“I fill the sea with poison, how am I a friend?” Djola replied. Grain’s letter burned against his chest. He dashed back to sick bay and sank down on his bunk. After a few calming breaths, he neutralized Kyrie’s conjure. Silver-mesh gloves made it hard to break the seal and unfurl stiff bark-paper. He almost ripped it.

Grain dispensed with salutations:

Five years and the griot of griots has not come to Council

We could use Yari’s wisdom

Ernold, Water, and Money poisoned Nuar

Your half-brother died a traitor’s death on cold stone at Council

This morning, I carried Nuar’s body to the foothills of Mount Eidhou

I led a mourning parade to Kyrie’s gates for an Anawanama ancestor ceremony

Money and Water protested an honorable, if savage, burial for a traitor

Azizi refused to interfere with northland rituals

Arms and his warriors accompanied me to Kyrie’s gates to guard the ceremony

Rebels, Green Elders, Anawanama, elephants, and other wild things were in attendance

Nuar dead. Djola’s fortress heart raced. His hands shook. Half-brother Nuar and Djola had often clashed, yet they loved each other. “Basawili.” Djola spoke the Anawanama prayer for the dead. “Not the end. I will live in your spirit.” Nuar was the first northland chief Djola talked to the peace fire. With Djola in exile and Nuar cut down, many northern tribes would walk away from the Empire. An honorable funeral would forestall desertion only a short while. “Reckoning fire is how I’ll mourn you, brother.” Ernold, Money, and Water were dead men.

While Urzula, Arms, and I were gone, Ernold condemned Samina to a transgressor hut

Money and Water marooned your children in the desert

Ernold proclaims that Samina and the children have perished

I have searched everywhere

Nobody has seen the bodies

Money and Water blame Zamanzi warriors or veson-rebels

Arms insists the masters lie

Azizi doesn’t know who to believe or what to do

The Empire could come apart

Kyrie communes with her mountain and sends hope

The letter burst into flames. Djola had called fire without meaning to.

18

Snatched from Herself

The temple at Holy City was an extension of Ice Mountain, built from stone and wood around ledges and caves. Inside high walls, a hundred cathedral trees strained toward the light. Gray leaves hung from flaccid branches. Rope and wood balconies connected the sparse crowns to Ice Mountain’s cliffs. Hardly anybody worshipped in the temple. Most people climbed stone stairs and talked to the gods at the icy peak, as the ancestors did.

Awa trudged up temple steps with transgressors about to be bled. She never believed in angry mountain gods. Entering the temple, she chanted Yari’s words: You’re the mapmaker, the storyteller. You’ll make a way.