text: A banging on the door. Kirana shifted in her sleep, pushing away sticky dreams. Shouting. She roused herself and sat bolt upright. Threw off her coverlet. Why did she feel so woozy? Her head ached. Was that the smell of smoke?
  
  Yisaoh wiped at her eyes. "What is it?"
  
  "I don't know."
  
  The door opened.
  
  Kirana let loose her infused weapon. It snapped out of her wrist. She pushed herself up. The flame fly lanterns came alive at all the movement and noise.
  
  Gian stood in the door, panting, one hand pressed against her chest as if she'd been knocked about. "A bunch of Dhai came up here," she said. "They just came in through the ceiling in the Assembly Chamber and dropped through the floor."
  
  "And… you're alive?"
  
  "There's… a girl with them. I… knew her, in some other life. She was weak. That's our one advantage. She said only a… Guide, or a Kai could follow them? Does that make any sense to you?"
  
  "Where's Yivsa?"
  
  "I have no idea. I was alone in the chamber."
  
  "What were you doing in there?" Kirana released her weapon and tugged on her trousers.
  
  "The children–" Yisaoh said, getting out of bed.
  
  "Stay with them," Kirana said. The noise had woken Tasia. She was already calling at them from the adjoining room. Kirana rounded on Gian again. "What do you mean, you were the only one there?"
  
  "There wasn't any other guard. Someone called them away. There's something happening downstairs."
  
  "Madness," Kirana muttered.
  
  When she was dressed, she rushed into the chamber. Broken glass littered the table; a gaping hole had opened in the ceiling. How had she not heard that?
  
  "What…?"
  
  "They used sound barriers," Gian said. "They had at least one, maybe two parajistas with them. You wouldn't have heard anything, but you might have a headache from all the air pressure. It blocked the smoke, too."
  
  "Where the fuck is everyone?" Kirana muttered. Smoke poured in from the stairwell. "What did they burn?"
  
  "Everything, I think," Gian said. "The fire has cut us off. They'll need to clear it out before we can get reinforcements up here."
  
  "We need to leave immediately. Yisaoh! Bring the children!" Kirana darted back into her office.
  
  The children were bleary-eyed and whining. Kirana took Tasia into her arms. Yisaoh took Corina and Moira by the hands.
  
  "I need you to stay close," Kirana said. "There's a fire, you understand?"
  
  "Don't try the stairs," Gian said. "I can get us out."
  
  "You?"
  
  "I have some skill with Para," Gian said. "We can go out the way the others came in." She pointed at the ceiling.
  
  Kirana exchanged a look with Yisaoh. Smoke continued to fill the chamber.
  
  Gian said, "We are bound, Kirana. Murdering you risks me as well. You wanted to be allies. This is something allies do."
  
  Kirana took Yisaoh's hand, and Gian bundled them all up into a puff of air and sent them flying through the tear in the ceiling. The children shrieked, and Kirana held onto them.
  
  Gian brought the group back down on the plateau, just in front of the bridge leading to the temple. The plateau, too, was burning, though the blaze there had been contained to the garrison. Kirana noted a number of parajistas working along the edges of the blaze to contain it.
  
  Gian alighted next to them.
  
  Kirana found Yivsa organizing those fleeing the temple, and asked what had happened.
  
  "A breach," Yivsa said. "Some omajista."
  
  "Far more than that," Yisaoh said. "The Assembly Chamber was breached. Parajistas."
  
  "Fuck," Yivsa said. "The omajista was a fucking distraction."
  
  "The basement. Is Oravan still–"
  
  "Yes, Empress, they've remained at their posts. The fire was contained to the upper floors."
  
  "I need my wife and children moved."
  
  "Of course. We're re-housing key personnel at Para's Temple."
  
  "Good, fine. Do we have an omajista?"
  
  "Oravan has a wink waiting, here. We sent three people up for you."
  
  "None of them made it," Kirana said. "I want to know what happened to my guards. The Assembly Chamber door was open, and six guards missing."
  
  "We'll look into it immediately, but it's highly likely they were drawn downstairs when the fires started, and the omajista… Well, there are a lot of bodies."
  
  "I don't care what other issues we had to deal with," Kirana said. "The security of this temple was paramount."
  
  "Yes, Empress."
  
  Kirana seethed, but knew that yelling at Yivsa in the middle of the crisis wasn't going to solve anything.
  
  She got her family off to Para's Temple, and made Yivsa personally escort them to safety. Kirana, for her part, lingered behind with Gian.
  
  When her family was gone, Kirana said, "What were you doing up there?"
  
  "I'd come to see you," Gian said, "but all the guards were gone. I even knocked at that chamber door. It was already open. They must have had someone on the inside."
  
  Kirana narrowed her eyes. "What did you want to discuss?"
  
  The double helix of the suns was just beginning to rise, washing the eastern mountains in a warm red glow.
  
  "Progress on the People's Temple."
  
  "In the middle of the night?"
  
  "I thought you'd be up."
  
  Kirana peered at her, but could detect no deception.
  
  "We're close," Kirana said, shifting her attention back to the rising suns. "If the Dhai infiltrated the temple, it will have something to do with that. How did they… ah, the boy. He sank himself through the floor here. I wonder…"
  
  "I'll need to gather my people," Gian said. "I left them waiting in the gardens."
  
  "Better that than the banquet hall," Kirana said, and grimaced again at the smoke rising from the shimmering temple.
  
  She went to the ring on the floor, the raised bit of the temple's flesh.
  
  "Yivsa?" Kirana asked, toeing the smooth surface. "Where did that soldier put my brother's body?"