”Please—” was all Rannek managed to say before they jammed the scarf into his mouth, flooding it with the taste of sweat and tobacco and defeat. An ache like a smoldering fire burned in his shoulder, and his ankle felt close to bursting apart as they yanked him to his feet. The rebels jabbed and shoved him to start walking blindly. After days apart from the sun, a new darkness now surrounded him—one of close proximity, of his own eyelids, forced shut by the other scarf tied around his skull. Rannek tumbled blindly across the cave, suffering many a strike to his ribs. When he ran into the boulder, his shoulder turned into searing flame and he collapsed to the ground, where he was soon joined by other bodies falling next to him. They fought the same fight, against ropes, and blindfolds, and gravity, knocking him down in their attempts to sit up. He whimpered when an elbow struck his kidney, yet still, it was the whimpering of the others that cut him to his core.

Their deaths would be on him.

He tried to focus on something useful, a way of mitigating the danger. He thought to have heard a bird’s song somewhere close-by as he pondered, unable to produce anything but a depressing truth: even in the darkest scenarios his mind could come up with, he always had his words. Him wordless was a worthless him. Mute, blind, and fettered like cattle, he could only wait for someone else to decide his fate knowing what a terrible mistake that someone might make. That, too, would be on him. He should have called out his name when they were beating the soldiers. He should have called out hers.

He hadn’t. A stammering worse than Ibiko’s had seized him until the very moment of the gagging, when he’d realized how doomed he truly was. Please. They could not kill him on account of bad manners, at least. Rannek lifted himself off the ground and slowly sat up. There the bird called again, this time high above. A strange call it was, foreign to the city, to his ears. A smart animal, clearly. It knew to keep its distance.

When he finally succeeded in sitting upright, Rannek noticed an uneven breath next to him. He bumped shoulders with a neighbor whose panting could only be Wellan’s. He had taken the worst of the rebels’ punishment, had his nose broken by the wood and metal of their rifles for letting foolish private Staen fall out of line. It must have been a wholly different hell he was going through. His mouth had been gagged regardless of the injury leaving him to snort, wheeze, and swallow in his quest for air. What had healed of his wounds had cracked open readily at the first punch, spilling blood everywhere. Rannek waited for him to bump his shoulder in return. Nothing came.

Fine then. There was no point in dwelling in fear, no matter how justified it was. Rannek straightened his back and arched his neck, ignoring the pain as best he could. Why blindfold an enemy you intended to kill? There was a purpose to them still being here breathing, whimpering, listening to the rebels’ silence and the bird’s incessant squawks. The leader of the outfit of five had spoken to Wellan as a peer. A fellow leader. He would let him speak again, and Wellan would identify him immediately. He had said it himself. Value. Rannek had value, and so had Pen; a value that, he hoped, would protect those without. The TLA had killed prefects before, yet they had never managed to take one hostage, making him a more than decent catch. He could sell them his cooperation for the prize of the others’ lives.

He would be selling his soul. His legacy. The pale prefect, a caged pet of the Union. He had never cared much about his resume, yet still, this meant treason. It meant abandoning his home. The Empire wouldn’t take him back if they found out he had betrayed their secrets; secrets the enemy would make him betray with or without his accordance.

If it had to be, it had to be. The others would see his failure for the sacrifice that it was, Pen in particular, and hopefully, she wouldn’t cower, she’d stay true, and proud, and dignified in captivity, for it was the same thing she had done for the five years he’d known her. Rannek had tried his best to let her keep some freedom in her life, all the while knowing that in the Empire’s eyes, the daughter of Faroe Kyetana would never truly be free. In the end, her capture was nothing but a changing of cages.

Still, he shuddered imagining what kind of cage the Liberation had prepared for them, and it wasn’t long before the horror stories told by his countrymen started rewinding in his mind. Men were men everywhere, he reminded himself. Some men tortured, raped, and killed. No army was free of its own bad noggs, but even so, the TLA was entirely unpredictable. Many a prisoner had come back across Ueneri bridge, yet not as many as those that hadn’t, and the survivors’ accounts varied. Some called the enemy civilized. Some called him a monster. There was nothing to trust in but the favor of the god he’d doubted all his life.

May Vohl bless these rebels with fair spirits, he whispered into his gag.

When the fourth bird call sounded, Rannek heard the stopping of breaths not far from him—yet not those of his fellow captives. Something was wrong. They hadn’t seen a single bird in the cavern up to now, nor heard any but the faintest of calls from the outside. No, that was wrong, too; there had been one, just before the maroon rebels came walking out of the boulder’s shadow toting their guns. Rannek thought back to Mallaslyn, and what the private had said shortly before his tragic fall.

They didn’t use radios. They used calls of nature. Bird calls. The first call had been the leader’s, then, and the response a sound coming from outside the cavern. Only what purpose was there to their call? Was the leader receiving orders this way? Rannek grew restless. What were the rebels’ orders?

His train of thought stopped dead in its tracks. The ground shook from a staggering blast that swallowed all sound for a breath before spitting it back out in a wave of destruction. The air grew a mineral taste. He felt a soft snowing of dust on his skin, and huddled close with the others seeking cover against the boulder. There was even movement in Wellan, whose shoulder did not bump, but press into Rannek’s, feeding the fire of his wound. The blast rolled over him dissipating into a myriad smaller noises that died out one by one. Stones burst, and flew, and fell, and rested. Dust settled with an almost imperceptible sizzle. The ground, the walls gave their last shiver. Silence came slowly, but gradually, and it had all but arrived when a new sound began reverberating through the cave.

He heard the smacking of feet on stone, not in lockstep, but scattered, quiet. There were no shoes in the Liberation Army, people said, but there sure were plenty of feet. Rannek counted at least a dozen entering the cave before his five captors started walking as well. They met the others halfway, and words went back and forth. Merry words. They were having a happy reunion.

It made Rannek sick to hear, enough so that he feared he might retch again. His stomach was bloated with cooked moss which, should it indeed start heading for the exits, might suffocate him. Wouldn’t that be a most pathetic death, he thought: killed by Liberation when they hadn’t even been trying. A bitter chuckle escaped his mouth, and he was grateful that the gag choked it before the others could hear.

He could understand more and more of what the merry voices were saying as they got closer. There had been a delay. Someone owed someone money, the result of a bet. The mention of snakes reawakened his fear of torture, but he put that on hold until further evidence. The first feet came smacking around the boulder. Someone whistled an acknowledging note that started out high and glided down the register before it suddenly died.

A voice had given the whistler pause, asking for a man called ’jaiwe Haam’. Rannek wasn’t surprised to hear the raspy leader of his captors reply, though his tone was different than before. Almost tame. It bid the other man to come around the boulder. It called him ’siwe’.

Rannek knew those titles from his studies on behalf of the Imperial Encyclopedia. The TLA obeyed a pyramid of levels, eleven of them, each level corresponding to a specific rank in charge of the levels below, and at the command of those above. The Ajan of course topped that pyramid. Unfortunately, his manifesto was the sole source of Rannek’s knowledge about their otherwise secret ways, and he had been wise enough to give more of an impression that a detailed picture. The day-to-day responsibilities of a jaiwe were a mystery to Rannek; all he knew was that they represented the bottom tier of leadership positions. ’Siwe’ however gave him something to work with. That one towered high above the likes of jaiwes, too high in his estimate to actually set foot onto a battlefield. According to Wellan’s sources, two siwes plagued the townships of Koeiji, leading the recruitment of kids for the Liberation’s ’righteous war’—thorns in his side, and yet he hadn’t met either of them.

That lofty title clashed with the voice now talking to the rebels. The siwe sounded young, hardly older than Ibiko. He told them to be at ease. Despite the ranks of the Liberation’s foot soldiers being filled to the brim with teenagers, Rannek hadn’t expected that folly to extend this high up the ladder. Moreover, the voice didn’t just sound young, it sounded youthful. Who had the Ajan put in charge here?

A host of different noises came to life around him, not too far away: the clatter of tin cans, the gurgling of water, the crinkling of paper. Dinner, he realized. It wasn’t long before the smell of borvin wafted through the fabrics covering his face. Rannek had never known brewed mushrooms could make a man cry, yet he wasn’t far from it. Anything but the moss made his heart jump at this point.

The voice had been close, but now it was silent. All Rannek heard were soft, un-smacking steps walking past the row of captives, past him. They stopped. He listened closely, but for a while nothing but the sounds of dinner came to him. A few muttered words he believed he’d heard just before the young voice spoke up. ”Why did you blindfold them?”

Jaiwe Haam was quick to respond. ”So they won’t see.”

”See what, my face? I trust they can take it.”

”Of course not, I— I simply thought…” The jaiwe stopped, and made his voice turn into obedient mumbling. ”I apologize, siwe. Ayele, Bo, take ’em off.” Another short pause later, he suddenly shouted, ”Now!”

Thus, Rannek found himself under an onrush of hectic hands yanking down his blindfold. He squinted around at the others. There was Wellan to his left, groaning when the cloth touched the splintered ridge of his nose, his face a bleeding monstrosity. Dhav sat beside him, eyes staring at the jaiwe filled with rage, wholly unlike Kysryn. The technician flanked Rannek to his right and did not dare look up from the ground as they unmasked him.

Past Kysryn sat the three Tahori captives. Only their mouths and hands had been bound, it seemed, sparing their ankles and eyes. Pen’s jaw was covered by a maroon scarf, as was Ibiko’s, while Oiji wore an old shirt covered in blueish smears around his face. He looked just short of throwing up. Rannek nodded at the three of them, trying to make his eyes express all the reassurance he could, but only Pen acknowledged it. The fear he saw in her was none he could fix, so he looked down in shame only to find a peculiar pair of feet standing in front of him.

They were not bare like those of the other rebels, but clad in shoes of matte brown leather. His skin was a good shade darker still, so dark it nearly shed the brown Tahori hue. Southron blood. Rannek looked up to find a uniform just like the others, only no scarf, no bandana, nothing to hide the young face that owned the young voice. The siwe. A tall man, with features unfitting his vocation; mild, refined, centered around a nose as delicately arched as a mammoth’s tusk.

Yet he also bore the marks of war. An otherwise presentable stubble grew in patches on his right cheek hindered by the scar, a star-shape, the signature of grenade fragments forever stamped into his skin. In this, the siwe fit in with the rebels under his command. Kids, that’s all they were. Only two or three besides the jaiwe could have measured more than twenty years. Most of their scars were long-healed, too long to stem from serving in the Ajan’s army. He found faces that turned out to neither belong to men nor boys, but girls, which shouldn’t have surprised him; yet it did. They wore the same scars as their brothers, and their eyes were bright just like Pen’s.

”I must apologize,” said the siwe. ”You have been mistreated.”

He had turned toward the three shackled Tahori. Ibiko disregarded the siwe just as he did everything, rocking back and forth with a thin trickle of blood running from his forehead down his nose and into the scarf. Pen meanwhile gave him a wary look that caused a smile on the dark man’s face. Only Oiji tried to speak before swallowing a thread or something alike, and thrusting muffled coughs into his gag.

The siwe knelt down and freed the hermit of the choking shirt. As Oiji’s cough simmered down, the other two had their scarves taken off as well. Rannek noticed the jaiwe’s feet shifting nervously. This siwe seemed of a different creed, a more patient one, Vohl be praised. Say your name, Rannek wanted to shout, yet he bade himself to stay silent. Pen knew what to do. He’d told her back in the jungle. Thank Vohl, he’d told her.

”I trust the jaiwe,” the siwe said, remaining on his knees. ”He would not have restrained you without reason. Did you attack his men?”

”They attacked us,” Pen said, defiantly. ”Ib— My cousin only wanted to defend me, and they beat him!”

Cousin. Oh no, Rannek thought. How could she still be bent on continuing the ruse with her hands bound, and a dozen armed soldiers planted before her? He had hoped for her father’s spirit to guide her, only not that self-negating strain of Kyetana pride that made her sheathe her mightiest weapon—her name. Don’t be stubborn, he mumbled into the scarf.

The siwe looked at Ibiko, raised his hand, and wiped blood off the miner’s face with his wrist. Even to that, Ibiko hardly reacted, only curtailing the arc of his rocking. The siwe put his palms together facing up and bowed, slowly. ”A misunderstanding, it sounds like. Jaiwe Haam, did you instruct your men to attack them?”

The jaiwe’s feet stopped shifting in an instant. ”Only the girl, and only once. They wouldn’t have surrendered otherwise.”

”I don’t appreciate those sorts of tactics,” the siwe said. His head turned accordingly, brows furrowing at the sight of the other man. ”These are our brothers and sisters, and they have done nothing to you. Apologize.”

Surprise seized the cluster of rebels just as it did Rannek. Looking around, he suddenly spied the origin of the smells and sounds that had upset his stomach so: there was an actual dinner happening past the cluster. On rock and rubble and rusted metal trays, some had taken to cooking up soups and borvin, and roasting corn. One young rebel was frying an egg on a blank slate of metal over a gas heater, flipping it with the muzzle of his gun quite skillfully. A girl sipped on a steaming cup of borvin while reading a withered newspaper.

All of them stopped what they were doing and stared, however, the instant the jaiwe stacked his hands. Hidden smiles followed at the three bows the higher-ranking man performed, one for each Tahori prisoner. ”Forgive me,” he said.

Pen responded with only a flustered nod, as did Oiji. Ibiko didn’t respond at all. The siwe’s face cleared up as he rose from the ground. At last, his eyes met Rannek’s, although they did not linger, and he began walking in a circle before them. The barefoot soldiers receded to make space for him as he circled, and spoke. ”This meeting of ours is unfortunate. I resent the Empire, as you must know from my scars, yet I prefer to face its soldiers on a battlefield. I prefer to give you pales the fair chance we didn’t get when you attacked our villages, killed our families, branded us. A foolish sentiment, the jaiwe tells me, and he is right. The war you have begun leaves little room for mercy.” The siwe stopped, and turned. ”But I am not your creation. You treat me with respect, I return it. Unfortunately, our mission forced us to make noise and smoke; we are pressed for time. I therefore ask you to respect me by giving me what I desire—the truth. Who among you wishes to do so?”

Me, Rannek wanted to scream. Relief came over him at the sight of a thin finger rising to point at his knees, his stomach, soon his chest. She understood. She’d listened. Pen’s index was just about to aim at his nose when a second rattling shrug made the siwe turn the other way.

”I’d be happy to,” said Oiji.

It did not command the same kind of attention as the jaiwe’s trinity of bows. Still, the hermit in his suit of bones drew the eyes of the siwe, Pen, jaiwe Haam, even Wellan. Oiji looked back wearing the same kind smirk he’d met them with in the boneyard. Something in his face contracted for a moment. Had he winked at Rannek?

”And who are you?” the siwe asked.

”You ask the truth, so…” A wave of shame rolled over the hermit’s face, drowning the smirk. ”I’m a liar.”

—

”A Liar?” The siwe crossed his arms. Didn’t expect that, did ya? Tye basked in the attention of this more appropriate crowd, a proper forest of bare feet all pointed at him, handing him their disbelief on an Orinian platter. The flipping of an egg, the crinkly turning of a page suddenly seemed deafening, and through this silence a scoff soon reached his ear, a muffled one. He didn’t have to turn to know whose tatered face it had escaped from.

”What?” the brat said, meekly.

”The name I gave these folks isn’t my real one,” Tye said. ”If they knew, they might’ve killed me.”

”Why?” the siwe asked.

”’Cause my name is luwe Aerani Rokie of the Jaemeni Liberation forces, and I just escaped from the Bitaab Prison Complex.”

A ripple of gasps went around the barefoot forest. The dark trunks then suddenly started to waver and buckle as the rebels leaned on each other’s shoulders with unbridled laughter. Even jaiwe Haam let out a cackle. Only the siwe kept a straight face as he waited for the noise to die down. And he’s the only one that counts.

Tye looked shortly to his left and tallied the old troop:

For: 0 [-6]

Against: 1

Withstanding: 1 [+1]

Gagged: 4 [+4]

Dead: 1 [+1]

With the brat (A1) still too puzzled to form a sentence, and Ibiko (W1) too immersed in rocking to even hear what was going on, Tye kept his back straight and his face in a frown of deep, deep insult.

The siwe raised his hand, and his subordinates silenced within a breath. ”We should not laugh. However, you must understand our reservations—we are a long way from the capitol, and your attire seems—”

”Fucking insane?” Tye sighed. Time to give them the smallest lie he’d ever told. ”I’m sorry, I guess you’re right. Might be I’m not the sharpest after all that time in the dark, hungry, thirsty… But I was sure they would’a made me for an inmate if I hadn’t dressed up and pretended, and then they’d’ve questioned me. I’m bad with torture, y’see. Us city rebels ain’t exactly from the same cloth as you jungle folk.” Murmurs from the forest agreed with that statement. He ignored them and looked down at the brat, whose face was slowly filling with something else than disbelief. Time to reel her in. ”Still, I ain’t proud of what I did. I’m sorry, Umi.”

Pen opened her mouth, and still, the words came hesitantly. ”How—Why? You could have told us, we wouldn’t have hurt you!”

At the edge of his vision, he spotted the geezer (G4) frantically rubbing his chin against his shoulder trying to loosen the gag. Her you can handle—he could be a problem. With relief, Tye watched the jaiwe step up to Rannek and yank his head back by his hair. ”Not you, trust, but them?” Tye asked. ”Experience tells me otherwise.”

”Aerani is right,” said the siwe. ”It speaks to the character of these Gralinn that they treat you kindly, little Umi, but there are limits to their compassion.” The brat flinched at the mention of her fake name, and still didn’t object; she truly must have hated her real one. And now, we’re both liars. ”Break the law, oppose the Empire, and suddenly, their eyes may change,” the siwe went on. “Suddenly, they might see you as something less of a person, something of animal nature. All because you’ve made a mistake. Meanwhile, I am told there are prisons in Grale just like ours, where people enter and leave by the scores every day. The pale man makes plenty mistakes of his own. Only it is never him who’s declared a savage.”

Trust, brother. The brat became silent again, staring still, but deeply rattled. Tye had his mark cut out for him. A remarkable man, if only in his conviction of how remarkable he was. And so ambitious. There had to have been a record broken the day he became siwe. Who knew—had it been him recruiting in Jaemeni when a little Tye had just gotten expelled from school, he might’ve convinced him. Tye’s tiny lie would have shrunk into reality.

For he had indeed worked with the Liberation, albeit only as an outside liaison gathering intel. Where to find the best marks, where to expect the Guard and the Watch to snoop around, where to stage parties… Things for which he kept an eye out just the same without payment. His contacts had made a poor job of hiding their affiliation, some even wearing tokens of maroon at meetings. But the risk of dealing with terrorists had been worth it since apparently, terrorists paid well, and more reliably than most black market employers. Young Omrun plays, old Omrun pays. It was those few facts that he now had to use to kill the doubt still prevalent on the faces topping the rebel forest. ”You must be wonderin’ about my mistake,” Tye said.

The siwe nodded. ”Indeed I am.”

”Theft’s what they got me for. Trust, I did my share of it, but not the one they booked me for. Couldn’t get me for recruiting, so they used the raids to put me into collective processing. Judge didn’t take one look at me during the trial. Empire justice, fuckin’ joke.”

”Your brothers who remained, what about them?”

”Stayed away from the case and the prison. Worst thing is, I can’t blame ’em for abandoning me. We’d just lost some of our best people in the raids. Yours truly wasn’t the only one who got snatched. I only hope they recovered well.”

”I believe so,” the siwe said with an encouraging smile. Oh, he’s close. ”Our numbers in Jaemeni are growing stronger than ever. Siwe Omrun runs a tight ship.”

Tye twisted his forehead into a hundred wrinkles. ”Sir, siwe Omrun is dead.”

”He is.” The siwe paused, confused. ”His son took over a year ago, however, and he too is named siwe Omrun.”

Tye drove his smirk up higher than before, and cocked his head. ”True—but that one does not run a tight ship.”

His reward was instant, and sweet like the laughter of a child; for that is what it was. The siwe bent back spurting ’ha-ha-ha’s and ’he-he’s, the laughter of a boy too full of righteousness to really let his body shake. His joy nonetheless caught on, with more than one barefoot sycophant echoing the ’ha’s and ’he’s. One even spilled his borvin, drawing the contempt of his female comrade whose newspaper had caught the fluid. Tye glanced at the jaiwe to find his suspicions proven right: another pessimist. Had it not been for the clashing colors, he may have had a splendidly depressing time hanging out with taterface.

Down by the side of the boulder, Wellan was slumped over his knees still, panting, gurgling disgustingly, next to the dumbfounded geezer. He made for an even more pitiful sight than his two guards. Dhav’s rage, Kysryn’s fear were tainted by a lack of understanding, and their eyes toward Tye still carried the amicability he’d earned on the giant’s stairs. In that, they were a stark contrast to the pools of bright green glaring up from beside him. A change had happened there, one that made him somewhat uneasy. Pen’s was not an expression warranted by either Oiji or Aerani. It was the look of someone on the verge of a realization. She’s looking at you.

”Well… ha… well put,” said the siwe, catching his breath. ”It is said that my colleague spends an inordinate amount of our funds on secret meetings and festivities.” When he cocked his head as well, Tye knew he was in. ”Yet his supporters counter that this is precisely why your numbers are so strong! The young city folk tend to flock to those kinds of events.”

”Exactly,” Tye said. ”Under his leadership, it’s only a question of time before we put that nimrod Yut out of office and retake the capitol. For the Ajan.”

”For freedom,” the siwe responded instantly, and nodded. ”Glad to have you with us, luwe.”

”Liar,” the brat hissed at him.

The siwe looked at her with a mask of patience. Let him handle it. Tye donned his own mask, one of shame, and averted his eyes. ”Child, he did what he had to do,” the siwe said. ”He repented. Don’t hold on to grudges to your fellow man; that is just what the Empire wants us to do.”

”What do you know about the Empire?” Her voice was cutting, and growing louder. She’s forgetting her place. ”Have you lived under it? Have you read their teachings?”

The siwe smiled. “There is no need. I have studied the Ajan’s works, whose eyes see through the Empire and all its deceptions.”

“The Ajan, yes. Tell me this: Does he not teach that we can’t forget the first betrayal? That of the merchants?”

”He does. Yet I don’t see what—”

”He teaches that a trust broken at first sight cannot be restored, true?”

”… Yes.”

”Then how can you trust this man?” she shouted. ”The first thing he told you was that he is a liar! Oiji, Aerani—whatever his name is, he fooled us. All of us! I’m telling you, he cannot tell the truth.” Pen spat on the ground before him. ”Even now, he’s hiding behind his lies. But I see you.”

The siwe shook his head. ”I’d rather trust the man who admits he lies than him who denies ever doing so. What harm did he cause you?”

”He’s a damn liar!”

”I’m hurt,” Tye said, ”that’s the truth.”

”Enough of this.” The siwe turned his back and touched the scar on his cheek. ”You know about the Ajan’s teachings, an admirable thing concerning your age, but your emotions are getting the better of you. Let him be. I’m in no mood to be berated by children any further.”

Loud muffled words came from the G-ranks and was promptly answered by jaiwe Haam. He ripped back the geezer’s head by his wispy hair, yet still couldn’t make him stop yelling. Tye-ana—what’s he saying about you? Finally, it died out. Meanwhile, the brat next to Tye had begun to tremble, and her eyes were firmly fixed on the young siwe.

”If you don’t like a child talking down to you,” she said, ”imagine what your soldiers must feel like.”

The siwe turned, and for a breath, his face lost its composure, became soft, and hurt. It then darkened. ”A mistake, little Umi. Be grateful we’re not the Empire.”

At a nod by the siwe, jaiwe Haam stepped forward and grabbed the scarf around Pen’s neck, pulling it over her mouth and nose. ”My name is not—” she said, and spoke no more. Ibibiko’s rocking stopped when she sunk down crying next to him. He stared at her, perplexedly.

”We’re wasting time”, said the siwe. He gave a second nod, but the jaiwe hesitated. A third one made him comply.

A kneeling and a cutting later, Tye felt the ropes fall off his hands. He played shy, only standing up after another sign by the siwe, stretched his limbs with many rattles, and lifted his arm just so that the jaiwe got a good whiff. ”I’m in your debt,” he said, “and until that’s paid off, I hope I can be of service.”

”Pay me with the truth. Who are these people?”

Now for the encore. Tye rolled his eyes in a manner that would have made the brat proud, had she not become his new nemesis. ”Good question. Truth is, they might have told a few lies of their own. Said they went down in a Krissin, could be. Said they were flyin’ to Bitaab to ’appease locals’ and ’set up camp’. Guess after a few days of miner misery, the Empire got off its ass after all.”

”These two?”

Pen took Ibibiko’s hand in hers; now, they trembled together. Tye shrugged. ”Not sure, they claim they’re from Bitaab. I’m…” For a moment, a hole opened up in Tye’s stomach, and he thought he heard a voice. A familiar, scolding voice. It gave him an idea. ”I’m sorry, they’re gonna be fine, right? Not to offend, ’s just—”

”No offense taken,” the siwe said. Worrying about the children always pleased the virtuous. ”There are evils out there, and I’m afraid they infiltrate even our own ranks. We will take them to safety, but the Empire will come hunting for us soon. Returning them home is not an option.” Tye felt a hand lying down on his shoulder, its weight somewhere between those of taterface and the geezer. The siwe smiled. ”I trust you will join us, too?”

Tye nodded. He would, very much so. And he’d have it ten times easier to escape thanks to his tiny lie. And they even brought their own hole, gods know why. One he didn’t have to climb through. His mind started racing with all the ways of making an escape—from classics like Pee Break and the Retch’n’Fetch to his own creations like the Bae—when suddenly, he remembered something. ”Oh by the way,” he said, ”I’m pretty sure the girl’s from Koeiji. And the geezer’s her father.”

”You’re pretty sure?” The siwe sounded skeptical.

”The others all cozy up to them. They’re part of the city’s inner circle, if you ask me. Diplomat’s a nice position to park your friends ’n family.”

”… You’re referring to the pale prefect. But his own, out here?”

The siwe’s curiosity seemed sparked. He took a step toward the geezer. Tye was surprised and a bit confused to see Rannek kneel in total ignorance of his reveal. Pen meanwhile was still caught up in tears. A little recognition would be nice. He watched the siwe study Rannek’s face, and could not but try to figure out what it was that distracted the old man so. Was he ogling… dinner?

”There’s a slight resemblance, but I’m the wrong one to judge,” the siwe said. ”All I’ve seen are photographs of the man, and to be honest, I’m not the best at telling apart gojas.”

”Toast to that,” Tye said. ”Look, all I’m saying is, could be worth something, both of them—” That hole again, and the scolding voice. Calm, he told himself. Moms won’t have to know. ”—or just one. Your call.”

The siwe scoffed, turned around, and shook his head. ”I am not in the business of selling people. Still, thank you for telling us. It never hurts to know.” He gave the girl a ponderous look. ”Could have fooled me. She looks just like our own.” He knelt down and softly padded her back. ”Little Umi Lorne, is it?”

All of a sudden, Ibibiko grabbed his hand and twisted it back like a twig. ”Her n-n-name is P-Penroe Kyet-t-tana!”

The siwe cried out and jerked back as soon as his hand was released. Ibibiko cowered down fearing the jaiwe’s wrath, but the rebel leader did not move a muscle. The name had done its damage. Her name is Pen. Yeah right. The simpleton had indeed surprised Tye—he had never taken him for a joker.

”I see the trauma in your eyes, and I feel for you,” said the siwe. He straightened his back and patted the dust off his olive trousers. ”And yet, be careful what you say next. I will not have you dishonor that name by spreading lies about it.”

”I-I’m not the li-liar,” Ibibiko said.

”He’s done for,” Tye said. ”Great climber, but his mind—”

”Take it back,” snarled the jaiwe.

Ibibiko flinched, but kept his lips shut. The jaiwe stepped forward, still getting no response. He raised his rifle to strike down. Through the anxiety, the holes, the voices scolding him, Tye noticed a movement past the rising muzzle. A chin rubbing a shoulder. A scarf wrinkling, slipping free. A mouth opening.

”PAGE SIX!!!” Rannek screamed, and then screamed it again. Then, the jaiwe’s gun was brought down on his face. He sank down and seized his screaming. Her name is Pen. Tye-ana your ass. What sense would that make? Laughable. Good one, simpleton. And who’s the old man, then, if not her father? Close to the prefect, ain’t he—a berry’s close to a berry, too, in a way. No. He would not even consider it.

”What madness dwells in these mountains?” asked the siwe. Tye took a breath to realize that it was directed at him. ”So many men we sent down, so few returned… How fortunate our duty today doesn’t re—” A tug at the yoke of his shirt made the siwe spin around. His voice too spoke of a rising temper. ”What is it?”

A girl stood there, lanky, towering over the better part of her comrades. Something in her posture was off. She was young, no more than a few years above Pen, and her pointy face bore the siwe’s stare with patience. A crinkling caused Tye to look down at her hand, and the stained newspaper in it. Like a sheep he walked to the siwe’s side, joined by the jaiwe, to see what had silenced him so.

A photograph: people kneeling, trinkets scattered on the ground, a marketplace setting. A scrawny little brat in the middle. An all too short caption. The siwe turned his head, and looked down in horror. ”The daughter of Faroe Kyetana.”

The forest collapsed as the rebels went to their knees hurriedly, following his example. All of a sudden, Tye was the only one standing, and corrected this mistake too quickly. Bone edges dug into the skin of his shins drawing blood. He trembled, and looked in despair as the brat’s crying stopped. You are so, so fucked.

She stood up on unsure legs. ”I am,” Pen said, her face caked in dust and tears. ”And I tell you once more that this man is a vile creature, deserving of no trust. You’d shame your country and your army by listening to one more word from him.”

”… He will stay silent, or we will make him,” the siwe said. No nod was required for the jaiwe to wrestle Tye to the ground and bend his arm behind his back, making him scream. No. The siwe slowly stood up and approached her, bowing multiple times. ”Penroe is your name, correct? Penroe Kyetana?”

”Yes.” She sniffled as he freed her hands. ”It shouldn’t matter. ”

The siwe kept his eyes down, and knelt once more to bring his head below her level. The martyr. The shackled saint. Tye the fool. A diplomat’s daughter—he should have seen it. Groaning still under the merciless hands of Jaiwe Haam, Tye arched his neck to see whether at least the geezer was enjoying his demise. But Rannek’s eyes did not acknowledge him. He was just smiling, somewhat maniacally, at the sacred brat.

”What is your name?” Pen asked the siwe.

”Luor Nhi,” he said. ”Honored Penroe, again, I—”

”Why are you here, Luor Nhi?”

The siwe hesitated. ”Our purpose is a grave one. We are to return the body of one of ours to its rightful resting place.” Body—corpse—skeleton. Of course. ”A more difficult task than I anticipated, to be honest; we had to risk being exposed just to create a proper opening. But the order is of great importance to our superior.”

”The Ajan?”

”No. A man nearly as wise, and honorable. Many of us believe the Snake’s Head may one day take the Ajan’s throne, but his time has not come, not yet.”

”What kind of name is—”

”Come to get Bobo Bones over there, have ya?” Tye shouted, and rued giving the jaiwe more reason to twist his shoulder. No pain, no gain. Not like your position can get any worse. ”He’s Cursed, right? Makes sense for—AH!—the TLA to wanna get hands on him, you guys full-on worship their kind, don’t y—OUUU!!!”

”Truly a lost case, I can see that now,” said siwe Nhi. ”Silence, liar.”

Tye had no plans to do such a thing. ”Thing is, nobody—IEH!—knows more about them bones than me! I s—OUCH!—aw that fuckin’ four-fingered—HAH!—hand all over the caves, it’s everywhere, it and the oth—AH! AAAH!”

And there was it again, just a glimpse of it, that curious glint in the siwe’s eyes. It died only a breath later. ”How I wish I could believe you. But I’m afraid you have made more than just one mistake; you’ve revealed your character. Jaiwe?”

Tye began to scream. Somewhere during it, the jaiwe called for help, and a crinkling sounded between screams. Tye bit down on something that tasted like mushrooms and ink. The jaiwe sat down planting one buttock on each of Tye’s shoulder blades and pulled up both ends of the twisted newspaper. Tye silenced when the pulling forced his neck into an angle past perpendicularity, for fear that it might snap. Neck arched, pinned down by the other man’s weight, he felt a pair of slender hands tie his hands behind his back.

A long sigh came from the siwe. ”Penroe, I must ask you to not blame my people for this terrible misunderstanding. I take full responsibility.”

”Responsibility won’t bring back the dead. You’re asking me to forgive you for killing Staen.”

”I am.”

”I won’t. If you wish to make good, start by freeing these Gralinn. They are my friends.”

The siwe looked at her with confusion. ”… I cannot. Your caring for them is admirable, but our orders are clear.”

”They are weak, unarmed, and I vouch for them with my name. The ’diplomat’ is the pale prefect, you won’t regret freeing his mouth. He does have a loose tongue. And they will make far better prisoners if they can walk properly.”

A look of surprise had appeared on the siwe at the mention of the pale prefect. ”They are not prisoners.”

”… What?” She actually thought it was that easy. Tye laughed, but through his paper muzzle and his overarched neck, it sounded like crying. ”Yes they are, you said you were going to treat them with respect!”

”I did, and I am, yet that does not change our mission. We are not to take prisoners. We are not to leave witnesses. You and your cousin we will take with us as a mercy, but just that may already draw the Snake’s wrath. He will of course understand once he learns your name.” He looked up at her, only shortly. ”Our people revere your father, the Snake’s Head most of all. You’ll be safe with us. But the Gralinn have to die.”

Tye waited for the brat’s confidence to cave in. All that skepticism, and in the end, she’d revealed herself to be the greatest fool of all: an optimist. Not too far from what Aishi always claimed had led to daddy Kyetana’s downfall. Looking at the sun only gets you so far into the night. Play her cards wrong, he reckoned, and she might wear out all that fancy, unfounded reverence, and end up on the ground beside him.

Instead the girl clenched her jaw and reached into a pocket of her sarif. ”Then you’ll be killing me, too.” Trembling, with eyes wide open and full of tears, she raised a splinter of bone to her neck. The balls on this one. ”Let them go,” she said.

The ite signed his men to stay back, and finally returned her stare. ”… I can’t.”

Her skin was pierced, and an orb of dark red trickled down the white splinter. ”You—you can, and you will.”

His smile was full of pain. ”… Only one.”

”Wh-what?”

”The prefect. His station alone justifies it.”

”No! All of them, or—”

The siwe rose to his feet silently, and suddenly. ”If you kill yourself, I will them and your ’cousin’ too so no one learns of your death. You wish to blame your senseless suicide on me, I understand. I can accept that. But I do not care to be the man known for killing you.” There’s that young-siwe-ambition. ”You death is not at all what I desire, though. I admire your father’s sacrifice. You will find the Union more welcoming than the Empire, of all you have to offer.” The siwe reached out his hand, keeping his distance nonetheless. ”Please, Penroe. Accept what neither you nor I can change.”

The brat wavered, but Tye could see she’d reached her breaking point. The splinter dropped, and she ran to Wellan, hugging him, clinging to his shirt. ”I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she kept telling him as she untied his muzzle. Wellan groaned, but let her do so, as did the siwe, who signed his rebels to remain on their knees. ”I’m so sorry,” she said once more.

The battered broken man shook his head. ”Don’t be,” Wellan said simply. He exchanged a look with the geezer. And then, at another, smaller, shameful sign by the siwe, the forest rose again.

Swift hands pulled Wellan, Kysryn, and Dhav to their tied feet and yanked them around the boulder. Pen’s cries filled the cavern as her fingers were ripped from his shirt. ”We have no time,” said the siwe. ”You may resent me now, yet I hope that some day, you will understand, young Kyetana.” Tye’s entire body tensed up. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t— ”The liar dies, too.”

And before he knew it, Tye himself was being yanked. They carried him like a corpse, past another, more meat-deprived corpse whose mouth was now unmistakably laughing at him and no one else. He spat at the Cursed’s skeleton. A rebel noticed, and brought down his rifle on the back of Tye’s skull making him see flashes.

When he was dropped onto his bleeding knees, Tye looked up to find himself center stage again, yet void of a spotlight. The last shreds of sun lingered high on the wall, leaving the cavern in a gloom only lit by the scattered light of the two holes to the outside. The one above showed a full blue sky void of clouds, and the one before him a panorama of the jungle. A broad opening it was that the rebels had blown into the side of the cavern, leading to a clearing whose edges went up into thickets and trees so deeply colored and bright at the same time that he thought he was dreaming. He’d come that close. To hells with it. Jungles suck as much as caves, he reminded himself. If only there was a way he could take one last look at Jaemeni instead, the old repository, Vohl Church, the arching bridges. Moms’s kitchen. Aishi’s office. He heaved a sigh for all those memories while the rebels assumed formation.

Despite their hands and feet being bound like his, Kysryn and Dhav managed to inflict a good deal of damage on him with their elbows, heads, and shoulders. Little pain before the kicker won’t change anything. Tye knew it was over. On his best day, there was nothing he could say to fight a name as mighty as that of Faroe Kyetana. The hero of Koeiji. The saint. The holy murderer. It made so much sense he wanted to laugh and punch himself at the same time. Bested by a brat. He wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it. Yet there she stood fumbling at the ropes of the geezer next to the boulder, unable to look at the stage now set once more, for the last time. When she was finished, Rannek stood up, took her behind him, and removed his gag.

Tye too was freed of the newspaper, and the jaiwe took off Kysryn and Dhav’s scarves as well. ”Any last words?” the siwe asked, standing amidst his soldiers. The bright opening behind them darkened his face until only his teeth and eyes remained.

Wellan spat blood on the ground. »Tell my wife I love her.«

”A few, to be honest,” Tye blurted out.”Feels like we got off on the wrong foot, ’bout we try that again? My real name is Tye Ni—”

He smashed onto the ground with the boot’s taste still on his lips. Sure’ll miss you, jaiwe Haam. ”Silence,” the siwe said. ”You’re a shame to yourself and your people, the young Kyetana is right. Look at the Gralinn. Even they know to accept the unchangeable.”

”Seems changeable enough. If only I were a little girl, too, maybe then you’d listen.”

Instead of kicking him, the jaiwe now performed a different duty: he handed the siwe his gun. ”You will silence, or I will silence you,” the displeased young man said.

”Here I thought you’d silence me regardless.” Other muzzles joined the siwe, a dozen metal pipes lined up in an unsteady line like chimes. A soft breeze came from the opening, cooling Tye’s skin. The time for his actual last words was creeping closer and closer. Something impactful at least, c’mon.

”Please, you don’t have to do this!” the brat cried.

”Ready,” said the siwe.

»I… I wanted to make you captain,« the geezer stammered.

»Mother, I’m sorry!« Kysryn said.

”Aim,” said the siwe. Maroon scarves all around him started twitching as the breeze picked up.

»See you in your nightmares, rebel scum!” Dhav bellowed.

Tye decided he would not abandon the smirk. ”Look at me, brat, you did this.”

”You… you lied!” Pen screamed, and wailed. He’d made an impact alright. That’ll do, Tye.

”Fi—” started the siwe.

A wave of wind hit the cavern, and what happened next exceeded Tye’s understanding of physics. A hundred invisible brushes painted the rebel’s surroundings in the Liberation’s color, drawing lines and spots of maroon all over the rock. The air hissed as cloth, skin, flesh and bone separated before his eyes in a fraction of a breath. Through the flying colors, a read streak shot around and came to an abrupt halt next to the siwe, who’d barely begun turning before his body went limp. A mighty hand held a mighty hilt up to his face, a mighty blade jutting out of the other cheek just above the star-shaped scar. His eyes were so… still.

The giant blood-red man yanked his knife out of the siwe’s skull with a crack and watched as his body slumped down, giving the last stroke to a symphony of thuds. Death had come suddenly to the cavern. Among the chopped-down remains of the rebel forest, only one tall shape dressed in maroon and olive was still standing, clutching a rolled-up newspaper with a bite mark in the center. The girl fell down unconscious just as the red man disappeared. A mighty hand suddenly closed around Tye’s neck, and squeezed, and lifted. Bereft of air, he hung in the stranger’s grasp with his feet dangling an ell off the ground, and still had to look up at him.

»Do you know what day it is?«, the giant asked, booming.

Tye had a thousand answers for that, yet no air to speak. All he could do was watch as the mighty blade close in on his chest.

»Today is the day liars die.«