Chapter 5

The Temple of Oma grew from a knotted rocky spur at the tip of a mountainous peninsula called the Fire Thorn. They glided over the spur; Ahkio peered out from within a bubbled chrysalis that followed the giant living Line system connecting the temples and clans. The vegetation of the peninsula was burned out twice a year, so all Ahkio saw were the stubbly amber tips of newly seeded foraging grasses. It reminded him of the fields of Osono. They came in parallel to the peninsula. He had a view of the carved stone bridge that connected the spur of the temple to the greater land mass. As he and Nasaka passed inside their shimmering blue chrysalis, he heard the thundering roar of the river below them, continuing its quest to carve away the spur from its parent.

The translucent webbing that circled the gardens of the temple stretched from the bridge all the way around the spur. The webbing had caught many small insects. Captured flame flies and gleaming night dragons struggled in its grasp, lighting the web with a thousand twinkling lights. The temple itself was well lit, considering the time of night. Ahkio saw the telltale flicker of flame fly lanterns hung inside crystal chandeliers. The great dome of the temple glowed with a soft, ambient light, a beacon for weary travelers. Everything about the Temple of Oma was like a dream. He had not grown up in Dhai, and when he returned to it as a boy and saw the living temples and massive gonsa trees and delicate crimson spiders that patrolled the webs, he believed anything was possible. It made him want to cast off his parentage and board a ship at random in the harbor and head off to places unknown. What was the rest of the world like, if this was home? What wonders lay outside the great gates of the harbor?

“Bump here,” Nasaka said. Ahkio braced himself as the bubbled chrysalis of the Line met the open lip of the Line chamber in the Temple of Oma.

Four Oras already waited for them in the chamber. They had long, pained looks on their faces as if Kirana were already dead.

Elder Ora Gaiso, the plump woman who oversaw the management of the Temple of Oma, made a sweeping gesture as they arrived. Their chrysalis immediately burst.

Ahkio covered his head.

“Was that necessary?” Nasaka asked as the shattered bits of the chrysalis melted and flowed into the depression at the center of the floor.

“There’s more news,” Gaiso said. She was a broad, imposing woman with a dart of white in her black hair.

Ahkio also recognized Elaiko, Nasaka’s young assistant, and Dasai, the ancient Ora who had taught Ahkio history and governance before he left the temple. He was the same Ora who told Ahkio the story of the Saiduan who’d come to take away bad students. Dasai held out a hand in greeting. He had a mean face, long and narrow, and he kept his mouth pursed when not speaking. He had already lived well over a century, and though Dhai were known to live a hundred and fifty years or more, few retained their wits and stamina as well as Dasai had.

“The Kai asks for you,” Dasai said. Dasai had a slight Saiduan accent. He had spent many years studying in that country, though he spoke little of it.

Ahkio folded his arms.

“Like that, is it?” Dasai said.

“There’s another issue,” Gaiso said, moving her bulky body between them. “I tried to send you word before you got on the Line. We have a Saiduan sanisi here. He’s asking for the Kai. We can’t permit that. Not in her condition.”

“Where’s Ora Almeysia?” Nasaka asked. “I’m convening the Elder Ora council immediately.”

“She’s with Ora Masura,” Gaiso said, “trying to get her fit for company.”

“Is Ora Masura drinking again?” Nasaka asked.

“Like a drowning Tordinian priest,” Gaiso said.

“Will you ascend with me, Li Kai?” Dasai asked. “Your sister asked for you, and I’m not sure we can wait much longer.”

Dasai led him into the hall. Nasaka hung back to speak with the others.

“Nasaka won’t tell me what’s wrong with Kirana,” Ahkio said.

“It’s not known,” Dasai said.

“How’s it possible not to know what’s wrong with the Kai? Did someone poison her?”

“Eight physicians and four tirajistas have visited her. None can name the illness.”

“Someone close to her did it, then.”

“Let’s not start painting stories.”

“Nasaka thinks I’m in danger if I stay in Osono. She thinks whoever did this to Kirana is after the seat.”

“You should really use Ora Nasaka’s title. It’s respectful.”

“I’m aware,” Ahkio said. He hadn’t called Nasaka “Ora” in almost a decade.

Paper lanterns lined the corridor. The Temple of Oma, like the Temples of Para, Tira, and Sina in many of the holds in Saiduan, was a living thing, a slumbering beast created in some distant time. The walls were smooth and bore a greenish tint. If one tried to dig deep enough into the skin of the hold, it would weep and ooze a sticky amber sap. Whether plant or animal or some combination, no one knew. But the sinajistas said the holds had souls, vital energy that could mend wounds or melt flesh.

The Line chamber was on the eleventh floor of the temple. Ahkio expected they would travel up to the Assembly Chamber and Kirana’s rooms on the twelfth floor, but instead, Dasai took him down two floors to the novice practice rooms and Ora studies. They passed open archways where novice parajistas practiced moving objects: building small towers of stones and blocks with skeins of air, or creating little vortices and waterspouts in pails. Ahkio couldn’t channel their star, so he did not see the blue breath they manipulated, only its result. The novices barely glanced up from their work as Ahkio and Dasai passed.

Dasai brought him to the end of the hall, down a short stair, and through another corridor. Ahkio had never been to this area of the temple before.

“Why did you move her?” Ahkio asked.

Dasai raised his hand to a broad door of amberwood. Ahkio saw that the door was banded in thorn vines, the same kind that made up the thorn fences that protected livestock in the clans.

“We feared for her,” Dasai said.

“If you think she’s in danger from someone inside the temple, why bring me here?”

“Li Kai, if I had the chance to go back and bid my family farewell before their deaths, I would have leapt at the chance. This is yours. Don’t spoil it.”

“I’m afraid, Ora Dasai.”

“We’re all afraid, child,” Dasai said. “It’s what we do with that fear that sets us apart. Bid farewell to your sister.”

Dasai murmured a prayer to Sina and opened the door.

Inside, the windows were covered. The darkness was complete.

Dasai picked up a lantern in an alcove and shook the flame flies awake. The flickering light cast wide shadows, illuminating a raised bed draped with sticky webbing. Ahkio heard someone else breathing in the darkness – wet and ragged.

Ahkio approached the unfamiliar bed and sat on a stool beside it. Dasai brought the light closer. Ahkio took it.

Kirana’s face was a gaunt mask with deep circles under the hollows of the eyes. She had the look of their mother: the long, plain face, high forehead, sloping nose, strong, square jaw. Her black hair was thin and tangled, tied at the nape of her damp neck. Displaced curls clung to her forehead. Her skinny hands clasped at the bed sheets like claws.

It was high summer in Dhai, and Ahkio felt cold.

“Ahkio,” she said. The clawed hands reached for him. He took her fingers. Her eyelids flickered. “Asked for you… weeks ago. There’s something coming.”

“You’ll meet it,” Ahkio said. Weeks ago? He glanced at Dasai.

“I was never Kai,” she said. “Everything’s burning.”

Ahkio rubbed her warm fingers. “That was a long time ago,” he said.

“Get the others out,” Kirana said. “Out!”

“Ora Dasai,” Ahkio said.

Dasai stood at the end of the bed, his face mired in shadow. “Call if there’s a need,” Dasai said.

After Dasai closed the door, Kirana urged Ahkio to lean in close. She smelled of rot from within. He saw his father in her, his mother, and the dead sisters his mother had buried before they had names.

“Don’t go,” he said. He pushed the damp hair from her face. Her skin was hot. She looked so much like their mother… “You promised,” he said. “You promised me you wouldn’t die like they did.”

For over a year after that day in the Dorinah slave camps, when he watched his father’s head lopped off and saw his mother burn, he had expected Kirana to die, too. The dreams got so bad, they stalked him during the day. The Oras, especially Nasaka, thought him mad. It was Kirana who brought him back from madness, Kirana and her promise.

“I can’t make the future, Ahkio,” she said. “It’s yours now. I shouldn’t have pulled you from the fire, I know. Another woman would have chosen Mother instead, wouldn’t she? But I chose you, brother. You were supposed…” She started coughing, great hacking sobs that shook her body. Blood appeared at her mouth, flecked the sheets. “It was all…” she gasped. “All wrong, this turn. I’ve made it right.”

“Hush, Kira,” he said softly.

“But you should know… about Yisaoh.” She gazed up at the long lines of poetry running along the ceiling. Ahkio tried to read them, but the light was too dim. He said a prayer to Sina instead.

Ahkio tried to pull his hand from her grip. “I’ll get you tea. Do you–”

She squeezed his fingers. “I’m too late.” She coughed blood onto their joined hands, and said through bloody lips, “Dhai’s peace…” Her fingers clenched his once.

She made a strange strangling cough, almost a sigh.

“Don’t,” he said.

Her eyes lost their focus. Her fingers relaxed in his.

Ahkio bent over her body. The flies in the lantern began to dim as they settled. Kirana’s fingers cooled in his hands. He prayed to Sina to take her soul, and Oma to bless him with wisdom in her absence.

He sat next to his dead sister in silence. The world did not move. The air did not tremble. Nothing was different at all, except he was alone now, because someone had killed his sister.

He did not weep. He had wept over their parents for a year. It changed nothing. He knew what he needed to do.

When the door opened, Ahkio lifted his head. His neck and shoulders were stiff.

Nasaka stepped through the archway, her expression stern. “We must meet the sanisi now. The Ora council is ready.”

“Kirana,” Ahkio said.

“Has she passed?”

Ahkio stared into Kirana’s slack face, the still-open but blank eyes. He thought of Meyna. Oma, how he wanted to go home to Meyna and Rhin and Hadaoh and Mey-Mey. But they weren’t going to be his kin anymore, were they? It’s why they had never married him. They knew this day would come. Someone would kill the Kai, and Ahkio would take her seat. Did they hope he would grant them favors on that day?

“We have a duty to Dhai,” Nasaka said, following his stare. “We must get you dressed in something befitting your… title.”

“That’s like you,” Ahkio said. His voice broke. “You’ll watch another Kai perish, just like you watched my mother die. You pull all the strings.”

“No,” Nasaka said. “I don’t watch Kais die. I call tirajistas to save them. I use my sword to defend them. They may die regardless. But I always act. You’re the one who bides his time, waiting for someone else to make his fate. So get up, Ahkio. I don’t pull strings. I pull the people attached to them.”