Spinning Starlight (33 page)

The Khua are more likely to be guarded here, but the guards still go on patrol, still change shifts, still wander off to relieve themselves. Half the Khua I’ve freed since Yilt’s
capture were guarded when I got there, but I waited, watched, and let Spin-Still be the wind pushing me at the right moment.

It’s hide-and-seek all over again.

This one could be tricky. I lie flat on my belly at the top of a ridge overlooking a pair of Khua maybe two hundred yards apart, the closest of any I’ve seen. Around Podra, there are
usually a few miles between them, and away from Podra, it’s more likely a hundred miles at least.

These two Khua are close enough to watch at the same time, but they’re each guarded by three Agnac. One in particular sticks close to the anchors, hardly moving. Maybe these Khua are
extra-special in the Agnac’s weird religion.

Spin-Still appreciates their respect, but wishes they’d listen a little more. I think Agnac yell too much, and a bout of induced silence could do them a world of good.

Once in a while, one of the Agnac wanders off, but that leaves two at one Khua and three at the other, plus I have to worry about whether the wanderer will circle around and find me. They each
carry small lights—their night vision must be awful, because the light of the three moons is plenty—so at least that makes it harder for them to sneak up on me.

I glance at my watch, resisting the twinge as it reminds me of Tiav. I should leave, find another Khua to free. An easier target. But every time I think about getting up, I get the urge to stay,
to wait, to watch. It has to be Spin-Still, and she has to have a reason for it.

All six of the Agnac are in position when the Khua on my left draws everyone’s attention. It whirls and flashes into a larger ball of light, just for a heartbeat. When it goes back to
normal, an extra person stands in front of it.

Even with just the moons and the light of the Khua, I know that build. It’s Tiav.

The Agnac recognize him, too, an instant before Tiav collapses. They’re shouting in their language before he hits the ground.

“Stop, listen to me! You don’t understand!”

His voice comes through amid the angry gargles of the Agnac language, but I don’t understand, either. He just came out of a Khua without using a sempu. Without “authorization.”
He broke the Agnac’s biggest law, and he must’ve been in there since before I arrived.

Sparks.

The three Agnac on my right run to see what’s happened. Their Khua is left unattended.

Double-sparks. That can’t be what Spin-Still expects me to do.

For the first time in days, there’s no clear answer. This time, I choose.

Calculations tick away the seconds. How long it would take me to reach the Khua. The odds none of the Agnac would see me, or notice when I freed it. Those odds are okay, with the diversion
Tiav’s causing.

Then the approach I’d have to take to get to Tiav. The chances of getting out alive. Slim.

Tiav hasn’t gotten up. I remember how an “unfiltered” Khua feels.

Someone has a stick. Raises it. Swings it down.

Tiav cries out.

I’m already halfway down the hill, cursing the numbers that say I won’t be able to loose another Khua, that those I’ve managed won’t be enough. It doesn’t
matter—if Ferinne gets torn to pieces now, maybe it’s as much their own fault as Minali’s.

I don’t know what I’m going to do to the Agnac when I get there. All I know is I have to stop what they’re doing to Tiav.

Before I reach them, the smallest Agnac grabs the stick, tries to wrestle it away. The larger one throws him off. With the way Tiav’s defender twists, the light of the Khua illuminates his
face.

Kalkig.

Something’s changed. No anger in his face. Just fear.

The other five Agnac don’t listen to him, I have no chance of stopping them, but I run anyway.

“Hey!”

“Stop!”

Those aren’t Agnac voices. They have Sampati accents.

Vic appears in front of Tiav, sending a very startled Agnac back a step. The one with the stick swings it at Vic, hitting nothing, and the momentum spins him to face Anton.

It’s not just those two. All eight of my brothers appear, disappear, reappear as the Agnac whirl and shout and fight. My brothers aren’t random, either. They appear everywhere but in
my path. They’re trying to clear the way, give me a chance.

They’re in pain, they’re weak, but they’re making this effort for me. I can’t screw it up. I slip through the commotion, reach Tiav crumpled on the ground.

“That’s her!”

Tiav looks up at those words, just as I grab hold to haul him to his feet. The spark is back in his eyes, the spark that sees who I am. Light floods through me, but only sharpens my fear.

“Ignore them. Get her!” one of the Agnac shouts.

Kalkig picks up a stick of his own and swings it, but not at us—at his own people. “Liddi, get him out of here.”

The shock of hearing Kalkig use my name rather than
heathen
freezes me for the smallest moment. Long enough for him to look over his shoulder at me. Alien gestures vary, but our eyes
all speak the same language. Kalkig isn’t sure he trusts
me
yet, but something changed in the days I’ve been gone. He trusts his friend again, and he’s sorry for what
he’s done.

I’m sorry about all of it.

Tiav can barely stand. There’s only one way out. I hate to do it to him when he’s already hurting, but the alternative would be a lot worse.

With silent thanks to my brothers, I wrap one arm tight around Tiav’s waist, reach for the anchored Khua with my free hand, and hope Spin-Still will tell her friend to drop us off
somewhere decent.

The Khua are by far my least favorite way to travel, but this time is worse than usual. Mind-ripping chaos, more pain than a person should be able to take, that’s all
normal. The nauseating twist and stretch like someone’s trying to make me taller, the choking dimness surrounding us…those are new. Just when I’m certain we’ve reached the end,
it starts over.

Days. Years. Microseconds.

Then we’re out. Tiav’s full weight collapses against me, and my own body is convinced its cells have imploded. I struggle to lower him to the ground without dropping him.

The pain isn’t real. It’s in my head.

Surprisingly, focusing on that thought diminishes the pain, enough that I can take stock of our surroundings.

A canyon between two wooded mountains. The rush of water reveals a river nearby. Two crystal spires anchor a Khua behind us. And it’s daylight.

So, still on Ferinne, but the other side of it. I thought we couldn’t do that.

Tiav groans and tries to push himself up, but I push him back. Energy charges through me at being close to him again, touching him again, but I can’t think about that. I don’t know
how badly the Agnac injured him. The bruises on his arms will hurt for a few days, and I tenderly check his ribs. He winces, but I don’t think anything’s broken.

“I’m fine,” he insists, even if his voice doesn’t sound fine at all. Slowly, he sits up, just partway, and scoots to lean back against a rock. Even that much effort winds
him. “Liddi, I’m so sorry. I should’ve let you explain, but I didn’t understand. I felt something wrong in the Khua, like a sickness, and I saw your brothers and thought
they did it. Then you had the sempu and the Khua with it. Everything, my whole life has been about the Khua, learning from them, but this…I didn’t understand, and I was scared.”

My brothers
are
the cause, but not on purpose. That’s the only thing Tiav misinterpreted, and I can’t blame him for that. I lay my hand on his chest, hoping to calm him, but
all I can feel is how hard his heart pounds. The tension of his shallow breaths. I wonder how he understands now, what happened to change his mind.

He still knows how to read my eyes. “No matter how we deployed people to guard the Khua, you seemed to go straight for the ones left open. Everyone’s saying you imprisoned that
one.” His eyes move to Spin-Still briefly. “That you’re using it against its will. But I thought about what Quain said, about the Khua allowing you to come here from Sampati.
Quain wouldn’t talk to me, and I started to wonder if the Khua was helping you. I knew I was missing something.”

I’m
still
missing something. I rap my knuckles on a nearby rock and point to my head.

“Because I’m hard-headed?”

No, not that—pretty sure I’m harder-headed than he is. I jut out my chin and lean forward on my arms like an Agnac might.

“Kal? I’m not sure if the logic sank in or if it was just seeing how miserable I was, but he agreed something was off. Especially once I explained how the Khua have been getting more
and more confusing since
before
you arrived. He told his people he had those shrines covered and I disabled the alarms. Then I went in to ask the Khua if I was right.”

I trace a circle on his chest, where a crystal disk should lie but doesn’t.

“Without a sempu,” he confirms. “It was…I’d been told how awful communing was before we had the disks, but I had no idea what it’s really like. Hours felt like a
lifetime. Too long, it gave that patrol time to show up. Some of those men, your brothers, they found me and tried to explain, but it was hard for me to focus. They’re trapped, right? Because
of what someone on Sampati is doing, the one who put that thing in your throat so if you speak, they’ll die. And that’s why you wouldn’t tell me. You were afraid
we
might
hurt them if we knew, and they’re your brothers, so you had to keep them safe.”

He knows. He understands. Not everything yet, but enough. And he’s not angry anymore.

Tiav sees my relief and takes my hand. The wrong hand. The sharp sting jerks it back.

“What’s the matter? Let me see.”

I turn my hand, and he gently holds it by my wrist. His eyes break my heart. He thinks it’s his fault.

“The design,” he murmurs. “It’s the same.”

I noticed that, too. The angry red marks on my palm are a perfect match of the engraved pattern on the sempu. That’s how the energy cuts through.

Then he traces his thumbs lightly up either side of my hand, outside the edges of the scars, and I don’t want to think about Khua or conduits or Minali or my brothers anymore.

I have to kiss Tiav, so I do.

My hair is a tangled mess, and I’ve been days without anything other than the minimal hygiene kit in my pack. I don’t care. Based on the way his arms wind around me, drawing me
closer, he doesn’t either.

When he pulls me
too
close and winces, I care about that. He only lets me back away a little.

“I said I’m fine.”

I trace my fingers over his ear, through his hair, and mouth the word.
Liar.
That makes him smile, but it doesn’t last.

“Liddi, what are we going to do? The Agnac are putting out an imminent threat order. They could kill you on sight, no trial. The Crimna are fighting it, the Ferinnes and Haleians
can’t decide, and the Izim won’t talk to anyone. My mother doesn’t know what to think, and she
always
knows. The rest of the Aelo know something’s wrong with the
Khua, but think it’s
because of
what you’ve been doing. I can try, but I don’t—I’m afraid no one will listen to me now. As soon as those Agnac report back to
Podra, I’ll be stripped of my title.”

A chasm opens up in my chest, overflowing with guilt. It’s all fallen apart. Tiav will lose his status as Aelo—what he’s worked at all his life—and his whole world is in
chaos. The death sentence hanging over me could extend to him as well.

And Yilt.
Imminent threat order.
Yilt may not have as much time as I thought he did.

I use my finger to draw swiftly in the dirt. A small figure to represent myself, and a hulking figure for Yilt. I point to it and look to Tiav, letting all the panic I feel paint itself into my
expression.

“That Haleian who helped you? No, they won’t execute him. It would mean war with his people. But he’ll be kept in a detention facility, maybe for the rest of his
life.”

That news is only a small relief. Yilt won’t die for helping me, but wasting his life away in confinement won’t be much better. I don’t have the answer to Tiav’s first
question—I don’t know what we’ll do next—but I know somehow in the end we have to make everyone understand. They have to see Yilt doesn’t deserve that punishment.

“Okay, one step at a time,” Tiav says when I don’t offer anything else. “We’re safe for now. How are we still on Ferinne? You can’t travel by Khua within the
same planet.”

I don’t know how to explain it to him, or everything else he needs to know. Maybe Spin-Still can tell him.

It’s about time I give back what I inadvertently stole. I lift the cord from around my neck and lower it over Tiav’s head. He closes his eyes and his breathing slows as he
concentrates on communicating with her.