THE MOON RULED THE skies as the children set out past the guardians of their sleeping quarters, past the empty vegetable garden, past the raptors and through the broken fence. When it was just them and the forest again, Akeha stopped to adjust the heavy pack they had strapped on. Their exertions clouded the air with white puffs.

“Come on,” Mokoya hissed. “We need to get as far as possible before they realize we’re gone.”

Akeha hesitated, and they said, “Keha.” Then they turned and set off into the wooded depths without checking to see if Akeha followed.

Mokoya’s steady gait never wavered, retracing the route they knew: through the trees, toward the shining path that led up to the peak of the mountain.

“If the kirin comes back, you’ll kill it, won’t you?” Mokoya said, as they walked.

Akeha didn’t reply. They were mentally counting the biscuits and dried rice cakes stuffed into the packs, five days’ worth of stealing from the monastery’s kitchens. It would last them three days, four if they skipped meals. And they needed to find a source of clean water sooner than that.

Akeha had lagged behind, footsteps slowed by thought. Mokoya stomped over, and it was almost a shock when they seized Akeha’s hand. “Keha. We have to stay together.”

“This is a mistake,” Akeha whispered. “Let’s go back to the monastery.”

In the moonlight, Mokoya’s face looked sharp and angry. “And let them take you away from me?” Even though the exact opposite was happening. “I’d rather die.”

Akeha pulled their hand away. “Stop spouting rubbish.”

“I’m not going back. Mother can’t do whatever she likes. I’m not a token on her chessboard.”

“I told you,” Akeha said bitterly. “You shouldn’t have said anything about your dream.”

“And you shouldn’t have killed that naga.”

Akeha peeled their lips back and hissed. That was enough. They turned their back to Mokoya and headed the way they’d come, feet slipping on the brittle dead leaves that had lain there all winter.

“Keha.” Mokoya lunged after them and grabbed their arm with both hands, fingers pressing through the layers of cloth hard enough to bruise. “I’m sorry, please, don’t leave me.”

Akeha wriggled out of Mokoya’s grasp, but stayed where they were. “Don’t be stupid.” They could no more leave their twin alone here than they could cut off their own arm.

They stood like this for a moment, two children lost against a backdrop of endless forest. The weak foliage shadow shifted uncomfortably as the moon rolled across the sky.

“You lead the way,” Akeha said.

Mokoya pointed. “The path’s over there.”

The sun rose, fell, and rose again as the children walked. A dull pain spread through Akeha’s soles, but they focused on putting their feet down, one after another, on the stone-studded path that led them up the mountainside. As the path dipped into a crevasse of rising granite walls, their calves and back started to cramp.

One sun-cycle later, they stopped to eat and rest. Akeha rotated their ankles, dismayed by how everything hurt. They had been walking for little more than half a day.

“There should be some caves up there,” Mokoya said, pointing into the half dark, where the path disappeared upward around a steep mountain face.

“Did you see that in a dream?”

“No,” they said, annoyance creeping into their voice. “I just have a feeling.”

Akeha leaned their head against Mokoya’s shoulder and shut their eyes. Their twin was right, it did feel damper around here, like there was resting water close by, and that could mean caves. Or something. They were tired of arguing.

Mokoya put an arm around them.

“They should be looking for us by now,” Akeha said.

“We should go,” Mokoya murmured.

So they packed up and continued on the path. It was alarming how fast the aches returned to their bodies. Mokoya was limping, heavily favoring their left leg.

“Are you hurt?” Akeha asked.

“It’s just blisters.” They stopped. “Keha—look!”

Mokoya pointed. White mist was lifting from the crags and hollows of the earth. In the distance, the path vanished into a slender mouth in the rock.

They’d found a cave. Against all the odds, they’d found it.

Mokoya picked a branch off the ground and tugged at fire-nature to light it. The mouth of the cave was steep and littered with sharp rocks which skinned Akeha’s palms as they scrambled up.

“Keha. Look.”

Mokoya held the improvised torch aloft in the cave mouth. The roof yawned fifty yields above their heads, thick with the chittering of bats. Somewhere in the vicinity, water ran, echoing off stone walls. Step by small step, the two children moved inward, sheltered in the torch’s circle of safety.

“It’s strange,” Akeha said.

“What is?”

“The floor is clean.” With all the bats singing above them, they should have been walking across a carpet of droppings. But their circle of light showed nothing.

Mokoya looked up. “There’s a barrier,” they said after a while. “Slackcraft.”

“Someone else comes here.”

“It has to be.”

“You think they live here? In the wild?”

“I don’t know.” Mokoya frowned. It was too late to turn back. “We’ll find out.”

As they ventured farther in, the walls of the cave opened up into a space huge enough to kill echoes. A breeze lingered around Akeha’s neck, its cold breath raising gooseflesh. Mokoya sucked in a breath. “Look.”

The dim shape of wooden crates, stacked upon one another, populated the cave floor. Akeha sent a cautious tendril out through the Slack and discovered warm pinpoints that responded to their slackcraft. A string of sunballs. Akeha tensed through metal-nature, and their glow filled the room.

“Great Slack.” Mokoya put the torch out as hundreds of heavy wooden crates, reinforced by tempered iron, revealed themselves. “What are they?”

Several years’ worth of dust coated the boxes. Akeha left long finger streaks across the top of one. It wasn’t labeled. As gray clouds danced around them, Akeha lifted the hinged lid. It was heavy, but it wasn’t locked.

The crate was stacked with lightcraft in the shape of lotuses, like the kind Akeha had seen some of the senior acolytes use in aerial sparring practice. Unlike the weathered equipment back in the monastery, these hadn’t seen much use. They looked thicker and stronger, too. Akeha touched one with slackcraft. There was barely any charge left, and whatever threads of metal-nature had been used to weave the energy in place had long since frayed.

Mokoya had pried open another crate, a long boxy one the shape of a coffin. “What are these?” They reached in and pulled out a long, thick metal rod, like a cudgel. The black carvings across its surface caught the yellow light as Mokoya experimentally twirled it.

“It looks like a weapon,” Akeha said. Mokoya had had the same thought, moving into a fighting crouch, cudgel balanced in two hands. It was too long for them: an adult’s weapon.

The cudgel hummed as Mokoya charged it with slackcraft. Neither twin had seen anything like it before. Mokoya swung it above their head with practiced ease, despite its length. “There must be hundreds of these,” they said, as they tilted it back and forth, examining it. “Why?”

“They’re war supplies,” Akeha said.

Mokoya blinked. “War? What kind of war? There hasn’t been a war for years.”

“Does it matter what kind? There are no good kinds of war.”

Mokoya looked troubled by this, and started swinging the cudgel again.

“Be careful,” Akeha warned, as the cudgel missed one of the crates by a fingerswidth.

As Mokoya swung the cudgel through another rotation, one end clipped Akeha in the shoulder. “You oaf,” Akeha spluttered, and kicked up the sand on the cave floor and sent it sweeping in a wave toward Mokoya.

The assault through water-nature sent their twin staggering. Mokoya fell, but was back on their feet instantly, growling. They jabbed the cudgel in Akeha’s direction.

The cudgel caught the thread of Mokoya’s slackcraft. It hummed, glowed, and a bolt of electricity arced from it and struck Akeha in the chest.

Akeha went crashing to the ground, stunned, as though someone had dropped a boulder on them. Their chest burned.

“Keha!” Mokoya dropped the cudgel and ran stumbling toward them, sliding on their knees across the cave floor. “Keha, say something. Keha, please.”

They couldn’t. Their chest hurt too much. Akeha tried moving their arms, tried sitting up, and doubled over in pain.

Something growled deep and low behind them. Mokoya’s eyes widened; their fingers trembled on Akeha’s arm.

A familiar shape moved into the circle of lights. As Akeha struggled onto their elbows, trying to work past the bolt’s paralyzing effect, the kirin reared up and screeched.

The creature lunged. Everything moved in a blur: the talons coming down, Mokoya throwing themselves over Akeha. Akeha tensed—Was it by instinct? Or something else?—and energy surged through the Slack, water-nature, as they shoved Mokoya away, before the kirin’s clawed feet struck—

The talons went through their side like it was paper. Akeha screamed, sensations burning through them. A clear and precise epiphany struck: They were going to die. There was no turning back. It was done.

Their blood soaked through layers of clothing as they lay on the ground, gasping, barely holding on to consciousness.

A crackle through the air, sharp smell of metal burning. The kirin screamed, and its limbs folded. Mokoya had picked the cudgel up. As the creature struggled to its feet, Mokoya struck it again. And again. And again. Their twin blazed with such fear and anger it punched through the wall of pain surrounding Akeha. They hit the kirin until it collapsed thrashing to the ground, until the convulsions subsided into twitching, until it fell heavy and still. The air reeked of burning flesh.

Akeha watched this all through a veil of increasing darkness. The world grew cold, and the pain was, at last, fading away. They were aware of Mokoya picking them up, screaming, pressing their head against their belly. Akeha was drifting away, and as they grew distant from their body, they began unraveling in the Slack, becoming pure energy.

Something pulled them back. Mokoya was tensing through forest-nature, trying to knit the torn flesh back together, trying to keep their failing heartbeat steady.

Akeha reached out through the Slack. Mokoya was so bright, so beautiful. Like a jewel shining, like a sunset over the sea. It’s okay, Moko. It’s better like this.

No. Keha, no. You have to. You can’t die. I won’t let you.

Now you can go back to the Great High Palace. You don’t have to worry.

I can’t, I won’t. Mokoya was crying so hard their body was shaking. They could not have spoken if they wanted to. If you die, I want to go with you.

I don’t want that. You have a good life ahead of you. Moko—

What’s the point? What’s the point of it?

Akeha struggled not to drift away entirely. They couldn’t leave Mokoya like this. It’s too late, Moko. You have to go on. I want you to.

The cavern filled with the sound of buzzing—a lightcraft in operation. Of all people, the Head Abbot appeared, sailing in like a bird, serenity turning to alarm as he took in the scene before him. How had he found them? A question for another time. The old man leapt off the lightcraft and hurried toward the twins.

A cool hand pressed against Akeha’s forehead, and warmth ran through them, healing warmth, tying them more securely to this world. “They’re still breathing,” the Head Abbot said. “We can save them. What happened? The kirin?”

Mokoya’s lungs operated in desperate gasps. “I killed it.”

“I know, Mokoya. She was one of the very last of her kind. She was trying to protect the cache. Don’t worry, you are both safe. Help is coming.”

Their twin formed words between the heaves of their chest. “I don’t want to be taken away. I don’t want Akeha to die.”

“Akeha will not die. I promise you that. Help is coming.”

“But they’re going to take me away.”

“Mokoya.” The Head Abbot sighed as Akeha tried to turn their head, tried to look at the expressions on both their faces. “You won’t have to go to the Tensorate alone. Akeha will go with you.”

And Mokoya fell silent, even as their lungs worked rhythmically through their stress. Then: “You mean—”

“I cannot separate the two of you, Mokoya. That would clearly be an unthinkable cruelty. Your mother sent both of you here because of a deal we made. I have decided not to hold her to it.”

Mokoya’s voice shook with terror and hope. “So we’ll go . . . together?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

“Yes, Mokoya. Now help me with your sibling.”

Mokoya twisted their fingers into Akeha’s and started to sob again. The Head Abbot laid a second hand on Akeha’s head. “You must relax, child. Sleep. You will be better when you wake.”

His hands sent slowness and warmth throughout Akeha’s consciousness. As they faded into the gentle cradle of sleep, they thought, But you still look at me like I’m just a number in a column.