I chew my lip and blow out a breath, steadying myself on the door outside the cell where Kai’s been locked away. I have to talk to her. I’m not even sure what to say, but that doesn’t absolve me of responsibility. And if I’m honest… she is Yakanna, my saisa, and she is hurting.

With a wave of my hand the lock on her door clicks open. I slip inside and find her hunched over a small wooden box, pulling at scraps of paper inside. She doesn’t even glance in my direction. I settle in a chair in the corner. Her room is in disarray—bed toppled over, linens tangled, food bowl overturned, her grief on display. I settle into my seat, careful to honor the silence.

Her topknot is unbraided and hangs in tight coils, draping her face and back. From the bottom down she’s still dressed in her armor, but her new breastplate is cracked in half, her left side exposed, bare. Smeared paint mixed with tears runs down her cheeks as she brings another scrap of paper to her face. I can faintly make out scrawly handwriting on the page. She plucks a jade from the box, drawing circles on its glassy surface before returning it. She pulls at threads on her pant leg before turning her glassy-eyed stare my way. She says nothing, but I hear her.

“I’m sorry,” I say, sensing the invitation to speak. “I know you loved them both.”

We sit like that until the light dims in the room, so dark I can barely make out either of us. I rotate an orb affixed to the ceiling.

“Feey’l.” Flames swell in the glass and the room brightens. I skirt my chair and take a chance, sitting on the floor beside her. “Kainese, I know you didn’t kill Doile. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to listen.”

Her eyelids lift and her sullen stare burns into me.

“When I was little, Memi used to say I was fearless.” She glances at her bare left shoulder. “She was wrong.” She stands, her hands worrying one another. “I would like to say I’d never hurt my family, that I would do anything to keep them safe, to honor the Mother, protect my people. And yet somewhere in that haze I forgot what Memi’s words truly meant.”

She turns to me. “Memi meant fear would not drive me, love would. And I believed that. I held on to it so tight, pressed it to my face so firmly, that I could not see anything around it. How could I? Memi’s fearless daughter, blood of the Mother herself, lose footing? Never. Every step I took was so sure in the beginning.”