text: Ahkio sat with Nasaka in the Kai study. Or, rather, he stood, fingers pressed to the table, voice raised about lines of supply to the harbor, and Nasaka sat across from him, one leg bent over the other, expression unreadable.
  
  It was his new assistant, one of his former students from Osono, Rimey, who ran in with the news, ran all the way across the Assembly Chamber, so Ahkio had time to stop his yelling before she blurted, "The harbor has fallen."
  
  Nasaka did not even turn.
  
  "Did Mohrai send a report?" Ahkio asked.
  
  "Ora Hasina did," she said. "They're uncertain of casualties. When she sent word, they were fleeing."
  
  "Where?" Ahkio asked.
  
  "Kuallina," Nasaka said.
  
  Ahkio raised his brows.
  
  "It's the next logical hold out," she said. "The only other places with any defense. The temples are too small to hold the kinds of populations that must be evacuated, and Liona–"
  
  "Enough," Ahkio said. "You have the letter?"
  
  Rimey handed it over.
  
  It was brief, maddeningly short on details:
  
  Lines broke. Harbor walls breached. Retreating to Kuallina.
  
  "Oma's breath," Ahkio said.
  
  "We'll need to divert supplies to Kuallina," Nasaka said.
  
  "Do it," he said. When she did not move, he raised his voice. "Go, Nasaka."
  
  She rose slowly. "Of course, Kai." She sauntered out.
  
  Rimey waited in the door, staring at him.
  
  "What?" he said.
  
  "There are other bad rumors. The drudges are saying–"
  
  "I don't need rumors, Rimey. I need facts." She was younger than Caisa, smart, but moving her from Osono to Oma's Temple had proved a great adjustment for her. She wandered around with wide eyes and jumped at loud words.
  
  "Kuallina is not ready for them. They can't hold that many refugees. They sent a message to Ora Una."
  
  "She didn't see fit to tell me this?"
  
  "I think she told Ora Nasaka."
  
  "Of course she did." He wiped at his face. "All right. We're running out of time. Get me Liaro. We need to make another trip to the basements. I also need Ora Soruza. We'll need every Ora we have at Kuallina."
  
  "But you said–"
  
  "What did I say?" Too sharply, he knew, but he was tired.
  
  "I'll get Liaro."
  
  "And Ora Soruza. Have them meet me in the Sanctuary."
  
  Ahkio put away his papers. Wasted time, all of it. He felt like that's all Nasaka wanted to do – waste his time. With so few details on the harbor, he craved a first-hand account. Information was scattered here, and too much of it filtered through Nasaka.
  
  Liaro came up just as he was changing his clothes in the adjacent Kai quarters.
  
  "You heard about the harbor?" Liaro asked.
  
  "I did. Do you know any other details?"
  
  "Only that it fell. A runner just came in by lift from Kuallina with someone who was there."
  
  "Mohrai?"
  
  "No, I don't think so."
  
  "Why didn't Rimey tell me that?"
  
  "It just happened. As I was coming up I saw them in the Lift chamber and asked."
  
  They plunged downstairs and intercepted the two people who had arrived by Lift, a member of the Kuallina militia who looked vaguely familiar and a soot-stained young woman with a badly burned arm wrapped in linen.
  
  "This is the Kai," the militia member said.
  
  "What's happened?" he asked, and felt a fool for it, because she was hurt and he had no manners.
  
  "They brought down the harbor."
  
  "The Tai Mora?"
  
  "Yes. I'm the Catori's cousin, Alhina. I was on the wall when the lines broke."
  
  "Did you provoke an attack?"
  
  "No, we were still preparing our offensive."
  
  "Offensive?"
  
  "It's a long story."
  
  "Where is everyone? Mohrai? What about the scullery girl, Lilia? Did she betray us? Was she theirs?"
  
  "I'm sorry, Kai, I don't know very much. Mohrai is in Kuallina. We were some of the first to get there. The scullery girl, she… she died on the wall. It was a bloody mess, Kai. It was… it was awful. I never thought… I never imagined…"
  
  "Have you heard anything of Liona?" he asked the militia member. "Can we divert some of the refugees there?"
  
  "When we left there were reports coming in. Rumors, mostly. There's strife in Dorinah. Armies on the move. I'm sure someone will send a proper missive when they know more."
  
  A proper missive, straight to Nasaka.
  
  "Thank you both. Please, go down to the infirmary. They'll see to that arm. You can get something to eat in the kitchens."
  
  Ahkio motioned Liaro back to the scullery stair to avoid accompanying them down. He could move faster.
  
  "What are you planning?" Liaro asked.
  
  "I need to get back down to the basements." He had gained back a day, once. Could he stop the invasion at the harbor? Warn them? He could get himself onto the wall and find a way…
  
  "Ahkio, let's not get on this again. You said she told you she couldn't help you–"
  
  "This is a special situation."
  
  "I know you're desperate now, because you're relying on seers and mystics and hallucinations."
  
  Ahkio rounded on him. "Stop with that. Do you have anything better to add? A great plan? A way to stop a massive Tai Mora army from crushing us? Because that's what's likely to happen. Everyone told me I couldn't stop this, and yes, they're right. With no one behind me, and Nasaka working against me, with us grabbing at each other's throats and my own people turning against me, they're right, we can't. But I'm not going to roll over and die here, Liaro. So will you help me, or stand here and make jokes?"
  
  Liaro said nothing. The expression on his face was so hurt that Ahkio had to turn away. He continued down the stairs.
  
  He met Ora Soruza in the Sanctuary – a tall, plump person with cropped curly hair and a squint. Ahkio told Soruza bluntly that they needed every parajista in the temple at Kuallina.
  
  "Have you contacted Ora Naldri?" Soruza asked. "There are plenty of parajistas at Para's Temple. We have only–"
  
  "Ora Naldri is dead," Ahkio said. "The harbor has fallen. I have no idea how many of those parajistas are still alive. If Kuallina is going to hold, it needs parajistas."
  
  "Kai, we have only fifty full parajistas here. I'd prefer we kept at least half here, in case–"
  
  "If the army gets to the temples, we're lost," Ahkio said. "Keep a dozen here, if that makes you feel better, but I can tell you now – they've broken the harbor. If Kuallina and Liona go, we're finished."
  
  "We should really call the Ora council," Soruza said. "A full council meeting–"
  
  "You mean you want to ask Nasaka," Ahkio said. "You should know that Nasaka is being stripped of her position, and won't be in this country much longer. I suggest you consider again what will happen if Kuallina falls, and send those Oras, or I will do it myself."
  
  "Kai, strategy is not… perhaps if Ghrasia–"
  
  "Ghrasia is not here," Ahkio said. "It's possible we lost a good many people at the harbor. Do you understand our position yet?"
  
  Soruza nodded curtly. "I am beginning to appreciate it."
  
  "Please, Soruza," he said. "That army will murder them all in Kuallina without reinforcements from us."
  
  "All right," Soruza said.
  
  "Thank you." Ahkio left the Sanctuary and went to Una's office. She was gone, but her assistant was there. He demanded the keys to the basements, which the boy handed over with wide eyes.
  
  Liaro followed him silently down the steps to the warm bathing room, then along the broad corridor running to the second basement entrance. Down and down, like disappearing into the belly of the world.
  
  As he stepped up to the door of the sixth basement, Liaro said, softly, "Please don't do this again."
  
  Ahkio glanced back at him. Liaro's expression was pained, almost sick. "What's wrong?"
  
  "You don't know how you looked when you touched that stone," Liaro said. "You were dead. Like a stone corpse. Don't do it again, please. What if you don't come back this time?"
  
  "Then Nasaka can burn the temples to the ground," Ahkio said. "I can stop the harbor."
  
  "We can go away," Liaro said.
  
  "What?"
  
  "Evacuate the temples. We can go to Tordin or Aaldia or–"
  
  "As refugees?" Ahkio said. "Have you seen how countries treat refugees? You've seen what we are in Dorinah. I won't see us be slaves again."
  
  "If this is a war that can't be won–"
  
  "I have to exhaust every possibility," Ahkio said. "Whatever this temple was made to do can turn these people back. We must understand it."
  
  "You said it was broken."
  
  "You can go back up, Liaro, but I need to put this to rest."
  
  Ahkio opened the door.
  
  On the other side, Nasaka and Una waited for him, sitting on one of the great roots, sharing the light of a flame fly lantern.
  
  An icy knot of fear bloomed in Ahkio's gut. He did not cross the threshold.
  
  "I've been very curious about what you've been up to down here," Nasaka said. "Ora Una suggested that I simply ask you directly. What do you think of that, Ahkio? Some direct conversation."
  
  "We have nothing to speak about. Get out of here."
  
  "The temple belongs to the Dhai," Nasaka said. "You're merely the Kai. And, as we have learned this last decade, the place of a Kai is very precarious."
  
  "Are you threatening me now?"
  
  "Not at all. I'm inviting you to show me to the center of this level, and demonstrate exactly what that stone does. You know, don't you? You've activated it."
  
  "Do you have any idea what's happened in the harbor?"
  
  "Yes," Nasaka said. "I predicted it. At every turn, I've tried to prevent this horror from happening, but you thwarted my advice again and again. Why? Because it came from me? Perhaps I should have put it into the lips of one you trust more."
  
  "Get out of here before I remove you," Ahkio said. Facing her now, in the quiet of the basements, with only sour-faced Una and Liaro-who-had-fallen-on-his-own-sword, he knew he had little but words. He didn't even wear a weapon. Never had. Nasaka wore hers.
  
  "And how do you intend to remove me?" Nasaka asked. "I'm curious to know because there's a strong rumor you do intend to do it. Do you mean to murder me in my bed?"
  
  "No," Ahkio said. The harbor was burning. It was all ending, and she wanted to play this game? Let them speak plainly, then. "I mean to have you exiled."
  
  "And lose what I know about what we face? No. You won't."
  
  "We've reached a point in this conflict where having you here is dividing our country."
  
  "What's your charge, Kai? You mean to move against me?" She laughed. "I've done nothing in violation of any law, whether in the Book or in the amended constitutions. If you want to retain some semblance of authority, you must exile me thoroughly and correctly, and you can't do that."
  
  "I can," Ahkio said. "For madness."
  
  "That does sound terrible indeed," Nasaka said. "What proof do you have of that?"
  
  "I'm Kai. My word is proof, is it not?"
  
  "Not before any clan leader."
  
  "Was your word proof enough to exile Etena?"
  
  Nasaka said nothing, so he barreled on. "You have played this game straight, that's true," he said. "You didn't go against many direct edicts, but you planted the seeds of ideas. You got the Kais to do what you wanted, my mother and Kirana. But Kirana only to an extent, right? Because Etena got to her first."
  
  He was rambling now, clawing at something that might get her to unmask herself. But what did it matter, if she did that here? These witnesses were few. He found himself glancing at her sword again. Some darker part of his mind told him he was fighting for his life now that he had threatened to exile her. She would fight him to the death, for that.
  
  Nasaka picked up the lantern. She walked right up to Ahkio, and though she stood on the steps below him, with him gazing down at her, he felt as if she were some towering specter, bathed in the eerie, flickering light of the lamps.
  
  "You know what's so ironic?" Nasaka said. "I put you into this seat to save you, but you've done nothing but make it into a seat of thorns. And there's no reason for it, is there? Etena abdicated, yes, when she ran off into the woodlands into exile. But she is by right of birth and gift the true Kai of this temple. I wonder what will happen if she returns, and declares herself Kai again? Perhaps it will be better for you. Let us lift this responsibility from your weary shoulders."
  
  "The harbor is burning, Nasaka."
  
  "There are a million worlds," Nasaka said. "The harbor is burning in some, and not in others. The Tai Mora want a gateway to those worlds, one not bought with blood. They came to me a decade ago, looking for it. You've found it, haven't you, Ahkio?"
  
  "I knew you were theirs," Ahkio said, but his voice broke, because the betrayal was so deep, even for Nasaka.
  
  "They murdered you in front of me," Nasaka said. "Pulled me through some rip in the world and laid you out and slaughtered you like some animal. They said they would do it to all of us, eventually."
  
  "What did they offer you?"
  
  "Your life, and mine, and a few others. All I could save. Ten years I've worked to ensure that some sliver of our people survives this onslaught, and you have undone it all."
  
  "I won't bargain away the entire county just to save a handful of lives. That's how we're different."
  
  "I've seen what they'll do here, Ahkio. Now, sometimes, I wonder – are you the Ahkio I think you are, or some darker version, some imposter they sent to undo all my plans and ensure our eradication? How many worlds are there? Maybe there are many of you, pulled here just to thwart me."
  
  She took his wrist. He fought her. Slip and pivot. He fell back into Liaro. Liaro's hands came up and held him still.
  
  "Don't fight, Ahkio. Please," Liaro said.
  
  Ahkio twisted out of his grip, shocked, and fell down the stairs. He landed hard and lost his breath. Nasaka grabbed Ahkio's leg and yanked him back. Ahkio kicked her with his free leg and rolled up. He took her arm and tried to use her as leverage to get to his feet. She twisted, and for a moment they danced around one another, locking and breaking one another's grips. She had taught him a great deal about self-defense after he returned from the burning of his family in Dorinah.
  
  Nasaka punched him in the kidney. The pain was sharp. He went down. She pressed her knee into the small of his back and yanked his left arm behind him, rotating it sharply. He hissed.
  
  "You taught me to fight," he said. "Did you ever think it would be you I was fighting?"
  
  "Yes," Nasaka said.
  
  Ahkio tried to catch Liaro's gaze. Liaro hung back in the doorway, face pained.
  
  "Liaro," Ahkio said.
  
  "It's for the best," Liaro said.
  
  Another betrayal. Another ally turned. "You're not even one of the Tai Mora, are you?" Ahkio said, and the pain now was more than just physical. "Just another petty liar. And for what?"
  
  "You're on a dangerous path. You said yourself the harbor is burning–"
  
  "Liaro, please–"
  
  "Ora Una! Help me take him to the cells," Nasaka said.
  
  Ahkio howled.