And though Ahkio had read the story, he was not certain how it would end. He would remain forever uncertain, because the last page of the book, the page following the broken sentence at the end of the final, intact page, recorder of the last days of Faith Ahya, had been torn out.

He had used it as kindling to light the fire that drove back the shadows.

After Liaro was asleep, Ahkio made his way back to the clan square, where the last of the Oras and militia Ghrasia had sent out to net the assassins had returned. They had sent out over a hundred Oras and militia, but he counted scarcely twenty in the square.

Ghrasia stood talking with the group’s leader, a grizzled militia man named Farosi Sana Nako.

“Is this all?” Ahkio asked.

“Afraid so,” Ghrasia said.

“And the assassins?”

“Here,” Farosi said, and pulled back the cover on a cart. Ahkio counted five bodies.

“The full dozen, then,” Ahkio said.

“At a great cost,” Farosi said.

“Walk with me, Kai,” Ghrasia said. She led him across the courtyard and onto a winding lane leading out to the rice fields. He kept his hands in his pockets.

As they walked, he noticed the sightless, feral little girl trailing after them along the weed-tangled road. He hadn’t asked Ghrasia if the girl followed her all the time, but he suspected that unless she was inside a building, the girl was always within shouting distance.

“You were right,” Ghrasia said.

“About what?”

“Me lording over the militia,” she said. “Those assassins did what they did out of blind obedience to their Kai. They made things like that.” She nodded to the feral girl. “And if they’re what we’ll fight… I’d rather we lost than become as they are.”

Ahkio stopped walking. She came up beside him. “What is it?” she said.

“You know this was the easiest part,” he said.

“May I touch you, Kai?”

“Always,” he said.

She put her arms around him. Her head rested just above his heart.

“I know it will get more difficult,” she said. “Just swear to me you’ll keep us the people we are.”

“I swear it,” he said. But even as he spoke the words, he remembered standing over the dying man in the blazing council house basement, ready to impale him with his own blade.

“Then it will be all right,” she said, and pulled away.

Chapter 50

50

Lilia swept into Emlee’s house, her bleeding hands wrapped in strips of her tattered red tunic. Gian jumped up from the floor and embraced her. Lilia had missed the smell of her hair.

“You’re alive!” Gian said.

Taigan pushed in behind Lilia. He was much too tall for the low ceiling and had to duck.

“What happened out there?” Emlee said.