Epilogue

Nasaka climbed into the mossy hills surrounding the Temple of Oma. She stood in a field of withered black poppies, their massive blooms frozen and crushed in the winter chill. She looked back at the amber haze of sunlight glinting from the massive dome of the temple. Out here, the temple seemed very small, nearly swallowed in the naked, grasping claws of the bonsa trees. It all looked very fragile. She gripped the hilt of her willowthorn sword, tensing her arthritic fingers. The pain was getting worse, and she would not be able to hide it much longer.

The air around her grew heavy. She turned to face the woods. As she waited, the air in front of her shimmered, as if tempered by a wave of heat. Black rents appeared in the air. She stepped back.

The seams between the worlds parted as if raked by the claws of some great beast. There were places where the fabric between the worlds was thin, and the cost to peer from one to the other was not quite so high, even with Oma’s face still shrouded. This soft spot was closest to Oma’s temple, and Nasaka thanked Oma each day that no adult could fit through the seams that opened here.

Through the tears between the worlds, Nasaka saw the other Kirana, dressed in shiny red armor. She stood in the sweltering ruin of some dead city. Nasaka saw the tail end of the black, dying satellite in the sky behind her. Scorched bodies hung from parched trees and lay mangled on broken plates of pink glass and blood-smeared marble. From what Nasaka could make out of the bodies’ remaining clothes and features, the dead were of no people she recognized.

Three of Kirana’s generals conferred nearby. Nasaka had seen them a few times before. One of them looked a lot like Gaiso, perhaps a bit plumper, but she had never asked the woman’s name. She didn’t like seeing the others. Knowing they existed was one thing. Seeing them was quite another.

“Is it done?” Kirana asked. She pulled off her left gauntlet and wiped the sweat from her face. She was a lean but powerful woman, far more physically fit than the Kirana that Nasaka had once known.

“Don’t tell me your prized boy has become headstrong,” she said, but she was not looking at Nasaka. She was looking off to the left at some commotion.

“I didn’t know about Kirana’s quarters in Garika,” Nasaka said. “By the time I arrived to clear them out, he’d already done it. I had no idea she was meeting with the Garikas behind my back. But our deal still holds.”

“What?” Kirana glanced back at her. “Yes, of course. So long as you control him, he’s no threat to me. You can have the boy. To be honest, I was always surprised you asked for nothing else.”

Nasaka sometimes wondered how different things would be now if her Kirana had been the sort of leader this one was. But their worlds were different. Her Kirana had not been raised in a world that would produce such a person. But it produced me, Nasaka thought. It was I who failed. I should have raised her to be a soldier. A fighter. If I had raised her to such a vocation, we wouldn’t be in this place.

“That was her fault,” Kirana said. “She should have parlayed. Instead, she chose the coward’s way.” The air between them wavered. “I don’t have much time. Will the harbor gates be open or not?”

“I thought you controlled Ahkio,” Kirana said coolly. “If you can’t control him, he’s not necessary. I can have him easily replaced with any number of my own people.”

“Yisaoh?” Kirana seemed genuinely surprised, then laughed. “I am often heartened by the amount of ignorance you display in these conversations, Nasaka.”

Nasaka gripped her sword hilt hard. The willowthorn branch snaked out, wrapping around her wrist. She bared her teeth. “He’ll do as I ask.” And if he wouldn’t, his wife would.

“Good.” Kirana pulled her gauntlet back on and barked something at her generals in the Dhai dialect they used. Nasaka had picked it up over the decade of their discussions, but the gate between them was becoming unstable, and the words were garbled.

Kirana glanced back at her and flashed a grin. It was a confident, reassuring grin that Nasaka had seen her own Kirana employ while charming clan leaders and Oras alike. It squeezed at Nasaka’s heart.

Nasaka let out her breath. She stood alone in the field. Her grip on her sword eased. She let herself fall to one knee in the poppies. Her heart was pounding fast. The surge of adrenaline was nearly overwhelming. She had wanted to cut across the gate and sever Kirana in two. But the war was coming. Oma was rising. And the Dhai in this world were not prepared for it.

The outcome was clear to her from the first moment the other Kirana dragged her through to witness a death that even now, Nasaka could not bear to think about. This Kirana would win. It would be a rout. The army that flooded Saiduan now was just a taste of what they were about to experience. Kirana had already destroyed her own world. Now she was coming for theirs.

Nasaka waited until her pulse slowed, and then rose. The hourglass of the suns had tipped behind the mountains. The world went turquoise, then violet. Nasaka followed the hunting trail back through the field of poppies, down into the snowy foothills, back to the Temple of Oma and the son who despised her, though she was the only thing standing between him and death.

She was no fool, of course. She knew Kirana would come for them soon enough. But Nasaka had other plans. Plans she needed far more time to put into motion.

When Nasaka reached the temple, it was full dark, her way lit only by the moons. She pushed open the sally port and mounted the long tongue of the grand staircase.

“He was in the basements a long time before they called him to Liona,” Una said. “He wouldn’t tell me what he was up to, but he had some kind of maps.”