text: Luna had long practice with silence.
  
  The Saiduan had shaped much of the childhood Luna remembered. It was a childhood where others spoke, and Luna obeyed. That childhood had taught Luna about the quiet resistance of hir own silence.
  
  Once Luna had decided not to speak about the book ze had toted across the ocean from Saiduan, it had become easier to give up speaking all together. Luna knew what the Empress had not yet intuited: that the temples could do far more than simply seal away the other worlds from crossing over. They could be used to remake the world. To shatter continents. Sink whole cities. Luna kept hir silence, because it was the only way ze could think to save the world.
  
  Instead, Luna spun stories in hir head, ruminated over deaths, cursed Roh, cursed hir parents, wept over what was lost, soaked in hir anger at all those who had owned hir over these many years.
  
  Luna pressed hir face to the cell floor, half-dozing. Hunger came and went. Starvation was at once like freeing one from the body and reminding one of just how vulnerable the flesh was, how transient. Luna had once lasted thirty-seven days without food. It had been among the best thirty-seven days of hir life, because Luna had been fully and completely in control of hir body for the first time.
  
  They would try to feed Luna again soon. Ze heard them bickering about it.
  
  The voices subsided. Footsteps sounded outside the door, gritty leather soles on stone. Dhai didn't wear leather shoes. That was how Luna could distinguish the Dhai from Tai Mora.
  
  Creak of the cell door. A spill of light. The guards dragged Luna to the table at the center of the cellblock. One of the guards hefted hir onto the bench. Luna was too tired to struggle. Luna expected to see food: rice, eating sticks, maybe a bowl of broth and a spoon. Instead, they stripped Luna down and took hir up two flights of stairs to a big empty bathing room and tossed hir into a massive pool.
  
  The water was so cold, it shocked Luna breathless. For a moment ze was back under the icy surface of a Saiduan river, choking on death. Luna's limbs felt wooden. Ze could not swim. With some chagrin, Luna realized the water was shallow enough to stand in.
  
  One of the guards called from the edge, "Get decent. Scrub up."
  
  When Luna refused, they came in and scrubbed Luna roughly then hauled hir out. Luna did little to help them with their task, even as they pulled a clean tunic over hir head and dragged hir up the never-ending staircase. At the very top, in a chamber dominated by a massive circular table, the Empress of the Tai Mora waited, grim as ever.
  
  On either side of the Empress, two jistas in long robes waited, hands folded.
  
  "Hello again, Luna," Kirana said. Luna had learned to hate her narrow face, the thin lips, the cold black eyes. "Please, do you want to sit? Eat?"
  
  Luna just stared at her.
  
  "I understand," Kirana said. "I have been unfair, wrapped up in my own concerns. People I trust have suggested that you may not appreciate why we have done as we have, and why it's in your best interests to assist us. I know it seems cruel, but it was very necessary. I could tell you, yes, or… I could show you what's becoming of all these worlds that others are abandoning."
  
  She gestured to one of the jistas next to her. "Suari?"
  
  The man raised his hand. The air trembled. Luna felt the pressure in hir ears and pressed hir hands to hir ears.
  
  Something in the air broke.
  
  Luna recoiled. The world split in two. A shimmering hole opened in the air just ahead of hir, very nearly touching the floor. Luna feared that anything going over the threshold that got caught on the lip between the worlds would blink out of existence.
  
  The guard at hir left took hir arm roughly and pushed hir through ahead of him. Luna shrieked as ze went over the lip of the hole in the world – to somewhere else.
  
  On the other side, it was very dim. Luna stumbled into a piece of furniture. The soldier came after hir, one long leg and the arm that gripped hir pressing through the gate and then–
  
  The hole in the world snapped shut.
  
  Luna's ears popped. The fingers wrapped around hir arm loosened. The arm, a chunk of the soldier's left breast, and most of his left leg slopped to the floor, spraying blood.
  
  Luna felt dizzy. Darkness kissed the edges of hir vision.
  
  "Who's there?" A voice in the hallway. A key in the door. Where was this? Another cell?
  
  The smell of the blood tasted coppery. Luna tried to go around the furniture, but hir eyes hadn't yet adjusted. Luna slipped in blood. Fell hard.
  
  Darkness. A moment of consciousness, gazing at blood on hir own hands. Whose blood? Luna had forgotten. Another hand on hir arm. Alive?
  
  Then dark again, a stutter of lost time, and a voice.
  
  "My name is Yisaoh. What are you called?"
  
  Luna peered behind the silhouette of the woman who spoke, and found hirself gazing out dirty windows. Beyond the streaked glass, the light was the color of weak tea. The air smelled of burning trash and tar; the smell lingered at the back of hir throat, so thick ze could taste it.
  
  "I'm sorry for that… welcome," the woman said again. She turned slightly, no longer in silhouette. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a bent nose and generous mouth. Her head appeared too large for her body, as if she carried far less weight than her frame demanded.
  
  When Luna said nothing, the woman, Yisaoh, continued, "It's all right. Talking uses more breath. Would you like to see why? I expect that's what Kirana wants you to see. She told me you were coming. Something must have gone wrong with the wink. It does happen. I mourn the guard. I knew him. We have seen so much death together, and so much hope. But I am heartened that nothing happened to you."
  
  Luna did wonder at the source of the smell. And the hole in the world.
  
  "How is your head?" Yisaoh offered a hot cup of foul-smelling tea. "This may help."
  
  Luna took it. Gagged a little. Hir stomach protested. It had been too long since ze ate or drank anything.
  
  Yisaoh reached for her shoulder, then stopped. "I apologize. You are Dhai. You don't like to be touched, is that right?"
  
  Luna firmed hir mouth. Luna had been born in Dhai, but the culture ze knew was Saiduan. The Saiduan did what they wished to those who were weaker. They were much like the Tai Mora in that way.
  
  "Until Oma begins to respond to the jistas again, we are stuck together," Yisaoh continued. "There's fresh bread downstairs. And it smells better than here."
  
  Yisaoh straightened. Her hands were bony, the veins prominent. The cuffs of her long violet robe shifted and covered them. She went to the door, waited for Luna.
  
  Luna considered Yisaoh's words. The smell of fresh bread. The tea in hir stomach. Ze had seen no soldiers here, just this woman. Was Yisaoh meant to be a jailer? Or was she a prisoner like Luna?
  
  Ze rose from the bed. Drank a little more of the tea. Ze stumbled, and Yisaoh bent to catch hir. Her arm looped around Luna's waist, a temporary bulwark against Luna's own weak body. It felt oddly comforting, after so long in the dark among strangers who hated hir. Maybe this one hated hir too, but in this new air, this new space, Luna could pretend.
  
  Yisaoh escorted Luna through shattered corridors. Crumbled bricks were lashed with mortar and knotted tendrils of plant matter too uniform to be natural. Luna recognized the work of tirajistas. Luna understood that they were… somewhere else. Perhaps on hir world, but most likely not. The air itself felt alien. The way the ground pulled down at hir, seeming somehow firmer. The stones beneath them had melted in places. As they began up a set of broad steps, the hold rumbled, groaning as if alive and in terrible pain. Luna froze on the stairs.
  
  "It passes." Yisaoh gestured for hir to continue. "The quakes usually aren't severe enough to threaten the integrity of the hold. Our jistas have shored it up."
  
  At the top of the stairs was a door. Yisaoh pulled a scarf from a hook, and a pair of goggles that buckled behind the head. She handed another set to Luna. Ze struggled to get it all on.
  
  "You should really eat before we go outside." Yisaoh pulled a bit of hard candy from her pocket. Luna had not seen candy since ze was a child.
  
  Luna's fingers shook as ze took it. The burst of flavor on hir tongue made hir shiver. So sweet! It suffused hir body like some vital elixir.
  
  Yisaoh opened the door.
  
  A blast of black, tarry particles. The stench of burning hair, and something far more foul that Luna could not name. Ze stumbled after Yisaoh, fingers pressed to the scarf around hir face for fear it would blow away in the hot, dry wind.
  
  As they trod across the roof, they left deep footprints in the ash. Luna's curiosity nearly got the better of hir. Luna opened hir mouth to ask what had happened here, but ze had not spoken in so long that no sound came out. Luna coughed.
  
  "Don't breathe too deeply," Yisaoh said. "Here. You can see it just through the cover." She pointed across the roof of the building. Flat roof, Luna noted. Not a place that was used to getting snow, not like Saiduan. A gory orange-black fire blazed in the sky, like a watery eye trailing tears of wispy smoke.
  
  "It's been poisoning this world for years," Yisaoh said. "The one Kirana and I are from is already dead, did you know that? This is another, adjacent to it, very similar. It had a great army as well, one that failed. We had to retreat here to the middle of the world, along the equator. You know what that is? The midpoint of a world. It's the only place still warm enough, here. With the cleanest air. You see? We had few choices."
  
  Luna searched for the rest of the satellites. Low along the horizon, the faint red pulse of Oma shuddered like a tremulous heart. Luna took in the breadth of the roof. Behind hir, squat towers rose into cloudy brown haze. The windows higher up lay open; what was left of the shutters wept from crumbling frames.
  
  Ze coughed, and wheezed, "There is always another choice." Hir voice sounded foreign to hir, after spending so long silent. Always another choice, that's what Maralah would have said, when Luna tried to explain why this or that task had not been completed. People with power always believed there were choices for others, but no other options for themselves except the path of least resistance.
  
  "I assure you we explored many options."
  
  Luna gazed at the edge of the rooftop. They were only two stories up. Hir body tensed. It was not a terribly long drop. Could Luna make it? Get away?
  
  Ze was moving before ze realized it. Legs stumbling across the dusty rooftop, toward the edge.
  
  "Wait!" Yisaoh, incredulous.
  
  Luna leaped, hurling hirself into the great black abyss that embraced hir.
  
  The smack of a forgiving surface.
  
  A deep plunge.
  
  Luna bobbed in the water of a shallow moat. Pulled acrid air into hir lungs. Coughed fitfully. Luna splashed toward a dark shape ze took to be the shoreline of the sludgy moat, only a few paces distant. As ze crawled onto land, the air cleared for a brief moment. Ze had every intention of running, of getting as far and fast as hir legs would carry hir, but exhaustion overcame hir again. Luna had not eaten, or moved so vigorously, in some time.
  
  Hir hands sank into the deep mud. Knocked against what Luna thought was stone, but no, this was more brittle. Porous. Luna smeared away the mud on the shore and found half a human skeleton there.
  
  Luna recoiled. Lifted hir gaze. Let hirself sink back in the mud.
  
  Across the whole of the broad valley, just visible below the dirty air, lay piles of bones. Luna's mind could not make sense of it. The wind was warm, but Luna shivered, tucking hir hands under hir arms. Hir damp hair clung to hir face.
  
  Luna gaped at the valley of bones: chitinous rotting helmets, tattered military banners, rusting weapons, the tangled remains of abandoned gear kits, packs and pouches; the sorts of things no living person would leave behind. What had killed them so quickly that they could not flee?
  
  Ze had never been in a place to make life and death decisions for anyone but hirself, though hir Saiduan masters had certainly sent hundreds of thousands to death at a word. Here was a whole army, thousands of people all at once… Who had decided if they lived or died?
  
  Luna heard raised voices. The bark of a dog.
  
  Yisaoh broke through the misty fog, riding a great pale dog, its body ravaged by mange. The expression on her face was pained. She slid off the dog. A girl came with her, tagging behind, and finally, here, a soldier wearing chitinous armor astride a dog as well, her face as sunken as Yisaoh's.
  
  "That was foolish," Yisaoh said. "How far did you think you could go, in your condition? Are you hurt?"
  
  Luna shook hir head. Gazed again to the valley of bones. Yisaoh followed hir look.
  
  "This world's army," Yisaoh said. "The one that failed to make it to yours in time. I know what we did on your world is reprehensible. We are not good people. But what would you have done, in the face of this much death?"
  
  "You should have died," Luna rasped.
  
  Yisaoh brought the girl next to her closer. A simple girl who shared Yisaoh's high forehead and dark hair. "This is my daughter Tasia. She has a double in your world. As do I. We will die here. Does that make you feel better?"
  
  Luna shook hir head.
  
  "Kirana says you can help. I don't know how. But if you can, please… even if you can't save me, you can't save my daughter… closing those seams between the worlds will save the people who did make it. You can decide now. It's up to you. Not Kirana, or me. You."
  
  "That's unfair."
  
  "Nothing about the world is fair."
  
  A gentle trembling rocked the ground beneath them. Yisaoh pulled her daughter to her. "You go back inside with Sorida."
  
  "Mam–"
  
  "Go."
  
  Sorida, the soldier, also protested. Yisaoh was firm. They rode together back to the hold.
  
  Yisaoh bent to help Luna up. Luna accepted her hand.
  
  "There are no monsters," Yisaoh said. "Only choices."
  
  "What just happened?" Kirana yelled.
  
  Suari raised his hands. Scowled. The other jistas milled about like startled chickens.
  
  "I… lost Oma. Give it a moment. It can be fickle, sometimes. One can lose a thread of power on occasion and–"
  
  "Open it back up!" Kirana said. "That little shit is in there with my wife."
  
  "A moment, I–" Suari furrowed his brows.
  
  The air shuddered.
  
  A great moaning roar came from overhead.
  
  "The fuck…" Kirana muttered. She rushed to the broad windows at the back of the room. The remaining guard and the jistas followed.
  
  The satellites still hung in the sky: fiery green Tira to the northeast; purple Sina higher up and further west, and red Oma, a knuckle of dark ochre smearing the sky between them, its orbit taking it nearly as high as the double suns at midday.
  
  But now a great rent had opened in the sky beside Oma, smearing the rush of its red light, sending shadows across the ground below. The gory black wedge of some mountainous form pushed through the rent between the worlds, blotting out the suns. It knifed toward the ground, like an upside-down peak trying to embed itself into the woodlands.
  
  "What in Sina's maw is that?" Kirana said.
  
  A great cracking made the air rumble. The sky closed. The massive form that had cut through the passage lost its mooring and fell.
  
  The boom came first.
  
  "Shit," Kirana said. She braced herself against the wall.
  
  A rippling quake sent the whole temple shaking. She nearly lost her feet. Dust filled the air, making her choke and cough.
  
  When the shaking stopped, Kirana again gazed out at the sky. Oma winked madly above them. Below, the heaving monolith that had fallen from the sky lay silent and still as the dust and debris it had kicked up began to settle. Its jagged black form towered above the nearby treetops. It was as if Dhai had grown a mountain at the center of the country.
  
  "Kuallina is there," Kirana said. Two of her legions, three of her commanders, were stationed at Kuallina. "Do you have Oma yet?" she said to Suari.
  
  He shook his head; bits of glass tinkled. "Whatever that was disrupted it."
  
  "Then we do this blind," she said. Pointed at the guard. "I need our bird master and the runners. Go."
  
  He went, crunching across the glass. The dappled light had transformed the room, as if she stood in some other place. Kirana shook her head. Staying sane as the world broke apart took stubborn patience.
  
  "Suari, you're coming with me. I want that little ataisa back if we have to rip apart the sky again to do it."