Sloe finished licking the floor and rested his head on Saradyn’s armrest. Saradyn scratched Sloe’s ears. “Interesting.” He patted Sloe’s rump. The dog raised his head. “Find dinner,” he said.
Sloe rose and padded to the door. He grabbed the rope affixed to the handle and pulled the door open. He went into the hall.
“The sinajista you had me kill talked,” Natanial said. “The Empress has killed off her dajians at the behest of the Tai Mora and sent troops to Tordin.”
“To what purpose? There’s no gain for her.”
“Knowing the mind of a monarch is your specialty. I just kill them.”
“And fuck them,” Saradyn said.
Natanial shrugged. “I enjoy my work.” He held up his hands and began counting off with his long fingers. “No dajians. Fewer legionnaires. And she has just increased her people’s child tax, so they must have five children instead of four to avoid it. I think the Empress has some bloody plan in the works.”
The door opened. Sloe padded in ahead of a little drudge who trailed wispy blue-clad figures with static faces.
“Thorne, join me for dinner?”
Natanial stood. “Alas, no. I have an appointment.”
Saradyn felt a jolt of disappointment, and perhaps jealousy. Natanial provided many useful distractions.
The drudge set the tray on the table between them. A decanter of dark wine, a half loaf of rye bread, red meat in a heavy sauce, and salted hasaen tubers. She bowed her head and retreated.
“Collect your due with Itague,” Saradyn said. He went to his desk and wrote out a receipt, stamped it, and handed it over to Natanial. He waved him away.
“This includes–” Natanial began.
Saradyn grimaced. “You’re little better than a whore.”
“I’m a preferred whore,” Natanial said.
Saradyn wrote out another receipt.
Natanial bowed.
Saradyn sat and ate in silence. After, he went and met with Itague and Tanays, and discussed matters of the hold. He approved the appointment of a new tax minister to the province of Concordyns to replace the one dipping too deeply into its tax coffers. Itague reminded him of an inspection appointment of the garrison. They had taken on another dozen boys in his absence. Saradyn told him to enlist the boys he’d brought back from the village.
“What about the girl?” Itague said.
“Rosh,” Tanays said.
“Hang her in the square,” Saradyn said.
Saradyn parted company with Itague sometime after midnight, after a briefing about happenings in the hold. His dogs followed after him and paced at the end of the bed before lying at the foot of it. Saradyn sat awake reading for a time until the clotted shadows in the corners of the room began to converge.
Murmuring figures drew away from the curtains and slid along the floor. Saradyn read aloud, to drown out the whispering voices. As night deepened, the shadows began to solidify. He had picked the room for its ghosts. They were few and reasonably static. A wispy crying girl in the corner by the door, and a dead woman beneath the window who was never more than an outline. But as he grew more tired, his own ghosts began to leak into the room, and then he had to shut the book and kick off his boots.
He slid into bed and reached for the light. It was the worst time of the night, that moment just before he put out his light. Just before darkness took away most of the ghosts’ features, and drowned them in blackness. Some nights he fell to bed before the shadows came, before the ghosts leaked out. Some nights, he slept in silence. He had sacrificed many to unite his country. They would not let him forget.
His candle snuffer came down. He heard children playing on the other side of his bed. Familiar voices.
The light went out.
He pulled the comforter over his head, to drown out the noise of his children.
16
Lilia stepped into the meeting room atop the harbor gate’s eastern tower as if stepping into a battle. Plump, curly haired Mohrai was there with another young woman, and two older people Lilia did not recognize.
Taigan came in beside Lilia, but she had left Gian in the opposite tower where Mohrai’s family had given them rooms.
“I’m Lilia Sona,” Lilia said. “The Kai has sent me to help oversee the conflict here.”
Mohrai and the older woman exchanged a look.
The younger woman stepped forward. She was slender, all arms and legs. She looked like a heron. “I’m Ora Harina. Ora Nasaka of Oma's Temple sent me to oversee this venture.”
“Parajista?” Taigan asked.
“Sinajista,” Harina said.
Taigan grimaced. “Your Ora was sure to send someone expendable. That’s lovely.”
“Let’s be civil, Taigan,” Lilia said. She wished she spoke Saiduan, then, so she could be clearer without being even more rude in front of these people. If the harbor was about pieces on the board, so was this room. All of these people wanted something beyond just surviving this siege, and if she didn’t figure that out, they weren’t going to get far. She saw them all now as possible allies and adversaries in her revenge.
“And you’re the clan leader?” Lilia asked the older woman.
“Yes, I’m Hona Fasa Sorai,” the woman said. Her gray curls were knotted away from her face with blue ribbons, a touch even more extravagant than her daughter Mohrai’s coiffed hair. “And you’ve met my daughter Mohrai. And this man is Elder Ora Naldri of Para’s temple.”
“Yes, I think I’ve seen him before,” Lilia said, the memory kindling. Naldri, the great barrel of a man, with the meaty fists and shoulders that always seemed ready to burst from his tunic. She never understood why he didn’t have one tailored to fit him properly. “This woman with me is Taigan. She is a sanisi, and my mentor in many things.”
She saw Naldri’s heavy white brows rise at that, but decided not to clarify in exactly what ways this Saiduan person had come to act as more a mentor to her than anyone in Dhai.
Lilia approached the broad round table. The table itself, like the table in the Assembly Chamber of Oma's Temple, was embedded with a mosaic map. This one was of Clan Sorai, from the southern border where it met Clan Adama to the jutting piers of the harbor. She saw the long thread of the obsidian cliffs that ringed the coast stretching from the eastern mountains that separated them from Dorinah, and all the way west, to the woodlands. It was a perfect barrier to keep what came from the sea in the sea.
She saw yellow rings set along the harbor. She counted fifty, the same number as the boats. Blue rings along the gates. Blue, green, and violet rings – set further apart – along the black coast.
“These are the jista groups?” Lilia asked, pointing at the rings.
Naldri nodded. “I committed a dozen of our best parajistas to this effort.”
“How many on the wall at any time?”
“I think–” Mohrai said.
“The Kai asked her here,” Hona said.
Naldri cleared his throat, and rolled his meaty shoulders, as if from long habit. “Six are at the wall. They work in shifts.”
“How long are the shifts? An hour? Twelve hours? How many are up there at any one time?”
“Three,” he said.
“So,” Lilia said, pointing to the boats, “if there is an omajista and three parajistas on each of these boats, and they decide, this instant, to send a blast of air at us to knock down these gates, those two jistas will counter it?”
Hona said, “We don’t expect–”
“I have been there,” Lilia said. She did not have height, or age. She did not have a reputation. But she had been there, and she was an omajista, and that made her uniquely suited to be here. But they needed to see it. “I’ve seen the army that waits for us. And as an omajista, I know what they can do if they have a mind to.”
“We don’t have the resources–” Hona began.
“Then you should open the gates,” Lilia said. “Because we are already done.”
“If we are
discussing an assault as opposed to a defense,” Hona said, “we should consult Ghrasia Madah.”
“She is busy,” Lilia said. “I’ve been tasked with this issue by the Kai. Or was that not clear?”
“Now wait–” Mohrai said.
Taigan shifted toward her, grinned wolfishly. Mohrai seemed to reconsider.
Lilia looked for the heaps of rings on the table, and found the store near Naldri. She shuffled over to him, dragging her twisted leg behind her, and ignored the stares. Let them look.
Lilia took up the rings and began to place teams of jistas along the wall, and the coast. “We need a wall of air up now, maintained by a parajista permanently posted to these gates. There needs to be a dozen up there, at least. We have three omajistas here now, as well – me, Taigan, and Tulana, my Seeker. One of us needs to be up there too, at all times.”
“We don’t know what they’re waiting for,” Hona said. “They could attack tomorrow, or not at all.”
“If you think they will not attack at all,” Lilia said, “if the Kai thought they would not attack at all, he would not have sent me here. None of us would be here.”
“You’d be out fucking, likely,” Taigan said.
“You’re being rude,” Lilia said. She did not like Taigan’s smirk. Taigan could offer help, but she wasn’t, as usual. She preferred to laugh at them, at the futility of it all. That angered her; Lilia felt a trembling seam of Oma’s power flitter beneath her skin, and took a breath to calm herself. Anger would win her no allies, and she needed allies.
She began again. “We’ll need more than the parajistas at Para’s Temple, of course. I don’t know how you go about summoning more militia, but we’ll need more of that, too.”
Hona crossed her arms. “We’re coming up on planting season. The more bodies I pull out of the clans, the less likely we are to be able to feed ourselves in two months.”
“Dhai has stores, surely?” Lilia said.
“One year,” Hona said. She pushed one of her blue ribbons behind her ear. Lilia thought it must be distracting, to have all those things in one’s hair. “But that’s people living on nothing but rice and woodland foraging. Those aren’t going to be people who can fight.”
“I expect many will find they can fight just fine when it’s their homes burning,” Lilia said.
Taigan sighed. “You will lose this way.”
“Taigan, you’re–”
“No.” She shook her head. “You are thinking this is a fair battle. But you have no navy, and two of their legions number more than your entire population. If you want to win, it won’t be a clean fight.”
Lilia stared at the lines of rings in the harbor. “Have any of you thought of anything clever, then?”
Mohrai snorted. “These are classic battle tactics.”
Lilia glanced over at Hasina. “Boats burn,” she said.
“Well, sure,” Hasina said.
“And parajistas can hold their breath a long time, can’t they?” Lilia asked Naldri.
“Of course, it’s a matter of the Litany of–”
“Then I have a way we can surprise them.”
“There’s still a chance they won’t attack,” Hona said. “If we provoke them, it could undo a more peaceful solution the Kai has planned.”
“If the Kai intended peace, he would not have sent you two omajistas, one of them a sanisi,” Lilia said. “If we are going to succeed, we must play the aggressor.”
“I find it abhorrent, the idea of fighting a foe who’s not shown us any aggression,” Naldri said.
“I have seen their aggression. I’m comfortable striking first,” Lilia said. “I’d try to burn those boats myself, but they’d see a wave of bloody mist coming at them. What they won’t see are parajista swimmers lobbing sinajista-trained fire bursts onto their decks.”
“That’s bold,” Taigan said.
“We are bold, or we are buried,” Lilia said. “Do you have a better idea?”
“I intend to take up farming,” Taigan said. “Perhaps a wood carving profession of some kind.”
“A little late for a change,” Lilia said.
“You’d be surprised,” Taigan said. “I once knew an alewife who became a painter.”
“Could we please discuss this?” Hasina said. “First, we do not have the sinajistas here who can do that. The sort of pattern we’d have to make for… what, fifty boats? That’s not an easy task with Sina descendent. The nearest sinajista I know with the sensitivity to do that is at least four days away, and it will take her another week to complete all those. You’ll have to have a parajista on hand while she makes them to knot them into an air pouch, as well, if you want the parajistas to throw them. Jistas who must work together to complete a task like this… that takes time. It’s not something you wave your hand at.”
“Then I’ll rely on you,” Lilia said, “to make sure it’s done.”
Hasina pursed her mouth, and glanced at Hona. Hona gave a slight nod.
“I could walk away from here,” Lilia said. “Any of us could. But we’re not. So let’s do something they won’t expect. These people destroyed Saiduan. And Taigan is right – they are better fighters, and there are more of them. They will expect us to…” She hesitated. The Tai Mora would know their tactics, wouldn’t they? They were the same people the Dhai learned them from.
“We can’t use anything we learned in the temples, can we, Taigan?” she asked.
Taigan shrugged. “Just know they learned the same.”
“What advantage do we have, then?” Mohrai said.
“None,” Taigan said.
Lilia sighed. “Taigan –”
“None save this,” Taigan said. “You are fighting an enemy with your faces, and some twisted version of your culture. You know their minds better than we did.”
“No,” Lilia said. “They might as well be from some foreign star, Taigan. They are nothing like us.”
Taigan cocked her head at Lilia. Lilia felt the weight of her stare; amusement more than accusation.
“You know what I mean,” Lilia said.
“How old are you?” Hasina asked.
“Does that matter?” Lilia said.
“Sometimes it does,” Mohrai said. “You hardly look twelve, if a day.”
“If I had not reached the age of consent, I would not be here,” Lilia said. “I’ll be eighteen in the winter. I have not been a child for some time.”
“If I was on fire and a child offered a bucket of water, I’d take it,” Taigan said. “Wouldn’t you?”
Hasina tapped the new line of colored rings along the map of the gates with her long, bony finger. “We’ll take the bucket,” she said.
17
Nasaka thought she knew the basements of Oma's Temple as well as its Kais. But no more. And that frustrated her, to run a country where anyone in it knew something she did not. Ahkio’s foray into the basements, running after whatever it was Kirana had risked her life to cover up, had not gone unnoticed, nor had his secret councils with his closest Oras. But Nasaka knew something more of the matters that Kirana suspected. She knew Etena had been feeding Kirana information for years, from exile. Etena knew things about this temple that would turn the tide of the war.
What she didn’t know was where they’d hidden Etena.
But she knew someone who did.
Nasaka strolled down to the second level of the basements, through a little-used door for which she had the only key, and walked down a short corridor. Just four doors. Four cells. The only holding cells in the entire temple.
Nasaka pushed open the storage room door. Meyna lay on the floor, huffing and hacking. She had picked up some bronchial infection that left her hocking great gobs of snot. Her face was a mess. Her child was, blessedly, quiet; it clung to her breast with great, plump hands. Nasaka thought it kind to keep the child with her, for a time. Using the child as a means to break her would work better if she was well attached to it, and that often took time. Months, it turned
out.
“And how are you today?” Nasaka asked.
“Go fuck yourself,” Meyna said.
“You sound like a seafaring Tordinian this morning.” Every morning, in truth. Nasaka understood what Ahkio had seen in her, despite her politically unsuitable upbringing. Meyna had borne a child here on a cold floor strewn with straw, alone. Nasaka left no one to watch over her down here, and the birth happened overnight, between her evening feeding and when Elaiko returned in the morning with breakfast. Elaiko said she was shocked at the amount of blood and afterbirth. Nasaka sometimes forgot how young Elaiko was.
The whole thing reminded Nasaka of her own three days in a bloody childbed, so racked with exhaustion and cramped with fear and pain that she thought she would die. Birth was an unending torment. She admitted something in her admired Meyna’s stubborn will and significant health.
“And you’re a nattering old crow,” Meyna said. Her tone was haughty, but she pulled the child closer.
“Are you ready to assist me?”
“I’m not doing anything for you.”
“You may not have a choice, soon.” Nasaka leaned in the doorway. “You and that child put the Kai, and this country, at risk. Unless you want exile, or death, the option I offer is your only choice.”
Meyna slowly drew the child from her lap and set it into a cushion of straw. It stirred, but did not wake. Nasaka watched it. Ahkio’s child, no doubt. Nasaka saw her own face in the child’s, the bold nose and broad cheeks. It mattered little, of course, who a child’s father was in Dhai. Descent ran through the mother’s side, always. Who Meyna chose to bring to bed was of little consequence. Men married for economic stability, and a desire for love, children, companionship. Who actually fathered a child didn’t often come into argument.
Not unless the child’s father was the Kai.
“So what are we going to do with you, then?” Nasaka asked.
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