‘You are not.’ Vaqix’s voice was strong as mahogany despite Betsu’s scorn and the shaken expression flickering across his gaunt features. ‘Tokoban stands with you.’
Betsu laughed again, its edges jagged. Lilla leant away from her sharpness. ‘Then perhaps we will survive one season longer as a result. I am sure that will comfort the new parents among both our peoples. They can spend it deciding whether slavery or death is the future they want for their children and themselves.’
The council chamber descended into hostile silence.
‘The Zellih also warned us that refugees will not be welcomed,’ Tayan said. ‘They are stationing warriors on the edge of the salt pans at the border of Ixachipan and Barazal, and they will kill any who attempt to cross.’
Lilla had thought the news couldn’t get any worse, but at Tayan’s pronouncement he felt the blood drain from his face and blinked, suddenly dizzy. At some point he’d let go of the shaman’s hand and now he stared down into his lap, focusing on his fingers with unblinking intensity.
‘What?’ Vaqix shouted, all his composure fleeing. The old man lurched to his feet, the council stone skittering across the floor as he kicked it. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a gross violation of protocol; now no one even glanced at it as it bounced to a stop. ‘If we have nowhere to retreat to, we’ll be massacred. They must help us!’
‘The Zellih elders advise us to either win or surrender,’ Tayan said in a monotone. ‘We will find no succour with them.’
‘Then we fight.’ Kux’s voice was strident with anger. ‘We fight to the very end and we make the Pechaqueh rue the day they sent their Talons against us. Once the Wet is fully upon us, if not before, they will send their warriors home and leave only enough to occupy those parts of Yalotlan they have already stolen. We’ll outnumber them, and I say we show no mercy and we leave none alive. Retake Yalotlan so that when they return after the rains they must begin their conquest all over again. And again, and again, until they give up.’
Every eye turned to Eja Tika at the pronouncement. The woman’s face was hard, her smile bitter. ‘If we fight through the Wet, we will be facing both the Empire and the Drowned at their most active. It would be foolish in the extreme.’
Kux started to protest, but Tika glared her effortlessly into silence. ‘But … we Tokob know our land, and we trust our Yaloh allies to know theirs. We can stay away from the rivers and ponds, and those areas that we know flood through the Wet. It would certainly take the invaders by surprise. It shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.’
Kux was wild-eyed and grinning, savage in her small triumph, and Lilla realised he should say something, either for and against her proposal, but if he opened his mouth he was likely to throw up. So he sat in stricken silence as the argument raged back and forth for war through the Wet, for no break from the stress and terror and eternal vigilance. His chest was hollow with grief and fear, and at his side Tayan, peace-weaver and shaman, his husband and his heart, had no words of comfort.
Because Kux was right. Fight or die. Win or surrender. They had no allies and they were out of options.
TAYAN
Sky City, Malel, Tokoban
120th day of the Great Star at morning
It was deep night when the council meeting finally broke up. No consensus had been reached, and so Tayan had offered to journey to the ancestors and ask them and Malel for guidance. The councils had agreed, though he’d been able to feel Lilla’s disapproval coming off him in waves.
Now, as they left the council house, his husband seized his hand and dragged him along the side of the building into the deepest shadow. The night was intermittently lit with braziers and moonlight, diffuse through building cloud, though Tayan wouldn’t have cared if they’d been standing on the council-house steps at noon. He let Lilla push him back against the wall and slid his arms around his husband’s waist as his face was seized in a gentle, calloused grip. This kiss was not chaste, not in any possible way, but neither could it go where they both wanted it to. Lilla’s body was firm and warm against his and Tayan stretched up onto his toes to wind his arms around his neck.
It was a kiss of promise and welcome and more promise, heating until Tayan could feel his cheeks flushing under Lilla’s palms, and his husband felt it too, one of those hands sliding down his chest and around to his back in a long, languid caress that drew a shiver from his skin and a low whimper from his throat. Lilla smiled against his mouth and kissed him deeper, pressing him closer, and after so many weeks apart and despite his exhaustion, he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in Lilla’s hair and body and never come out. Instead, he broke the kiss.
‘And you’re really unhurt,’ he demanded when Lilla sighed and opened his eyes. Tayan had to swallow at all the promises they contained, but the shaman stroked his back and flanks, searching for a hint of pain in his expression or a flinch.
‘I’m really unhurt, my heart.’ He winced as Tayan’s hands slid along his chest. ‘Ah, except for a small – love, it’s fine.’ He laughed softly and batted away Tayan’s hands as he tried to lift his tunic and examine him. ‘I promise it’s not serious. I promise you can treat it when we get home,’ he added.
Tayan huffed. Neither of them would be going home for hours. Vaqix had made it clear they needed answers tonight.
‘There are other shamans, Tayan. Ones who aren’t newly returned across the salt pans.’
‘I am the one who failed,’ Tayan snapped. He took a breath and stretched up onto his toes again to kiss Lilla’s cheek in unspoken apology. ‘This journey must be mine. We need greater wisdom than the living can provide. I am the peace-weaver; it wouldn’t be fair to ask another to make the attempt for me.’
‘Then I’ll journey with you,’ Lilla said, fingers tingling down his flanks.
Tayan smiled and kissed him again and had a deep, powerful urge to just keep kissing him until the world changed for the better. As if the force of his love alone was enough. Lilla seemed happy to try, too, and it was long moments before they came up for air. ‘I need you here in the flesh world, love. I need you to watch over me and bring me out if … You know how this works.’
‘I know I don’t like it,’ Lilla grumbled and pressed himself back against Tayan and Tayan back against the wall. ‘I like this.’
Tayan arched an eyebrow. ‘I like it, too.’
‘It’s dangerous.’
Tayan pressed his hips forward. ‘This? Are you scared of me, warrior?’ he asked in an attempt at sultry spoilt by a giggle. Lilla just shook his head, but the corner of his mouth turned up.
‘You know what I mean. A journey now, when you’re already exhausted …’
‘Ah. So you stop fighting when you’re tired, do you?’ he asked and Lilla blushed and stood back up. Tayan didn’t blame him for worrying, but that sounded suspiciously like he didn’t trust him. ‘You walk the jaguar path with honour, my love, but mine is a spiral and I must journey it. Tonight. Please.’
Lilla let out a noisy, resigned sigh and kissed Tayan’s knuckles in silent apology. ‘The womb?’ he asked.