Survivors from the neighborhood crowded into the still-standing walls of the gharana courtyard for safety. Dirty, bloody, and broken, they collapsed in grief or rejoiced at finding their family and friends still alive. Above, displaced birds cawed and cried in their flight, adding to the cacophony of human wails. Laksha corralled some survivors to distribute water from the gharana's cistern to wash wounds and faces and clear dust from throats. Moving through the throng of refugees, she saw several of the gharana's sisters scooping dirt into buckets from the pile Vikrim dug with his huge hands and then rushing inside to try to smother the fire that had broken out in the kitchen. Elegant silk saris that the hijra tossed out of the haveli windows swirled like rainbow smoke down to the ground to be torn into brightly colored strips to bind wounds and wipe the dirt off of besmeared faces. The hijra had no eldritch craft in healing, but three of the hijra–accompanied by Mohimukta, strumming his rabab–moved through the throng with a slow and precise dance step of foot and sweep of arms that sent the worst of the wounded into a painless slumber until aid could be found. Laksha knew that several of the badly wounded would never awaken.

She paused at the sight of Bahuchara dancing a spell to lift the fallen wall of a storehouse off of the bodies of five of her hijra sisters who had been inside when it collapsed. Dust obscured the scene, but she could see tears on Bahuchara's face as she wove her will. Fazil and Ruqaiya lifted the mangled bodies from the rubble and lined them up by the east wall of the Temple of Ardhanari Entwined. Ruqaiya seemed timid around Fazil, despite their labors, as if she were deferring to him–waiting for him to tell her what to do. Perhaps she thought of him as having rank, given his age and centuries of service. Rank meant nothing to Laksha. Fazil was just a man she had met tagging along with Suraj a few times when they'd meet at the tea shop for a game of pachis. Even now, any rank or titles or honors he might have were less important to her than how he treated the poorest and weakest. That was her measure of others.

Before Laksha could get back to work, she saw Bahuchara stand over her fallen sisters and begin a new dance. The hijra raised her right foot slowly and snaked it up behind her left leg as she began. Her shredded hands covered in dirt and blood rose out and up and flowed into the sacred forms of the dance. She bowed in her grief and raged to the tips of her arched finger. Stepping deliberately out with her heel to the ground, she released the power of Ardhanari. As Laksha watched, mesmerized, the women on the ground began to transform. Bloody wounds faded, bones knit, and all traces of dirt and distress were erased. The illusion would hold until the women could be properly cremated or interred.

Bahuchara wiped dirt and sweat from her face as she cast a baleful glare over her shoulder at the crystalline monstrosity that had erupted from the earth. Laksha's eyes, too, found the gleaming mound, and she scowled. It had no right to look so beautiful sparkling in the sunlight. It should look as vile as its handwork.

The cries of the wounded and despairing pulled her from the sight back to those in need, and she thought of her own people in the kitabkhana. Were they alright? Had the fort survived the eruption? Even now, they could be pulling themselves from wreckage, scrambling for safety. She wasn't even sure she could get to the fort before nightfall, if at all. The streets might be filled with rubble and ruin.

As Laksha, distracted by these thoughts, moved through the throng of survivors, someone pressed a child into her arms. Realizing what she had just been handed, she spun around to find the person responsible and give it back. He was a toddler, maybe two years old, tears carving rivulets through his dirt-smudged face. Wrapped in a small, simply-woven blanket, he wailed and snaked his head around, desperately looking for his parents.

"Who's baby is this!" she shouted above the chaotic din. "Who's baby is this!"

Consumed by their own struggles, the people around her gave less than half a glance, but no one stepped forward to claim the child. Helplessly, she threaded through the makeshift camp, bouncing the child on her hip, hoping his parents would see him. It quickly became clear that she was not going to find the child's parents.

"Hey, shh shh shh," she cooed to the child as she wiped dirt from his face with a loose fold of the abaya she still wore. His terrified, huge eyes locked on hers. "It's okay," she assured him. "Shh."

The child buried his face in her shoulder and grabbed her fiercely with his tiny arms. She hated lying, but he likely didn't understand her words anyway, only her tone. She had work to do, so she shifted the child on her hip and went back to the cistern with a bucket in her free hand.

Several hours later as the sun was setting, lighting the particulate dust still in the air a bloody hue, Matron Khayr locked the gate into the gharana. The injured and homeless finding refuge within the gharana's walled compound had trickled to a stop. With so many dead bodies cast about, the carrion eaters of the night and the monstrosities of death would rule the city tonight, and woe to any who were not already settled safely inside walls to keep them out.

Grief and exhaustion reigned among the huddled citizens, and the twilight was hushed, but for sobs. The hijra had supplied what blankets they could, and several had been scavenged from the homes nearby. The summer night was warm, but small fires dotted the courtyard for comfort. Much of the haveli had been given over to the injured and families with small children, and most of the hijra matrons and women rested among them, weary from their efforts.

Laksha, still burdened with the toddler, found Fazil sitting stoically with his back against a squat, rounded column inside the mandapa of the Temple of Ardhanari, where he had built a small campfire. She wasn't surprised to find the ranger Ruqaiya there as well, cooking lentils in a scavenged pot over the fire. Vikrim sat across from her, his hands still filthy from digging dirt to put out the fire. The dandy who had joined their efforts strummed his rabab meditatively a few feet away from the Kesin, who had settled into a trance pose–one leg under him, his other knee pulled up to his chest. Mohimukta and Bihaan, she had learned from Bahuchara. She had gleaned little more than that, except that they seemed unlikely friends.

Bahuchara arrived with a few blankets and cushions, which she distributed among the group. For a fleeting moment, Laksha was reminded of Suraj, who had shared his pallet with her, and half of his lumpy pillow. With a weary smile of thanks, she took a blanket and draped it over the child that had collapsed in utter exhaustion atop her, drool from his open mouth pooling on her abaya.

"You found a friend," Bahuchara winked at her.

Laksha looked down at the boy's face. "He just ended up in my arms somehow."

"There will be countless children such as him in the days to come. May they all find arms such as yours to embrace them. What will you do now?"

Laksha stifled a yawn. "When the sun rises, I'll try to get to the kitabkhana to help…."

"With the child," Bahuracha clarified.

She looked again at the small form lying on her chest. "He's not mine. I'll take him to an orphanage."

"A quarter of the city has been obliterated, Laksha. Another quarter of it has been damaged by the quaking of the earth, and the rest of the city is littered with debris and the dead." Bahuchara quirked her head quizzically. "What orphanages have survived will be overflowing with little ones."

Not realizing she was doing it, Laksha wrapped her arms around the little boy. She had been only a year or two older than him when Hemu Tayyib killed his father Bayazid in an attack that had destroyed half of Qaragarh's bazaar and taken the life of her parents. When she looked again at Bahuchara standing over her, she saw in her eyes their shared childhood misfortune. She had no idea what she was going to do. The city was broken, all their lives and all the rules had just been upended.

"I don't know," she said weakly. "I'll figure something out."

"You were always a clever girl," Bahuchara praised her airily. "I'm sure you will."

So many emotions raced through Laksha at Bahuchara's words that they crashed over each other, and all the various things she wanted to say clogged in her throat. What managed to slip out of the tumult was, "It's not cleverness to find a way to feed yourself when you're starving. It's necessity. You do what you have to do."

"No matter the cost?" Bahuchara arched an eyebrow. "No matter who gets hurt?"

"Surviving is not a crime," she argued back vehemently. "A world in which people have to steal and cheat and hurt others just to survive is the crime."

"Hmm," Bahuchara gathered the folds of her sari and lowered herself to the ground across from Laksha, leaning over to rest on one arm on a cushion. "Remember that when you think about how much you resent me."

The hijra arranged herself elegantly and with poise, as if surrounded by dignitaries, and though Laksha wanted to see a smug look on the woman's face to validate her hurt, it wasn't there. Her words had been less reprisal and more reason.

"It's not the same," she countered, but dropping her eyes because she couldn't put the force of truth behind them.

"Was it survival that drove you to steal that object from Amir Sameer?" Bahuchara pressed, but on a different subject.

"Yes." Of course it was, but she certainly wasn't going to say why. Not to Bahuchara, not to anyone. "I had to."

"So you said." Bahuchara clicked her nails rhythmically on the stone floor of the mandapa, watching her, thinking, waiting for more. "Then why didn't you take it straight to Salim?" she said to Laksha's silence. "Why by Iwa would you come to me of all people?"

"Salim," Laksha said, looking up. "You understood him better than any of us. I need to know why he wants this vajra thing."

Bahuchara's clicking nails stopped and she sat up. "You're afraid he'll do something with it, aren't you? Something that will hurt others." She leaned forward, her eyes wide, close to taunting but not near enough to chide. "My dear Laksha, are you thinking about the needs of others before yourself?" She leaned back with her arms anchored behind her. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Salim. What did Salim always want?"

There she sat, right at the crux of it. Yes, you could count on no one but yourself, and you did what you had to do to survive. Iwa knows she had five years ago, the dagger in her hand. Yet, no one should have to face those kinds of choices, and she couldn't just hand over something to a man as twisted as Salim and let him wreak more suffering around him. "Salim wants power. No, control."

"There," Bahuchara said, as if that settled the matter. "It seems you don't need me at all."

An awkward silence fell between Laksha and Bahuchara, each holding the other's eyes. Bahuchara's dismissive. The hijra was right; Laksha didn't have to think too hard to figure out that any intentions of Salim's were nefarious. Of course they would be. Why had she come to the gharana then? She knew why, but she wouldn't let herself even think of the reason. It was a weakness, a vulnerability. As it rose in her mind, she shook it away. It doesn't exist if I don't give it any thought. Instead, she plowed on. "But what does it do? Is it dangerous?"

Fazil's voice said from a dozen feet away, "It's a weapon. Weapons are meant to be used."

Without raising her head from her cook pot, Ruqaiya offered an affirming, "Yep."

"If that vajra really belonged to Gurkani Tayyib, it's a powerful weapon," Fazil continued. "I don't know exactly how it works. Gurkani had been dead several years before I was even born. And the Rhibus have always kept themselves apart from the rest of Suristhanam. All we heard when I was young were echoes of memories of what happened."

"We heard even less," the hulking form of Vikrim said from the shadows. "In Gayakuta, the legends say only that Gurkani wielded a great power. They did not say it was a weapon."

"It was a great power," Fazil confirmed. "With it, Gurkani subjugated all the sultanates of the Northern Plateau to found his empire. He killed the Sultan of Zehni and drove his family into exile. Akran submitted, and the battle for Bazikwahi decimated that region. With the vajra, Gurkani slaughtered every living person in Bashmened."

"It was a battle," Ruqaiya corrected him fiercely, to Laksha's surprise, given how she'd deferred to Fazil during the day. "The Gwachi died in battle."

Fazil recalled the words he and Pinar had shared about the Gwachi. "Are you defending the slaughter of civilians?"

"You serve Gurkani's empire," she argued. "Doesn't that make you complicit?"

"I serve Iwa," Fazil countered. "Until Iwa sends me elsewhere, I serve where he has placed me."

"The vajra," Bahuchara interjected to settle their ruffled feathers. "How did it end up with Sameer bin-Nabeel?"

Fazil returned to the topic. "That I do not know. No tale I heard among the Rhibus explained what happened to it. By the day I professed the faith, about one hundred and fifty years had passed since Gurkani's death. I never heard it spoken of again."

"I think it was buried with Gurkani in his tomb," Laksha chimed in. "After I was done with the Radiant Citadel delegate who was with me when I saw the vajra in a painting, I went back and read the book it was in. The language was archaic and I had trouble understanding it. But I got the sense that the vajra 'accompanied' Gurkani after his death."

Bahuchara mused. "It still doesn't explain how Sameer got it. Or when it was taken from the tomb."

"It really doesn't matter," Ruqaiya added. "He's got it for a reason, and that reason is pretty clear."

"He wants the empire," Fazil said. "That's why he's colluding with the Khaar Iheshat."

"He's what!?" Laksha blurted, then placed a settling hand on the small child that stirred atop her. "He's what?" she whispered.

Bahuchara waved her hand dismissively. "There's a hobgoblin and a letter and an ambush…it's all a little complicated, dear, but try to keep up."

"And why would he want to destroy the capital of the empire if he wants to become emperor himself?" Laksha added to their uncertainty.

"It doesn't make sense," Bahuchara pointed out. "Sameer supported Firuzeh in the civil war. If he wanted to take the empire, he could have done it then. Qaragarh was under attack from Musa. Sameer could have simply betrayed Firuzeh and captured the city himself. Iwa knows he has a big enough army." Bahuchara pondered for a moment before continuing. "Nekuzam Tayyib told me that he didn't trust Sameer. He said it was because he thought the amir had too much influence over Firuzeh, but I always felt there was something more he wasn't saying. Or that he hadn't quite figured out."

"You knew Nekuzam?" That bit of information surprised Laksha.

Bahuchara raised her hand to her cheek, as if to hide the flushing of her face, though in the dim light, they'd be unable to see anyway. "He would come from Jharoda to visit his sister from time to time. We met at the aqiqah of her fourth child, Lilavati."

Fazil cleared his throat. "You have made powerful friends since you were the urchin I played pachis with."

"Well that might explain why Nekuzan attacked Firezuh's army after Musa was defeated," Ruqaiya shrugged, stirring the pot of lentils.

Bahuchara spun on her, cracked nails sparkling fire. "That's a lie! Nekuzam loved his sister, he did not attack her army."

Ruqaiya jumped to her feet. "I was there!" She jabbed a finger toward Vikrim. "Our armies were killing each other!"

"You were all killing each other," Bahuchara rasped bitterly. "That's all you know, is how to destroy each other! You know nothing of coming together in peace to build a better world. Only force and blood and death."

Ruqaiya sat back and crossed her arms glibly. "You can thank me later."

Laksha held her tongue as the two women glared at each other through the flickering light and shadows. All she knew of the civil war was what people said in Qaragarh, and in a city besieged, truth was a casualty to fear. Vikrim broke the tense silence with his deep voice.

"By the end, I didn't know who I was killing. Every person was an enemy, and death was my only defense. I'm sure I killed more than one ally in my reckless battle rage, and it haunts me every moment." He turned his huge sad eyes to Ruqaiya. "I didn't care who you were or what side you were on or what reasons brought you to that bloody field. You had a sword in your hand and you were standing in front of me. If the horns hadn't blown, I would've killed you and stepped over your body to the next warrior, and the next, until I stood alone or Agninritya Deva had claimed me."

Vikrim's words drew a dreadful shroud of stillness around the group, as each was drawn back to the days of the Tayyib war. Each of them bore their own wounds, which–despite the optimistic recovery efforts throughout the empire–were still fresh enough that they could be easily reopened. And now a new catastrophe had erupted, causing more death and destruction to Qaragarh than even Musa's attack on the city had. Optimism seemed futile and hopeless.

"Like you could have taken me in a sword fight," Ruqaiya drawled to Vikrim with a derisive smile.

"Ha!" Vikrim coughed, which turned into a great hearty laugh from his belly, merriment replacing the sadness in his eyes.

She smiled back at him, and the others found ease in their shared pain and comradery. The child on Laksha's chest shifted at the rumble of Vikrim's laughter, but settled quickly.

"What if it's natural?" she said with a toss of her head towards the huge crystal mound. "I mean, it's still awful, but so are typhoons and landslides and floods. Huge sections crash away from the plateau wall from time to time. Things like that can kill thousands, but they're just natural."

"It's true," Vikrim chimed in. "The volcanoes in my land can destroy whole cities and regions. It hasn't happened in a long while, but it has happened."

"It's not natural," Bihaan said.

"Welcome back, friend," Mohimukta greeted him cheerfully.

They all turned to the Keśin, who had been silent since they had sought refuge in the mandapa of the temple. Laksha thought he had simply been sleeping under the expectant watch of his sentinel Mohimukta.

Bahuchara sat up eagerly. "You were looking, weren't you? What did you see?"

"Nothing," he mused, seeming confused. "No mounds or hills or pillars or castles. No great towers or swirling fogs or piles of gold. And no destruction. No bodies or death or decay. It's as if nothing happened."

Ruqaiya pointed at the center of town with her wooden spoon. "What are you talking about? It's right there."

"That can't be," Bahuchara shook her head. "It has to be there, it has to be everywhere."

"What do you mean?" Ruqaiya prodded.

Bahuchara stood, clearly shaken by Bihaan's revelation. "Whatever happens in this realm, or in any realm, affects the others," she explained, her mind whirling. "They all overlap, they're all connected. It's like we're all echoes of each other in some way, or shadows. Our realms manifest in different ways, but something this monumental must echo in the other realms."

"But it hasn't," Bihaan concluded. "Whatever this catastrophe is, it's happening only in this realm."

Laksha ate a bit of the lentils Ruqaiya handed around in small bowls and fed some to the baby. The others talked on into the evening about the vajra in the satchel resting beside her as she and the baby curled up off in a corner, but she gave little ear to their speculations. The only question for her was whether she should give it to Salim or not, and she found no satisfaction in either option. In the full of darkness that settled upon the city, cries pierced the night sporadically, as ghûls and other carrion creatures of undeath feasted their grim feast on the dead and the unfortunate living. The walls and wards of the gharana could keep the vile things out, but they could not silence their horror. She pressed her cushion against her ears until, physically and emotionally exhausted, she fell asleep.

Very near her, a baby was crying, and Laksha wished it would stop so she could go back to sleep. Her whole body ached and her pillow seemed smaller, and her pallet was hard as a plank. She spun over in irritation and pulled the too-thin blanket over her head. Would someone shut that child up!

That child…

Laksha sat bolt upright, casting off the embroidered silken sari she'd been using as a blanket and cast panicked eyes around her. The child that had been thrust into her care had waddled to the edge of the mandapa of the temple and was teetering above the steep steps that led to the lower platform. One more step and the child would tumble down the worn stone. Laksha pushed herself up, but she was on the other side of the hall. Her heart protesting at its abrupt awakening, she launched herself toward the child.

Around her, the silk-draped mounds that were her companions roused themselves groggily at the commotion, and Laksha took a bounding leap over Bahuchara, who was beginning to sit up and rubbing her eyes. The child, still crying, lifted a fat leg, trying to find firm footing in the air below his foot, and Laksha cried out for him to stop. Her arms outraised as if she could reach across the space and snatch the boy up, she bolted around a snoring Vikrim and her bare foot slipped on the silken sari that covered him, sending her tumbling to the hard stone of the hall. Her feet skidded out ahead of her, and she fell onto her back, her head saved from cracking against the stone floor only by the meaty thigh of the still-sleeping Vikrim.

"No!" she cried out, pushing herself to her knees.

At her cry, the child wavered for a moment with his foot raised, tottering on the edge of a fall, then tipped forward, his foot finding no purchase. Swift as a hawk, a hand reached out from behind the nearest column and snatched the boy into the air by his upper arm. To Laksha's relief, Ruqaiya had been behind the column, and had saved the child from his tumble. She let herself fall back to her rump against Vikrim, who grunted in his sleep.

The stern woman, dressed in her leather gear as if for battle, carried the wailing child by his wrist into the hall, holding him out at arm's length. He dangled from her strong grip as if she carried waste to be disposed of in a trash heap. Laksha saw the terror in the boy's eyes at his treatment, at this cold woman's handling, and she pushed herself quickly to her feet.

"You're hurting him." She took the child, and he wrapped his arms around her neck and buried his face in her neck.

Ruqaiya dusted her hands together as if they had been soiled. "You're welcome."

Laksha clutched the child and watched Ruqaiya settle herself close to the Gayakutan, who had rolled over onto his back but still slept. She didn't understand how anyone could have such disdain for children, but the look on the ranger's face still showed her distaste. Perhaps she'd spent so much time fighting, she'd never really been around them. Laksha hadn't spent much time around children this young, but during her time with Salim, she'd shared space–and trials–with children as young as seven and eight. And the child was frightened. He didn't know any of them, and he was away from any home he had known. And though he might not understand that his parents might have died last night, he did understand that they were not there. His head kept spinning as he looked for their faces.

"He's probably hungry," Bahuchara said, coming close to rub the child's back soothingly. "And he stinks." She wrinkled her nose at the smell.

Laksha lifted one of her hands from the child's bottom to her face and instantly recoiled. "What do I…"

"Don't look at me, meri jaan" Bahuchara held up her hand, her polished and elegant nails broken and dirty from yesterday's labors. "We don't usually have children at the gharana." She pointed away from the temple towards the south wall. "There's a washing trough over there."

The fire they had built in the middle of the mandapa had burned low, and the sky had not yet begun to brighten in false dawn. Laksha wound her way through the reclining, if not still sleeping, figures in the hall towards the direction Bahuchara had pointed. Fazil had risen fully from his slumber at the commotion and stood straight as a board, looking through the stone columns of the hall toward the east, where the sun would rise. Ruqaiya had stretched out next to the snoring bulk of Vikrim. Vikrim himself wore only a embroidered vest and dhoti, and his string of large bone beads fell to one side of his rising and falling chest. Bihaan was lying on his side facing the dying fire, seemingly unaware that Mohimukta lay in the exact same pose behind him separated by only inches. Any closer and they would be matched flesh to flesh, and she was uncertain why there was any space between them. She knew little of the Kesin and their ways, but she had not thought that they were celebate.

Laksha carried the child through the courtyard to the washing trough, guided by the glowing embers of countless campfires through the sleeping forms of the refugees. In the quiet stillness of the predawn, she could almost imagine that the world she had known had not been upheaved–literally–yesterday. But it had. The night spawn and carrion eaters would have retreated by now, having feasted on the hundreds of bodies cast around the city by the eruption that hadn't been claimed. And among the survivors, sheer exhaustion must have finally overcome them. The broken city was quiet, if only for a short while.

Somewhere, a man was weeping quietly in the dawn, and a dog raised its head from her paws at her passing before resting it again despondently. She found the trough near the south wall behind the haveli and, with one free hand while she held the child with the other, she pumped water into the trough.

The cool water was refreshing as it sluiced through the trough, and Laksha let it play over her smelly fingers before removing the soiled undercloth of the child and beating it under the running water one-handed. I'm washing shit cloth, she thought to herself. I'm washing a baby's shit. Why didn't I use my hand? It was too late to matter. She found some soap by the trough and ground it into the cloth, lettin the sluicing water wash it clean.

I should be at the kitabkhana. Making sure everything is alright there. She scoffed aloud at herself, the sound rousing the child. She was worried about books and paintings, when a quarter of the city–a quarter of its people–were gone. What have you become, Laksha?, she asked herself. Look around you.

The child seemed to enjoy the sluicing water when she dunked his bottom into the trough, and he gurgled and smiled as she playfully splashed water up at his head. There was nothing to wrap him in when she was done with the washing, so she pulled up the hem of the abaya she still wore and swaddled him in it, as she carried the washed undercloth back to the temple.

"We will find them," she whispered into the boy's ear, looking around at the refugees starting to rise. Their haggard faces were drawn with grief, the lines of their faces filled with dust and dried tears.

Vikrim was sitting up, his thick arms stretched in a mighty yawn, when Laksha returned to the mandapa with the cleaned child. The others were rising as well in the brightening light of predawn. Haggard and dusty, they shook out the silken saris they had used as blankets. Bihaan had haphazardly folded his and looked about him for the proper place to return it to, but there was none. He seemed awkward with the precious garment and the presence of the others. Kesin were not often associated with decorum and finery. After a moment, Mohimukta took the folded sari from Bihaan's hands and returned it to Bahuchara with a slight bow.

All heads turned to Darwapur Shukri as the drums of the morning call to prayer echoed from the minaret atop its fort walls. The familiar rhythm of the call was itself a prayer to Iwa, a reminder of his glory, a call to his service. Laksha let the vibrations of the sound flow into her and renew her. Fazil and Ruqaiya were taking deep breaths as if inhaling the call into their lungs like much needed air, the tension between them from last night put aside for their shared devotion.

"I must go," Fazil announced, buckling his shamsher to his waist.

"Out there?" Bihaan hooked his thumb toward the gharana's gate, brushing stray braids back from his face. "Did you forget what happened yesterday?"

Fazil was resolute. "It is the morning prayer. I will not shirk my holy duty because of calamity. You might equally ask me to stop breathing. Now more than ever we must hold strong to Iwa."

Laksha admired the warrior's dedication, but she rather thought Iwa would forgive her for missing the morning prayer, considering what had happened. "You don't even know if there's a mosque still standing that you can reach in time," she said, draping the child's washed but damp underclothes near the embers of the fire.

Fazil seemed torn, considering the truth of the matter. Pradani temples abounded in this quarter of Qaragarh and a few shrines to Muwahhid martyrs, but only a few mosques. He looked over the walls as if trying to sight a dome. He started when Bahuchara laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"Come," she beckoned him. "There is a small musalla in the haveli. I will take you there." She nodded at Ruqaiya in invitation, and the ranger rose and dusted off her leathers as if making herself presentable.

Fazil arched a thin eyebrow. "Here? An Eye of Iwa in a hijra gharana?"

Bahuchara arched an equally thin, but more exquisitely defined, eyebrow in return. "Why does that surprise you?"

"All gods," Fazil intoned, "bow to Iwa, for they…"

"Yes, yes," Bahuchara waved away his words, "come along. Then after prayers, you can…what did you say?... strike Sameer down and seek retribution among his bones. Laksha?" She turned to the young painter with a questioning look.

The child in Laksha's arms was restless, shifting about as if in search of something. Food, she imagined, feeling hungry herself. "I need to find something for the baby."

"Yes," Ruqaiya tossed at her, walking out of the temple hall towards the haveli with Fazil, "his mother."

"Wait," Laksha called to Bahuchara. Setting the child by her side, she ripped a blank page from the small bound pad hanging from her belt. With the paper-wrapped charcoal stick from her pouch, she wrote out a prayer to be burned by the Eye. Her usual daily prayer, with a few words added for the city and its dead and wounded.

Bahuchara took the folded prayer from Laksha and led her companions towards the stone haveli. As they moved among the refugees, she beckoned those who would to join her at the musalla, and a ragged line of dusty, distraught survivors followed her and the others.

"You must forgive Ruqaiya," a deep, rumbling voice said behind Laksha.

She turned to find the Gayakutan towering over her and the child. Small already, she was dwarfed by his large, bulky frame. His thick, greenish hair was disheveled by his slumber, and a layer of dust browned the greenish hew of his exposed chest and arms. The large beads of his long necklace swung against his mighty frame. Laksha quailed a bit looking up at his tusked face, gentle though it seemed.

"I'm sure she meant well," she offered in return. "She's probably very pleasant under better circumstances."

The hulking form laughed once, a sort of bark. "Oh no, she'll punch you in the throat. Make no mistake. Ruqaiya has some anger issues. We're working on it. Just try not to piss her off."

The smile on the Gayakutan's face confused Laksha, in the face of his words. Such a fierce looking man should rather growl than make conversation. "I'll do my best. It's Vikrim, isn't it?"

The child began to cry, and she looked around his large form for something remaining from the meager supper that had had last night - bread and some lentils.

"Vikrim Kamasupura," the massive man bowed low, both hands joined. "Fourth son of King Shrishashi Kamasupura of Gayakuta, Prince of Tridahar, devotee of Eldathsashastr Deva, and companion of Ruqaiya ibnat Galhuddin."

Laksha heard the words but they slipped by her as she rustled around the hall searching for something to eat. The child's cries were escalating to a wail, and she needed to find something fast. Suddenly, a shadow descended upon her, and the child was lifted out of her hands. Spinning, she saw him held at arms' length by Vikrim.

"There's some roti under Ruqaiya's pillow," Vikrim said between cooing at the child, who reached out to grasp one of the tusks rising from his lower jaw. "She always puts a bit aside just in case."

Laksha pushed aside the silken pillow to find the bit of bread. "In case of what?"

"In case." Vikrim brought the laughing child close to his face and inhaled deeply of his scent. "Such a sweet child, he is. I bet he tastes delicious."

Dropping the roti, Laksha tried to seize the child from his hands, but Vikrim was too tall and he raised the child away from her.

"I'm kidding!" he laughed as he lowered the child down within her reach. "We don't eat human children. Anymore."

She took the child and clutched him close to her chest, backing quickly away from the Gayakutan and snatching up the fallen roti. She ripped off small pieces of the bread and handed them to the toddler, who seemed to swallow them almost without chewing, he was so hungry.

"I don't know you, Gayakutan," she warned him. "Now is not the time to jest."

"Ah, little Laksha," he said wearily, looking out towards the city. She followed his gaze to the towering crystalline pillar, catching the rising sun on its facets amidst the soil and blood and vegetation that clung to its jagged face. "Now is precisely the time to jest."

The child grasping at her hand for the bread brought her back to the shadows of the hall. She settled herself near the embers and tore off pieces of bread with a free hand and handed them to the child. The Gayakutan lowered himself beside her, his thick thighs folding under him. He was gentler than she had imagined half-orc Gayakutans to be. All the songs spoke of fierce warriors of the Southern Plateau beating their chests and ravaging their foes. This man was putting the lie to all she had known of them.

"What's his name?" Vikrim asked, stretching his back.

"I don't know."

He barked again, in what she was learning was a laugh. "You don't know your own child's name?"

"He's not my child."

The infant reached up and touched her face to get her attention, then opened and closed his fist in search of a handful of bread.

"Does he know that?"

Yes, she could tell from the wariness in the child's eyes, even as he took her small offering and jammed it into his mouth. Yes, he knows. "I'll find his family today."

Vikrim's bark this time had a different tone, one she read as assent. Perhaps uncertainty. She didn't know enough about the Gayakutans to know the meaning of their guttural tones. "I hope…" he started optimistically, but he couldn't seem to sustain it. "May it be so," he said instead.

The rising sun at last crested the horizon and rose over the crenelated walls of the gharana, piercing the gloom of the hall through the columns. Inside the haveli, Laksha knew, the rays of the sun were being focused through the lens of the Eye of Iwa to light the paper prayers in the musalla, while the faithful chanted in thanks. Laksha muttered the morning prayer into the ears of the child in her lap.

"You and the ghazi," she questioned Vikrim. "Were you seeking favors at the gharana?" People often came for the blessings of Ardhanari, especially for births and weddings. She wondered, but hadn't asked outright, if Ruqaiya and Vikrim were bound to one another—the mild and jovial giant and the fierce, lean ranger.

"We were on a mission and Ruqaiya required some care," Vikrim explained simply. "We will return to Ganraala and continue our work."

Ganraala. The name conjured visions of rolling hills and grasslands, fields of grains and beans stretching for miles, with only small farmsteads and villages. It sounded awful. She'd never lived anywhere except amidst the crowded streets of Qaragarh, where noise and smells and commerce surrounded her. Ganraala seemed beautiful and wild and lonely—she could almost hear the cries of the dire wolves among the rocky hills in the night, howling at the moon. No, she felt safer among the teeming streets of the city, with its crevices and alleys to hide within.

The child had had his fill and his eyes were starting to droop. "That's a long trip," she advised him, as if he weren't aware. "Desert and mountains…"

"Yes," Vikrim barked a laugh lightly, "it is a good thing we took the Door from Bijabad."

Laksha leaned back so the child could settle to sleep, but jerked up when she felt the hard edges of the vajra in her satchel behind her. With one hand holding the child she tried to shift the satchel out of the way, but the straps were caught under her. As she struggled, Vikrim's large hand lifted the child from her and she watched him cradle the toddler gently against his chest. Freed of the child, she wrestled the pack free and set it beside her.

"You are not what I expected, Gayakutan," she admitted to Vikrim.

He lowered his head so the twinkling eyes that answered her were veiled by his heavy brow. "I am not what I expected either, little one."

"Like that!" she sighed explosively. "What is that supposed to mean, that mysterious answer? Are you teasing me or serious?" She tossed her hands up in exasperation. "I can't read you."

"It is never good to start reading a book in the middle, you must start at the beginning," he said sagely, then laughed at his own quip. "Or so I hear," he shrugged indifferently. "I cannot read."

Embarrassed at her outburst, a little shamed, Laksha put an apologizing hand on the Gayakutan's meaty calf. "Oh I didn't…you're teasing me, aren't you?"

Vikrim barked a laugh. "Of course I can read! We're not brutish beasts! I'm the fourth son of a king. I can write a little, too," he winked at her.

A drum began to beat somewhere outside the wall, slow and deep, but it wasn't the drum of the call to prayer. Another drum joined, then more and more, a random, disorganized rhythm. They were not beating in concert; they came from different places. A discordant choir of voices joined the sound.

Vikrim titled an ear to the air. "Ah," he sighed mournfully. "They have begun." He pushed himself up and slung his satchel over his head and onto his shoulder.

It took her a moment to realize what had begun. She'd heard Pradani funeral drums and chants before, but never on this scale–usually only a few at a time. It seemed the whole city vibrated from the drums that escorted the dead to the Cinder Shore for cremation. If she didn't leave soon herself, she'd be caught up in what would be a flood of people carrying their lost to the river. But where was she going to go? To Salim? To the kitabkhana? Where could she take the child? She still hadn't decided.

She was on her feet, though, the vajra in her sack hanging from her own neck, the child in her arms, when the others returned. Bihaan and Mohimukta–they had been so silent, she had almost forgotten that they were still in the mandapa–rose as well to join the others. The gates of the gharana had been opened, and while many refugees remained, others began the grim journey to find out what remained of their lives. Ruqaiya swiped up her weapons and pack and readied herself to leave when Vikrim whispered something to her that Laksha couldn't hear.

"What choice do I have?" Ruqaiya grimaced. "I can't stay here forever. Knock me out again and carry me if you have to. Just get me out of the city."

She spoke bravely, but Laksha could see dread in the ghazi's eyes, although she didn't know why. She looked to the others for answers, and found none. The salute Fazil gave her with his fingers to his brow suggested he knew something, and it seemed to strengthen Ruqaiya's resolve and straighten her spine.

"There are many paths across the mountains," he spoke the sacred words to bolster her.

"May you find your path," she gave the answer.

Laksha didn't want any of them to leave. Virkim and Ruqaiya were heading to the Hall of Doors for Bijabad. Fazil had strapped on his sword, determined to find Sameer and seek justice. Bihaan muttered something about finding his guru and Mohimukta had answered with a "Jolly good, let's be about it." Only Bahuchara would be left at the gharana. She didn't know the others, and she carried years of resentment against Bahuchara. But she didn't want to be separated from them. Not because she had grown close to them over the last day and night. No, because if they left, she would have to make a decision about where to go herself.

"Bahuchara," a woman called out, running towards them, followed by a cloaked and hooded man with a staff.

They all turned as Maan Khayr hurried up the steps of the mandapa, her hands aflutter, the man a half-step behind her. Laksha peered into the shadows of the hood and saw grey ropes of hair and gasped.

"What are you doing here," she blurted. "Why aren't you in the fort?"

"You're here," Deland Longully said urgently, lowering his hood. "Do you have it?"

She knew at once what he meant, but how he knew about the vajra, she couldn't begin to imagine. Or why he was interested in it. She shifted the satchel behind her. "What are you talking about?"

Deland shook his head in frustration and held out his hand. "Don't waste time, young woman. Salim is dead. The Crescent Tigers tortured him to get your name."

She stared at his expectant hand, numb. Salim was dead? How would she get back the… The Crescent Tigers were looking for her? "No, no, no," she muttered, backing away from Deland, from what he was suggesting.

She swung the satchel around and with her free hand dug the bejewelled vajra out. "Take it," she pleaded, "get it away from me."

But Fazil snatched it from her hand before Deland could lift it. "Who is this man? What does he want with Gurkani's vajra?"

The vajra was out of her hands, and she wanted to flee at last, free from it, free from the decision. With Salim dead, it no longer mattered. "He's from the Radiant Citadel. A delegate. He's the one I showed the painting to."

Fazil drew his sword, raising it between him and Deland. "This belongs to the Tayyib, stranger. You will not take it from this land."

Laksha could almost see the word idiots on Deland's tongue, but it remained unspoken. "They're coming for you," he said instead, looking at Laksha. "They know you stole it. You–and it–need to get away from the city."

"I don't have it anymore," she tried to argue, knowing it was futile. Even if she didn't possess it, she could lead them to whoever held it next, and at the moment, that was Fazil. "Give it Deland, let him take it to the Radiant Citadel."

"No," both Fazil and Ruqaiya answered at once, sharing a surprised glance at each other.

"Don't give a weapon like that to outsiders," Ruqaiya continued. She turned to Bihaan. "Can't you…you know…take it 'somewhere' else?"

"Oh, my dear, Bihaan cannot yet traverse the planes, I'm afraid," Mohimukta chimed in apologetically. "We're working on it."

"Hey!"

"It can't stay in the gharana," Bahuchara asserted, shutting them all down. "You never should have brought it here," she admonished Laksha with a glower.

Their words dissolved into argument, as Laksha watched helplessly, the child on her hip. She wanted to be away from all of them at last, as fast as she could. Deland was no longer listening to them argue. Instead, he turned his gaze to the gates of the gharana and braced himself with both hands on his staff.

"It's too late," he announced through the din. "They're here."