Smoke drifts in lazy sheets from the brazier’s black mouth, rolling over the planks and the stones as if reluctant to leave. The post where Shan Xi burned stands wet and charred, its grain split open, pitch still crusted in thick, glossy scabs. The smell lingers—tar, hair, and that sweet, awful undertone the sea can’t wash away no matter how loudly it slaps the quay.

  A row of hanged bodies has already been cut down. The rope fibers, frayed and darkened with sweat and blood, hang like dried seaweed from the beam. Men with shovels and hooks drag the dead toward carts, working with a bored efficiency that only comes after too many mornings like this. A gull lands, pecks once at a loose scrap, then thinks better of it and hops away.

  Baek Miju’s corpse lies farther down, in a cordoned square of space the Banners have turned into a shrine by accident and habit. They did not mean to make her a symbol; symbols happen when a crowd runs out of language and needs something to point at. The three wounds that killed her have been cleaned just enough to prove she is truly dead. Her mouth is still smeared with dried blood. The broken stumps of teeth glint like pale gravel when the light hits wrong.

  Women stand in knots near the cordon, staring.

  Some are silent. Some mutter prayers to spirits that have done nothing lately. A few press their foreheads to their knuckles, shaking with the kind of exhaustion that makes grief feel like a heavy blanket rather than a sharp knife.

  One woman has pinned a strip of cloth to the cordon rope—ragged, torn from a skirt, the color of seaweed. Another adds a paper charm, ink smeared by damp fingers. Someone places a handful of cheap copper coins at the edge of the rope as if bribing the dead to remember them.

  “They’ll call her a hero,” a Banner murmurs to another, low and wary, as if saying the word too loud might summon her back.

  “They already do,” the other answers.

  It’s true. It moves through the crowd like a tide: Miju. Not shouted now, not howled like it was during the riot. Whispered. Spoken into sleeves and behind teeth. A name passed from mouth to mouth the way contraband passes between palms in the Slump. The Republic’s butcher becomes the Slump’s saint because saints are just people who bled in the right direction.

  The people of Bo’anem do not revolt.

  They do not cheer the Banners either.

  They drift away in slow, dazed lines as if leaving a storm cellar after the roof has gone. Their shoulders sag under invisible loads—dead relatives, burned homes, lost days. Their eyes are flat, not from acceptance but from a mind protecting itself by refusing to feel one more thing.

  A child asks his mother why the pirate had to burn.

  The mother answers too quickly, “Because she was bad,” and then, after a beat, adds, softer, “Because the world likes it when bad people burn.” She doesn’t look convinced. Neither does the child. But they keep walking.

  Naci watches them from the fort steps, chin lifted against the wind.

  She is splattered with the aftermath of yesterday’s battle and today’s execution in ways no washing will fully erase. There is soot ground into the lines of her hands. Her cloak smells faintly of gunpowder. When she blinks, she feels grit in the corners of her eyes like the city has taken residence in her skull.

  Beside her, Horohan rests a hand on the stone rail, posture loose only because her body is too tired to hold tension all day. Her sword is sheathed, but the way she stands says it could be out again in a blink. Lang leans against a barrel with the easy insolence of a sea officer who has survived too many mutinies to respect any single one properly. Bimen stands stiff as a painted statue, face pale, lips pressed thin as a seal. Temej is there too, arm strapped in a sling. He looks like someone who has run out of patience with history but keeps getting drafted back into it anyway. Puripal stands near him, hands clasped at his back, expression composed.

  They file into the fort together, stepping over scorch marks and broken planks. The harbor fort is half-collapsed in places from the battle; its corridors smell of brine and hot stone. In one corner, someone has stacked confiscated weapons in neat rows: pirate cutlasses, militia muskets, broken pikes. The pile looks like an altar to metal.

  They gather in what used to be an accounting room—Yorin’s old nest of ledgers. The desk is cracked. Ink stains spread like old bruises across the wood. A map of Seop is pinned to the wall, corners curled, the islands drawn like scattered teeth.

  “Bo’anem will not rise,” Horohan says bluntly, as if finishing a thought she’s been chewing since the riot. “Not now.”

  Lang’s mouth tilts. “Too tired. Too afraid. Too busy counting which of their children are still alive.”

  “Do not mistake fatigue for loyalty,” Puripal says. His voice is calm, but there’s a hard edge under it—someone who has watched cities swallow their own tongues and then bite later. “A city that does not revolt today still remembers how.”

  Bimen clears his throat, eager for the comfort of procedure. “Which is why we require a throne,” he says, as if the answer is obvious. “A loyal king—someone acceptable to Seop sensibilities—installed under Moukopl authority. A vassal arrangement. Local governance kept intact, taxes routed properly, navy reorganized under imperial oversight. Stability through familiar structure.”

  Horohan’s eyebrows climb. “A king? After we just executed two women who tried to rule with swords and paperwork?”

  Bimen’s nostrils flare. “Seop is accustomed to hierarchy.”

  “Seop is accustomed to drowning,” Lang replies lazily. “That doesn’t mean we should toss them another stone necklace.”

  Naci watches Bimen for a beat, letting him feel the weight of her attention.

  “No king,” she says.

  Bimen’s jaw tightens. “With respect—”

  “With authority,” Naci cuts in. “No king.”

  Temej exhales, relieved, as if he’s been holding that breath since childhood. Puripal’s eyes flicker; he looks genuinely curious now, the way he does when someone offers a strategy that isn’t already written in old blood.

  Bimen spreads his hands in a gesture of controlled frustration. “Then what? You cannot govern an archipelago with slogans.”

  Naci’s smile is small and sharp. “Who said I’m governing it the way Moukopl thinks it should be governed?”

  Lang’s head tilts. “Here it comes,” he murmurs, amused, as if settling in for a play.

  Naci steps toward the map. She taps one of the larger islands with a knuckle, then another. Bo’anem. The southern chain. The smaller ports.

  “Banners,” she says, “are not a court.”

  Bimen frowns. “They are soldiers.”

  “They are a spine,” Naci corrects. “They are an idea. You place a Banner company in a city and you do not ask them to become lords. You ask them to keep order without pretending to own the place.”

  Puripal’s mouth twitches. “You mean: occupy them.”

  “I mean: hold the center while the edges learn not to burn each other for sport,” Naci says.

  Puripal steps closer to the map, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That works on land where your riders can reach each other,” he says. “In the steppe or the desert, information moves faster. In Yohazatz we stitch distance shut with roads, posts, relay riders. Taxes, orders, warnings—everything moves because we have horses and camels.” Puripal continues, fingers hovering over the coastlines. “But here—” he taps the water between islands and mainland “A rebellion can spark on an island and by the time your Banner hears of it, the fire has already eaten half the dock.”

  Lang lifts a hand, palm up, as if presenting the obvious. “Water is just a big desert,” he says. “You do the same thing. Relay boats. Signal towers. Light codes. Patrol routes. You build roads out of tides.”

  Horohan’s gaze hardens. “And with what navy?” she asks. “The pirates are dead.”

  Lang’s expression doesn’t falter. “Many Banners from Seop were marines,” he says. “Admirals. Sailors. Fisher sons who learned cannon math because it paid better than nets. They didn’t stop knowing the sea because they stopped wearing Republic colors. We need ships. Junks. Organization.”

  He glances toward Bimen as if tossing him a hook.

  All eyes turn.

  Bimen lifts his chin, stiff. “I am the Great Admiral of the Moukopl Empire,” he says coldly. “Seop’s local flotillas are not my assignment.”

  Naci’s gaze stays on him, patient as a noose. “Seop is now Moukopl property,” she says, very lightly, like reminding someone of a rule they already agreed to. “That makes it your business.”

  Bimen’s eyes narrow. “Do not try to pull me with that,” he snaps. “We spent weeks on the same boat, Khan. I know your hands now. I can feel when you’re trying to move me like a chess piece.”

  Horohan makes a quiet sound that might be laughter.

  Temej’s brows knit. Puripal watches closely, interest sharpening.

  Bimen steps closer to Naci, voice low and furious. “Tell me,” he says, “what is your plan to betray me.”

  The room goes still. Even the distant harbor noise feels muted, as if the fort itself leans in.

  Naci blinks once. Then she answers with calm that is almost gentle.

  “I don’t plan to betray you,” she says. “I plan to betray the Moukopl Empire.”

  Temej’s head jerks up. Puripal’s eyes widen a fraction. Horohan’s smile flashes, quick as a knife. Lang’s brows lift in appreciative disbelief, like someone watching a woman juggle lit torches for fun.

  Bimen’s face goes red with outrage. “You—” He sputters, then finds his voice. “You think I would abandon my emperor for you? For your… savage barbarian eyes?”

  Naci doesn’t flinch. If anything, her expression softens into something like pity.

  “After all this time we spent together, Admiral,” she asks quietly, “you still believe your emperor is more worthy to rule than me?”

  Bimen opens his mouth, then closes it. His lips press thin. He searches for doctrine, for certainty.

  Horohan murmurs, almost teasing, “Careful, Admiral. She’s hunting.”

  Bimen glares at her, then turns back to Naci, voice strained. “Your people burn cities,” he spits. “You rule through fear and horses. You—”

  “And your people burn cities too,” Naci says mildly. “At least my horses are well-behaved.”

  Bimen’s face tightens, frustration flaring. “As a matter of fact,” he says, grasping for a weapon that is not a blade, “you don’t even write in your own language. You borrow ours. That is proof enough. A people without letters is a people without permanence. Without law. Without… sophistication.”

  For a heartbeat, the insult hangs there, sharp and smug.

  Temej’s eyes narrow.

  He has been quiet most of the meeting, shoulders slumped, the sling making him look more fragile than he is. Now he straightens a little, and there is something in his posture that changes the temperature of the room—like flint being turned in the palm until it finds the right angle.

  “You’re wrong,” Temej says.

  Bimen’s gaze snaps to him. “Excuse me?”

  Temej reaches into his coat with his good hand. For a moment it looks like he might pull out a knife, because that’s what Moukopl men expect from steppe hands.

  Instead he pulls out folded paper.

  He lays it on the cracked desk with careful fingers, as if placing down something alive.

  “What is that?” Lang asks, leaning in.

  Temej smooths the paper once. The ink on it is fresh-black, sharp, and the shapes are nothing like Moukopl script. They are marks that look like wind made visible: slashes and hooks, dots and long strokes that suggest motion rather than fences. Some cluster like flocks. Some stand alone like a rider on a ridge.

  Temej’s voice stays even, but there is pride tucked in it like a hidden blade.

  “With help,” he says, “I came up with a writing system for Tepr.”

  Naci’s eyes widen. Horohan inhales sharply, then breaks into a grin so bright it looks almost vicious.

  Temej continues, “We call it Windmarks. It’s inspired by ancient Bugr script—older than your empire’s arrogance.” He pauses, and adds, dry, “Dukar and Sen helped.”

  Lang’s lips part, impressed despite himself. “You did this…?”

  Temej shrugs, the motion tugging painfully at his injured shoulder. He doesn’t let it show.

  Puripal steps closer, eyes scanning the marks with a scholar’s hunger. “It’s phonetic,” he murmurs, spotting patterns. “And… modular.”

  Temej nods. “Wind changes,” he says simply. “So the letters do too. You can bend them without breaking meaning.”

  Horohan’s hand slaps the desk hard enough to make ink jump. “Temej,” she says, delighted, “you brilliant miserable creature.”

  Naci looks at the paper like it is a battlefield won without blood. Her smile blooms, bright and open and terrifyingly proud.

  “Temej, you are a genius,” she says softly.

  Bimen stares.

  He stares at the Windmarks, at the proof laid on cheap paper in a ruined fort, at the way it quietly dismantles his argument.

  His mouth opens as if to speak. A dozen responses reach for each other in his throat and trip.

  He closes his mouth again.

  Bimen doesn’t know what to say anymore.

  ...

  By late afternoon, the harbor wind has shifted. It pushes the stink of burned pitch and old blood up the stairwells and into the narrow corridors where officers pretend they can breathe like ordinary people.

  Naci takes the outer walkway instead of the inner hall. The sky is a bruised gray with streaks of smoke. The cranes along the docks look like bent-neck birds peering down at wrecked junks. A Banner patrol marches below, boots in unison, spears glinting. One of them drags a coil of rope and keeps stepping on it, swearing every third step.

  At the end of the walkway, where the stone parapet is chipped and still warm from musket fire, Dukar stands alone.

  He has his elbows on the wall and his chin on his fists like a bored child watching a festival. The posture lies. His shoulders are set too tight. His gaze keeps snagging on the same stretch of water where a ship burned earlier, foam still stained in thin, iridescent lines.

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  Notso sits at his feet, a dark lump of fur and judgment, chewing something that might be a stolen strip of dried fish. Every so often the dog pauses to glare at a passing Banner, as if considering whether to arrest them for existing.

  Naci approaches without announcing herself. She doesn’t need to. Dukar’s head tilts before she reaches him, like he smells her through the wind.

  “You’re late,” he says, still staring out over the harbor.

  “I’m busy,” Naci replies. “I’m trying to run a conquered city without becoming the kind of person pirates write songs about.”

  Dukar snorts. “Too late. They already have verses. Probably involving your eyebrows.”

  Naci leans on the parapet beside him. From here, she can see the place where the brazier stood at noon. It’s been dismantled now, but the scorch marks remain, a black circle burned into the boards like a brand.

  “Your dog is eating evidence,” she observes.

  Notso lifts his head, fish tail sticking out of his mouth, and huffs as if offended by the accusation. Then he turns his whole body away from her in a slow, dramatic pivot, guarding his prize with his spine.

  Dukar scratches behind the dog’s ear with a fondness that looks almost accidental. “He’s very committed to morale,” he says. “He sees a dead empire and thinks: snack.”

  Naci’s mouth curves. “He takes after you.”

  Dukar finally looks at her properly. There are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there before this city. He is smiling, but it’s the kind of smile that sits on top of bruises.

  “You came to scold me,” he says.

  “I came to kidnap you,” Naci corrects. “Subtle difference.”

  Dukar’s brow lifts. “Oh?”

  Naci hooks her thumbs into her belt like she’s about to bargain for a horse. “Come back with me to Tepr,” she says. “We sail as soon as the fort is patched enough not to fall into the sea. You can go to Qixi-Lo later. You can join Puripal when he’s done brooding theatrically and pretending he isn’t dying of responsibility.”

  Dukar’s smile twitches wider. “He doesn’t brood theatrically,” he says, then pauses, and adds, “He broods with tremendous sincerity.”

  “Even worse,” Naci says.

  For a heartbeat, it almost feels easy. Like old days: two siblings on a ridge, mocking the world so it doesn’t bite them first.

  Then Dukar’s gaze slides back to the harbor. The humor drains out of it in a slow, honest leak.

  “I know why you want me back,” he says.

  Naci doesn’t pretend not to understand. She watches the water too, the foam lines, the drifting wreckage like splinters of a broken crown.

  “Puripal told you,” she says.

  “He did,” Dukar answers. His voice stays level, but his hands tighten on the stone. “About the plan.”

  Naci’s eyes flick, sharp. “He told you that?”

  Dukar hums.

  A dry laugh slips out of Naci. It surprises her; it scrapes her throat on the way out.

  “And?” she asks carefully, because the word contains a lot: and are you angry, and will you forgive me, and do you still stand with me, and is family still family when it’s used like tinder.

  Dukar’s jaw works. “And I need to go,” he says. “I need to see if they’re dead or alive. I need to—” He swallows. “I need to stop imagining it.”

  Naci’s shoulders ease a fraction. “Good,” she says.

  Dukar’s mouth twists. “Also,” he adds, quieter, “I’ve been avoiding them for too long.”

  Naci glances at him. “You’ve been avoiding everyone,” she says. “Including your own skin. I’m surprised it hasn’t filed a complaint.”

  Notso thumps his tail once, as if agreeing that Dukar is negligent.

  Dukar’s laugh is short, then gone again. “I should have told them goodbye,” he says. The words land like a stone dropped into deep water: no splash, just the knowledge that it’s sinking and you can’t grab it back.

  Naci doesn’t reach for his hand. She keeps her elbows on the parapet and lets the wind do the holding.

  “Why?” she asks instead. “Why did you avoid them?”

  Dukar’s eyes narrow at the horizon, as if the answer might be written on the waves if he stares long enough.

  “Because when I look at them,” he says, “I feel like an ornament.”

  Naci blinks. “An ornament,” she repeats, tone incredulous.

  Dukar’s mouth lifts in something bitter. “Yes. A decorative brother. A well-trained dog. Something to stand behind you at councils and nod at the right moments so the old men stop twitching about your gender. The perfect advisor they wanted me to be.” His voice roughens. “The perfect son in the perfect plan.”

  Naci’s expression flickers—annoyance, guilt, something softer she’s too proud to name.

  “You think they didn’t want you for yourself?” she asks, sharper than she intends.

  Dukar finally turns fully toward her, and his eyes are tired enough to be honest.

  “They wanted you to be the perfect Khan,” he says. “Everything in their heads was a path leading to you. You, you, you. Even their love was… angled.” He huffs. “And I was part of the angle. A tool. A mirror. A spare blade.”

  Naci’s jaw tightens. “They love you,” she says.

  “I know,” Dukar replies immediately. “That’s the worst part. They love me the way you love a saddle strap. Very dearly. Very sincerely. But only because it keeps the horse running.”

  Naci’s nostrils flare. She looks away, toward the burnt docks, as if the sea might offer her a better argument.

  Dukar continues, voice steadier now that he’s started. “I wanted to prove them wrong,” he says. “That I wouldn’t become your perfect advisor. That I could be… something else.” His mouth twitches. “Without hurting you. Because you didn’t do anything wrong. You were just born into the story they wrote.”

  Naci’s eyes cut back. “So you ran,” she says flatly.

  “I ran,” Dukar confirms.

  Naci gives him a long look, then lets out a slow breath through her nose. “Congratulations,” she says. “You escaped being my perfect advisor by becoming Puripal’s.”

  Dukar stares, then laughs—an actual laugh, startled out of him like a cough.

  “Oh, spirits,” he groans. “Don’t say it like that.”

  “It’s true,” Naci says, merciless. “You stand at his shoulder. You growl at people on his behalf. You keep him from doing something suicidal because he’s feeling poetic.”

  Dukar points at her with two fingers. “I don’t growl.”

  Notso, hearing the tone, decides to contribute. He lifts his head and emits a low, dramatic woof directly at Naci’s shin.

  Naci looks down at the dog. “Your dog disagrees,” she says.

  “He’s a traitor,” Dukar mutters, but his hand rubs Notso’s head anyway.

  Naci’s grin widens, sharp and sibling-bright. “So,” she says, “how does it feel? Being the perfect advisor of a different lunatic?”

  Dukar’s laughter fades into a smile that is almost peaceful.

  “Easier,” he admits. “Being there for someone is much easier than being a Khan.” He leans his forearms on the stone again, eyes distant. “I think about it a lot. I think about what it means to hold a people in your hands. And honestly?” He exhales. “There is no worse fate than that of a ruler.”

  Naci’s brows lift. “Careful,” she says. “That sounds like philosophy. I’ll have to tax you.”

  Dukar snorts. “Tax me then. I’ll pay in insults.”

  Naci hums thoughtfully. “As a ruler,” she says, “I have to do many fun things. Like—”

  “Like decide which way the tribe moves during winter,” Dukar supplies.

  Naci points at him. “Exactly. Like listen to five different elders explain why their cousin deserves the same horse twice.”

  “Like smile while someone threatens your border and calls it negotiation,” Dukar adds.

  “Like pretend you don’t want to strangle your own scribes when they ask you to sign another stack of papers that will decide the fate of a town you’ve never seen,” Naci says.

  Dukar’s mouth twists. “Like sit through banquets where the soup is bad and the insults are worse.”

  “Like remember everyone’s names,” Naci says.

  Dukar nods slowly. “Puripal writes them down,” he says, softer. “The ones he sends to die. He acts like he’s doing paperwork. But he’s… punishing himself with ink.”

  Naci’s gaze flickers over his face. “You notice everything,” she says.

  “I’m an ornament,” Dukar replies dryly. “My job is to stand still and watch.”

  Naci laughs, then sobers. “You know what else?” she says. “You have to be the villain in someone else’s story no matter what you do.”

  Dukar’s smile turns thin. “Miju proved that,” he murmurs.

  The name sits between them, heavy as wet cloth. Below, the women near the cordon still linger, still staring at the place where their hero died, eyes hollow with devotion and grief.

  Naci shifts, as if shaking off a shadow. “And you have to live,” she says. “After you do all those things. You have to wake up the next day and pretend you’re still capable of making decisions.”

  Dukar looks at her then, really looks, and his expression softens in a way he rarely allows.

  “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “That they made you the center of their plan.”

  Naci scoffs, but it’s gentler than it pretends to be. “They made me the center,” she says. “I made myself the weapon. Everyone gets choices. Some of us just get sharper ones.”

  Notso sneezes violently, as if rejecting the concept of destiny.

  Dukar chuckles. “Even the dog thinks we’re being dramatic.”

  Naci glances down. “He’s right,” she says. “We should be more practical. Like Puripal.”

  Dukar makes a face. “Puripal is not practical. Puripal is a knife that reads poetry and thinks that counts as balance.”

  Naci’s grin returns, wicked. “And you adore him.”

  Dukar’s mouth opens, closes, then he exhales, defeated. “Yes,” he says. “Unfortunately.”

  The wind gusts. A loose banner on a broken mast snaps like a whip. Somewhere below, a hammer strikes nail into plank—rebuilding beginning in small, stubborn sounds.

  Naci turns her head slightly, watching Dukar out of the corner of her eye. The teasing falls away, leaving the question she’s been holding like a blade behind her teeth.

  “Brother,” she says.

  He hums, wary.

  Naci keeps her voice light on purpose, as if they’re still joking about soup and paperwork. “When you go to Qixi-Lo,” she says, “will you convince Puripal to leave the Yohazatz throne to me?”

  Dukar doesn’t respond.

  ...

  A storage chamber near the infirmary has been cleared of crates and ledgers and filled with borrowed quilts, a bowl of water that is never warm enough, and a handful of people who survived the day by being useful.

  Pragya and Pragati sit on the floor with their backs against the wall, knees drawn up. They are clean compared to the rest of the fort—washed hands, fresh bandages where fire and shrapnel kissed them—but their eyes don’t match. Their eyes are still in the harbor.

  They don’t cry. They do something worse: they stare as if they are waiting for a rope to drop from the ceiling and finish the story properly.

  Ta perches on an overturned bucket like it is a throne he doesn’t deserve. His neck is wrapped in cloth, his movements careful. He keeps one hand on his throat whenever he laughs, like laughter might tug his stitches loose out of spite.

  Lizi stands near the doorway, arms folded, her posture too straight. She looks like someone who expects a blade to come for her at any second, which is an excellent instinct when you have recently betrayed a pirate queen.

  Pragya’s hands are in her lap, fingers laced. She stares at the skin between her knuckles where it’s still faintly pink from scrubbing.

  Pragati’s thumbnail has a bite mark. She presses it into her teeth again and again like checking that the world is still solid enough to hurt.

  Ta clears his throat, winces, tries again. “All right,” he says, voice rasped but stubborn. “Let’s do the thing where we pretend we’re not in a fort run by a woman who burns pirates for breakfast.”

  Neither twin looks up.

  Lizi’s mouth twitches. “It was at noon,” she says. “Respect her scheduling.”

  Ta points at her with the hand that isn’t guarding his neck. “See? Lizi understands jokes. She is proof humor survived the apocalypse.”

  Pragati blinks once—slow, mechanical—then looks back down.

  Ta sighs theatrically. “Fine. Humor is dead too,” he declares. “Excellent. Wonderful. We are truly in a new era.”

  Pragya’s lips part slightly. “Shan Xi—” she starts, then stops.

  Pragati’s eyes flick toward her sister, then away.

  The words collapse into silence. It is the kind of silence that has weight. It presses on the room like another wall.

  Ta’s bravado deflates in small increments. He shifts on the bucket, careful of his leg. “You didn’t—” he begins, then closes his mouth. The sentence is a trap. You didn’t have a choice. You did what you could. It wasn’t your fault. None of them fit right, not when the images are still so fresh they have smell.

  He tries anyway, softer. “You did what you had to,” he says.

  Pragya’s gaze lifts, and it’s too sharp for a woman who should be exhausted. “So did they,” she answers, voice flat. “They had to spit and laugh and swear at the rope because if they begged, it would be… it would be—”

  “Unbearable,” Lizi supplies quietly.

  Pragya nods once. “Yes.”

  Pragati’s breath shudders, and for a second it looks like she might cry. Then her shoulders lock again, holding the tears hostage behind her ribs.

  Ta rubs his face with both hands and regrets it immediately because the movement pulls his stitches.

  Lizi crouches a little, trying to bring herself into their eye-line without invading it. “You saved people,” she says. “You saved him.” She jerks her chin toward Ta. “He is still here because you are clever and stubborn.”

  Pragati’s mouth twists. “So,” she says, voice sour, “why aren’t they?”

  Lizi doesn’t answer. There isn’t an answer that doesn’t sound like propaganda.

  Pragya’s mouth almost moves into something like a smile. Then it falters. “We thought we’d die too,” she admits, barely. “When the rope—when the fire—”

  Pragati cuts in, bitter. “They let us live because we are useful.” Her voice sharpens on the word as if it tastes foul. “Not because we deserve it.”

  Ta leans forward, elbows on knees, expression suddenly serious in a way that makes his youth look older than it should. “There’s a lot of people alive because they were useful,” he says. “Sometimes that’s all the world offers. But being alive doesn’t become less yours because someone else had a reason.”

  Pragya’s eyes flicker, uncertain. “Easy to say,” she murmurs.

  “I know,” Ta says. “That’s why I’m saying it. Saying things you don’t believe yet is how you start tricking your brain into trying.”

  Lizi huffs a short breath. “He’s insufferable,” she informs the twins.

  Ta lifts his chin. “I’m inspirational.”

  “You’re loud,” Lizi corrects. “There’s a difference.”

  For the first time, Pragati lets out a sound that might be a laugh if it weren’t strangled at the start. It dies in her throat like a candle snuffed by wet fingers.

  The moment slips away.

  Puripal steps in without knocking. He has changed clothes since the harbor—less blood on the fabric now, but the same tension in the shoulders. The Khan Regent wears exhaustion like armor: tight, polished, dangerous. His eyes sweep the room in a single practiced movement, cataloguing bodies, angles, exits.

  He takes in the twins in their corner. Something unreadable crosses his face: calculation trying to disguise itself as concern.

  “Ta,” he says.

  Ta’s posture shifts automatically. It’s subtle, like a soldier hearing his name called by a superior. He hates that it happens; he can feel the reflex like a chain still attached to an old collar.

  Puripal jerks his chin toward the corridor. “Come with me.”

  Ta hesitates, glances at the twins. Pragya’s hands are still clenched. Pragati’s jaw is locked as if she’s holding herself together with teeth.

  Lizi watches Puripal with a flat, guarded stare that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with remembering how many bodies a man can stack while smiling like a court poet.

  Ta stands. “Don’t start a war while I’m gone,” he tells the twins.

  Pragya’s lips move. The word doesn’t come.

  Pragati whispers, almost hostile, “We’re not pirates.”

  Ta points at her. “Exactly. You’re doctors.”

  He follows Puripal out.

  The corridor outside is narrower and colder. A Banner officer barks an order, then immediately lowers their voice when it echoes too far.

  Puripal walks two paces ahead of Ta. His hand rests near his blade even here, even now.

  Ta shuts the door behind them with his heel and leans against the wall, arms folding. “All right,” he says. “What now?”

  Puripal’s gaze snaps back. “How are they?” he asks.

  Ta blinks. The question almost sounds like a person. “Not fine,” he says. “Traumatized. Guilty. Haunted.” He jerks his chin toward the door. “They won’t go back to normal just yet.”

  Puripal’s mouth tightens as if that confirms something in his head. “They won’t,” he agrees, and there is no comfort in it—only timing.

  Ta’s eyes narrow. “What are you thinking?”

  Puripal’s voice stays level, rational, the tone of a man discussing supply lines. “I don’t want them to stay with Naci.”

  Ta’s gut clenches. “Why?”

  “Because they are too valuable,” Puripal says simply.

  Ta gives him a hard look.

  Puripal continues. “They are geniuses. They understand blood and powder and wounds in ways armies would pay fortunes for. If Naci keeps them, they become assets. If the Moukopl keeps them, they become weapons. If anyone else keeps them—”

  “Puripal,” Ta says, voice sharpening.

  Puripal’s eyes flick to his. “I want to snap them up while they are still not able to consent,” he says. “Before they realize they can refuse. Before they can weigh offers. Before someone else—”

  Ta pushes off the wall so fast his stitches pull and he doesn’t care. “You are insane,” he spits. “Do you hear yourself?”

  Puripal’s expression barely shifts. “I hear myself,” he says. “I also hear the world. The world does not reward gentleness.”

  Ta laughs once, sharp and ugly. “No,” he says. “The world rewards monsters. Congratulations, you’re fluent.”

  Puripal’s jaw tightens. “Leaving two geniuses to a potential enemy is not a moral victory,” he says. “It’s stupidity. They saved your life. That gives us leverage. Gratitude. Attachment. It will be easy to convince them.”

  Ta stares at him, and for a moment his anger is so clean it’s almost calm. “You keep saying ‘us,’” he says. “And you keep meaning ‘you.’”

  Puripal’s eyes flash. “Don’t be childish.”

  “Don’t be evil,” Ta fires back. “They are people. Not medicine you can steal before anyone else snatches it off the shelf.”

  Puripal’s mouth opens, ready with another neat argument. Ta cuts him off before the blade can come down.

  “I’m not your puppet anymore,” Ta says. The words land like a door slamming. “I won’t do this to them.”

  Puripal’s face shifts—annoyance, surprise, a flicker of something like being wounded by refusal. He inhales slowly through his nose, as if counting to keep himself from barking orders.

  “You owe me,” he says, softer.

  Ta’s smile is cold. “I owe you honesty,” he replies. “And I’m paying in full.”

  Puripal’s eyes narrow, searching Ta’s expression like he’s looking for the seam where he can pry obedience out. He doesn’t find it.

  Ta tilts his head. “Why are you still lurking,” he asks, “like you’re about to get assassinated in the Qixi-Lo palace? Why are you walking like every shadow wants to stab you?”

  Puripal’s gaze flicks down the corridor, instinctively. “Because it does,” he says.

  Ta huffs. “Maybe before,” he says. “But now? Now you’ve won. What is left for you to fight for?”

  Puripal’s mouth tightens. His eyes go distant for half a breath, as if he sees a child holding a vial again, hears a rhyme again. Then: “Nemeh,” he says.

  The name is a stone in his mouth.

  Ta’s expression softens in a way that is almost pity. “Nemeh is still there,” he agrees. “But he won’t be your problem.”

  Puripal looks at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Ta gestures vaguely down the hall. “Naci and Dukar will take care of Nemeh,” he says. “As lucky and strong as he is, he can’t beat the Tepr siblings.”

  Puripal’s brow furrows, as if Ta has just removed the one pillar he’s been leaning on and he doesn’t know how to stand without it.

  Ta watches him, then says, almost gently, “So you should start thinking about your own future.”

  Puripal goes still.

  It is not dramatic. It is the stillness of a man whose entire life has been shaped like a spear pointed at one target, and someone has just asked him what he plans to do when the spear hits.

  “My…” Puripal begins, then stops. His throat works. He tries again. “After?”

  “After Nemeh is dead,” Ta says. “After the revenge story ends. After the last prince stops being a problem. What then? What do you do when the world is no longer something you can blame for why you’re holding a knife?”

  Puripal stares at him. His face is blank in a way that doesn’t look like strength. It looks like emptiness.

  He doesn’t have an answer.

  Ta, because he cannot resist being cruel in the service of kindness, grins. “I mean,” he says, “you could try being a beloved ruler.”

  Puripal’s eyes narrow. “Don’t.”

  Ta holds up both hands. “Just suggesting,” he says. “But you’d be terrible at it. Yohazatz still remembers the Qixi-Lo massacre. You have the charisma of a damp tomb when you’re not threatening someone. And you have no benefit in being a ruler except… what? The thrill of paperwork?”

  Puripal’s mouth twitches despite himself. “Paperwork does not thrill me.”

  “It thrills you,” Ta insists. “You love a nice ledger. It’s basically foreplay for you.”

  Puripal’s expression turns faintly horrified. “Ta.”

  Ta laughs, coughs, touches his neck, then continues anyway. “Point is,” he says, “you don’t actually gain anything by sitting on a throne. Thrones don’t heal you. They just give your pain nicer clothes.”

  Puripal’s gaze drops for a moment, as if he’s watching his own hands again, the way he did by the fish-pond long ago.

  Then he looks up, and there’s something raw in his eyes. “What shall happen of the Yohazatz?” he asks quietly. Not as a rhetorical court question. As a person who suddenly realizes he’s been holding an entire people by the throat and doesn’t know what happens if he lets go.

  Ta’s smile fades into something steadier. “They should become tribes once again,” he says.

  Puripal’s eyebrows lift. “Tribes.”

  “Yes,” Ta says. “Loose. Free. Annoying. Alive. Khans and kings never amount to anything except dread and violence. Humans were meant to be free, not subjects.”

  Puripal’s jaw tightens, reflexive. “Tribes are easy targets for strong empires,” he says. “See Tepr before Naci.”

  Ta nods as if he’s expected the counter. “And people like Naci will always rise in response,” he says. “Somebody always does. Somebody always becomes the storm when the sky refuses to rain.”

  He looks at Puripal, eyes clear.

  “But nobody like you should be burdened with that.”