She picked up the lantern and moved toward the back of the bladder trap. At the far end, the spiky protrusions that kept those trapped from exiting had been cut away, so the long tube of the trap that led to the surface could be reached freely from either direction.

If she left alone now, she would eventually be eaten by something unsavory. And where would she go? The Woodlands? The coast? Where could a hunted Dhai go when it was not only foreigners who hunted her, but her own people?

Trapped. No matter which way she turned.

Lilia set the lantern onto the table. She heard a commotion above her. Pounding at the door. Loud voices.

She looked again to the bladder trap’s tiny exit. She had no map but the one from her memory, and no gift but the knowledge of woodland plants her mother had passed on to her.

But she’d made a promise to her mother and to herself. She was done with doing other people’s laundry and being pushed around in service to other people’s causes.

Lilia hooked her good foot into the side of the bladder trap and pulled herself up through the kill hole. She hauled herself forward on the nubs of the old spiky protrusions. They dug into her chest. She had to let out her breath to squeeze through. For one horrible, black moment, she thought she was stuck. She huffed out more air and pushed into the open air.

Outside, dawn was still only a promise on the horizon. This time, she did not look back, not even once. She located the blue blush of Para as it rose through the trees in the pre-dawn sky. She stumbled out onto the road heading east, to the woodland, to the sea.

Chapter 11

11

Yisaoh Alais Garika came to meet with Ahkio the next day, just as Nasaka predicted. Ahkio stood in the kitchens, watching his sister’s body being prepared, as Nasaka told him of Yisaoh’s arrival. The funerary attendants washed Kirana’s body in rose water and cardamom. They laid it on a stone slab in the temple kitchen on a blanket of fragrant bonsa leaves. Funerary chefs from the temples of Sina, Para, and Tira joined the scullery master of the Temple of Oma to carefully split open the Kai’s torso and remove all vital organs. The heart, liver, and intestines were set aside and given to novice attendants. The intestines were cleaned and soaked in salt water. The liver and heart were washed with saffron; the liver was prepared with garlic, onions, and hasaen tubers. They divided the heart into sections and fried it with leeks and butter. They drained the blood into a broad silver bowl, for use in making blood soup and sausage later. The head was reverently removed and reserved for interment in the bowels of the temple catacombs.