya squinted at the sky, as if they were trying to listen to a small scratching sound from very far away.

  Akeha moved so that they stood side-by-side, the edges of their palms brushing. It was easier to clear their mindeye like this, with their twin as a steadying, calming anchor.

  They remembered the way the kirin had appeared to them, a blaze of light so bright it seemed to squeeze the Slack around it. People shone on the surface of the Slack, but not like that. Not that intensely.

  If the naga was the same way, they would feel it in the shape of the Slack before it appeared. Sinew and flesh and bone and blood. Akeha concentrated, trying to widen the scope of their mindeye as much as possible, see as far as possible in the Slack—

  There. There, Moko, there!

  The distortion in the Slack was moving fast, like a meteor, destructive, and the light was coming toward them like a transport headlight down a tunnel—

  Sinew. And flesh. And bone. And blood.

  The naga was massive, wingspan of ten houses, clawed feet and barbed tail, mouth big enough to swallow a person whole. It was more raptor than serpent, hollow-boned and warm-blooded. That blood rushed swift and strong as a monsoon river. It called to Akeha.

  They focused on that blood as the naga burst over the horizon, over the tops of roofs, blocking out the screams because they had to get the timing exactly right—

  Akeha clenched their fist, and the raging torrents of blood froze.

  The naga’s scream thrust like a spear through the eardrums. The massive creature twisted in the air, and Akeha opened their eyes to see it coming toward the inn like a hailstorm. Their breath caught.

  Someone grabbed them by the collar. “Jump!” was the instruction. The Head Abbot had pulled the twins together, and Akeha jumped, their legs and body going numb as things collapsed around them. Not just the inn, which rained planks and splinters and bricks around them as they hit the ground with a bone-shattering thud. Everything fell.

  Akeha struggled upright, getting off the ground, trying to see the damage that had been done. Pain shot through their ankle, and they stumbled. Something reached around them: Mokoya, holding them up with trembling arms.

  The naga had come down on the row of houses where the inn used to be. It groaned, a wild rumbling sound, but the light it burned in the Slack was fading. Sunfall was complete. The shapes of people ran to and fro in the darkness, some screaming, some holding their heads. One of the procession dancers wailed and screamed as she tried to push a block of wood, a broken pillar, off the shape of another dancer crumpled on the ground. Surprisingly, there was no blood. The lights festooning the dead dancer’s dress still glowed and sparkled, as if nothing had happened. They had lost a shoe as they fell.

  Oily smoke crept through the air as the sounds of crackling—like offerings for the dead—rose up around them. Or was it merely the rushing of blood in Akeha’s ears? Mokoya was shaking them, saying syllables that wouldn’t gel into words.

  Things had happened exactly as Mokoya saw them. Why hadn’t they realized this?

  * * *

  One night-cycle after Mokoya’s whimpering had been silenced by unconsciousness, Akeha admitted to themselves that they were not following their twin into sleep at all. They slowly sat up in the gloom, careful not to disturb the shallowly breathing mound next to them.

  The half hour before the sun returned to the skies was the coldest. Two night-cycles had passed, and a whole new day approached. Akeha’s fingers were numb, and their vision shone with waves of exhaustion, but rest and darkness would not come. Their mind would not settle.

  Akeha, separated from their twin, had spent nearly two hours being questioned by the senior acolytes and the Head Abbot himself, passed around like cracked tableware. They repeated their story over and over: They had not intended to kill the naga. They wanted to send it away. Once or twice, they had almost slipped and mentioned the kirin in the forest, where they were not supposed to have been. But they caught themselves in time.

  Eventually they had been allowed to return to their bedroom, where they found Mokoya sitting with their chin tucked against their knees, expression blank. And then they had to explain, for the final time, that they hadn’t really meant to kill the naga. They hadn’t meant to make the prophecy come true.

  Akeha watched Mokoya as they slept. For once, the
y were not sure what their twin believed. No, Mokoya was not obliged to talk to them. And they were probably as tired as Akeha was, and frightened too.

  But they wished Mokoya had said something.

  Akeha got to their feet and shuffled toward the door. There was no point in lying still and trying to fall asleep. They knew it wouldn’t happen.

  They crept around the austere gray sprawl of the Grand Monastery, letting the cold slow their blood and heartbeat where their mind wouldn’t. These were the wide corridors they and Mokoya had breathlessly run down between lessons, the stones upon which they had both sat for hours meditating, the courtyards in which they had sparred, using sticks and slackcraft as weapons.

  Akeha’s childhood memories of the Great High Palace stitched together snatches of color and heavy fragrances with zither song and faraway, gentle laughter. They used to feel a jolt of strong, unnamable emotion whenever they thought about it, but those emotions had faded as the seasons left, and came back, and left again. The Grand Monastery was their home now.

  A circle of light glowed in the distance, glimpsed between the even wooden teeth of intersecting corridors. The Head Abbot was not yet asleep.

  For reasons they couldn’t quite understand, Akeha found themselves creeping toward the Head Abbot’s quarters. As they got closer, they heard voices: the Head Abbot had a visitor. In the deepest part of night.

  Akeha shuffled into a crouch and pressed against the wall of the Head Abbot’s room, underneath the window. Their heart pulsed in their throat: if they were caught, they didn’t know what they would say.

  “This is a generous offer,” said a high, crisp voice. Akeha’s memories of the Great High Palace came unbound in a wild cascade. That voice belonged to bright, wide halls with climate control and murmuring, attentive audiences. Second Sister Kinami—wasn’t she the Chief Royal Diplomat now, overseeing the Ministry of Diplomacy whose fingers stretched everywhere the Protectorate held land?

  “It’s hardly an offer,” the Head Abbot said. “I’d call it a demand.”

  “Well, you know Mother. Negotiating is not one of her great interests.”

  “We made a compact, a blood deal. She cannot simply back out of it as it suits her wishes.”

  “Except she isn’t backing out of anything. She promised you one child. She gave you two. At the end of it, you’ll still have one.”

  Akeha dug their nails into their palm to stop from shaking. One leg was already feeling the strain from the unnatural crouch.

  Kinami said, “Mother has requested only the prophet’s return. You can keep the other one. That fulfills the terms of the deal.”

  “You speak of them as though they are mere numbers on a ledger. They’re children. You cannot just move them from one column to the next.”

  Silence from the other end. Akeha could imagine the cold, arch expression on Kinami’s face. Of all their older sisters, Kinami was the closest in temperament to Mother, and even as a small child, Akeha had hated her. The Head Abbot had to tell her no. Tell her to go away.

  “I see. I suppose I should have expected this. After all, treating people like numbers is one of your mother’s specialties.”

  Akeha scrunched their face up to keep from screaming. Of course the Head Abbot wouldn’t fight Mother’s wishes. Nobody would.

  “You’ll have a week to make the arrangements. Let the prophet say their good-byes. It should be plenty of time.”

  The meeting was ending. Akeha had to get away. They kept to their crouch for two steps, and then started running, head ducked, chest constricting in pain. Wooden floorboards creaked as their soft-soled shoes slapped over them.

  By some miracle, Akeha got back to their room without being stopped. They crashed against the wall next to the door and slid to the floor, gasping, their calves burning.

  Mokoya sat up, robes mussed and eyes wide. “What happened? Keha? What is it?”

  The conversation between Kinami and the Head Abbot repeated in Akeha’s head in a deathly loop. “They’re coming for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Mother. The Tensorate.”

  Mokoya struggled to clumsy feet, wiping the sleep from their face. “For us?”

  “No. Just you.”

  Mokoya froze as though struck by lightning. “They can’t do that.”

  Akeha pressed their head into the wall’s unyielding surface and closed their eyes. They felt tired, all the way deep in their neck and shoulders and head. Their muscles shook, their heart wouldn’t stop beating. “They can do whatever they want.”

  “No.” Mokoya’s voice was soft but determined. Akeha felt fingers close around their hand and tighten vise-like. “Keha, we have to do something.”

  Chapter Five

  THE MOON RULED THE skies as the children set out past the guardians of their sleeping quarters, past the empty vegetable garden, past the raptors and through the broken fence. When it was just them and the forest again, Akeha stopped to adjust the heavy pack they had strapped on. Their exertions clouded the air with white puffs.

  “Come on,” Mokoya hissed. “We need to get as far as possible before they realize we’re gone.”

  Akeha hesitated, and they said, “Keha.” Then they turned and set off into the wooded depths without checking to see if Akeha followed.

  Mokoya’s steady gait never wavered, retracing the route they knew: through the trees, toward the shining path that led up to the peak of the mountain.

  “If the kirin comes back, you’ll kill it, won’t you?” Mokoya said, as they walked.

  Akeha didn’t reply. They were mentally counting the biscuits and dried rice cakes stuffed into the packs, five days’ worth of stealing from the monastery’s kitchens. It would last them three days, four if they skipped meals. And they needed to find a source of clean water sooner than that.

  Akeha had lagged behind, footsteps slowed by thought. Mokoya stomped over, and it was almost a shock when they seized Akeha’s hand. “Keha. We have to stay together.”

  “This is a mistake,” Akeha whispered. “Let’s go back to the monastery.”

  In the moonlight, Mokoya’s face looked sharp and angry. “And let them take you away from me?” Even though the exact opposite was happening. “I’d rather die.”

  Akeha pulled their hand away. “Stop spouting rubbish.”

  “I’m not going back. Mother can’t do whatever she likes. I’m not a token on her chessboard.”

  “I told you,” Akeha said bitterly. “You shouldn’t have said anything about your dream.”

  “And you shouldn’t have killed that naga.”

  Akeha peeled their lips back and hissed. That was enough. They turned their back to Mokoya and headed the way they’d come, feet slipping on the brittle dead leaves that had lain there all winter.

  “Keha.” Mokoya lunged after them and grabbed their arm with both hands, fingers pressing through the layers of cloth hard enough to bruise. “I’m sorry, please, don’t leave me.”

  Akeha wriggled out of Mokoya’s grasp, but stayed where they were. “Don’t be stupid.” They could no more leave their twin alone here than they could cut off their own arm.

  They stood like this for a moment, two children lost against a backdrop of endless forest. The weak foliage shadow shifted uncomfortably as the moon rolled across the sky.

  “You lead the way,” Akeha said.

  Mokoya pointed. “The path’s over there.”

  The sun rose, fell, and rose again as the children walked. A dull pain spread through Akeha’s soles, but they focused on putting their feet down, one after another, on the stone-studded path that led them up the mountainside. As the path dipped into a crevasse of rising granite walls, their calves and back started to cramp.

  One sun-cycle later, they stopped to eat and rest. Akeha rotated their ankles, dismayed by how everything hurt. They had been walking for little more than half a day.

  “There should be some caves up there,” Mokoya said, pointing into the half dark, where th
e path disappeared upward around a steep mountain face.

  “Did you see that in a dream?”

  “No,” they said, annoyance creeping into their voice. “I just have a feeling.”

  Akeha leaned their head against Mokoya’s shoulder and shut their eyes. Their twin was right, it did feel damper around here, like there was resting water close by, and that could mean caves. Or something. They were tired of arguing.

  Mokoya put an arm around them.

  “They should be looking for us by now,” Akeha said.

  “We should go,” Mokoya murmured.

  So they packed up and continued on the path. It was alarming how fast the aches returned to their bodies. Mokoya was limping, heavily favoring their left leg.

  “Are you hurt?” Akeha asked.

  “It’s just blisters.” They stopped. “Keha—look!”

  Mokoya pointed. White mist was lifting from the crags and hollows of the earth. In the distance, the path vanished into a slender mouth in the rock.

  They’d found a cave. Against all the odds, they’d found it.

  Mokoya picked a branch off the ground and tugged at fire-nature to light it. The mouth of the cave was steep and littered with sharp rocks which skinned Akeha’s palms as they scrambled up.

  “Keha. Look.”

  Mokoya held the improvised torch aloft in the cave mouth. The roof yawned fifty yields above their heads, thick with the chittering of bats. Somewhere in the vicinity, water ran, echoing off stone walls. Step by small step, the two children moved inward, sheltered in the torch’s circle of safety.

  “It’s strange,” Akeha said.

  “What is?”

  “The floor is clean.” With all the bats singing above them, they should have been walking across a carpet of droppings. But their circle of light showed nothing.

  Mokoya looked up. “There’s a barrier,” they said after a while. “Slackcraft.”

  “Someone else comes here.”

  “It has to be.”

  “You think they live here? In the wild?”