And she remembered a time, very long ago, when killing people was as routine to her as birthing them.

Kalinda pushed herself up.

Gian pushed in from the kitchen, her blue bonsa weapon out. “Kalinda!”

“Hush,” Kalinda said. “They’re through. Hurry downstairs and wait for me. I have a few things to gather upstairs.”

“Who are they… were they?”

“The Kai’s,” Kalinda said. “My hope is they were trailing Lilia and didn’t come specifically for us. If the Kai knows we’re here… well. We have far greater concerns. I want Lilia taken to the other side as quickly as possible.”

“She doesn’t want to go.”

“I didn’t want to kill these men,” Kalinda said, “but my only other option was our deaths. She will come around when she realizes what her choices are. Go.”

Gian pounded down the stairs. A good girl, Gian. Kalinda had chosen that one well. It was difficult to keep a gifted girl out of the temple system, but Kalinda had done it and never regretted it. Gian’s loyalty was hers now, not the temples’.

Kalinda walked up the curl of the stair and into her room. Pulled a trunk from beneath her bed. The lock had no key. It had to be removed by force. She used a simple burst of air to break the lock. Inside was her blued weapon: a yellow bonsa branch as long as her arm, infused with the power of Para. An implanted weapon here, in this world, would have given her away. All that remained of the retractable weapon she once wielded was an old, twisted scar on her wrist. She pulled her knotted baldric over her vest and sheathed the weapon. She scratched at the little glass bead embedded on the inside of her arm, reassuring herself it remained intact. The night was cool but not cold, so she left her dog-hair coat. She shed her skirt and pulled on more robust traveling pants, dark as the leather of her baldric.

She had a number of people to speak to and plans that had to be set in motion. It was too early for this kind of fighting, far too early. Nava’s child, Lilia, should have had another decade to prepare. By then, her studies at the temple would have been finished. One more year, and Kalinda would have taken her aside and begun her formal training. She could have revealed everything more slowly – the coming-together of the worlds, and the bitter war on the horizon – but now… all was in ruin.

Kalinda tugged on the pack stored in the trunk and knotted the long ends of it around her torso. She started downstairs quickly. If they went now, they might be able to make it to the Line station at the Kuallina Stronghold and arrive at the coast by dusk the next day.

She came into the main room.