“We will step away,” she said. “He brings us our dead sons and keeps our youngest with his Oras. Do you see another path? I did not birth my sons, nor raise that of my sisters, to see them slaughtered now.”

“It has always been their decision–”

“Shush,” Alais said.

Ahkio felt Yisaoh’s burning black gaze on him but did not look at her. A single man or woman did not make a decision his family did not support, not in Dhai. There were too many family ties to consider. Kin were too close. Tir had not acted on his own. At the very least, his spouses supported and encouraged the actions their sons and daughter took. That’s why it had to be an exile to the third degree… even if it included people Ahkio wished it did not.

Ahkio nodded to Tir’s apprentice. “I will see you in Osono,” he said.

Ahkio held out his hand to Tir. He could not stop the trembling, and he cursed himself for it, but he held the hand there, a last gesture of goodwill.

“Don’t look at me, boy,” Tir said. “Your mother twisted this country, and your sister was blinded to what’s coming. My family’s known for years what we faced, while you relied on some foreigner to come here and set you right. You march Oras and our own militia into Garika, two forces that have never been given leave to work together. You defile your own Book. I will not speak your name again.”

Tir turned into the council house.

His wives followed. Yisaoh made to do the same, but Ahkio stopped her. “Not yet, Yisaoh.”

“Go soak your head.”

“Would you rather I say this in front of your family?”

She walked down the steps to him. Her mother, Alais, paused in the doorway and watched her.

Ahkio moved away from the house to a barren patch of ground near the rain barrel at the side of the council house. “You know I could have done worse for you.”

“Why? Because I had the heart to stand up to you?”

“Let’s not play. The boy you tried to kill in the temple lived.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The novice you stabbed on the steps of the scullery stair, sneaking around with Ora Almeysia.”

Her look was incredulous. “Don’t insult me.”

“You were in the temple the night my sister died. I have a witness.”