As she came up from the cellar, she saw the front door smashed in and three men standing in the remains of it. The men were indeed hers, not the local version. She knew them immediately, though many Dhai would not be able to spot the difference on sight. Those with lazy minds got themselves caught up in the cut of a coat, or the cast of a stranger’s skin, or the cant of one’s nose, but that told her very little. What she looked for was the way they held themselves and interacted with others, how they approached a problem. All Dhai here were proud, but passive. They exuded a calm politeness that tested Kalinda’s patience. But it was their open, friendly approach to each person they met – as if they were all intimate family members – that was the biggest tell. These men stood in her house with shoulders straight and chests puffed out. They watched her with the alert, wary gazes she saw on war veterans, not the open faces of a rural militia.

“I suspect you aren’t here for a room,” she said.

The dark wounds at the men’s wrists bloomed. Two of them sprouted glowing blue bonsa blades. The third, an everpine branch. They gripped the more pliable ends of the living weapons with their fists and marched forward.

Kalinda already held Para’s breath beneath her skin; the Litany of Breath played at the back of her mind. She shifted to the Litany of the Spectral Snake and wrapped the men in skeins of air, trying to force their blades back into their bodies. But they had anticipated her. Blue mist bloomed around them.

Para suddenly fled from her grasp. Fickle Para. She yanked it back and opened herself again to its breath. She rebuilt her spectral sword and lashed out.

Her twisted skeins of Para’s breath met a misty wall that engulfed the figures. The waves of blue emanated from the men on the left and the right – the parajistas. The middle one was likely a tirajista, based on the everpine weapon. Kalinda stepped away from the doorway and grabbed a sturdy club from the bin of canes and walking sticks she kept near the door. When Para’s breath was unstable, it was good to have a solid backup weapon in case of failure.

The men advanced, weapons out.

Kalinda held her ground. Giving more of it showed weakness.

The men surrounded her. She pulled on Para and condensed the air around her into a solid blue bubble, reciting the Litany of the Chrysalis. The men were young but well-trained. Yet they had not knifed through her defenses immediately, which meant she had a slim chance of outwitting them.