Mokoya was tired. She ignored him and looked at Adi. As crew captain, her decision was the only one that mattered. “This will be no different from any other assignment,” she said. “We know where the naga is now. If we wait for the Machinists to tell us what to do, we might lose it. It might move on. Or attack. We can’t delay.” She added, more amicably, “You’re not the delaying kind.”
“No meh?” Adi’s face bore skepticism, but Mokoya could see her resistance crumbling like weathered clay. She was a practical person, after all, someone whose world was structured to avoid the stingers and thorns of politics. Born a princess to a sprawling, squabbling family, she had married a commoner to escape the strictures of royal life, only to divorce him later. Adi was a woman of few regrets. This assignment—which she had agreed to for Mokoya’s sake—might be one of them.
It was a sentiment Mokoya shared.
Yongcheow scowled. “Look, I know you think I know nothing. Fine. Will you at least listen to the wisdom of the Machinists? This is no ordinary naga, blown from the Quarterlands by accident. The Tensors did something to it. The Protectorate sent it here for a reason. We can’t treat this like one of your normal hunts.”
Mokoya said, “The Machinists’ report said the naga was big. It’s not. Obviously their wisdom has large gaps.”
A frustrated burst of air escaped Yongcheow. “The pugilists from the Grand Monastery arrive tomorrow. Let’s at least wait until—”
Mokoya snapped, “We don’t need Thennjay’s help.”
Silence buried them all. In the heartbeats that followed, Mokoya knew she had spoken too loudly, too fiercely, and cursed the looseness of her mouth. Adi and Yongcheow were frozen in apprehension. Even the crew, flocked on the sand between the tents, had turned to stare.
Mokoya’s diaphragm squeezed, as though the heaviness infesting her belly was pulling the drawstrings tight. She kept her jaw clamped shut as her throat spasmed.
“Okay,” Adi abruptly said into the quiet. “We do it.”
Yongcheow shot her a look of betrayal, his mouth forming a protest. Adi stopped him with a glance. Mokoya watched the split-second exchange and realized that they had talked while she was away. Filaments of worry wormed through her chest. What had they discussed? What had they agreed on?
“We go at next sunrise,” Adi said. “And we only have a few hours to prepare. So come. Chop-chop.”
*
On the periphery of the camp, Mokoya found a series of cracked shale outcrops the right size and shape for cudgel practice. Dozens of yields away, Adi’s crew sat under the gentle circles of sunball-light, sharing spiced tea and tall tales before the hunt. Strains of their laughter drifted over, as though mocking her. The ink of the sky diluted in anticipation of the coming sunrise. Mokoya had ten minutes left to get ready.
She inhaled, becoming hyperaware of her body in relation to the rest of the world: her feet light on the ground, the cudgel loose in her hand, the heaviness solid in her stomach.
She exhaled, and in that breath, the world slowed around her.
Mokoya struck. She was lightning, she was quicksilver, she was the sun that flew across the sky. Her cudgel struck the rock six times in succession, each blow landing with a crack. Needle-precise fractures shot across the rock in dark lines.
She pulled skeins of metal-nature together. The cudgel came to life, its core singing with electricity. Mokoya spun in the sand. The bolt arced and struck the rock, dead center.
It shattered. Shale fragments plowed into the sand, and dust billowed up in circles.
Mokoya moved on to the next outcrop.
She was most alive like this, conscious thought subsumed beneath layers of movement. Focused on destruction, she didn’t have to think about other things. Like seeing Thennjay again, after two years on the run, or the depth of betrayal she felt at Akeha for summoning him here.
Part of her wanted to die in glorious battle against the naga, just because she knew it would hurt Akeha. It’d serve him right, thinking that he knew what to do better than she did. Turtle bastard.
The Slack unmake them all. She swore as she struck the columns of rock over and over. Fuck. Shit. Kanin—nahbeh—chao—cheebye—
You’ve learned to swear like a southern merchant, her brother had said, back in the city. He’d sounded proud of the fact.
Mokoya slammed one end of the cudgel into the sand so hard it stayed upright. Her heart galloped in her chest, and she didn’t know how much of it was exertion, and how much of it was nerves. She wanted to explode the same way the columns of rock had.
She let her cheeks billow with breath several times. Misery and anger blossomed in bright colors over her right arm. No good. Mokoya tightened her cloak over her shoulders, as if that would hide it.
Phoenix had been watching her from a safe distance. Mokoya went over and plunged a hand into her saddlebag, desperately seeking a capture pearl. Just one memory, any memory. A lottery of the past.
She extracted her hand from the bag. In her trembling fingers, a sunrise-pink capture pearl shimmered. Yes. This would do. Mokoya settled cross-legged against Phoenix and tempered her breathing. As she gently tensed through the pearl’s contents, the vision unfolded in her head, brilliant and crisp as the day it was made.
Eien, round-cheeked and sticky, pointed to belts and buttons with their blunt fingers, saying “Yim? Yim?”
A bright afternoon eight years ago. Eien, new to talking, too young to have thought about gender, testing out their favorite word “khim,” which their tender tongue could not yet shape. Yim. Every reflective surface got pointed to and interrogated: “Yim? Yim?”
A belly laugh, and there was Thennjay, sitting across from them in the traveling cart. Broad-shouldered, shaven-headed, dimpled as she remembered him. Ceremonial saffron vivid against the deep rosewood tones of his skin. Eien detached from her lap and bounced toward him. Their father lifted them into his arms, planting a kiss on their head, his smile ivory-brilliant. The child reached for the bangles on his arm. “Yim!”
“Oei.”
Mokoya opened her eyes very slowly, lingering in the golden light for another half second. In the grayish predawn, she found Adi standing over her, arms akimbo, genial expression displaced by a frown. A sunball glowed and bobbed beside her.
“You’re really moody today, you know?”
“I’m fine.” Mokoya cracked her neck, her shoulders.
“Sure or not?” Adi’s tone made clear which side of the divide her opinions fell upon.
Mokoya pulled her cloak over her arm. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t jeopardize the hunt.”
“You think I’m worried about the hunt?”
Mokoya had come Adi’s way two years ago, a strange and angry woman with a giant raptor and a bagful of unfixable problems. Adi had looked that mess and somehow still said, Come with us.
Mokoya sighed. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Okay. Can.” Adi shook her head wryly. She wasn’t fond of arguing, either. “Come. It’s time already.”
Chapter Three