by JY Yang
“I don’t know.” Mokoya frowned. It was too late to turn back. “We’ll find out.”
As they ventured farther in, the walls of the cave opened up into a space huge enough to kill echoes. A breeze lingered around Akeha’s neck, its cold breath raising gooseflesh. Mokoya sucked in a breath. “Look.”
The dim shape of wooden crates, stacked upon one another, populated the cave floor. Akeha sent a cautious tendril out through the Slack and discovered warm pinpoints that responded to their slackcraft. A string of sunballs. Akeha tensed through metal-nature, and their glow filled the room.
“Great Slack.” Mokoya put the torch out as hundreds of heavy wooden crates, reinforced by tempered iron, revealed themselves. “What are they?”
Several years’ worth of dust coated the boxes. Akeha left long finger streaks across the top of one. It wasn’t labeled. As gray clouds danced around them, Akeha lifted the hinged lid. It was heavy, but it wasn’t locked.
The crate was stacked with lightcraft in the shape of lotuses, like the kind Akeha had seen some of the senior acolytes use in aerial sparring practice. Unlike the weathered equipment back in the monastery, these hadn’t seen much use. They looked thicker and stronger, too. Akeha touched one with slackcraft. There was barely any charge left, and whatever threads of metal-nature had been used to weave the energy in place had long since frayed.
Mokoya had pried open another crate, a long boxy one the shape of a coffin. “What are these?” They reached in and pulled out a long, thick metal rod, like a cudgel. The black carvings across its surface caught the yellow light as Mokoya experimentally twirled it.
“It looks like a weapon,” Akeha said. Mokoya had had the same thought, moving into a fighting crouch, cudgel balanced in two hands. It was too long for them: an adult’s weapon.
The cudgel hummed as Mokoya charged it with slackcraft. Neither twin had seen anything like it before. Mokoya swung it above their head with practiced ease, despite its length. “There must be hundreds of these,” they said, as they tilted it back and forth, examining it. “Why?”
“They’re war supplies,” Akeha said.
Mokoya blinked. “War? What kind of war? There hasn’t been a war for years.”
“Does it matter what kind? There are no good kinds of war.”
Mokoya looked troubled by this, and started swinging the cudgel again.
“Be careful,” Akeha warned, as the cudgel missed one of the crates by a fingerswidth.
As Mokoya swung the cudgel through another rotation, one end clipped Akeha in the shoulder. “You oaf,” Akeha spluttered, and kicked up the sand on the cave floor and sent it sweeping in a wave toward Mokoya.
The assault through water-nature sent their twin staggering. Mokoya fell, but was back on their feet instantly, growling. They jabbed the cudgel in Akeha’s direction.
The cudgel caught the thread of Mokoya’s slackcraft. It hummed, glowed, and a bolt of electricity arced from it and struck Akeha in the chest.
Akeha went crashing to the ground, stunned, as though someone had dropped a boulder on them. Their chest burned.
“Keha!” Mokoya dropped the cudgel and ran stumbling toward them, sliding on their knees across the cave floor. “Keha, say something. Keha, please.”
They couldn’t. Their chest hurt too much. Akeha tried moving their arms, tried sitting up, and doubled over in pain.
Something growled deep and low behind them. Mokoya’s eyes widened; their fingers trembled on Akeha’s arm.
A familiar shape moved into the circle of lights. As Akeha struggled onto their elbows, trying to work past the bolt’s paralyzing effect, the kirin reared up and screeched.
The creature lunged. Everything moved in a blur: the talons coming down, Mokoya throwing themselves over Akeha. Akeha tensed—Was it by instinct? Or something else?—and energy surged through the Slack, water-nature, as they shoved Mokoya away, before the kirin’s clawed feet struck—
The talons went through their side like it was paper. Akeha screamed, sensations burning through them. A clear and precise epiphany struck: They were going to die. There was no turning back. It was done.
Their blood soaked through layers of clothing as they lay on the ground, gasping, barely holding on to consciousness.
A crackle through the air, sharp smell of metal burning. The kirin screamed, and its limbs folded. Mokoya had picked the cudgel up. As the creature struggled to its feet, Mokoya struck it again. And again. And again. Their twin blazed with such fear and anger it punched through the wall of pain surrounding Akeha. They hit the kirin until it collapsed thrashing to the ground, until the convulsions subsided into twitching, until it fell heavy and still. The air reeked of burning flesh.
Akeha watched this all through a veil of increasing darkness. The world grew cold, and the pain was, at last, fading away. They were aware of Mokoya picking them up, screaming, pressing their head against their belly. Akeha was drifting away, and as they grew distant from their body, they began unraveling in the Slack, becoming pure energy.
Something pulled them back. Mokoya was tensing through forest-nature, trying to knit the torn flesh back together, trying to keep their failing heartbeat steady.
Akeha reached out through the Slack. Mokoya was so bright, so beautiful. Like a jewel shining, like a sunset over the sea. It’s okay, Moko. It’s better like this.
No. Keha, no. You have to. You can’t die. I won’t let you.
Now you can go back to the Great High Palace. You don’t have to worry.
I can’t, I won’t. Mokoya was crying so hard their body was shaking. They could not have spoken if they wanted to. If you die, I want to go with you.
I don’t want that. You have a good life ahead of you. Moko—
What’s the point? What’s the point of it?
Akeha struggled not to drift away entirely. They couldn’t leave Mokoya like this. It’s too late, Moko. You have to go on. I want you to.
The cavern filled with the sound of buzzing—a lightcraft in operation. Of all people, the Head Abbot appeared, sailing in like a bird, serenity turning to alarm as he took in the scene before him. How had he found them? A question for another time. The old man leapt off the lightcraft and hurried toward the twins.
A cool hand pressed against Akeha’s forehead, and warmth ran through them, healing warmth, tying them more securely to this world. “They’re still breathing,” the Head Abbot said. “We can save them. What happened? The kirin?”
Mokoya’s lungs operated in desperate gasps. “I killed it.”
“I know, Mokoya. She was one of the very last of her kind. She was trying to protect the cache. Don’t worry, you are both safe. Help is coming.”
Their twin formed words between the heaves of their chest. “I don’t want to be taken away. I don’t want Akeha to die.”
“Akeha will not die. I promise you that. Help is coming.”
“But they’re going to take me away.”
“Mokoya.” The Head Abbot sighed as Akeha tried to turn their head, tried to look at the expressions on both their faces. “You won’t have to go to the Tensorate alone. Akeha will go with you.”
And Mokoya fell silent, even as their lungs worked rhythmically through their stress. Then: “You mean—”
“I cannot separate the two of you, Mokoya. That would clearly be an unthinkable cruelty. Your mother sent both of you here because of a deal we made. I have decided not to hold her to it.”
Mokoya’s voice shook with terror and hope. “So we’ll go . . . together?”
“Yes.”
“You promise?”
“Yes, Mokoya. Now help me with your sibling.”
Mokoya twisted their fingers into Akeha’s and started to sob again. The Head Abbot laid a second hand on Akeha’s head. “You must relax, child. Sleep. You will be better when you wake.”
His hands sent slowness and warmth throughout Akeha’s consciousness. As they faded into the gentle cradle of sleep, they thought, But you still look at me like I�
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Part Two
THENNJAY
Chapter Six
YEAR SEVENTEEN
“THE HEAD ABBOT is going to die soon.”
Akeha opened their eyes a slit. Mokoya lay on their divan across the room, silhouetted by the night sun that filtered through the thick paper pulled across the window. They considered pretending they hadn’t heard it and letting that pronouncement die in the quiet night air.
Then reality settled in. Of course Mokoya would know they were awake. “Why do you say that?” they said, refusing to sit up from the bed.
“I saw the confirmation ceremony for the new one.”
“Oh? Who was it?” Akeha lazily rotated the memories of the monastery’s senior ranks through their mind. They hadn’t thought much about those people in the time since they’d left, and suspected nothing much had changed in the nine years since. The monastery was a place of stagnation, a place that loved its doctrine and cared more about inner purity than anything else.
“No one we know. A young man.”
“What?”
“Someone our age, maybe a bit older, maybe twenty.”
A preposterous idea. It took twenty years for acolytes to complete their training, and from there it was a slow climb to the top. No one that young could take the post.
“A Gauri boy.”
That was the thing that got Akeha to sit up. “A Gauri—are you sure you had a vision, and not a fever dream?”
Their twin sat up, and in the dark, they heard the click of a lid opening. Soft blue suffused the room as Mokoya prized the capture pearl out of its box with careful fingers. The glass drop, small enough to fit in their palm, glowed silver and aquamarine and plum with a freshly decanted vision.
Akeha had objected when the Tensorate’s researchers presented Mokoya with the dream recorder. It seemed suspect that they wanted Mokoya to wear it all the time, even though the visions only happened in their sleep. The way Akeha saw it, it was just another way for Mother’s lackeys to control Mokoya. But Mokoya seemed to appreciate its presence. And it turned out to have its uses.
“You can see for yourself,” they said, holding it out.
The pearl harbored alarmingly lifelike warmth. Akeha tensed the vision open, unspooling its coils like a snake. Mokoya’s vision washed over them.
A procession of monks sang sutras as they shuffled down the thoroughfare in front of the Great High Palace’s ceremonial pavilion. Tensors and palace staff lined every building, every corridor, hands folded, watching silently. Handbells rang, rhythmic and solemn, and heads bowed as the front of the procession passed them by.
Leading the procession was a young man Akeha had never seen before. Lean and broad, dark-skinned, jaw framed by a hefty beard that seemed impossibly neat. His head had been shorn and tattooed with the sigils of the five natures. This was him. The new Head Abbot. He was a boy. And it was preposterous. He looked like a student dressed up in ceremonial robes for a play.
At five-step intervals, the new Head Abbot stopped and bowed, pressing his forehead to the ground. The boy’s face was perfectly serious. Akeha watched as he got to his feet, walked five steps, and bowed again. Deep-set eyes, straight and narrow nose. He had a presence that could be felt even through the echo of a vision. And the vision lingered on him—in a way that Mokoya’s visions never did—as if the fortunes, too, found him irresistible.
A Gauri boy. Extraordinary.
Where was Mother in all this? Akeha pulled on the reins of the vision and spun it around, searching for the Protector in this theater of ritualized obeisance. They’d learned to do this recently, based on notes they had borrowed from the laboratory studying Mokoya’s visions. It turned out they weren’t just dreams, but chunks of time captured in their entirety. With enough willpower, you could navigate through them.
Akeha found the Protector on the high dais in the ceremonial pavilion, shaded by awnings of yellow silk. Sonami was seated next to her, as she usually was these days. Kara, Sonami’s youngest, clung to his mother’s lap. He didn’t look much older than he was now, freshly turned three and freshly declared to be a boy. Mokoya was right: this was going to happen soon.
Mother’s face looked like she’d drunk a cupful of vinegar. Good.
Akeha exited the vision and pressed the pearl back into Mokoya’s waiting palm. “Ha. Did you see? Mother’s going to burst a vein.”
“This isn’t a joke, Keha. There’s nothing funny about it.”
Akeha quieted. It was crass, they supposed, to be amused by this turn of events. The Head Abbot’s health had been failing for several years, but the old man had looked after them as children. He was the closest thing they had to a father. “I’m sorry.”
Mokoya sloshed the vision around in their hands. “I don’t understand,” they said finally. “Why him? Who is he?”
“It’s the flow of fortune. Why start questioning it now?”
The capture pearl froze sharply midrotation. “Why don’t you ever take anything seriously?”
Akeha blinked. Their twin shoved the pearl back into its box, closing the lid with a harsh snap. “Moko,” they said appeasingly, but it wasn’t enough to stop them from furiously collapsing back against the divan.
“Oi.” Akeha slipped off their own bed, hesitantly, afraid to cross the gulf between the furniture. They half stood, half leaned against the hard wood of the bed frame. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Mokoya said. They had turned to face the wall. “Go back to sleep.”
Akeha sucked on their bottom lip and let several seconds pass. When Mokoya said nothing further, they ventured, “It’s not nothing. You’ve been grouchy for the last few days. Something is wrong, you just won’t say it.”
Silence from the other side of the room. Then Mokoya sat up, slowly. “Our birthday is in less than two weeks. I want to be confirmed.”
Akeha sucked air between their teeth, willing what they’d just heard to change. “What?”
Mokoya turned. “I want to be conf—”
“I heard you. Why?”
“Why? Keha, we’re turning seventeen. We have to do it at some point.”
“We made a promise never to get confirmed.”
“We were six when we made that promise. We’re not children anymore.” Mokoya shifted on the bed. “Keha, you didn’t really think we could avoid confirmation forever, did you?”
Akeha shrugged, not trusting their mouth to say the right things. Nobody jumped from undeclared gender straight to confirmation. They’d take a couple of years to be sure. Unless they were Sonami, and Akeha wasn’t Sonami.
Mokoya sighed noisily. “Keha.”
“So that’s why you didn’t talk to me? You thought I’d be upset?”
“Well, you are.”
Akeha wordlessly clambered back into bed. I’m not upset, they thought. This is not a big matter. But it was.
“You don’t have to decide now if you don’t want to,” Mokoya said. “I’m just telling you that I’m doing it.”
Akeha lay motionless on the divan, which suddenly seemed unreasonably hard and lumpy. They watched spots of light dance across the ceiling and listened to the uneven cadence of Mokoya’s breathing from the other end of the room.
Eventually Akeha asked, “And what will you be confirmed as?” But even as the question left their lips, they already knew what the answer would be.
“A woman,” Mokoya said, without hesitation.
The room was silent except for the soft sounds of their breaths.
Into the dark their twin repeated, “You don’t have to decide now. I’m just telling you what I want.”
* * *
The sun beat down upon baked dirt and brick as the twins slipped through Chengbee’s intestinal byways like fish, flat-soled feet barely making a sound as they ran with the shadow of the Great High Palace at their backs. They had shed the company of their hapless minder, Qiwu, long minutes ago, losing him in the thick porridge of the
main market’s morning crowds. Now they were putting distance between themselves and the places they were meant to be. Mokoya, racing slightly ahead, traced the twins a solid path through the twisting streets.
They were headed south, to the ragbone-meat quarter. Mokoya’s pace slowed as they headed into unfamiliar territory, trying to connect real living streets, in all their dirty, shouting confusion, to lines on a painted map.
The ragbone-meat quarter had its own market, a gregarious collection of carts assembled at the confluence of several streets. Unlike the main market square, with its artfully arranged displays and slackcraft-powered signage, the ragbone market pulsed with barely contained chaos. Rolls of dried goods flanked battalions of preserves heaped upon trays. Craftswomen rubbed elbows with men selling candied nuts in paper cones. Children in assorted shades of brown darted to and fro, hawking pots of spiced tea and fruit on sticks. Laundry flapped in second-floor windows, soaking up the perfume of incense and hot oil and roasting chestnuts.
Looking at this bright and symphonic scene, someone from out of town—a traveling farmer who did not buy the news scrolls, perhaps—would never guess that just a few days ago, the ground they stood on had been glutted with sitting bodies, living and breathing, arms locked in protest, boldly facing down lines of Protectorate troops. The city’s tiny Gauri minority was often characterized as hardworking and easy to please, but the past week had clearly shown that they had limits.
That limit was this: seventeen of their compatriots killed in a silk factory fire and the factory owner exonerated from blame, even though it was clear the fire had been the fault of his greed and carelessness. Minor riots had broken out before more calculating heads swept in and organized sit-ins. For days the arteries of Chengbee’s southern quarters had been obstructed by clots of protesters, singing and obstinate, arresting the flow of commerce.
The Protector finally defused the situation by executing the factory owner. Official pronouncements declared the incident over, justice served, and harmony restored. But the acid stares of the crowd as the twins plowed through it told a different story. Even if the people did not recognize them, Mokoya and Akeha looked Kuanjin and wore clothes of fine quality. That was enough to draw their ire.
