“I think that’s enough,” Ahkio said. He had been fair. He talked sense. Why wouldn’t she see it? “Tell your father I can’t grant his request. Tell him that any militia or sons or daughters or spouses or cousins of his he sends here will be treated with the utmost courtesy, but if another one threatens me, and in so doing threatens this country, I’ll exile his entire family. Spouses. Sons. Daughters and all. I’m not pleased to be in this seat, but I respect the words of the Book. And what you and your father are proposing is heresy.”

“Those are brave words from a shepherd.”

“I teach shepherds. I’m not one.” Ahkio stood. “It has been an occasion, Yisaoh Alais Garika.”

She moved reluctantly to her feet. “I am disappointed. I hoped you would show sense. Your sister understood what was coming, even if the Oras covered their eyes. She kept a house in Garika and listened to my father and our stargazers when no one else would. You could have learned much from her.”

“You’re talking of Oma?”

“Ah, so they’ve purported to figure that out themselves now, have they? My father told Kirana and Ora Nasaka about Oma’s rise years ago. We knew it was twenty years from rising, at best. Not a century.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Yisaoh gestured at the desk. “I suspect you know very little about your sister and her alliance with us. Perhaps you should learn more for yourself and stop relying on lies from scheming Oras.”

“I’m not going to take that apple, Yisaoh. I know how divide-and-conquer politics work. The Oras are mine.”

“The Oras belong to themselves. Don’t you ever forget that. You’re just a means to an end.”

Ahkio called out to the militia posted at the doors. “Will you please escort Yisaoh Alais Garika from the Temple of Oma?”

Yisaoh’s eyes were black. He saw her father’s strength in her, a hardening of the jaw, blind purpose.

“We did not kill your sister, Li Kai,” she said, “however convenient that would be for you. But you are ill prepared for what’s coming. My family is ready. We’ll take this seat any way we must.”

“I invite you to try.”

“Go eat your sister,” she said.

The militia took her away.

Chapter 12

12

Kalinda Lasa had fought many battles with many people, but this was the first she fought against her own people.