THEY WERE LESS THAN twenty li from Waiyi when the Protectorate caught up to them.

It was the snuffling that alerted Akeha. It came from the right, through a thicket of grass and shrubs, in the same tenor as a boar hunting for food. But there was no corresponding rustle, no crunch of massive porcine body through underbrush. Akeha squeezed Yongcheow’s arm to stop him walking.

Yongcheow frowned. Akeha put a finger to his lips and directed the man to the cover of a peony bush.

The snuffling intensified. Something stirred within the blades and leaves.

The feathered head of a raptor snapped up from the vegetation.

Akeha forced his breathing to stay even. The creature’s sleek head swiveled. It blinked.

He knew that ash coloring, the lichens of dark blue spread over the top of the head. A lifetime ago, there had been hatchlings in the Grand Monastery. In the mornings Akeha and Mokoya would throw wet slivers of meat to the waiting scramble of teeth.

It was said raptors had memories as long as their claws were sharp. “Tempeh,” he whispered. “It’s me. Akeha.”

The raptor’s nostrils flared.

A scout. The Protectorate had sent pugilists after Yongcheow. A betrayal on Thennjay’s part? Hard to tell. He had no way of knowing Akeha was involved.

Tempeh pushed through the vegetation. An electric collar, hard and silver, sat in a wide band across its throat. Akeha frowned. The Grand Monastery’s raptors didn’t need to be controlled with shock collars—

Unless—

A targeted jolt through water-nature broke the clasp. As the collar clattered to the ground, it revealed a ribbon of scarred flesh, down and feathers burned off.

The raptor hissed, circling, surprised.

“It’s over,” Akeha said softly. “You don’t have to—”

That thought was shattered by the high, rotating sound of a lightcraft. Too late. Akeha’s senses sharpened in the Slack. A fully trained pugilist would have the advantage over him. Speed was his only chance. A knife to the throat before they could act—

The lightcraft crested over the brush, bearing a familiar figure. Master Yeo, the old disciplinarian from the monastery, clad in the sharp lines of Protectorate knit.

“Akeha.” Her smile was a razor.

Half a second’s delay. That’s all it took. His knife sailed, but it was too late. Master Yeo didn’t blink. Her cudgel moved: one end struck the knife into vegetation. The other end swung around, and an electrical bolt pierced Akeha.

He folded like a fan, veins on fire. But soon as he touched ground, he was struggling back up, fighting for clarity, sending a clumsy shockwave in her direction—

She whipped water-nature around his neck. Akeha gasped as it cut off blood and air. She would crush his vertebrae if she could. He pushed back in water-nature, tried to knock her down with another shockwave, but she resisted easily.

Spasming black bloomed in his vision. He fell to his knees, fighting for consciousness. She was too fast, too strong, too experienced. As his limbs collapsed under him, he sent a last, desperate tendril to Tempeh, trying to spur the raptor into action. Trying to override its fear and confusion.

Nothing. The black closed over him. Instinct drove his fingers to clutch uselessly at his throat. As he sank, all he saw was bright colors, flashes from childhood.

A loud, sharp crack filled the air.

The pressure released in an instant. Air flooded his lungs. A heartbeat’s delay juddered by before he returned to his body, forcing it upright. His head sang with blood reasserting itself.

He felt Yongcheow before he saw the man. Warm hands grasped his arms as his eyes fought to focus. “Akeha? Are you all right? Please, say something.”

He smelled the sulfur on him and understood.

Yongcheow’s fingers pressed into his face. “Akeha.”

He found words: “Where is she?”

Yongcheow glanced over his shoulder. Akeha struggled to numb feet, leaning on the other man, who winced. Akeha brushed a reassuring hand over the man’s still-healing wound before staggering forward.

Master Yeo lay where she had fallen, but she was still alive. Blood patterned her face, fresh runnels crawling from her nose and mouth. The gunshot had punctured her chest, where an ocean of red was spreading. Her eyes turned toward Akeha as he crouched.

“Who sent you?” he asked. “Who did you come for?”

Her lips moved. Thick bubbles emerged, crimson mixed with frothy pink.

Tell me, he sent through the Slack. The twins’ old trick sometimes worked with other people. But he felt nothing except her rage and confusion. And pain.

Akeha sighed and shut his eyes. He reached for water-nature, broad and shining, and snapped her spine cleanly across the base of her neck.

He stood up. “Protectorate uniform and rank. She defected from the monastery.”

Yongcheow was trembling beside him.

“Are you all right?”

Yongcheow said nothing, head moving, jaw working, staring at the body on the ground.

Akeha gripped his arm. “Yongcheow.”

“It happened so fast,” he whispered. “I had no time to think.” He had the bright, trembling eyes of someone witnessing death for the first time.

“You did what was necessary,” Akeha said.

Yongcheow didn’t respond. Akeha looked back down. A dead body at their feet. One in a long trail that had no beginning and probably no end. “Mother wouldn’t have just sent regular troops to cut down Tensors in the purge. She’d send pugilists, like her. This woman had blood on her hands. I guarantee it.”

Finally, slowly, Yongcheow nodded.

The raptor slunk in. Its narrow snout quested over the body, curious nostrils flaring, lips peeling back at the smell of fresh meat. Akeha hissed sharply and it backed away, rustling its feathers in submission. It still remembered the monastery. Still remembered him.

“There are no righteous deaths,” Yongcheow whispered. “Only ones that cannot be avoided.”

Akeha recognized the edict he was quoting from. He had learned it, too, early in his career. It brought less and less comfort as the years went by.

“We need to bury her,” Akeha said. “We can do that, at least.”