Chapter 52

Ahkio welcomed Nasaka to Clan Raona three days after the massacre. What remained of Ahkio’s caravan was nearly packed up and ready for the journey back to the Temple of Oma. The air was cool and wet; the suns had beaten back the high winter frost so fiercely, Ahkio worried low spring would come early this year. Far too early.

Nasaka wound her way past the snuffling bears and carts and somber militia. Ahkio met her in front of the charred ruin of the council house, near the fountain, where Caisa was filling water bladders for their trip.

Ahkio had a ledger full of Kirana’s temple maps under his arm, and a letter from Mohrai’s family at the harbor. Spring had not yet broken in Saiduan, she said. But the watch houses were staffed double. His concern now was encouraging clans to begin rationing early without inciting panic.

Ahkio wondered at that greeting. Some people, he decided, would never change. “I sent you a message over a week ago,” Ahkio said. “You took your time.”

“There are a great many tasks that need management and minding in order to run a country,” Nasaka said. “It’s not all blind, heroic bloodbaths.”

“We’ll need to speak about Ora Dasai’s mission,” Ahkio said. “I’ve had some news I wanted to speak to you about. In person.”

“You heard, then?” Ahkio needed people closer to Nasaka, someone who could intercept correspondence. He had begun to think like Kirana, he realized. Like a Kai.

“I summoned you here because I need to tie some things up at the temple,” Ahkio said. “I’ll be taking the Line back, but I need you to accompany my caravan. On foot.”

“You’re my political and religious advisor. Aren’t you? I’d like you to travel overland and report back. I need to assess our readiness for war. I can rely on your discretion?”

“Good. Ghrasia’s been summoned to the Liona Stronghold on an urgent matter, so I can’t have her do it. I’m sure you understand how important this is, without her to help.”

“That will be all,” Ahkio said. He gestured to Caisa, who’d finished filling the bladders. “Let’s call Liaro and go.”

Ahkio left Nasaka with grim company in Raona. Caisa and Liaro accompanied Ahkio on foot to Kuallina, though Liaro’s pace was slow, to account for his fresh but healing injuries. Kuallina was a hulking fortress at the center of Dhai, a tirajista-trained construction built for defense. From what, Ahkio wasn’t certain, as it was many days’ walk from both the harbor and the mountain pass that Liona guarded. It was a massive relic from another time, just like Liona, and the temples, and the twisted Line that carried people between them.

They stepped into the shimmering organic chrysalis that rode the corded Line, and the attendant parajista wished them luck at Oma’s temple.

Liaro said, “I’m already feeling a bit like some secret explorer. Think we’ll fall off the map of the temple basements all together? Uncover old artifacts? I’m hoping to find a cure for hangovers, myself.”

Ahkio’s arrival at Oma’s Temple incited a flurry of activity. With Elder Ora Gaiso dead in the attempted coup and Ora Almeysia banished, he found new faces occupying their places. Younger, less predictable Oras with unknown family connections. He had Caisa note their names. They would need to study them, find their weaknesses, and exploit family ties.

Late that night, he woke Liaro, Caisa, and Una, the gatekeeper, and gained access to the temple basements. The first floor below the temple were the baths, great stone basins of fresh water heated by the beating heart of the temple; low ceilings, steam, and luscious night-creeping plants ran all along the warm walls. Many of their flowers were in bloom, great white-and-violet fingers that filled the air with the smell of honey and roses.

The four of them carried flame fly lanterns through the cloying heat. When they dropped to the second level, the warmth was gone, replaced by a dry chill that reminded Ahkio that spring threatened to warm the world.

“Ora Nasaka doesn’t like people going down past the third basement level,” Una said as she cleared the bracken trap from the door leading to the third subfloor.

“Ora Nasaka doesn’t like loud voices,” Liaro said, “or butterflies. I expect she strangles kittens in her spare time.”

“You’re a rude boy,” Una said. She patted her nest of hair and huffed down the long corridor of storage rooms. The doors here were marked in old Dhai characters, labeling rooms for rice and rye storage, dried hasaen tubers and fiddleheads, honey and salted greens. When they reached the fourth level, Una refused to go any further.

“Kai Kirana only came down here by herself,” Una said. “You’ll pardon, but the former Kai was a strange bird.”

Ahkio raised his lantern so he could see the look on her face. He saw fear more than cunning. “Wait here for us, Ora Una.”

Ahkio plunged ahead, Caisa at his heels, Liaro grumbling behind. The store rooms went on forever. When they reached the sixth floor beneath the massive temple, Ahkio told Caisa to wait in the stairwell.

Once he and Liaro were out of Caisa’s sight, Ahkio pulled out Kirana’s map of the lowest basement. There were no proper rooms here, just massive, tangled vines made out of the same stuff as the temple’s skin; they reminded him of tree roots. He had to squeeze among them. Soon, his hands were covered in grit and mucus. He sneezed often.

Much to Ahkio’s relief, the final mapped level of the temple was a finite space. He circled around the outer edges of it twice and had to double back and follow the map again. He knew he was closer the third time, because the fleshy roots grew warmer; the air felt less congested.

He peered through a viny tangle marked on the map, and saw, on the other side, a small clearing and a massive stone slab.

Ahkio reached through the tangle and set the lantern down on the other side. Then he squeezed into the narrow space between two roots. Halfway through, he got stuck. His ribs caught.

He slid onto the other side of the tangle, falling inelegantly onto the gritty floor. Scrambled up. Grabbed the lantern. The towering circular slab wasn’t quite stone. He pressed his fingers to it, and it felt slick and chalky. The face of it was inlaid in blue and red stones. Above, twisted vegetation and the temple’s thrumming roots held it upright. He tried to walk around it, but the mass of living plant flesh was too tight there for him to pass.

There were no Dhai characters on it, no writing at all. It was not until he stepped all the way back and raised the lantern higher that he saw the stones were arranged in a familiar shape – a double blue circle inside a red square.

Kirana had been gifted, and it wouldn’t surprise him if whatever he needed to do to this slab to get a reaction involved having a gift. It was the one thing he lacked. He wished that he’d brought Caisa all the way down. He would need to go back for her.

Ahkio set down his lantern and turned the map around a couple of times. There must be something he wasn’t seeing. Kirana spent time down here with these maps. It wasn’t as if this object was wholly inconspicuous. So, what was it supposed to do?

He pulled the Dorinah book from his pocket, the one with the ciphered phrases. He had tucked a sheet with the translations inside. Mostly, Etena and Kirana had debated philosophy and Garika politics. They talked about lovers and old Dhai battles. But there was that exchange:

The Temple’s heart is barred to me, Etena. She says she will only speak to a Kai. Why close all the roads to me?

Ahkio faced the slab again and gazed up the face of it into the darkness, where it seemed to merge with the roots of the temple. His mother had said the temples were living things. Living things had hearts.

It felt foolish to yell in the darkness, but he was out of ideas. “I’m Ahkio Javia Garika,” he said, “brother to Kirana Javia Garika, and I am Kai of the Dhai.”

Dead ends. Ghost trails. Kirana was killed by the invaders, the assassins he murdered in the square, just like the others. Trying to make it more than that would lead him down a path to madness, the way they all said Kirana had gone. He was trying to unpack riddles on top of riddles, and he had a country to secure.

But Kirana said she killed herself, and that only made sense in the context of who the invaders were. There was something down here she didn’t want her other self to be able to use. Something she had to die to ensure only her successor had access to. Not her shadow. And not Nasaka.

Ahkio sighed. It had made more sense in that warm bed with Ghrasia than it did in this oppressive dark. He leaned forward. Pressed his head against the stone–

He landed hard on his side. Lost his breath. It was like falling through soup, as if the slab were some gauzy webbing. His face and hands felt sticky. He’d bit his lip. He tasted copper.

A warm glow suffused the darkness, like liquid gold. Ahkio shielded his eyes. A humming came from all around him.

“Kai Ahkio Javia Garika,” a tremulous voice said, “welcome to the soul of Oma’s seat. We’ve been waiting for you for some time.”