Akeha went crashing to the ground, stunned, as though someone had dropped a boulder on them. Their chest burned.
“Keha!” Mokoya dropped the cudgel and ran stumbling toward them, sliding on their knees across the cave floor. “Keha, say something. Keha, please.”
They couldn’t. Their chest hurt too much. Akeha tried moving their arms, tried sitting up, and doubled over in pain.
Something growled deep and low behind them. Mokoya’s eyes widened; their fingers trembled on Akeha’s arm.
A familiar shape moved into the circle of lights. As Akeha struggled onto their elbows, trying to work past the bolt’s paralyzing effect, the kirin reared up and screeched.
The creature lunged. Everything moved in a blur: the talons coming down, Mokoya throwing themselves over Akeha. Akeha tensed—Was it by instinct? Or something else?—and energy surged through the Slack, water-nature, as they shoved Mokoya away, before the kirin’s clawed feet struck—
The talons went through their side like it was paper. Akeha screamed, sensations burning through them. A clear and precise epiphany struck: They were going to die. There was no turning back. It was done.
Their blood soaked through layers of clothing as they lay on the ground, gasping, barely holding on to consciousness.
A crackle through the air, sharp smell of metal burning. The kirin screamed, and its limbs folded. Mokoya had picked the cudgel up. As the creature struggled to its feet, Mokoya struck it again. And again. And again. Their twin blazed with such fear and anger it punched through the wall of pain surrounding Akeha. They hit the kirin until it collapsed thrashing to the ground, until the convulsions subsided into twitching, until it fell heavy and still. The air reeked of burning flesh.
Akeha watched this all through a veil of increasing darkness. The world grew cold, and the pain was, at last, fading away. They were aware of Mokoya picking them up, screaming, pressing their head against their belly. Akeha was drifting away, and as they grew distant from their body, they began unraveling in the Slack, becoming pure energy.
Something pulled them back. Mokoya was tensing through forest-nature, trying to knit the torn flesh back together, trying to keep their failing heartbeat steady.
Akeha reached out through the Slack. Mokoya was so bright, so beautiful. Like a jewel shining, like a sunset over the sea. It’s okay, Moko. It’s better like this.
No. Keha, no. You have to. You can’t die. I won’t let you.
Now you can go back to the Great High Palace. You don’t have to worry.
I can’t, I won’t. Mokoya was crying so hard their body was shaking. They could not have spoken if they wanted to. If you die, I want to go with you.
I don’t want that. You have a good life ahead of you. Moko—
What’s the point? What’s the point of it?
Akeha struggled not to drift away entirely. They couldn’t leave Mokoya like this. It’s too late, Moko. You have to go on. I want you to.
The cavern filled with the sound of buzzing—a lightcraft in operation. Of all people, the Head Abbot appeared, sailing in like a bird, serenity turning to alarm as he took in the scene before him. How had he found them? A question for another time. The old man leapt off the lightcraft and hurried toward the twins.
A cool hand pressed against Akeha’s forehead, and warmth ran through them, healing warmth, tying them more securely to this world. “They’re still breathing,” the Head Abbot said. “We can save them. What happened? The kirin?”
Mokoya’s lungs operated in desperate gasps. “I killed it.”
“I know, Mokoya. She was one of the very last of her kind. She was trying to protect the cache. Don’t worry, you are both safe. Help is coming.”
Their twin formed words between the heaves of their chest. “I don’t want to be taken away. I don’t want Akeha to die.”
“Akeha will not die. I promise you that. Help is coming.”
“But they’re going to take me away.”
“Mokoya.” The Head Abbot sighed as Akeha tried to turn their head, tried to look at the expressions on both their faces. “You won’t have to go to the Tensorate alone. Akeha will go with you.”
And Mokoya fell silent, even as their lungs worked rhythmically through their stress. Then: “You mean—”
“I cannot separate the two of you, Mokoya. That would clearly be an unthinkable cruelty. Your mother sent both of you here because of a deal we made. I have decided not to hold her to it.”
Mokoya’s voice shook with terror and hope. “So we’ll go . . . together?”
“Yes.”
“You promise?”
“Yes, Mokoya. Now help me with your sibling.”
Mokoya twisted their fingers into Akeha’s and started to sob again. The Head Abbot laid a second hand on Akeha’s head. “You must relax, child. Sleep. You will be better when you wake.”
His hands sent slowness and warmth throughout Akeha’s consciousness. As they faded into the gentle cradle of sleep, they thought, But you still look at me like I’m just a number in a column.
Part Two
THENNJAY
Chapter Six
YEAR SEVENTEEN
“THE HEAD ABBOT is going to die soon.”
Akeha opened their eyes a slit. Mokoya lay on their divan across the room, silhouetted by the night sun that filtered through the thick paper pulled across the window. They considered pretending they hadn’t heard it and letting that pronouncement die in the quiet night air.
Then reality settled in. Of course Mokoya would know they were awake. “Why do you say that?” they said, refusing to sit up from the bed.
“I saw the confirmation ceremony for the new one.”
“Oh? Who was it?” Akeha lazily rotated the memories of the monastery’s senior ranks through their mind. They hadn’t thought much about those people in the time since they’d left, and suspected nothing much had changed in the nine years since. The monastery was a place of stagnation, a place that loved its doctrine and cared more about inner purity than anything else.
“No one we know. A young man.”
“What?”
“Someone our age, maybe a bit older, maybe twenty.”
A preposterous idea. It took twenty years for acolytes to complete their training, and from there it was a slow climb to the top. No one that young could take the post.
“A Gauri boy.”
That was the thing that got Akeha to sit up. “A Gauri—are you sure you had a vision, and not a fever dream?”
Their twin sat up, and in the dark, they heard the click of a lid opening. Soft blue suffused the room as Mokoya prized the capture pearl out of its box with careful fingers. The glass drop, small enough to fit in their palm, glowed silver and aquamarine and plum with a freshly decanted vision.
Akeha had objected when the Tensorate’s researchers presented Mokoya with the dream recorder. It seemed suspect that they wanted Mokoya to wear it all the time, even though the visions only happened in their sleep. The way Akeha saw it, it was just another way for Mother’s lackeys to control Mokoya. But Mokoya seemed to appreciate its presence. And it turned out to have its uses.