Chapter 9

He had come up here to be alone after the disturbance with the sanisi downstairs, but as ever, Nasaka found him. He knew the footsteps behind him were hers, even before she drew a breath and said, “They’re getting ready to prepare your sister. I suggest you spend your grieving hours with her.”

“If Oma isn’t rising, that sanisi made a good show of it,” Ahkio said.

Nasaka held a green sheaf of papers in one hand; the other rested on the butt of her willowthorn sword. “We hoped it was a century distant,” Nasaka said. “But as with all things as they pertain to the gods of the satellites, our calculations can only be approximate. They bend us to their own will.”

“He came here looking for omajistas,” Ahkio said.

“That’s a grand leap in logic.”

“Is it? He asked for Kirana first. She’s a powerful channeler, Nasaka. I’m not. And that girl…”

“We test every child in Dhai,” Nasaka said. “Could we have missed one, especially one not able to draw on a star we haven’t seen in two thousand years? Certainly.”

“And Kirana?”

Nasaka sighed. “We… speculated she may have some power besides that of a tirajista. The last few months, things were… strange with her.”

“She said she asked for me weeks ago.”

“She was not in her right mind, Ahkio.”

“Do you think she was killed for it?”

“Perhaps.” Nasaka set the pages on the table and came to his side, gazed with him toward Mount Ahya and the creeping dawn. “Do you want a part in saving all of this, Ahkio? Or will you run home to Meyna?”

“You’re giving me a choice?”

“With or without you in this seat, we are headed for civil war,” Nasaka said.

“War? In Dhai? That’s not possible.”

“The Garikas will contest your right to the seat. The Raonas will ask that I find your mad Aunt Etena and put her in it. And then there’s the matter of Oma…” Nasaka shook her head. “I suggest you sit with your sister now, before her body is prepared. The rest can wait until morning. But think clearly on this, Ahkio.”

“What changed?” Ahkio asked. He peered at her, but she did not meet his gaze. “You called me here to make me Kai. Now a sanisi tells us Oma is rising, and you say I can go home and pretend none of this happened?”

“I hoped having you here might spare you,” Nasaka said, “from whatever fate befell Kirana. But now… Now I worry that harm will come to you no matter what way I move you.”

“Like a piece on a board?”

“No. Like an ungifted man trying to fill a seat that’s only been held by gifted women.”

Ahkio referred to himself with the male-passive pronoun, and it was the same identifier Nasaka used when he said “man.” Ahkio always thought the pronoun very accurate, even complimentary – he was a teacher, a lover, a man who wanted four spouses and dozens of children, but somehow, the way Nasaka said it, it felt like an insult.

“Why does being a man matter?”

“To some, it matters,” Nasaka said. “More importantly, with Oma rising, having an ungifted man on the seat is even worse. They will tear you from this temple with their teeth and insist on a politically savvy and gifted woman.”

“Who killed her, Nasaka? Who wanted civil war now, of all times? The Saiduan?”

“That’s a question I can’t answer yet,” she said, “let alone prove.”

“But you suspect the Garikas?”

“I always suspect the Garikas. Yisaoh will come for your seat soon, I guarantee that. I’ve already set things into motion in preparation for that.”

“They’ll come for me whether or not I’m here.”

“Not if you renounce the seat.”

Ahkio had nothing to say to that. He watched Para bubble up over the horizon like a great bristling urchin. He thought of Kirana downstairs, her final words a mad cacophony of nonsense. He did feel very young, very small; Kirana had happily seen him off to Osono, away from Nasaka’s poisonous influence, and the ongoing headache of Dhai politics.

“I’m going to go and sit with Kirana,” Ahkio said. He turned away, crossed the room.

When he looked back, Nasaka still stood at the window, her lined face made brilliantly ominous by the blazing blue light of Para.

Ahkio walked downstairs. He grabbed a flame fly lantern from its niche in the hall, shook it, and brought it with him to Kirana’s room, where the curtains were still closed.

He moved to the stool by the bed. He saw Kirana’s slack face staring back at him. She seemed smaller. The smell of her voided body wafted up from the bedding, mixed with the smell of her sickness, but he still paused there, and gazed at the body of the woman who was once his sister.

He looked behind him, so he wouldn’t miss the stool as he sat to pay his last respects. He remembered when he and Kirana did the same over their parents’ bodies. Huddled together, trying to understand the loss. This wake was for kin only, a few hours of stillness before the funerary attendants arrived to perform her final rites, the washing and liturgy, ensuring her soul was well gone before preparing her for the funerary feast.

As he turned, he heard a noise behind him, a rustling sound.

He thought perhaps one of the windows was open, letting in a soft breeze to stir the curtains.

The curtains remained motionless.

But his sister was sitting up in bed.

Ahkio’s gut went icy.

Bodies sometimes moved. Even after death, they could move. They…

Kirana turned to look at him. Her eyes were glazed over, unfocused. Her hair fell into her gaunt face. She threw her legs over the side of the bed. Stood. She wore a thin white dressing gown that clung to her skinny legs.

Ahkio couldn’t move. “Kira,” came out in a strangled whisper.

“Listen,” she said.

She took hold of the front of his tunic in her clawed hands, and pulled him forward. She was nearly a head shorter than he, her face awash in the light cast by the lantern he still clutched.

“The heart is for you,” she said. “She’ll let you through, but you must find her. You will see me again, but not as I am. They’re coming, Ahkio. You must meet them.”

He gasped; he was suddenly short of breath. The air felt heavy, like soup. He feared some sinajista had called her back from death. If that was so, or if she’d pulled herself back from Sina’s maw, he didn’t have much time.

“Who was it?” he said. “Was it Nasaka? Kirana, who killed you?”

“I did,” she said, and released him.

The lantern fell from Ahkio’s hand.