Lilia gazed over the wall at the crush of her people below. As the gates opened, her people began to sing. Lilia did not know the song. It was something in the patois of the camps. But it was very beautiful.

“You’re very brave,” the woman on the wall said.

Lilia had almost forgotten about her. “Yes,” Lilia said. “I know.”

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Nasaka climbed into the mossy hills surrounding the Temple of Oma. She stood in a field of withered black poppies, their massive blooms frozen and crushed in the winter chill. She looked back at the amber haze of sunlight glinting from the massive dome of the temple. Out here, the temple seemed very small, nearly swallowed in the naked, grasping claws of the bonsa trees. It all looked very fragile. She gripped the hilt of her willowthorn sword, tensing her arthritic fingers. The pain was getting worse, and she would not be able to hide it much longer.

The air around her grew heavy. She turned to face the woods. As she waited, the air in front of her shimmered, as if tempered by a wave of heat. Black rents appeared in the air. She stepped back.

The seams between the worlds parted as if raked by the claws of some great beast. There were places where the fabric between the worlds was thin, and the cost to peer from one to the other was not quite so high, even with Oma’s face still shrouded. This soft spot was closest to Oma’s temple, and Nasaka thanked Oma each day that no adult could fit through the seams that opened here.

Through the tears between the worlds, Nasaka saw the other Kirana, dressed in shiny red armor. She stood in the sweltering ruin of some dead city. Nasaka saw the tail end of the black, dying satellite in the sky behind her. Scorched bodies hung from parched trees and lay mangled on broken plates of pink glass and blood-smeared marble. From what Nasaka could make out of the bodies’ remaining clothes and features, the dead were of no people she recognized.

Three of Kirana’s generals conferred nearby. Nasaka had seen them a few times before. One of them looked a lot like Gaiso, perhaps a bit plumper, but she had never asked the woman’s name. She didn’t like seeing the others. Knowing they existed was one thing. Seeing them was quite another.

“Is it done?” Kirana asked. She pulled off her left gauntlet and wiped the sweat from her face. She was a lean but powerful woman, far more physically fit than the Kirana that Nasaka had once known.

“He’s left the temple for Liona,” Nasaka said. “By the time I got back, he was already gone.”

“Don’t tell me your prized boy has become headstrong,” she said, but she was not looking at Nasaka. She was looking off to the left at some commotion.