#qonai

Zhe'ārani jumped, startled as Guodei stepped out of the shadows.

That was something she had noticed, with the other former Initiates. With herself, too, sometimes. They had a tendency to lurk.

She crossed her arms defensively, subconsciously correcting her posture.

"I need to shave," Guodei stated, as if that was something Zhe’ārani had ever cared about or needed to know the schedule of.

"Okay?" she signed.

"So I need a razor."

"Go ask the quartermaster." Zhe’ārani did not have some kind of secret supply of razors. She did not possess any razors.

"I wanted to make sure you’re okay with me having a razor," signed Guodei. "My-" She gestured to her growing stubble. "You understand. But I won't do it if it would make you feel unsafe for me to have a razor, because this is your home and we are your guests."

Zhe'ārani rolled her eyes. Guodei did not need a razor to hurt her. Guodei was made specifically for hurting people and had multiple blades as permanent parts of her body.

"Why did you leave?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why did you leave the Temple?"

"I am- I was going to be a Lieutenant of Corysecli," Guodei signed. "My first directive was to protect the Vessel, carry out Corysecli's will, and uphold and respect Her Law. My second was to protect my cohort. I decided the second was more important."

"I wasn't aware you were capable of deciding anything for yourself," Zhe’ārani snarked.

"Ši Arroakhai Kjú, I have spent my whole life-" She cut herself off. "No. We're not going to do this, because I don’t want to talk about it and you don’t want to hear about it."

Part of Zhe'ārani did want to hear about it. To have Guodei explain to her why she was like this. To find out what had made her a hard shell with an empty inside. To know what exactly had turned her more weapon than person.

But it was private, and she knew it could never make her forgive Guodei for Qatriong. Nothing could.

"Go talk to the quartermaster," she signed. "I don't care if you shave. I'm not afraid," she lied. "You can even cut your food with a knife, if it pleases you."

"The child- Qonai said she wanted to be like me," Guodei signed. "I couldn't let that happen."

They stared at each other for a moment. Zhe'ārani slowly figured out what Guodei had meant she understood.

"If you want, like- hormones, surgeries, medical stuff," Zhe'ārani began. "Our doctor has connections-"

An alarm went off, lights flashing and sound blaring so loud that even Zhe'ārani could hear it.

Guodei jumped and drew her divine sword, proving Zhe'ārani's point about the razor not mattering. "What's that?" she signed one-handed.

"I don't know." Zhe'ārani slapped her hands over her ears. It must be new since the fire.

Since the last time the empire attacked.

Oh, no.

"I'm going to find the others," Guodei signed, just as Zhe'ārani's father came tearing down the street towards them.

She'd never seen him run so fast.

"Evacuate," he signed, before grabbing her arm and pulling her in the direction of the forest.

She stumbled, then dug her feet in and pulled her arm back. "What's happening?"

"We're being attacked," Rokhesh signed. "Come. We have to go. They're twenty minutes away at most and we need to be well and truly gone."

Zhe'ārani was done being pushed around. She wasn't going to lose her home yet again.

"Wait," she signed. "I have an idea. You go. I'll find you."

"Zhe'ārani, please," he signed. "I can't lose you again."

"I'll be fine."

"I thought you were dead," he signed, eyes glistening with tears. "For nearly two years, I thought you were dead. Please don't make me go through that again. I only just got you back."

"Daddy," she signed. "I'll be okay. I can handle myself. I think I can protect our home, and I only just got it back. Isn't that worth it?"

"Not if it costs your life."

"It won't," she signed, a promise she was seventy percent sure she could keep.

"It's not fair to ask you to do this," Zhe'ārani signed. "I promised you were safe here and this isn't that, but- There's not that many of them. I think we can do it. I… There's nowhere else for any of us to go," she added.

She bristled at the way they all looked to Guodei. We're out of there! she wanted to shout. You can make your own choices! You don't have to follow that hierarchy anymore! She doesn't deserve your trust!

But they didn't have time for that.

Guodei had put her divine sword away, so when she signed it was clear and fast with both hands. "This place has taken us in when no other would have." She tipped her head to Zhe'ārani in an unnerving half-semblance of a bow that made Zhe'ārani immediately feel dirty despite Guodei remaining on her feet.

Finding no argument from the others, Guodei snapped back into a commanding mode. "Abhaonai, Nesyue, Retmiq: there are hunting rifles in a locked chest at the quartermaster's. We need seven; find a crossbow or something else smaller for Zhe'ārani. Kjotar, take the child and go with them; when you have a gun, get her out of here and stay with her until one of us finds you. See if you can join the other people who left. Qonai, these soldiers will kill you if they see you, so you must stay with Kjotar. Kaelía, Līsandyr, you're with me."

Then it was just the four of them, Zhe'ārani and Kaelía and Līsandyr and Guodei. Guodei's continued presence somewhat ruined that of Zhe'ārani's friends.

Maybe because Zhe'ārani was no longer one of them, or maybe simply because Guodei knew she couldn't give her orders anymore, there were no instructions for Zhe'ārani.

"What direction are they coming from and how many?" asked Guodei as Kaelía bent down to look through a bag.

"From the Industrial District," signed Zhe'ārani. "Probably about… four dozen?" She cringed. Maybe this had been a bad idea and they were too outnumbered. One Initiate easily outmatched one conscripted soldier or probably even two, but… this wasn't even close to that ratio.

But.

"I'll need to stand on your shoulders," she told Guodei. She was, unfortunately, the tallest of them by far. Līsandyr was the next closest, but he would need his hands free to most effectively direct his magic, and he wasn't nearly as sturdily built in the shoulders.

Before Guodei could ask why, Kaelía unscrewed the top of a massive jar of silvery liquid and formed the liquid into a pair of long, solid daggers. "Anyone kills me and I don't kill them too, they can have a nice slow death from heavy metal poisoning."

Mercury. With how little Kaelía relied on her own magic, Zhe'ārani rarely remembered that she had the ability. Logē, the most magically skilled of the Divine Soldiers responsible for training them, hadn't given her the same kind of intensive focus as they did Zhe'ārani and Līsandyr- and that was good, Kaelía's points on the board had almost always been in the negative, and all more time would have gotten her were more negative points and more punishments and probably not any extra help and improvement. Magic required focus and patience and getting good at it required dedication, and Kaelía didn't really have any of those in that subject.

That jar, stolen from the Temple, had to have filled most of the bag.

"There's a pistol in here if you can hold it," Kaelía added, but Zhe'ārani shook her head. Her hands were too small for most things made for average adults, including guns.

They stopped to get her hearing aids on the way across the commune. She wouldn't turn them on until she had to, because it really was overwhelming to have that amount of auditory input, but they were going into an unknown situation and it was best to be prepared for anything.

Nesyue, Retmiq, and Abhaonai caught up to them with the guns a few minutes before they expected the soldiers to arrive. They had five. Zhe'ārani knew there had been a few more than that, but Kjotar had one and the evacuees had probably taken a couple. It was one fewer than they'd wanted.

Kaelía's mercury rested like shining vambraces over her forearms. Zhe'ārani wondered if it took more effort for her to keep it solid in one shape or to repeatedly change its form, given its fluid nature at this temperature. It must be painfully cold even through her thin gloves and sleeves.

"I fight best up close, anyway," she signed, the metal flashing. It peeled off her arms and into liquid blobs floating above her palms, and Zhe'ārani decided she probably couldn't focus on keeping it in one shape for very long.

"You're more vulnerable at close range." Guodei shoved a rifle into her hands, almost making her drop the mercury if Līsandyr hadn't been there to catch it. "You're shooting. I don't care that it's less exciting."

The sight of Kaelía holding a rifle sent an unexpected shudder through Zhe'ārani. An old memory, Kaelía's grin not yet made lopsided by scars, the gun loaded with paint but built to look and feel very real. Better start running!

She pushed it away and turned on her hearing aids. The first soldiers were starting to appear through the trees.

"I need to be above them now," she signed. "Līs- can you hold them still once there's more of them?"

Guodei dropped down to one knee and offered her hands to help Zhe'ārani up.

"He's not good at large scales," Kaelía snapped. "I can keep them back. You have ten minutes if you're lucky but probably more like five." She dropped the rifle and flung out a hand. The mercury followed in a very long, very thin line. "HEY!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "SEE THAT WIRE? IT'S RAZOR SHARP AND IF IT GETS IN YOUR BLOOD YOU'LL DIE HORRIBLY SO STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!"

"Mercury's not-" Retmiq began, but stopped with a grunt when Nesyue elbowed him.

Guodei wrapped her hands around Zhe'ārani's ankles and stood. There was a wobble as she rose, and Zhe'ārani was hit with the sudden fear that Guodei's prosthetic leg would slip with the extra weight and she would fall.

She directed Guodei to put her on a branch of a nearby tree instead. It was almost as good a position and much more reliable and comfortable. A tree couldn't slip and no tree had ever betrayed her trust.

"Līs!" she signed. "Make me louder?"

He nodded and sent tendrils of gold magic her way as she imagined the shapes of the words she wanted to say.

She wasn't as good with words from her mouth. She hoped desperately that they wouldn't fail her now.

Līsandyr's magic wrapped around her throat and tingled as it sank under her skin.

"SOLDIERS," she said, and her voice was so loud it shook her. "GO HOME. YOU DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE TO JOIN-" (Yes, they had, to some extent, but she needed to appeal to their preexisting beliefs for her magic to take hold.) "-BUT YOU HAVE A CHOICE NOW. YOU DON'T WANT TO DESTROY A PEACEFUL VILLAGE. YOU WANT TO GO HOME." If she squinted to focus her eyes, the group might be getting smaller. It was hard to tell with all the trees. "THIS PLACE IS DEFENDED BY A FULL COHORT OF ARMED DIVINE SOLDIERS-" (A slight stretch of the truth.) "-AND A VERY POWERFUL ELECTRON MAGE. IF YOU ATTACK IT YOU WILL DIE. YOU WANT TO GO HOME."

She so hoped her voice had even been understandable.

Kaelía's mercury snapped back towards her.

The number of soldiers that charged them was, definitely, less than the number that had originally been advancing on the commune. Maybe half the size. Still outnumbering them, but not as dramatically.

With a boost from Nesyue, Retmiq was quickly in the tree with Zhe'ārani. He climbed up higher using a few more branches Zhe'ārani couldn't reach and then unslung the rifle from his back.

Retmiq was an excellent shot.

Zhe'ārani looked away. She wanted to keep an eye on Kaelía and Līsandyr, but every time she saw an injury she felt like she'd been punched in the stomach and every time someone went down she saw Qatriong's still body in her mind.

There was a soldier right below her now. Even a single one getting through could blow up her home. It wasn't fair to leave the others to fight while she covered her eyes and hid.

She dropped a foot or two straight down from her place in the tree. The soldier went down as she landed on them.

She didn't hear the soldier's neck snap, but she felt it. It was over before they even hit the ground together.

Zhe'ārani thought of everything that a life was, and how she had just ended one. Just like that. Who would miss them. What they could have gone on to do over the next sixty years they wouldn't get, all the things they must have already done in the twenty or twenty-five years she'd just cut short.

She felt sick. How could the others do this so easily? How could Guodei have done it to Qatriong? How could anyone do such a thing to anyone else?

Why couldn't you have just gone home? she thought. I told you to go home. You could have gone home.

They were all happy with her. Celebrating. Everyone trusted the former Initiates now because they'd protected the commune.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Ghurvi'airra asked her. "Are you hurt?"

Zhe'ārani shrugged and shook her head. She couldn't talk to Ghurvi'airra about this. She would be disgusted, or she just wouldn't understand.

All that time at the Temple and she'd never killed anyone. Until today.

She wished Qatriong were here to tell her what to do. She'd have understood.

She had to make an offering for the dead soldier's soul. One for Qatriong too.

On the way to find appropriate food- something Qatriong would like, and… something else for the dead soldier, whom she'd never find out the preferences of, she passed Guodei, and all of a sudden she just had to know.

Guodei wasn't celebrating. She was just lurking. As per fucking usual. Blood in the creases of her hands and dead empty eyes and lurking.

Zhe'ārani had stopped hating her quite as much at some point. It came back with a vengeance now. She hated the way her shoulders tried to fix themselves around her and she hated the way her chest went tense around her and she hated the way she could always see Qatriong's blood on her hands even though it had long been washed away, and she hated the way Guodei never slouched or flinched or yelled and always just stared like she could see everything you didn't want her to, and she hated that no one else hated her even though Qatriong had been their friend too. It wasn't fair that Guodei could just take Qatriong's life away and rip Zhe'ārani's heart out and get away with it.

"I killed someone today," Zhe'ārani signed.

Guodei didn't say anything, just waited, and that made Zhe'ārani even angrier.

"It was awful! How could you do that to people? To Qatriong?"

"I don't know, Ši Arroakhai Kjú, because I'm a monster," signed Guodei. "Is that what you want me to say? Does it make you feel better if I was just born wrong?"

She hated how Guodei always said what other people wanted to hear. She hated how Guodei always knew what other people wanted to hear when Zhe'ārani could never guess right. "I want the truth!"

"Do you?" challenged Guodei. "Because last time I told you, you freaked out and started your own personal war against a millenia-old institution."

Zhe'ārani screamed in frustration and kicked her in the shin as hard as she could. It was the wrong leg. All she achieved was hurting her own toes. She hated that Guodei was so fucking impenetrable.

"Qatriong was a danger to the Temple," signed Guodei. "Would you have rathered I bring her in alive? Because that's what Gētnyx wanted, and she made very sure I knew that, but you know that Qatriong would never have allowed herself to be taken alive and questioned. She died quickly and privately. Would you have preferred to have watched her cry and scream and plead for her life as Gētnyx had me make an example of her to all of you? She was always going to die, and she knew that. She knew she'd be discovered eventually. And you know, I respect her for that, it was brave and she kept it going for an impressively long time before anyone started to suspect, but there is no world in which Qatriong both joined the Temple as a spy and survived. The best I could do was make it quick."

"I could have saved her!" She could have used her magic and- and-

"You could not have saved her," signed Guodei. "No one could have saved her, including me. There is a very long list of things I have to live with and I'm sure there are more to come. Look, I owe you so much, Ši Arroakhai Kjú, but I'm not- I'm not going to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness."

"Good!" Zhe'ārani signed. "I wouldn't forgive you anyway! I never will! I wish she was alive and you were dead!"

None of that had made her feel any better at all.

Kaelía ran into her between the food hall and the shrine. She was celebrating. Celebrating so enthusiastically, in fact, that she collided directly with Zhe'ārani.

The impact dislodged her grip on the food. She burst into tears.

"Hey, be happy!" Kaelía signed. "We won!" She seemed to notice the spilled food when Līsandyr bent to pick it up. "You can get some more food. It's okay."

Zhe'ārani sat down on the ground and hid her face. She put one hand in her mouth. It was all just too much.

She shrugged off the stiff arm Kaelía tried to put around her. She didn't want to be touched right now

She felt Līsandyr's magic form a soft cocoon, separating the three of them from the too-much world.

They let her cry in silence. It was weird and awkward but maybe it was what she needed. Nothing was okay and she didn't want them to try to tell her it was.

When she eventually looked up, Līsandyr had cleaned up all the food and put it back on the tray.

She took her hand out of her mouth. "Līs."

"Yeah?"

"Is killing hard for you?" she signed.

He nodded.

"Is it always?"

He nodded again. "Usually."

"Soft," Kaelía signed, but in a way that seemed like she was maybe trying to be affectionate.

"I was going to make an offering for Qatriong." She didn't mention the soldier she'd killed. Kaelía would think it was silly.

Līsandyr nodded.

"Can you come with me?" she signed. "You don't have to do anything. I know it's not the same as what you're used to. I just… I just want company. Please."

Līsandyr nodded again.

"Okay," signed Kaelía.

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With the state the city was in, it was even riskier for Zhe'ārani to keep doing her murals, but she had to. She was being sent more and more names and pictures every day. Someone needed to make sure these people weren't erased and forgotten.

She was deep in focus. She needed to get the colours right on the hair. She wanted it to look as real and individual as possible. It was easier without distractions, so she'd turned her hearing aids off.

It meant she didn't know she'd been caught until the shadow loomed over her.

She didn't even have time to scream before she was face-down on the ground with her arms wrenched behind her.

After a brief freeze, she twisted around and bit as hard as she could into the first fleshy thing she could find. She had been trained as an Initiate of Corysecli for nearly two years. She wasn't helpless and she refused to let her body act like she was.

Her hands were cuffed, but she could bite and she could kick and bite and kick she would.

There was a second person, and then a third- a Divine Soldier, not one from the Prime Temple so probably one of the locals- coming for her, but then there were suddenly a lot more people, and-

Strands of golden magic, Līsandyr's magic, twisted through the air. No one else could see the way it moved through space like she could, but Zhe'ārani was only half human.

The gold threads pierced through the body of the police officer she was fighting, and then-

Zhe'ārani turned her head to the side and threw up as the officer's body did things a body never should, folding up into a neat little square of meat and fabric and hair and blood.

She shoved herself backwards along the concrete until she was- not a comfortable distance away, but a bit less immediately close.

What the fuck.

She didn't see Līsandyr kill people very often, and certainly not like that.

She caught a glimpse of some of the other Initiates- Nesyue having tackled the second officer to the ground, Kaelía and Abhaonai and Kjotar and Retmiq facing off against the Divine Soldier because four Initiates might just stand a chance against one full godsworn- before Līsandyr's tall form blocked her view.

He squatted down in front of her.

"Okay?" he signed.

With the confused mush of emotions inside her, Zhe'ārani wasn't sure if she was, but she nodded anyway. She knew what he meant. She was bruised all over and her shoulders were definitely strained, but she wasn't seriously injured.

He reached around behind her, hands closing around her wrists, and a moment later she felt the cuffs release.

"Thank you," she signed, not looking at the formerly-a-person meat cube.

Līsandyr held out his hands to help her up, and she took them.

Nesyue had her hand on Kaelía's shoulder as its repeated stabbing came to a stop. Retmiq was nursing an injured arm and helping Abhaonai cover a deep-looking slash in his leg, and Kjotar's nose had been smashed. All four of Kaelía, Abhaonai, Kjotar, and Retmiq had bright red arterial spray spattered across their robes, and in Kaelía's case its face.

Guodei stood at the end of the alley, facing away from them. She had the kid- Qonai, the little girl who was meant to one day replace her as Lieutenant Initiate, whom Zhe'ārani was ashamed to realize she'd hardly thought about at all since leaving- in her arms, and Qonai's face was ruddy from screaming and her fists were pounding against Guodei's back, but she was far too small to have much effect. Despite herself, Zhe'ārani felt a pang at the wounds that must be reopening under the blows to cause the spots of blood high on the back of Guodei's robes.

All three of Zhe'ārani's attackers were dead.

Fortunately, it wasn't that far back to the commune. They weren't exactly inconspicuous, and the car the police and the Divine Soldier had presumably arrived in wasn't big enough for eight.

"You okay?" Zhe'ārani signed as they waited for a patrol near a closed boat-rental place to turn the corner away from where they needed to cross.

"Fine," Kaelía replied. "Līs checked me over."

She knew that. He'd checked everyone over. "The Divine Soldier- You knew each-"

The way Moghrlai Gurodstadit's Divine Soldiers and Kaelía had greeted each other all that time ago had been like family.

"I'm fine." Kaelía stepped out into the boatyard and waved the rest of them along, ending the conversation.

Qonai almost tipped the stolen- borrowed, Zhe'ārani told herself, she'd bring it back sometime- boat, then cried herself to sleep in Guodei's arms. Zhe'ārani found herself tearing up in sympathy.

"She figured out we weren't going back about three days in," Abhaonai signed. "It's her home, and she's not even five, she doesn't know any different. But we couldn't just leave her there."

Zhe'ārani nodded. It would have been far worse to leave her behind. No one should ever go through what they had, especially not a little kid, and she would never have gotten out after this.

"Poor thing," Abhaonai added.

Zhe'ārani nodded again.

"It adds kidnapping to the desertion, treason, breach of contract, theft, leaving without permission from a legal guardian, breach of Temple law, and now murder," signed Retmiq. "You're a saint for taking us in with all that following us, Zhe'ārani."

"We don't have saints in my religion."

"It's a figure of speech," signed Retmiq.

"Oh."

"He just means you're risking a lot," signed Abhaonai.

"She was already in danger anyway," signed Kaelía.

Zhe'ārani nodded.

None of them mentioned that Gētnyx had already tried to send Guodei to kill her some time ago.

The cabin for the Initiates had been built and ready for a while now, waiting for when they'd arrive.

"This is for you," Khadnarrai explained. "You can move these screens and set up the space however you want. You can use the kitchen here, but we also have a communal meal area that you're welcome to share."

Rokhesh set the bag down on the floor. "We collected up clothes from the quartermaster and some donations. Hopefully there will be something to fit everyone. If you can all take your measurements, someone can take them to our sewist and have a few things made or some of these altered. If you want to all look through these and get changed, Zhe'ārani can give you a tour later and introduce you to some people."

"I painted the house a quiet colour for you," Zhe'ārani told Līsandyr. Like her, he didn't do well with change, and she wanted to make this transition as easy on him as possible.

Līsandyr nodded vaguely in acknowledgement, hugging himself.

Rokhesh opened the bag and held out a small pair of overalls to Qonai. They had grass stains on the knees from whoever had owned them before. "Why don't you try these on?" he said.

Zhe'ārani got her bass voice from him (well, and the testosterone, but it was his genes that was acting on) and could hear him almost clearly with her hearing aids on.

Qonai kicked his outstretched hand.

Rokhesh dropped the overalls and pulled his hand back. It was too sharp for Zhe'ārani to hear, but his lips formed the shape of an exclamation of pain.

Something in the room shifted. Zhe'ārani didn't see anyone really move much individually, but all of a sudden, the Initiates- herself included- were standing as if to protect Qonai. The way the tension was directed, she realized with a pang that she was no longer one of them.

Qonai burst into tears. Even with her hearing aids, Zhe'ārani couldn't really make out her high child's voice, but she was saying something, the same thing over and over. She only caught a couple words- "sorry," "bad."

Guodei tucked Qonai defensively behind her legs.

Līsandyr was standing frozen, eyes fixed unmovingly on Rokhesh. He flinched away when Zhe'ārani tried to hold his hand to comfort him.

It seemed to take Rokhesh much longer to figure out what was happening than it had Zhe'ārani. After an endless moment, he half-squatted to be closer in height to Qonai. "Hey, there. Qonai, is it? Did I scare you?"

Qonai didn't respond, just hid her face in Guodei's robes, but Kjotar next to them nodded and crossed his arms.

"I shouted because you hurt me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hurt you, okay?" Rokhesh's gaze travelled over all of them, even Zhe'ārani. "We don't do that here." He signed the same thing, so Abhaonai would know too.

"You don't need to change your clothes if you don't want to," Khadnarrai signed. "What you wear is your choice. The clothes will stay here, and you can look through them, and whenever you're ready, or if you just need something to wear while those robes are being washed, they will still be here for you."

From what Zhe'ārani could make out, she repeated the same thing out loud, to make sure she was understood.

The tension slowly died down. Kjotar sat down on the floor and started poking through the bag, with Abhaonai soon joining and sorting the clothes into size groups. Kaelía gently pulled Līsandyr over to itself and murmured to him quietly. Nesyue took a T-shirt with a big flower printed on the front and tossed it at Guodei with a smirk.

To Zhe'ārani's surprise, and maybe Nesyue's too given the way her eyebrows shot up, Guodei took the shirt.

With her back to the wall, she pulled off her bloodstained robes and dropped them unceremoniously on the floor. "Burn it."

Zhe'ārani couldn't not notice the uncomfortable way Rokhesh and Khadnarrai reacted to the Temple brand over Guodei's heart and the smaller scars flecked across her chest and belly. They couldn't even see the whip scars or any unhealed wounds apart from some bruises. There was a reason she was still wearing a full half-sleeved shirt and long pants, even though it was getting hot enough that many people were just wearing the Gharan wrap dress that left the back and arms and much of the chest exposed and let everything breath with its looseness.

She almost laughed at the incongruity of Guodei in a flower shirt.

Looking up from his careful search of the clothing piles, Retmiq did laugh.

Guodei made a rude gesture. "Shut up. Clothes are clothes and I'm not wearing those robes anymore. They're so dirty by now anyway." She was facing Zhe'ārani pretty much head-on, so what she couldn't hear wasn't that hard to fill in with lip-reading.

Retmiq snapped his head back to the clothes. "Yes, Lieutenant."

Nesyue gave Guodei a look. "She didn't mean it like that, Retmiq."

Retmiq pursed his lips. "I don't know," he signed.

"No, she's right," said Guodei. "We're not doing that anymore."

Nesyue put her hand on top of Retmiq's tiny curls. "You have to be more clear with him."

Retmiq snapped something that Zhe'ārani didn't catch.

"Okay. Sorry. I was just sticking up for you."

Retmiq met Zhe'ārani's eyes briefly. "Babying me," he signed.

Zhe'ārani rolled her eyes. "Nuisances."

She and Retmiq heavily suspected he, too, was like her and Līsandyr. Aišoko, or 'Social-Emotional Dysregulation,' or whatever they were to call it, all three of them different in very similar ways. She didn't know if Līsandyr agreed- all he would say on the matter was that it was rude to speculate, and that he would never want to imply someone was like him, which (still) made Zhe'ārani so angry at everyone he'd grown up around that she had been distracted from finding out what he thought of Retmiq by her anger and Līsandyr's shame.

When Zhe'ārani was no longer talking to them, Rokhesh pulled her gently aside.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, Rani," he began. "I don't want to upset you by making you talk about it. But I noticed- A brand? On Guodei's chest."

Zhe'ārani's hand drifted up to her own chest.

"Did they do that to you, too, sweet pea?"

Zhe'ārani was about to dismiss it, say it wasn't that bad, there had been so much going on that day and she had been so overwhelmed by it all that she barely even remembered being branded.

But.

It was a big deal. Even if she hardly remembered the pain- Gētnyx had branded her, like they used to do to slaves, like some people did to farm animals, to mark the Temple's ownership over Zhe'ārani's body.

She nodded, angry tears welling in her eyes.

They had fucking branded her.

The tour of the commune started at the quartermaster's. Zhe'ārani had recruited her reluctant old friends Āvolú and Ghurvi'airra to help with both carrying anything they might pick up and with being local teenagers (who hadn't been missing for almost two years and didn't have gaps in their memories) to show the Initiates- former Initiates- what kinds of things they might want to do as (mostly, except for Guodei on one side and Qonai on the other) teenaged residents of the commune.

Abhaonai tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to face him.

"Kjotar wants me to tell you that he's never met this many people who look like us before," he signed.

Zhe'ārani nodded. Kjotar talked to others if he had to, if he was ordered to report or if he really needed something, but mostly he just talked to his brother.

Ghurvi'airra's eyes followed Abhaonai's hands. "Are you Gharan?" she asked.

"Our mother was," Abhaonai signed. "We were both born in Zioshue, though, and Kjotar was still pretty young when she died, so while we knew a couple other people with the same ancestry, he doesn't remember them. It wasn't very many, anyway."

"Big age gap?"

Ahbaonai shrugged. "Five years."

"Is it common for a pair of siblings to be in the same Temple?"

"Not by birth."

"I told you, they make it so the Temple is your family now instead," signed Zhe'ārani. She recalled how Līsandyr's sister hadn't seen him in years. "If you have any other family from before, they don't count anymore. They usually don't get to visit."

"Some kids will compete to get in as a legal escape if things are bad at home," signed Abhaonai. "Some of the other contestants I knew were trying to do that. We didn't quite… know about… you know. Wouldn't have brought my seven-year-old brother into the Temple if I'd really known what it would be like."

Nesyue never talked about her birth family, which made Zhe'ārani wonder that had been the case for her. She had won her place like Abhaonai and Qatriong, not come from a noble or military family like Līsandyr and Retmiq.

Āvolú let go of the bag of toiletries resting on their lap. "Wait."

The toiletries almost spilled, and Zhe'ārani flung her arm out to stop the bag from tipping over.

"You compete to get in?" Āvolú asked.

Sometimes Zhe'ārani really felt the gap of experience. The others who had been raised in the commune had never really lived in the real empire. There was a lot they just… didn't know, because they'd never had a reason to. It wasn't as though they got usable service from most external TV or radio stations out here.

"Yeah, they hold tournaments in recruitment years," signed Abhaonai. "I don't really know what the other Temples do. Most of them weren't recruiting that year and fighting was what I was good at."

"It was different for me," Zhe'ārani clarified. She didn't want her friends thinking she had turned to heresy on purpose.

"They hold these fights for twelve-year-olds?" Āvolú signed. "Like, to the death, or… like a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle, no rules kind of thing, or what? Is it at all safe?"

"It's not usually to the death."

Sometimes Zhe'ārani also really felt it that her perception of normalcy had been very much altered by her time at the Temple and she couldn't quite put it back into alignment with her old friends'.

"Not usually?"

"It's not supposed to be," signed Abhaonai. "It's dangerous, though. It's not staged. Things happen. It wouldn't work if it wasn't real."

Qatriong had once confessed to Zhe'ārani that she had killed her opponent in her semifinal match. I couldn't yield and ia-rū wouldn't either. By the time I realized… Skulls are fragile. It was over fast. Abhaonai was a year older than Zhe'ārani and Qatriong and would have seen that match as an Initiate about to have a new cohort member.

Kaelía interrupted by making a beeline for Āvolú, completely bypassing Zhe'ārani. It gesticulated as it spoke, and though it was facing away from Zhe'ārani and she couldn't use lip-reading, she assumed from directions it was gesturing that it was asking something about the burn scars it and Āvolú shared.

Āvolú nodded and showed Kaelía something in the bag.

She was glad her old friends and her new friends were interacting.

The doctor had the Initiates all sign up for appointments on a big sheet with eight spots.

"You can come alone or bring someone else with you," she explained. "I'd like to do a full physical exam on each of you at some point, but if you're not comfortable with that right now, all we need to do is talk. I want to go over vaccinations, illnesses, any major injuries, medications- Basic medical history. Height, weight, and blood pressure if you're up for that. It shouldn't take too long, but I've blocked off a couple hours each. If there are current injuries, I can also treat those."

Līsandyr kept himself noticeably back.

"I can go with you, Līs," Zhe'ārani signed. Her checkup upon her return had been necessary, but it had been miserable, and she'd known the doctor already and hadn't had any preexisting problems with doctors.

"I'm coming with you too," signed Kaelía. "Just sign up for today, then it will be over." It took the pencil and wrote in its name and then his right underneath. "I can do the talking if you don't want to."

Līsandyr nodded shallowly.

"If you touch me without my permission I will break your hand." Kaelía waved towards Līsandyr. "If you touch him without his permission I will cut it off, and if you hurt him I'll let you bleed out from it." It pointed at Zhe'ārani. "They're my witness if anyone tries to say I didn't give fair warning. Sign, don't speak, I want Ši Arroakhai Kjú in the loop. Everyone clear on that?"

Zhe'ārani nodded.

"Okay," the doctor signed. Zhe'ārani thought she was doing a good job not being scared.

"Good." Kaelía started to pull its shirt off.

Zhe'ārani knew it liked to get things over with quickly, and none of the Initiates really had a sense of privacy.

"I was just going to go through a questionnaire to start," the doctor signed.

"Oh."

"Actually, let's just do this for both of you at the same time," she signed. "I just need a yes or no from each of you. Some of these vaccines are usually given at a very young age, so you may or may not remember if you've had them, in which case we should do bloodwork soon to find out, because it can be very dangerous if you don't." She looked at Līsandyr. "Do you understand what's happening?"

Līsandyr nodded.

"Okay. I'm going to start now. When were you last vaccinated for PNIV?"

Kaelía stared at its fingers for a long moment, then looked to Zhe'ārani for help.

"About four cycles ago," Zhe'ārani signed. "All of us were."

"Most recent flu shots?"

"Same time."

It went on for a few minutes. Kaelía was able to answer most of the questions, but both of them were unsure when the questions got to early childhood vaccinations, as had been expected.

"Were you taking any medications when you left the Temple?"

Kaelía named something Zhe'ārani recognized as a stimulant, then added, "We're all on hormonal birth contol. Gētnyx didn't want to risk any surprises."

Not after Qatriong, Zhe'ārani filled in. It had been a little before her time, but Qatriong had told her about it. Līs lied for me so I could tell them and get rid of it. Gētnyx still punished us for the inconvenience, but it would have been worse if she'd known it was an outsider, and I'm glad I dumped him but I didn't want to get him killed.

Maybe Qatriong's (supposed) treason had been a long time in the making.

"And are you, or have you ever been, sexually active?"

"No," signed Kaelía.

Līsandyr bit his lip.

Zhe'ārani thought again of Logē, the way they sometimes held Līsandyr's face, the way Līsandyr leaned into it. The way Līsandyr had turned hostile and scared when she'd brought it up.

"And you?" the doctor pressed. "There are certain illnesses you can get-"

"He knows that," snapped Kaelía, breaking the silence.

Līsandyr whispered something in Kaelía's ear.

"He doesn't want to answer that question," signed Kaelía. "We're done talking about it."

The doctor backed down. "I'll just leave that section blank, then."

"Do that."

"Let's move on. Have either of you ever had PNIV?"

Even though it had been a long, full day, or perhaps because of that, Zhe'ārani struggled to fall asleep. She wondered if her cohort were settling in okay in the cabin on the other side of their shared greenspace.

She hoped it wasn't too upsetting for Līsandyr.

She had barely fallen asleep when she was shaken awake. Her father and Abhaonai stood over her, an unlit flare in on of Abhaonai's hands and a two-way radio in the other.

"Qonai seems to have run away," Rokhesh signed. "Your friends don't know the area. Tamri has gone with Guodei and Nesyue. Abhaonai thought you might go with him and Retmiq. I'm going to get another flare, in case we find her hurt, and go out myself. She'll get lost very easily in these woods. The other three are going to stay in case she makes it back on her own."

"Okay."

Rokhesh left to find another flare, and Zhe'ārani pulled her boots and raincoat on over her pyjamas. She put the flare in her coat pocket.

Abhaonai passed Retmiq the radio at the door. "You'll have to be in charge of this. Let us know if you hear anything."

Retmiq nodded.

"She must be so scared," Zhe'ārani signed. "How long has it been?"

"Can't have been more than a couple hours," signed Abhaonai. "I woke up and thought I'd check on her and the bed was empty."

"I assume she's trying to go home- go back to the Temple, I mean- but she can't have gotten far," signed Retmiq. "She'll be looking for the river, most likely, so she can cross back into the city and find the Divine Soldiers there."

"Can she swim?" Zhe'ārani asked, a horrible image floating up in her mind like a drowned corpse.

Abhaonai and Retmiq exchanged a glance.

"I don't know," signed Abhaonai. "They taught us to swim- But the current-"

"Surely she would know better than to go in the river or get to close to the banks," Retmiq signed.

"She's four," signed Abhaonai. "And she's never been outside the Temple before- how would she know?"

"Fuck."

They searched for over an hour.

Retmiq put out a hand. "I think I hear something."

The three of them stood still.

After a moment, Retmiq nodded, then beckoned them to follow him.

A few dozen metres away, Qonai was curled up in the eroded space between the roots of an old tree, shaking like she was crying.

Abhaonai tapped Retmiq's pocket where the radio was, then carefully approached her.

Zhe'ārani made to follow, but Retmiq stopped her.

"He's good with kids," Retmiq signed. "And she likes him. I don't want her to feel like we're cornering her. And, no offence- Gētnyx was very firm on you being a traitor. She doesn't like you anymore."

"Oh." It made sense. "You should radio the others to let them know we found her."

Abhaonai sat on one of the exposed roots. They talked for a while. Eventually, he offered her a hug, and she took it.

Abhaonai gave them a thumbs-up behind Qonai's back.

It was going to be okay.

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Qatriong hugged her after she survived the burns. She didn’t do that much, with Kaelía, and Kaelía didn’t do it much with most people, but Kaelía leaned into it this time, uninjured arm snaking around Qatriong’s waist almost instinctively to keep her there. 

The burns must have scared her. They had scared everyone. They definitely still scared Kaelía. 

“I’m going to get better,” said Kaelía. It was weird that she could speak so clearly yet, with the morphine and the burns to her face. “Don’t worry, kitty-Qat.” 

Qatriong nodded and slipped her Temple dagger into Kaelía’s lower back. 

Kaelía gasped, more with the shock of it than the pain, which was hardly anything with the burns already constantly setting off most of her internal pain alarms. “But…” she said weakly. “I trusted you.” 

Qatriong laughed in her face. “I can’t believe you fell for it. You should work on your judgement, goose.” 

Kaelía made a small, pathetic sound she would never allow herself to make if this were real. 

Qatriong’s face got younger, and her buzzed hair turned from green to blue, and her eyes lightened and her nose changed shape, and then she was Qonai (Kaelía’s Qonai, not the baby who’d stolen her name) and the knife in her back became claws in her side digging under her ribs. 

“I gave up everything,” Qonai said, blood pouring from her mouth. “I gave up everything and you left, you fucking traitor.” She wrenched her claws higher and Kaelía felt herself starting to die. 

Qonai grew up into Gētnyx. 

Kaelía found herself paralyzed when she tried to drop to her knees and apologize and beg forgiveness. 

“You have been very bad, Kaelía,” Gētnyx signed. “Five hundred lashes.” A whip manifested in her hand. 

Kaelía choked on her own words as she tried to plead that that would kill her, that was way too many all at once, she would bleed out and be dead before it was even over. She was suddenly naked from the waist up, ready for the punishment, except still she could not move and she was standing facing Gētnyx.  

Gētnyx raised the whip. 

Out of the corner of Kaelía’s eye, Guodei only turned the child, the other Qonai, away. She tried to cry out for her help but her mouth wouldn’t work and she knew Guodei wouldn’t help her, couldn’t help her, not over the child.

The whip came down like it had a thousand times before throughout Kaelía’s life. 

She flinched so hard when it struck her that she woke up. 

For a brief, terrifying moment, she didn’t know where she was. The room was different. The bedding was a different style. There weren't the right number of people in here with her. 

Kaelía tried to slow her heart rate. It was just the cabin Zhe’ārani had given them. Qatriong wasn’t here because she was dead, and Zhe’ārani wasn’t here because she had her own home and it wasn’t with them, and second-Qonai was here because the others had insisted. 

Her burn scars hurt. 

Guodei pushed the man’s head forward. (“No, please, please, I’m sorry, I’ll do anything, please, I have a family-”)

“Now,” she said. “Are you watching?”

The child was very clearly not watching.

“Qonai,” said Guodei. 

Mēshat stared disapprovingly.

The child turned her head away. “I don’t wanna.”

“I need you to watch.”

The man’s whining continued. Mēshat shoved the rag she’d been cleaning her claws with into his mouth.

“Qonai,” Mēshat said. “You must keep your eyes on the Lieutenant Initiate. She is showing you something important.”

The child scowled and looked at Guodei.

“Do you see this soft spot here?” Guodei pressed on the place where the man’s skull met his neck.

“Yes,” said the child sulkily.

“Do you know what it is?”

“No.”

Guodei knew she did. Anatomy lessons started very early. She and her Qonai had been able to name and locate every major artery by that age. “It’s easy access to the spinal cord. So what you want to do-”

“No,” said the child.

“No?” echoed Guodei.

“I don’t wanna,” said the child, louder this time. “I’m bored. This is yucky. I don’t care. You’re annoying.”

“Qonai, that is disrespectful,” said Mēshat. “Lieutenant Intitiate. Slap her.”

Something in Guodei, some moral centre she had never thought she had, recoiled. “She’s only a baby. She doesn’t know any better.”

“Teach her better,” said Mēshat. 

“I’m not a baby,” said the child. “I’m almost five.”

Guodei knew she shouldn’t, but she ignored both of them and desperately finished her lesson. “What you want to do is hold your dagger like this and angle it up and-” She stabbed. The man’s muffled whines and struggles stopped and blood spilled out around the blade.

“Lieutenant Initiate,” snapped Mēshat. “Discipline her.”

The child whined wordlessly.

“I’m sorry,” said Guodei, and knelt without being asked. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

Mēshat’s knuckles cracked across her face. “You are weak.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She pulled off her robes. “I submit myself to you, Lieutenant. My cowardice shames this Temple.”

“Twenty lashes,” said Mēshat. “Ten for weakness and ten for disobedience.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” Guodei bowed her head. “Thank you for correcting me.”

Mēshat turned away from her. “Qonai.”

The child burst into tears. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“No crying,” said Mēshat sternly, and the sobs faded into hiccups. “Five lashes for disrespect. To be a Lieutenant you must respect your superiors.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t- didn’t mean to be bad.”

“Yes, you did. Kneel and take off your shirt.”

Guodei felt a flicker of protective anger and shoved it down. She had only herself to blame. Selfishly, she had made it worse for them both and ruined the lesson besides.

Guodei hated to see her cry.

“Come here,” she said, suppressing a grimace as she shifted from kneeling to sitting cross-legged.

The child crawled over and climbed into Guodei’s lap, which was closer and touchy-er and more intimate than Guodei had intended, but she didn’t have the heart to stop her even though the skin-to-skin contact made her shudder.

“I’m s-sorry,” the child said, leaning her snot-covered face against Guodei’s bare chest. “I’m bad. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Guodei. “I’m not mad at you. Neither is Lieutenant Mēshat; she’s only doing her job.”

She truly believed that. Mēshat had been truly angry at her once, when she had gone mad after killing her Qonai and bitten Gētnyx. The anger had been deserved, of course; attacking the Vessel was the worst offence Guodei had ever committed. They would know if Mēshat was angry.

“It hurts,” the child whimpered. “I’m sorry.”

“It will feel better soon,” said Guodei. “I’ll help you, okay? Look, you’re hardly bleeding at all now. It will be all better in no time.”

“I don’t want to be bad.”

“You just made a mistake,” said Guodei. “Now you know better for next time.”

“I want to be like you. I want to be a good Lieutenant Initiate. I want to be good.”