“Shut up, Taigan.”
He held out a third finger. “And of course, you lost your little regiment of rebels in the woods. To a dead man, no less! That is still something extraordinary, let me say. This plan is overly complicated and you know it. You’re relying on too much good luck, and we all know your history of luck.”
Lilia pounded the table with her fist. “Enough!”
“Oh my,” Taigan said, pressing a hand to his chest. “Did I strike a nerve? Was it the dead man? Or Gian?”
“I know what I’m doing this time.”
“You know what you’re doing even less this time. You know why you keep failing?”
“You aren’t very successful yourself.”
“It’s because you are so driven by your own desires. Finding your mother, first.” He rolled his eyes. “A fool’s chase that was. She never wanted you to find her, and for good reason. And when she was dead, what was it then? It was getting revenge on the Tai Mora, certainly, but we both know it’s Kirana you really want. To hurt her as you have been hurt. To destroy her as you’ve been destroyed.”
Lilia seethed. “Why are you here, if I’m such a self-destructive failure?”
He shrugged. “What else do I have to do?”
“You could go annoy someone else. Destroy someone else’s life.”
“Me? I did not destroy your life.” He rose and popped the last of the tuber into his mouth. Wiped his hands on his tunic. “Never forget, bird,” he said, “you chose to come with me. You chose to sit at the table with Kirana and your little girlfriend, oh yes, I heard about that. You chose to keep antagonizing the Tai Mora forces, instead of retreating a year ago. No one made those choices for you.”
He sauntered back out the door, leaving her in the charred kitchen, alone, with the smell of burnt hair and bits of crumbling sod falling from the ceiling. She dropped her head to her chest, and her eyes filled with tears. She was so tired.
“Hey, what you doing? You still in there?” Zezili called from the door.
Lilia wiped at her face. “I just need a few minutes.”
“The sky isn’t waiting on any of us,” Zezili said.
“Get out!” Lilia yelled.
Zezili grinned. “Look at you! All right, all right. But I can’t go far so hurry the fuck up.” She went back outside.
From the kitchen window, Lilia watched Zezili alight on top of the fence that held in three or four dogs, easy as breathing. Saradyn shuffled past the fence, yelling something at Zezili. He raised his head and peered inside. When he spotted Lilia he made a sign at her, something obscene or profane, and yelled, “Impostor!” in Dorinah.
Lilia grimaced and moved away from the window. She hated Zezili in that moment. Hated her easy confidence and health, her seeming detachment from everything around them. She had died once, hadn’t she? She had nothing to fear from death. But Lilia feared everything. Because Taigan was right. She had done nothing but fail from the very beginning. Failed her mother. Failed at the harbor. Failed Ahkio and Yisaoh, failed Meyna. Failed the refugees from Dorinah.
This time, she always vowed, every time, this time it will be different.
But she knew, knew it in her bones, that as long as she kept making the same choices, nothing would change at all.
34
Ahkio had waited years to see his sister again.
Beside him, as they waited for their audience with the Empress of the Tai Mora, Caisa was wringing her hands, her eyes questioning his decision for the thousandth time, but she was loyal, so loyal, and he didn’t feel he deserved it.
He did not deserve it.
But here he was.
He hadn’t told Liaro what he hoped to do. Liaro only wanted to live. Liaro didn’t understand Ahkio’s sister.
An omajista led Ahkio upstairs. “What about Caisa?” he asked.
“She’ll wait,” the omajista said. “We’ve confirmed your prisoner is who you said she is. You can join her upstairs and wait with the Empress, but this one stays with us, for now.”
Some of the color drained from Caisa’s face.
“I really insist–” Ahkio said.
“Move,” the omajista said, and pushed him. Ahkio gazed back at Caisa. His stomach churned. Caisa began to weep.
Had he made a mistake?
The omajista sat him down in the Assembly Chamber to wait. Everything in the chamber was different. Piles of books and papers, and jistas, so many jistas, and Dhai slaves and running feet. He had not seen the temple so bustling in his entire lifetime. Kirana had done this. She had always been a better leader. Yisaoh sat at the other end of the table, her steely gaze fixed on him, hands bound, two Tai Mora guards beside her, and a sinajista, though by all accounts Yisaoh was ungifted. She simply inspired caution in people. He knew that better than anyone.
“Fucking traitor,” she muttered.
Kirana entered the Assembly Chamber from the stairs, which he had not expected. He stood. She came up the steps and regarded him, and he didn’t know what to think of her. This woman, this warmonger, this mass murderer, was not the sister he knew, though she shared her face.
Her gaze did not seek his, though. She crossed the room to Yisaoh. As Kirana moved, he tried to see something in her that he remembered. He sought some shadow of his sister there, in her face, her walk. But this Kirana’s walk was bolder. Her eyes flat and black: no mirth, no kindness. She had the gaze of a predator.
Kirana took hold of Yisaoh’s chin. Yisaoh spat at her. Kirana laughed and stroked Yisaoh’s cheek. Released her. “She is a good likeness,” Kirana said, rounding on him. “How do I know this isn’t some lookalike? We all thought you dead, Ahkio. I caught them fishing your fucking body parts out of the sewer dregs.”
Ahkio shivered. “I have no memory of that.”
“I bet,” she said. “Sina is risen, and Para and Tira now too, so I suppose miracles are possible. But so is treachery.”
“I’ve brought you who you wanted.”
“I admit I wasn’t certain you would come,” Kirana said, “after all this time.” She gestured at the soldiers beside Yisaoh, and they advanced and took hold of Yisaoh and dragged her back down the stairs. Yisaoh tried to bite Kirana as she passed, but Kirana paid her no mind. “You promised me Yisaoh at Kuallina, and never delivered her.”
“You tyrant!” Yisaoh yelled. “And you, Ahkio, you Sina-cursed traitor! Sina will burn you for this. Oma will crush your bones!” She continued shouting as they took her down the hall.
“I have no memory of that either,” Ahkio said, turning back to Kirana. “But I’ve heard that, yes.”
“If you are truly the same Ahkio, I wonder why it is you brought her here now, finally. Did it take you this long to consider my proposition?”
“I’ve been changed,” he said. “I have heard people say it. I’m not the same man. Maybe that is true. Maybe I’m some construct. But I’ve been shaped by what’s happened since then. I want peace, Kirana. And the sister I knew would keep her word when it came to peace. I don’t know how much of that Kirana is within you, but it’s my dearest hope that this war is over. We can work together to build something better. We don’t need to be enemies any longer.”
“I can’t believe you would forgive what’s been done,” Kirana said. “I wouldn’t.”
“We are very different,” he said. “I see what continuing down this road will do to us. To you, and to me, and the people I still lead. We simply want you to release the people you have here, and let us all go. You never have to see any of us again.”
“We need the slaves here,” Kirana said, “for another season yet.”
“Then let us work as equals, not slaves.”
“And murder us all in our beds? No. I am not a fool, Ahkio. Not like you. Tell me, what were you all doing out there, trying to run away?”
“To build a new life, yes. Catori Meyna and I were working with the Saiduan to find peace. I wanted to ensure they would be safe on those boats before I came to you, bu
t… then you arrived. What I want to know is how you got word we would be there.”
“Magic,” Kirana said. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
“I want to stop all of this,” he said. “It’s gone on too long and I can’t watch any more of my people die. I can be the person who holds out their hand to you. All you have to do is take it.”
Ahkio held out his hand. It trembled, just a bit, and he worked hard to still it.
Kirana stared at his proffered hand. “I don’t remember peace,” she said. “The world was dying from the time I was born. I knew what had to be done.”
“I understand,” Ahkio said.
“Do you?” she said. “No, you couldn’t. You don’t know what it is to have a world dying around you, and your family trapped on the other side. You don’t know what it is to have to become everything you despise to save your people. You don’t know–”
“On the contrary,” Ahkio said. “I know very well what it is to compromise one’s principles. I know about difficult choices. I am here, Kirana. I’ve betrayed my own people to give you want you want. I’ve sacrificed one of my own so you can save your wife, your Yisaoh. And in return, a family has lost a daughter, a sister, a lover, here. Take my hand, Kirana. Please. Let’s end this.”
35
Kirana saw his hand shaking, and she knew it was with fear. In that moment, she admired him: this simple, naive young man who was clearly much braver than her own brother had been. She stared at his burned hands, wondering what he had done to them on this world, in his time. She was caught, again, in that terrible limbo between this reality and the other, one world and the next.
“Let me tell you about my brother,” Kirana said, and he lowered his hand a fraction. “You know what I did to my brother? I used him as a pawn. I sacrificed him in front of your birth mother, Nasaka, so she could see how serious I was in my intentions. My own mother does not know that. Nor does our Nasaka, because of course, I had to kill her very early in the conflict. She was scheming and far too powerful, just like yours.”
Ahkio pulled his hand away. “I suspected you had something very awful over her.”
“Oh, she wanted power,” Kirana said. “Make no mistake. But she did try to protect you, and that’s more than I’ve done, on my world or this one. There was no path to peace, here, for your people and mine. Only the end of your people. Always.”
“There is time to change your mind,” he said. “While we are alive, there is always time, Kirana.”
Kirana felt a tug toward him. Ahkio had always been so naive, but his naivety was honestly touching. She took a step forward and gently took his hand.
His palms were soft, just like her Ahkio, but unlike her true brother, he bore terrible scars on the fingers, knuckles, his wrists – every part of his hands that had been exposed as he tried to drag his mother from a burning building. There would have been no way to save her brother, to bring him here and pretend he was another, because it was impossible to replicate those scars. She knew. She had tried, with several of her captives, to see if they could do it correctly.
Kirana drew him into an embrace, and she held her brother, this version of her brother, tightly against her. He was taller and thinner than her. She pressed her face to his shoulder and took in the scent of him; that, too, was the same. He was very beautiful, in this world and the next, in all of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He did not ask for what. There were legions of things she could be sorry about. But she was sorriest for what she was apologizing for now.
Kirana drew away from him. She kissed his forehead and pushed his hair back from his eyes. What he saw in her gaze, she did not know. She hoped he saw grief, remorse.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. She slipped the utility knife from the sheath at her side and jabbed it neatly into his neck, piercing the carotid artery.
His eyes bulged. He grabbed at the wound, reflexively trying to stopper the gout of blood. It usually took a few minutes to bleed out, but he was thin, weak, starving, and his knees buckled and he collapsed in her arms in less than a minute, eyes still wide, lips moving, but making no sound.
Kirana gently pulled him to the ground, staying with him until his gaping ceased and the hopeful flicker in his eyes went out.
She still stood there when Yivsa came back up the stairs and paused in the door. The others, too, had ceased their work to stare at her. One of the Dhai servants was crying softly. The others were very still, perhaps shocked. Many had known her brother.
“There is nothing I will not do,” she said, raising her voice for them all to hear, “to ensure our survival here. Don’t ever doubt that.”
She wiped her bloody palms on Ahkio’s body and stood. “Yivsa?”
Yivsa cleared her throat and came forward. “It’s done,” she said.
“I need to see the body.”
“I thought–”
“I have to see it.”
Yivsa led her to one of the small libraries on the floor below. Yisaoh’s body lay inert on the floor, throat still tangled with a garroting wire. Her eyes bulged, staring blankly. Her tongue lolled, just touching the stone floor.
Kirana got down on one knee beside her and checked her pulse, to be sure. She had no more times for mistakes. There were any number of people she could kill, whole worlds, but this killing she had known she could not do herself. Killing Tasia, even, a child not of her own womb, but of her heart, had been easier than Yisaoh, who was her heart.
“Where’s Oravan?”
“Below, working to power the engines. All the omajistas are engaged.”
“Well, I need to unengage him. Come with me.” She pointed at one of the soldiers preparing to move Yisaoh’s body. “There’s another upstairs,” Kirana said. “I want them both prepared properly.”
She and Yivsa hurried down the stairs, down and down. Kirana’s heart thumped loudly in her chest. She tried to keep her breathing even. She was so close. So very close. As she came down into the foyer, she realized she didn’t even care if they could power these blasted temples or not. With Yisaoh, her Yisaoh, by her side, she could keep fighting them for two more decades. She would find the strength.
They passed through the basements and into the great cavern with the fibrous tree roots. The moment she stepped down into the room, the air shifted. Became dense as milk. She took a deep breath and forged on. Muted sounds came from the engine chamber below: the voices of her jistas and stargazers.
Kirana went down the ladder, Yivsa just behind her, and had to shield her eyes from the light. The four pedestals around the central one each held a jista captured in a massive beam of light the same color as the satellite they channeled. The central pillar glowed green, and four of her stargazers and two more jistas conferred over it.
Oravan saw Kirana and rushed over to her.
“What happened?” Kirana asked.
“As soon as they stepped in, it…” Oravan gestured. “It won’t let them go.”
“Well, I hope they’re hydrated,” Kirana said. “Have Gian’s people seen this?”
“I’m afraid so,” Oravan said. “She sent observers to each temple.”
Kirana waved a hand. “What have you tried to get them out?”
“Everything. It burns anyone who tries. Masis had the flesh burned off his whole right hand.”
“Well, he doesn’t need a hand to chart the stars,” Kirana said. “The central pillar?”
“I… Suari would have been the best–”
“Suari isn’t here.”
“Perhaps one of Gian’s–”
“You don’t want to do it?”
Oravan winced.
“It’s fine,” Kirana said. “I need a wink to Yisaoh and our people there. We’re bringing them all home. There are another half dozen jistas there you can throw into the machine.”
“What’s a good staging area?” Oravan asked. “I recommend the Sanctuary.”
They walked back up to th
e main floor together and gathered in the Sanctuary. Yivsa closed the doors and guarded them.
“Open the wink,” Kirana said.
The air between them parted.
On the other side, another omajista waited. Kirana confirmed the day’s password with her and stepped through. Yivsa accompanied her, and told the omajista they were conducting the final retreat. The toxic air smelled of sulfur, and made her cough.
Kirana found Yisaoh in the great hold kitchen, regaling two sinajistas and a fighter with a story of how she had once broken another soldier’s skull after a particularly gruesome battle in the early days, before she and Kirana were married, before Kirana deemed it far too dangerous for Yisaoh to continue soldiering, especially under Kirana’s command. Too many understood that Yisaoh was Kirana’s weakness; Yisaoh could be used against her.
“What’s the news?” Yisaoh asked as Kirana came in.
Kirana grinned. She could not help it. “You’re coming home with me today,” she said. “We’re all going home.”
Yisaoh clapped her hands and spread wide her arms. They embraced. “All of us?” Yisaoh said.
“All of us,” Kirana said. “Let’s go see the children.”
They walked hand in hand back to the open wink. Kirana gave orders for the others to follow. She gave one last look back at the old, dying world, and squeezed Yisaoh’s hand.
Yisaoh did not look back, and it was one reason Kirana loved her so.
Kirana held her breath and stepped through, holding tightly to her Yisaoh. She would not be separated again.
And then they were through the wink and standing on the other side back in the Sanctuary, both whole.
“I told you,” Kirana said. “I told you. I promised.”
“You did,” Yisaoh said. “You did.” She began to tremble, as if cold or frightened. Kirana rubbed her wife’s arms.
“Food, tea, and a bath,” Kirana said softly. “That will cure anything.”
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 137