“I’m Kai,” Ahkio said. “It’s my business. Do you understand now, Nasaka, or should I repeat myself?”

“I can hear.”

“Good. You’ll be interrogating Ora Almeysia?”

“Naturally.”

“Bring her to Osono when you can get her to speak.”

“Why Osono?”

“Because that’s where I’m going after Garika. I want the person who killed my sister, Nasaka. I have no trouble angering you, or Ghrasia, or any of the rest, to find that out.”

“You realize, boy, that you will only sit that seat so long as you have people, like myself, loyal enough to keep you on it.”

“Dead babies,” Ahkio said. Nasaka’s expression was icy. Bile rose in his throat, but if she dared threaten him, he’d call her bluff. “I think you’ll be loyal to the bitter end. As any kin of mine would.”

Ahkio turned on his heel. He felt sick, but he pushed on without looking back. He managed to make it halfway back to the temple before he stepped discreetly behind a stand of willowthorn trees and vomited. He crumpled to the ground and stayed very still in the shadow of the trees.

Nasaka could crush him, he knew. But she would not crush her own son. Not after she’d worked so hard to give him this bloody title.

The massive Ora libraries took up the entire eleventh floor of the temple. Roh bounced in one of the grand chaises in the central reading room while Dasai stood nearby, scowling. After the fighting downstairs, most of the novices were confined to quarters, and the Oras were helping with cleanup. Roh tried to still himself under Dasai’s gaze, but it took a great bout of effort. They waited for the Kai, who’d insisted on seeing them in the libraries instead of his study. It was an odd request, and Roh suspected it made Dasai even more nervous than it did him.

Roh stared at the glass-encased shelves that stretched twenty feet up the walls. He remembered spending hours in here just a few weeks before, searching through old historical texts and geography books for the symbol Lilia had drawn in the back of a book of Saiduan poetry. If caught doing research for a drudge, he expected he could lie his way out of it. Attacking an Ora, though… there was no way to talk himself out of that.

“You think he’ll exile me?” Roh asked Dasai.

“Let’s hope so,” Dasai said. “Using the gifted arts against another Dhai… you knew better.”

“I was defending myself,” Roh said, “and the Kai – the Kai! – against an Ora. We can use our gifts against other Oras.”

“How is it you go from your death bed to attempted murder?”

“It was self-defense!”

“Causing the death of another is always murder,” Dasai said. “All that changes is the punishment.”