The Line chamber was on the eleventh floor of the temple. Ahkio expected they would travel up to the Assembly Chamber and Kirana’s rooms on the twelfth floor, but instead, Dasai took him down two floors to the novice practice rooms and Ora studies. They passed open archways where novice parajistas practiced moving objects: building small towers of stones and blocks with skeins of air, or creating little vortices and waterspouts in pails. Ahkio couldn’t channel their star, so he did not see the blue breath they manipulated, only its result. The novices barely glanced up from their work as Ahkio and Dasai passed.

Dasai brought him to the end of the hall, down a short stair, and through another corridor. Ahkio had never been to this area of the temple before.

“Why did you move her?” Ahkio asked.

Dasai raised his hand to a broad door of amberwood. Ahkio saw that the door was banded in thorn vines, the same kind that made up the thorn fences that protected livestock in the clans.

“We feared for her,” Dasai said.

“If you think she’s in danger from someone inside the temple, why bring me here?”

“Li Kai, if I had the chance to go back and bid my family farewell before their deaths, I would have leapt at the chance. This is yours. Don’t spoil it.”

“I’m afraid, Ora Dasai.”

“We’re all afraid, child,” Dasai said. “It’s what we do with that fear that sets us apart. Bid farewell to your sister.”

Dasai murmured a prayer to Sina and opened the door.

Inside, the windows were covered. The darkness was complete.

Dasai picked up a lantern in an alcove and shook the flame flies awake. The flickering light cast wide shadows, illuminating a raised bed draped with sticky webbing. Ahkio heard someone else breathing in the darkness – wet and ragged.

Ahkio approached the unfamiliar bed and sat on a stool beside it. Dasai brought the light closer. Ahkio took it.

Kirana’s face was a gaunt mask with deep circles under the hollows of the eyes. She had the look of their mother: the long, plain face, high forehead, sloping nose, strong, square jaw. Her black hair was thin and tangled, tied at the nape of her damp neck. Displaced curls clung to her forehead. Her skinny hands clasped at the bed sheets like claws.

It was high summer in Dhai, and Ahkio felt cold.

“Ahkio,” she said. The clawed hands reached for him. He took her fingers. Her eyelids flickered. “Asked for you… weeks ago. There’s something coming.”

“You’ll meet it,” Ahkio said. Weeks ago? He glanced at Dasai.

“I was never Kai,” she said. “Everything’s burning.”

Ahkio rubbed her warm fingers. “That was a long time ago,” he said.

“Get the others out,” Kirana said. “Out!”

“Ora Dasai,” Ahkio said.