*
They had imprisoned Tan Khimyan in the rock under Bataanar. The jail was windowless, artificially lit, smooth-and dark-walled. Iron latticework stood between the prisoner and the raja, and a damper hummed in her half of the cell. The device pulled distractingly and disruptively on the Slack in irregular cycles. No slackcrafting their way out of this room. Mokoya felt herself unraveling in its lull.
“This is gross injustice,” Tan Khimyan said. She had a paleness that spoke of injury, not delicacy, and her hair and clothes were in disarray. “After all I have done for your family—”
“For my family?” Raja Choonghey’s voice was a blade, cutting through the slow chill of the cell. “You destroyed my family.”
Beside Mokoya, Rider had gone tense at the sight of their former lover. She reached for their clenched fist and worked her fingers into it, although she wasn’t sure who was comforting whom.
Raja Choonghey was thinner than in the pictures and looked older than Mokoya had expected. Shadows carved relief into the landscape of his face; his brow was bisected by a valley of old worries, and his mouth was framed by a deep furrow on either side. His hair, at fifty, was milk-white.
“You told me Ponchak died. You said you couldn’t save her.” He hurled something in her direction: a book, which struck the iron grille and thumped to the floor spine first, falling open at her feet. Mokoya recognized the logbook Wanbeng had thrown at her, battered from its ordeal in the library tower. “You turned her into this creature.”
“Ponchak volunteered for the experiment,” Tan Khimyan said. “She was obsessed with immortality. You may deny it as much as you like, but you know it to be true.”
“And yet you did nothing!”
“I argued against this atrocity! But my colleagues would not listen. They wanted a Tensor soul.”
“And did you stop them? No! You are just as guilty as they are. I should have your head, you worthless snake.”
Rider interrupted their exchange. “Executing her will not solve our problems.”
The raja turned, frowning at the one who dared to speak without being spoken to. For the first time, he seemed to notice the presence of others in the room. “Who are you?”
“I am Rider. We have met, although I think you do not remember.”
The raja studied Rider like a dead animal he was trying to identify. Slow, disdainful recognition spread. “No, no. I do remember you. You were this woman’s pet, weren’t you?” He hacked out a laugh. “Yes, you were her little amusement. No wonder you keep such contemptible company now. Like that one.” He looked at Akeha, a sneer distorting his face.
“Of course expecting gratitude from you would be too much,” Akeha said. “We merely saved your city from destruction.”
“Your Greatness,” Thennjay said, “little will be achieved by our quarreling. Your daughter’s safety should be our main concern.”
“Oh? Are you saying it isn’t my main concern?” Raja Choonghey had a voice like vinegar: colorless, but with the ability to eat through metal. “You should be more careful with your words, Venerable One.”
Thennjay bowed in apology. “I apologize for my rudeness.”
“We can help you,” Mokoya said. “We know where to find Wanbeng.”
A brief shudder went through the raja, and that quake unearthed a glimpse of an exhausted, grieving father, a man Mokoya could empathize with. Then suspicion clouded his features. “And how would you know that?”
“I saw it in a prophecy,” she said quietly.
A hush smothered the room. Fear flickered in the raja’s expression. “What did you see? Did you see her? Was Wanbeng hurt?”
“I—” Mokoya exhaled. “I don’t know. You should look for yourself.” The room’s chill glacial creep was claiming her bones, and the damper’s droning song hurt her head. “But not here.”
Pride held the raja’s stone-edged demeanor in place as he surveyed them. His mouth twisted, very slightly, as he met Akeha’s defiant gaze. “Very well,” he finally said. He instructed the guard at the door to “watch that snake in her box,” and left the room without looking back.
As they followed in his wake, Tan Khimyan called out, “Swallow!”
Rider hesitated, took a faltering half step forward, then turned to face their former lover. They said nothing; there was no need. Their face was a graven message.
“This turn of events must please you,” she said.
“Nothing about this sequence of events pleases me,” Rider said.
“But you have what you want now, do you not?” She spread her hands, indicating her imprisonment.
“Again, you understand nothing of what I want.”
“Don’t I? I was a victim of your scheme. Now you have moved on. You’ve found a bigger, juicier fish to suck dry.” She laughed. “One no less than the Protector’s own daught—”
Mokoya’s hand snapped up into a fist. Water-nature tightened around Tan Khimyan’s neck. Her words cut off, and her face contorted, hands scrabbling for air. The damper in the cell was no match for Mokoya’s rage, tar-black and potent.
“Mokoya,” Rider gasped.
“If the raja decides to execute you, I will encourage him,” she hissed at the imprisoned woman.
Tan Khimyan’s face purpled like fruit ripening. Rider threw themselves around Mokoya, their trembling arms latching in the small of her back. “Mokoya. Please, stop.”
They only detached themselves when Mokoya let go of Tan Khimyan’s trachea. Akeha was laughing. “Well done, Moko. I’ve wanted to do that for years.”
Thennjay cleared his throat. “We should not keep the raja waiting,” he said. “Come.”
Chapter Seventeen
IT WAS STRANGE, Mokoya thought, watching a prophecy from outside her head.
In the raja’s receiving chambers, cracked and disheveled from the naga’s attack, Rider generated their geometrical tessellations that both bypassed and encompassed all five natures of the Slack. The capture pearl in their hands pierced the air with strange light. Above the table they had gathered around, the prophecy came to life in a blur of moving images and distorted sound.
The events still lingered in her head: half memory, half nightmare. For a moment, watching her other self grieve over Rider’s body, Mokoya had a sense that she was not real. That she was not a person, but merely a mirage invented by the fortunes. She shivered. Around the table a bouquet of emotions played out on faces: shock on the raja’s, sorrow on Thennjay’s, anger on Akeha’s. Rider’s expression was impenetrable.
The prophecy ended as she remembered, leaving unnerved silence in its wake. Rider allowed the audience to absorb what they had just seen.
Thennjay met Mokoya’s gaze, his eyes sad. She looked away. The feeling that she existed on a different plane of the world from everyone else had stayed with her.
“This gives us enough landmarks to locate the naga,” Rider said.
The raja wet his lips. “Was that real?” he asked, gesturing at the air where the prophecy had been.