“Ah,” Taigan said. “A boy. Yes, this explains much. You’re not gifted, though, are you? You’re not who I was looking for. Is this all there is? No other relation to the Kai? I have no time to be politic.”

“Let us be seated,” Dasai said. He clutched the top of his walking stick tightly. Ahkio wondered how many polite rituals and welcomes they had already trampled past.

What he wanted more than anything was to go sit by his sister’s side. He should have been here when she got sick. If she’d called him weeks ago, why had no one told him? They could have uncovered together who cursed her with the illness that took her.

“That won’t be necessary,” Taigan said. “Oma is rising.”

Ahkio raised his head. “What?”

“Not according to our stargazers,” Nasaka said.

“Then they are ill informed,” Taigan said. “Oma, just like any other star, has been known to appear suddenly. One cannot always track its path. Now I tell you its effect is being felt across my country. With Oma come invaders. Such is as it’s always been. This time, they’ve found a way to come through before Oma’s full appearance.”

“Who are these invaders?” Ahkio asked. “What do they have to do with us?”

“The last time Oma rose,” Nasaka said, “two thousand years ago, the Saiduan invaded what was then Dhai, when we ruled the continent. There is always a great power that unseats another during Oma’s ascent. Always. I do not contest that. But I see no proof of Oma’s rise here besides your word.”

“If you had seen what I have seen, you would not question it,” Taigan said.

“Shao Taigan,” Dasai said, “we respect you greatly. Yet you do not use the speech we have come to expect of the Patron’s emissaries. What is it we can do for you, sanisi, during your time of trouble?”

Ahkio saw four figures dressed in red come into the Assembly Chamber. They were members of the militia posted to the Kuallina Stronghold; he knew them by the pins at their collars. The temple itself had no standing militia. They must have traveled in on the Line behind him and Nasaka. A bit of fast thinking on someone’s part. But not mine, Ahkio thought. They told me as little as they could. He glanced at Nasaka and wondered how much she’d kept Kirana in the dark, too.

The sanisi laughed at the militia. “You think yourselves safe?” Taigan said. “You may be able to hold for a time, it’s true, with your defensible pass, and the mountains to the west, and that harbor wall to the north, but they will devour you eventually. Oma is rising. These people will rout you.”

“What can we possibly offer in assistance?” Dasai said.

Taigan gritted his teeth. “Scholars,” he said.

“Eh?” Gaiso said. “Book people?”