Caisa shifted from foot to foot another moment, looking contrite, then stepped away to help with the bodies.

Ahkio noted the blood pooling on the steps. Lohin would not survive long enough for a physician to walk the three or four hours from Sorila. He wondered if Lohin knew that yet.

“Did Yisaoh tell you I’d marry into Rhin and Hadaoh’s family?” Ahkio asked. “It could have spared you this.”

“They won’t have you.”

“Why?”

His grimace was ugly. “They won’t.”

“You’re likely going to die here, Lohin.”

He whimpered. “Let me alone.”

“You killed Oras, Lohin. You nearly killed my cousin.”

“You aren’t Kai.”

“I’m Kirana’s brother.”

“Half-brother.”

“Is that so?”

Lohin hacked up a smattering of blood. He whispered, “Your mother’s babies all died, Ahkio. All but Kirana, and she was sick from the start. You aren’t Javia’s.”

“You’re saying my mother stole someone else’s child? You Garikas are all mad.”

“Not stole. Freely given.” Lohin’s breath was shallow.

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

“My Aunt Etena?”

Lohin hacked out a laugh. “Stupid. So much stupider than your sister. Should have been you.”

“Nasaka,” Ahkio said.

Lohin snarled. “Her, with a stillborn baby?” he said. “Same week… Javia pushed you out… first to live since Kirana. No one believed it. No one.”

The hacking stopped. Lohin’s face softened. Ahkio saw the light go from his eyes; the tension left his body.

Ahkio slid down onto the steps, favoring his injured side, and sat quietly next to Lohin’s body. He remembered that story. Nasaka’s single pregnancy. Was there anything Nasaka wouldn’t do for the Dhai? Below, the militia Nasaka had called from the Kuallina Stronghold worked to clean and bundle the dead. He saw Elaiko and Caisa working among them, directed in the task by Ghrasia Madah, head of the militia at both the Liona and Kuallina strongholds. She was a fierce little woman, wading through blood and bodies like a person well used to death. He recalled her face from many a portrait – she had led the defense of the Liona Stronghold during the Pass War, when the Dorinahs tried to take the country twenty years before.

Ghrasia could have sided with the Garikas, but she’d chosen Nasaka and the temples instead. That loyalty, he knew, had been the only thing to save them today. Without her two dozen militia, they would have had to turn the gifted arts of jistas on the Garikas. That would have ended any hope Ahkio had of uniting the country. The ungifted would have turned on the temples. The day could have been much worse.

He stood, called down to Elaiko, “Where’s Nasaka?”

“Meditating in the garden, I think. Is Lohin-”

“He’s dead,” Ahkio said.

“I’m sorry, Kai.”

“He was no kin of mine,” Ahkio said.