text: "We've stemmed the assault," Suari said. "We're pursuing the last two, a boy and that girl who was working the orrery."
  
  Kirana Javia Garika, Empress of Dorinah, Queen of the Tai Mora, Captain of the Seven Realms and ruler – finally! – of the known worlds, pressed her hands to the wood of the great Assembly Chamber. She could not keep the smile from her lips. She had achieved her decade-long campaign to defeat her Tai Mora double and usurp her from power over Raisa, and she felt fucking fantastic about it.
  
  She admired how similar this table was to the one she had planned and plotted out this assault from on her own world, so very, very near to this one. Her soldiers worked busily through the temple, assuaging fears and rumor. She didn't know who had burned so much of the temple's interior here, but her allies assured her it was well contained, and the temple secure. She had murdered all of the other Kirana's soldiers inside the fifth temple, keeping her own identity safe, for a time.
  
  "That girl and boy are a problem," Kirana said. "I know them from our side, or one very like her. Lilia, the girl – I want her killed as quickly as possible."
  
  "Could I ask–"
  
  "She always ruins my fucking plans," Kirana said. "I want her body. What about Luna? You got Luna fixed up? Closed the ways? If that's done, we can start handling the next phase of this assault."
  
  "It's already done," Suari said. "I got Luna mended and back on the pedestal. The seams between every world but ours have been closed. We no longer need to worry about assaults from other worlds, but we can still bring our people through. There are instructions on… many other things that can be achieved with that power, though. We are interrogating Luna now. We may find a way to keep Para in the sky for far longer. Unlimited power for decades! All yours."
  
  "Good," Kirana said. "Let's bring up that whole fifth temple again, though. All that quaking very nearly sent it to the bottom of the sea again. Put it out there on the plateau. It will be more stable.."
  
  "Very well," Suari said.
  
  "You did well, Suari," Kirana said.
  
  "Being bound to you," he said, "meant I was also bound to her. That deception worked in our favor. Remarkably well."
  
  "Told you, didn't I? Keep the faith, Suari! Get the rest of those Rhea-worshipping allies of ours into the other temples," she said. "I want to move quickly."
  
  Despite her stated urgency, Kirana did not go immediately to find her own Yisaoh when Suari closed the wink. She still needed to ascertain where the former Kirana's Yisaoh and children were being sheltered, without giving herself away as… well, a different sort of Empress.
  
  She traversed the temple, nodding to those who pressed thumb to forehead, and a little Dhai ran up to remind her that she had agreed to meet her mother for tea in the garden. Her real mother, of course, who had been here all this time, keeping her abreast of her counterpart's plans.
  
  Spies, indeed. This world's Kirana had had no idea of the extent of it.
  
  She met her mother in the garden as the double helix of the suns rose. Her mother peered at her.
  
  Kirana laughed, and used the pass phrase they had agreed upon. "The ways between the worlds are ours."
  
  Her mother clapped her hands and stood. Embraced her. Used her appropriate response: "Happy day! This is so joyful."
  
  What an incredible thing, Kirana thought, to save herself and her own world from… well, herself.
  
  "Mother, it's going to be so grand," Kirana said. "The power, the world. You've done so well. Thank you."
  
  Her mother leaned over and pressed her forehead to Kirana's.
  
  "I am so proud of you," her mother said. "No one else could have done this. No one else could have saved us."
  
  "I did what had to be done," Kirana said. She finished her tea and rose. "I suspect I should announce it to our people here. And I'll need to find where they've hidden their version of Yisaoh and the children."
  
  "I'm sure you'll make short order of it."
  
  As Kirana stepped down from the little raised tea table, the air suddenly became cold, so cold it hurt her bones. She paused. Stared at the sky.
  
  "What is it?" her mother asked.
  
  Kirana grimaced. Her bones knew, knew because she had felt this before, in some other life. Knew because something that she thought had come together was now pulling apart.
  
  "I don't know," Kirana said.
  
  The ground trembled.
  
  And there was light.