The Patzau Council chamber, already scarred by battle and strewn with debris, erupted with power. Kuta stared mouth agape as Janos materialized above the stone table. She watched in stunned horror as the spear of crystalline ice formed in his hands. As he rushed forward, he thrust the summoned weapon towards Gaba’ké’s exposed figure. The weapon moved blindingly fast, changing directions suddenly to strike at the older man’s exposed face.

Gaba’ké’s rock-hardened hands came up. He caught the spear in his grasp in the last possible moment before death, but also one moment too late. The icy tip of the spear pierced his eye. Pain exploded. Gaba’ké crushed the icy weapon in his bare hands and reeled backwards. Blood poured from his destroyed left eye. He tumbled away from Janos and launched floor tiles wildly to give himself time. It was desperate. Whether they hit their target or not, he was too preoccupied to care.

Kuta caught a glimpse of Gaba’ké’s pallid face and the terrible wound and shivered. Her wits finally caught up with her. This was a fight to the death. Without Gaba’ké, it was obvious that she had little chance of winning it. Kuta had believed herself strong. Powerful. Competent enough to handle a lowly trickster like Janos. Now she was certain that she had underestimated him. Had Gaba’ké not come, it would be her speared by that first exchange. Dead and bloodied on the floor next to Yoharum.

Kuta needed a plan. More than that, she needed another source of metal to manipulate. All six of her sleeve pins had been shot across the room at Janos’ illusion. In doing so, she had left herself little to work with. She looked around desperately and Yoharum’s great war axe caught her eye.

Kuta channeled, pulling the blade towards her. The heavy bronze axe head came at her summons, dragging the wooden handle across the floor with a resonating rattle until it reached her hands. Kuta had seen this exact axe hundreds of times before. Her guild made them. It should have been heavy in her small hands, yet with her sorcery, it felt weightless.

Kuta reached outwards with her agindan. Her consciousness rushed over the various spirits drawn to the sharpened bronze blade in her hands. They waited in the peripheries. Always nearby. Forever drawn by the handiwork of the city’s artisans and metallurgists. They loomed inside the wall sconces, in the knives and cleavers that saw everyday use. They thrummed with the very essences of her element, familiar and pliable. She focused on one, and dismantled pieces of the great war axe in mere heartbeats. From its form, Kuta created hundreds of new pins. New ammunition. All in a matter of seconds. Now she just needed a target.

A flash of blinding light made Kuta flinch. She covered her eyes instinctually and, fearing the same fate as Gaba’ké, stumbled backwards in her blindness. Her hope was to put extra distance between her and Janos. She bumped into the heavy door they had come through and braced herself against it as she launched several of her needles blindly across the room as a deterrent.

The blinding light vanished and Kuta opened her eyes again as Gaba’ké rush forward and placed his hands on stone table slab. The table suddenly spun under his influence. It revolved like a spinning top; impossibly fast for its massive size. Janos, who had been stood atop the table with his ice spear in hand, was thrown outward. He struck the side wall hard. Kuta locked on to his position and shot several of her metal pins directly where Janos lay dazed. A shield of ice appeared and then he disappeared from her sight again, leaving her suspect.

Opposite to the blinding light from before, all the light in the room seemed to disappear without warning. The darkness was disorientating. Only the grinding sound of the spinning table and the endlessly tolling bells remained. Kuta listened, hoping to locate Janos by sound alone. She didn’t have to. The darkness subsided a moment later.

Gaba’ké now stood in front of her. How he had confidently known the way in the disorienting darkness, she couldn’t fathom. She hadn’t even heard his approach. Yet, his intuition had been solid. Janos stood on the far side of the room and launched his own volley of deadly projectiles in their direction. Kuta cowered behind Gaba’ké as spikes of ice burst outwards in all directions. Gaba’ké remained as still as a statue, careful to cover his eyes. The deadly frozen spearheads disintegrated harmlessly into a rainbow of ice crystals against his petrified flesh. It was both mesmerizing and terrifying.

Kuta focused. The cold specks of ice danced around her, lighter than air. They kissed her skin with cold lips and Kuta wiped them away, fearful of Janos’ icy touch. She prepared her own counter attack, waiting for the right opportunity. There’s no sense aiming at a target I can’t see, Kuta realized, better to hit everywhere at once. As the last crash of ice dissipated, Kuta burst out from behind Gaba’ké and let loose metallic hell. She pushed with everything she could muster. Two hundred razer thin needles scatter shot across the room in a wide spray of death.

A translucent shield of ice was already waiting for her attack. Janos held firm as Kuta’s metal projectiles imbedded themselves in his icy defence. Metal quills protruded from the icy shield. They peppered the wall in a wide radius around him. He resembled a dhole foolish enough to hunt the porcupine.

Janos lowered his shield, revealing an icy glare. He was going to kill her the moment he had the chance. As he stood, the damage she had inflicted became clear. He had blocked most of her attacks, but a hole in his ear and several wounds around his legs revealed the true extent of the damage. She caught just a hint of a wince across his face as Janos once again disappeared from view.

Unless it was an illusion, Kuta reconsidered. Is what I’m seeing real? She thought back to Janos’ bold admission over killing Viiran right in front of Yoharum. If its not real, how can I possibly know?

Gaba’ké charged forward again. Kuta could only watch, still recovering from the significant effort expended on her last attack. He reached the table in the center and leapt atop its still grinding surface. He placed his left palm and right stump down and the smooth stone table flattened under his touch. It expanded outwards like hot wax under a seal. The edge of the table, once wide and smooth, spread out like a giant stone blade and filled the round room. Something unavoidable, Kuta calculated.

Gaba’ké roared. Kuta ducked. The stone table expanded out and cut into the surrounding walls. The grinding ceased as stone bit into stone. The impact destroyed the stone table-blade and it crumbled, too thin to withstand the force. What little remained crumbled under its own thin weight. Janos was gone again. Hidden by his illusions and trickery. He must have avoided the attack or she’d have spotted his corpse.

Another flash of blinding light made Kuta blink and turn away. She opened her eyes again to see Janos, visible again, on the far side of the room. Another spear of ice coalesced in his hands, the crystals rapidly knitting together as if sewn from the moisture in the air itself. Kuta let out a terrified scream as he hurled it towards her like a javelin.

Kuta ducked instinctively. The bronze pins she controlled followed that same defensive instinct, coalescing into a thin barrier before her. The spear of ice exploded against the shield, piecing through the thin metal but stopping the weapon’s momentum there. Kuta was hurled backwards by the blow. She hit the door hard. She winced as the pain tingled through her back and down through her arms and into her fingertips.

Kuta opened her eyes as a bloodied Janos charged towards Gaba’ké. Kuta expected the old Aginjigaade to launch more attacks at Janos as he approached. Anything to keep him away, but Gaba’ké stumbled backward as if immobilized. Kuta pushed her agindan sense outward and felt only the faintest hint of his power. Gaba’ké, who had felt like a mountain only seconds before, now seemed empty.

A siphon. This was Janos’s doing. This was the moment. Janos was going to kill Gaba’ké and steal his strength. Kuta turned her attention to her enemy and felt the overwhelming draw of power as Janos suppressed Gaba’ké’s sorcery. Kuta finally understood what being a siphon meant. He’s the perfect counter to any Aginjigaade. He leaves us defenceless. Without sorcery, we’re no different than anyone else.

She feared him. She feared the threat of powerlessness. She needed to save Gaba’ké to save herself. But how? Janos swept forward, icy spear in hand. Gaba’ké retreated back. There was no time to think and far too much distance between them for her to intercede.

Kuta acted on instinct. She launched her broken shield of metal towards Janos, leaving herself defenseless. The circular shield spun as it sliced across the room. Janos caught a glimpse of the metal disk and dodged while keeping his grasp on Gaba’ké’s siphoned power. The disk of metal passed harmlessly.

A smirk crossed his lips. “Stupid girl. Once I kill the Stone Aginjigaade, you’ll be next.”

Kuta held on. It had taken everything in her spirit to control the disk at such a distance but it remained, hovering in the air just behind Janos. A guttural noise erupted from Kuta’s throat as she channeled with every remaining fiber of her spirit. Her scream became the conduit for all of the pain and powerlessness she felt. All of the feelings she buried beneath her calm and quiet persona. Her loves and angers and fears and resentments. Her sadness, joys, and desires. All of it was channeled into the expansion of the round metal shield that had protected her from death. The disk expanded outwards, its very bonds severing violently under her strain. The shield became thinner and deadlier than any razer. It exploded outwards right behind of Janos’ cruel smile.

Janos had his hands held high. His spear was poised to deal the killing blow. The microscopic metal disk sliced through him. The pain was sudden and insurmountable. It felt wrong. As if his body were on fire and that pain was concentrated straight through his abdomen. Uncomprehending, he remained standing.

He turned his gaze back on the girl. She had screamed. She had done something to him. But what? He felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. He touched his abdomen. His shirt peeled away, as if severed in two.

A powerful fist was driven into his lungs. Janos flew backwards and lay sprawled out across the floor. He felt empty. Gaba’ké was standing. In his lapse in concentration, he had released the siphon. The fist that had taken his breath away was the man’s stump of a hand. Imbued with the weight and dexterity of solid rock, it had crushed his ribs as it connected. Perhaps that was the reason he felt so weak.

But then Janos saw his torso. And beyond his torso, he saw his legs. He blinked. For the problem was that the two were no longer connected. He was sprawled out over the floor, but his legs hadn’t come with him. They remained. As did, what he could only guess to be, his lower organs. They spilled out of him. Janos brought his hands to his stomach only to feel the same emptiness as his remaining organs failed, severed from the rest of him.

Gaba’ké stared wide-eyed at the two halves of Janos Tydana. He had never punched a man in half before. Nor did he imagine such a thing was possible. He looked to Kuta, who appeared equally as shocked as he. It was a sick sight. A terrible sight to witness. To have been a part of. Never before had a man been so perfectly bisected and, if the world were just, never would it happen again.

Kuta stared at Janos’s lifeless halves. She found herself unable to release control of her sorcery. Silence replaced the screams and pain and violence. Besides Kuta and Gaba’ké’s ragged breaths, only the distant sounds of the bells remained. Them and the pandemonium elsewhere in the city, a backdrop to the day’s chaos.

Kuta collapsed to her knees, utterly drained. Never before had she channeled so far beyond the point of exhaustion. She felt like a shell of her former self. A wayward gust of wind from the broken windows could topple her. Her very spirit felt ripped at the seems, an echo of the destruction she had wrought. She had survived, but victory was not the outcome. Gaba’ké had been right to caution her. She felt no triumph. She felt broken. Empty.

“He’s dead” she said. Gaba’ké nodded. He too was unable to look away from what they had done.

Hiri is avenged. She tested the thought. It felt wrong. If this was retribution, it was sour and disappointing. Was Yoharum’s life worth this? Was Viiran’s? Was any of this necessary? She wasn’t sure and that made it all the more painful.

So she cried hard ugly tears. She cried for all the people she couldn’t protect and the ones she had hurt in the process. She cried for Elvi; who’s kindness was there for her when she needed it most. She cried for Yoharum, who had once been just a boy, still able to smile at the world. She cried for what that same world had made him into. She cried for Hiri; who had lifted her up and helped her stand on her own two feet. Who had taught her that she was a person worthy of more than fear and loathing. Who had taught her what being a mother really meant. She cried for her mother, who hadn’t been ready to raise a normal child, let alone an Aginjigaade. She cried for all the parents who lost children like her to the curse simply because they hadn’t the tools or knowledge. She cried for the ones who did and lost them anyway. To murderers, like Janos, and the soulless, like Adagizhi. She cried because people refused to see one another as worthy of regard and respect.

But in the end, the last person she cried for was herself—for being a monster. No living soul capable of doing what she had just done to another human could be a person. She was the very thing they feared, a cursed child that would bring death to others, if not herself. Spirits it hurt.

Kuta cried for what felt like ages. She cried until a gentle hand was placed on her shoulder. It sobered her from her pitying trace. She looked up to see Gaba’ké. He looked like he’d been crying too. The effect was horrifying as blood ran like tears from his missing eye. Kuta looked up at him and wanted to rage at him; to hate him. He murdered Yoharum! Didn’t he?

His remaining eye met her gaze with a mixture of pride and sorrow and profound weariness. He was in pain and for so many reasons. “You saved my life” Gaba’ké said at last. He let out a long and hard sigh as he straightened up. “Its time I do the same for you.” He began to pull her to her feet.

“Leave me alone” Kuta said. Her voice came out sharp and vindictive. She barely recognized herself.

“You needed a moment,” Gaba’ké began, “but now that time is being taken from us.” He turned to face the window that looked out over the sea. “The Careyago are here.”

Kuta looked up but saw nothing but the sky through the large windows. She stood on shaky legs and followed Gaba’ké’s gaze out over the city and across the water. Through the smoke and chaos, a massive fleet of ships clogged the mouth of the bay. These were not the regular vessels of trade that frequented Casoyan shores, but warships. Their imperial yellow flags perceptible even from this great distance. The Imperial Navy.

Kuta’s eyes widened. She stared out across the water as the warships spread out into the bay, their black hulls like stains across the canvas of the sea. “Why?” was all she could stammer out.

“Janos told us they were coming” Gaba’ké said. “It was the last thing he said before he attacked. They planned for this.”

“They planned for what?” Kuta asked.

“They planned for the Careyago to come… to liberate the city from Viiran’s rebellion” Gaba’ké surmised. “Janos and Yohati. It was all for this.”

“I still don’t understand why” Kuta repeated.

“I don’t think you or I will get that answer any time soon” Gaba’ké answered. “All I know now, is that you shouldn’t be here when they come ashore.” He tried to reach for her again, but Kuta brushed him away.

“Why would I do that?” Kuta asked. “I’m no enemy of the Careyago.”

Gaba’ké opened his mouth to protest, but reconsidered. “That may be true” he said, “but the Careyago are not like the Casoyans. Theirs is a hungry war machine. And you, being Aginjigaade, cannot escape their notice. So, you have a few options: Stay here and join them; Stay here and fight them; or flee right now.”

“What about Yohati?” Kuta asked. “What about getting you back to Ohacha?”

Gaba’ké turned again to face the warships steadily approaching. “My choice to aid you was a blessing in more than one way. Alone, Janos would have surely killed you and had I stayed with Ohacha, the same is certain for him. I can’t go back now” he said with a dejected finality. “Without me, he may escape Caso. But with me at his side, the Careyago will surely board looking for me, the Aginjigaade, and capture him at the same time. The Imperial Aginjigaade are with the fleet. Quest across the bay. Feel their distant approach.”

Kuta listened and quested outwards, spreading her Agindan sense as thin as she could manage. She felt the distant thrum of Aginjigaade aboard several of the ships. Worse than that, they felt her too. She recoiled back to herself, her heart pounding once again. She felt as if she might pass out.

“You need to escape” Gaba’ké said. He was holding her up. His solo-eyed gaze was intense and his voice was steady and serious. “Flee into the mountains, be the woman Patzau Minoc and Hiri would have wished you to be. Lead people to a better way. Live!”

“What about you?” Kuta asked. Like so many mentors before him, Kuta felt betrayed. Her question wasn’t stem from concern for his safety, but from a place of fear. The fear of being abandoned once again. She asked, what about you, but meant, what about me?

“You already said it” Gaba’ké said. “I’ll go after Yohati.”

“I’ll help you” Kuta said, tears welling in her eyes again.

“Not this time” Gaba’ké said. “You’re exhausted, emotionally and physically. Without you there, I won’t need to worry about protecting you.”

“I can protect myself” Kuta argued.

“Yes,” Gaba’ké agreed, “you can. By running and getting stronger. By rebuilding and helping the countless people who have lost everything. Are losing everything right now. The ones who will be fleeing alongside you. I’m not asking you to run because it’s the easy thing to do, I’m asking you to run because it’s the hardest thing to do.”

Kuta sniffled and wiped her face. She wanted to protest. She wanted to do so many things and yet her body and mind failed her. Thoughts felt slow and cumbersome. Movements felt heavy.

“Kuta” Gaba’ké said. She turned to face him again. “I want you to know that I’m truly sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, because I know I wouldn’t have forgiven me. Like several other moments, this one, I think, I will haunt me until the day I die.” Today may be that day.

Kuta didn’t respond right away. She didn’t know how to. Instead, she said, “After you’ve killed Yohati” she said, “you need to promise me that you’ll try to follow. Head up the mountain road. Head for Cabiya.”

“Okay” Gaba’ké said, knowing this was a promise he was destined to break. “I’ll try. I promise.”

A quiet resolve settled over him. Ohacha would need go on without him. As would Kuta. Perhaps now was the best time for such separations. They were ready. It was time to let go. Time to let them walk their own roads. There was an acceptance in that. But also, dignity and redemption. For the first time in decades, inner peace settled over him. His final purpose was clear.