text: Nasaka thought she knew the basements of Oma's Temple as well as its Kais. But no more. And that frustrated her, to run a country where anyone in it knew something she did not. Ahkio's foray into the basements, running after whatever it was Kirana had risked her life to cover up, had not gone unnoticed, nor had his secret councils with his closest Oras. But Nasaka knew something more of the matters that Kirana suspected. She knew Etena had been feeding Kirana information for years, from exile. Etena knew things about this temple that turn the tide of the war.
  
  What she didn't know was where they'd hidden Etena.
  
  But she knew someone who had.
  
  Nasaka strolled down to the second level of the basements, through a little-used door for which she had the only key, and walked down a short corridor. Just four doors. Four cells. The only holding cells in the entire temple.
  
  Nasaka pushed open the storage room door. Meyna lay on the floor, huffing and hacking. She had picked up some bronchial infection that left her hocking great gobs of snot. Her face was a mess. Her child was, blessedly, quiet; it clung to her breast with great, plump hands. Nasaka thought it kind to keep the child with her, for a time. Using the child as a means to break her would work better if she was well attached to it, and that often took time. Months, it turned out.
  
  "And how are you today?" Nasaka asked.
  
  "Go fuck yourself," Meyna said.
  
  "You sound like a seafaring Tordinian this morning." Every morning, in truth. Nasaka understood what Ahkio had seen in her, despite her politically unsuitable upbringing. Meyna had borne a child here on a cold floor strewn with straw, alone. Nasaka left no one to watch over her down here, and the birth happened overnight, between her evening feeding and when Elaiko returned in the morning with breakfast. Elaiko said she was shocked at the amount of blood and afterbirth. Nasaka sometimes forgot how young Elaiko was.
  
  The whole thing reminded Nasaka of her own three days in a bloody childbed, so racked with exhaustion and cramped with fear and pain that she thought she would die. Birth was an unending torment. She admitted something in her admired Meyna's stubborn will and significant health.
  
  "And you're a nattering old crow," Meyna said. Her tone was haughty, but she pulled the child closer.
  
  "Are you ready to assist me?"
  
  "I'm not doing anything for you."
  
  "You may not have a choice, soon." Nasaka leaned in the doorway. "You and that child put the Kai, and this country, at risk. Unless you want exile, or death, the option I offer is your only choice."
  
  Meyna slowly drew the child from her lap and set it into a cushion of straw. It stirred, but did not wake. Nasaka watched it. Ahkio's child, no doubt. Nasaka saw her own face in the child's, the bold nose and broad cheeks. It mattered little, of course, who a child's father was in Dhai. Descent ran through the mother's side, always. Who Meyna chose to bring to bed was of little consequence. Men married for economic stability, and a desire for love, children, companionship. Who actually fathered a child didn't often come into argument.
  
  Not unless the child's father was the Kai.
  
  "So what are we going to do with you, then?" Nasaka asked.
  
  Meyna stood. Nasaka watched her, waiting.
  
  "This won't end well," Meyna said.
  
  "Not for you, no," Nasaka said. "But I might spare the child."
  
  "You wouldn't harm me. Ahkio will find out. What will happen then?"
  
  "What makes you think it wasn't Ahkio who had you put here?"
  
  Meyna laughed. She threw her head back when she did it, a petty bit of theater that might have fooled a younger woman. But Nasaka saw the fear in her eyes and the slight tremor in her jaw. Meyna was good at games, for a young woman. But they were all games Nasaka had played for far longer, and with much more success.
  
  "Ahkio is just a boy," Meyna said, "and only you would tell me to go find his mad Aunt Etena to take his seat." She stepped forward. "I wonder, Ora Nasaka… what changed? You wanted him to be Kai so badly, but now you want to give it to someone else? Why? Because of me? My child?"
  
  Nasaka called on Sina; recited the Litany of Breath to call a glimmer of Sina's power beneath her skin. It was difficult to draw on, now that Sina was descendent, but she noted a subtle shift in the amount she could pull. Sina would come around again, very soon. Nasaka trembled, just a little, in anticipation.
  
  Meyna kept walking toward her as she spoke. "I bound him to me," she said. "He'll walk through fire for me, if I ask it."
  
  Nasaka bound the violet mist of Sina into a simple knot, and absently waved her hand, tossing the bundle of violet energy into the straw bundle.
  
  Meyna leapt at her.
  
  Nasaka side stepped her neatly. Caught her by the wrist. Twisted her arm back, pushed her head down. Then she let out her breath, and the violet burst of Sina's energy exploded. The straw ignited.
  
  The baby cried.
  
  Meyna yelled.
  
  Nasaka released her. Meyna ran to the child, pulling it from the flaming straw. She wrapped the child in her arms and kicked at the flames, throwing bits of burning straw into the air. Nasaka watched it all from the doorway. The child was screaming, screaming, far more than the fire warranted. Fear, not pain.
  
  Meyna pressed herself into a corner. The air was filled with the smell of burnt straw. Nasaka saw a few errant embers, but didn't care much for them. There was only so much straw in the room, and certainly not enough to kill Meyna and her child if it all burned up.
  
  "Don't think I'm as stupid as he is," Nasaka said. "I've been running this country longer than you've been alive, and I'll go on doing it long after you're dead."
  
  Meyna's eyes filled, but instead of a sob, she grimaced. The child would not stop screaming. It was starting to rattle Nasaka's nerves. She stepped out of the cell.
  
  "Ora Nasaka!"
  
  Nasaka hesitated; left the door open a few inches.
  
  Meyna remained in the corner, showing her teeth. The child screamed. Meyna shouted over it. "You don't deserve this country," Meyna said. "Neither did Etena."
  
  "Nor do you," Nasaka said. "Ahkio may not have seen through your ploy, but I did. You hoped to set a precedent. Hoped that child would be a way to a seat upstairs. But you will always be a mewling, insignificant little brat from clan Mutao. A Mutao who will die here, alone and unremembered, unless you do as I say."
  
  "Worse people have tried to make me do what they willed," Meyna said. "You won't have better luck. My mother said Etena cast herself into Mount Ahya."
  
  "Where is your mother?"
  
  Meyna pulled her child closer. Then, "Give me a bath. Give me a bath, and I'll tell you. It won't matter if you find my mother anyway. She'll never give up Etena."
  
  Nasaka nodded. "Fair trade, then," she said. "I may even give you a clean skirt."
  
  Meyna stared into her child's face.
  
  Sugar won more often than salt. Nasaka had forgotten that. "I'll bring you a blanket and clean clothes," Nasaka said smoothly. "You never did get on with your family, did you? What does it matter if I know where she is?"
  
  "Bring a map," Meyna said.
  
  Nasaka shut the door.
  
  Elaiko stood outside, hands in the deep pockets of her tunic. "Should I make some tea?" she asked.
  
  "That would be lovely," Nasaka said.
  
  Meyna yelled after them, "My mother will never give Etena up! Not for my life! Not for my child's! Do you hear that?"
  
  They started back up through the corridor. There were other rooms here Nasaka had set aside for prisoner interrogations, her own semi-secret gaol, but when she brought in Meyna she had them cleared out, including Almeysia. She had found out enough about Almeysia to know that the one they had wasn't theirs anyway. She was some agent of the Tai Mora's, sent here for a dark purpose that Nasaka still wasn't certain about. Almeysia would not speak for sugar or salt.
  
  Only six people knew Meyna was here, and that was three too many for Nasaka's comfort. Already the temple was taking sides – her against Ahkio. But she was not fool enough to move her hand until she had Etena. Ahkio should have just let her be, but things were too far gone now. She needed someone she controlled who could get into those basements. Ahkio was turning into something else. If she could not control him, she could not protect him. She mourned that.
  
  "Has there been progress on Yisaoh?" Elaiko asked. "I know you had someone looking for her."
  
  "Too inquisitive for your own good."
  
  "Just looking to stay on top of things. We've had… some unfortunate incidents in Garika. And they are not improving."
  
  "I'm aware."
  
  "Of course."
  
  Nasaka kept the silence as they ascended into the upper tiers of the temple. Two barred and sealed doors – sealed by both sinajista and tirajista traps, just in case. Nasaka had always appreciated Elaiko's silence. She had a gift for understanding when it was appropriate to speak, and when it was not, a virtue Nasaka did not often find in young people.
  
  They walked up into the hall outside the bath house, one story below the temple proper, and five floors above the gaol.
  
  "I have an errand," Nasaka said. "Meet me in my study. An hour, perhaps. After your prayers."
  
  "Of course. I'll bring the tea."
  
  It did help that Elaiko could make a very good cup of tea.
  
  Nasaka crossed through the Temple of Oma, and started up the grand stairway. Nasaka went up five flights to the guest quarters. Most quests were kept on the second and third floors; only Dhai were permitted up further. But in this instance, well... Nasaka supposed her guest more or less counted.
  
  She knocked on a banded door of amber wood.
  
  "Do enter!"
  
  Nasaka pushed open the door.
  
  A slim young woman stood silhouetted in the great window looking out over the brilliant green expanse of the Pana Woodlands. Her hair was chopped and crimped into some odd Dorinah style, as if attacked with a razor and burnt. Her grin split her face.
  
  "Greetings, Ora Nasaka, on this fine morning!"
  
  "Good morning, Sai Hofsha," Nasaka said. "I'm sorry this has all taken so much longer than you anticipated."
  
  It still unnerved her, how much Tai Mora like Hofsha looked like Nasaka's own people. Clearly, their manners and postures were foreign, but in profile, at first glance, Hofsha could have been some Sorila businesswoman come to talk about tariffs.
  
  Hofsha's grin never wavered. "That's no matter," she said. "I'm sure he'll come to his senses in time. They always do. Generally." She gestured back to the window. "Has that woodland always been so dangerous?"
  
  "It's the world Faith Ahya and Hahko recorded when they first crossed over from Dorinah," Nasaka said. "It has not changed much in all that time."
  
  "We burned ours out," Hofsha said.
  
  "I expected no less."
  
  Hofsha picked up a hat from the bed. "Come, give me a tour of the temple," she said. "My Kai has asked me to begin assigning quarters for her people. It won't be long now."