***

She couldn’t move any further than the mountain’s edge or the door to the temple’s caves. When the sun began to set, Janelsa stopped pacing and sat on a stone behind which she hid the night before. The barrier surrounding the temple slowly appeared as the sun fell closer to the eastern mountains. Despite being on the mortal plane, her spirit eyes could see the fluctuating, writhing mass of honeyed smoke that surrounded the temple. Janelsa flicked a pebble from the rock and watched it arc gracefully through the air without stuttering. The evening’s gentle, hot, but not sweltering dry season wind rattled the last flecks of dust from her gray hair. Every few minutes or so she would tilt her head up. Eventually, she undid her bun for the first time in years. She only needed to shake her head two times to let her hair flow behind her. It wasn’t as striking as when it was black, but she knew it would have gone gray at some point. Janelsa ran her hand through it and the knots came undone instantly.

“You got your father’s hair, Janurana.” Janelsa picked at her cuticles.

She got up and paced again. But unlike after she recovered from Brachen’s escape, and went back and forth between the caves where Janurana had fled and back south, her mind was completely empty. Muli was unable to reach her then as thoughts flung back and forth like the most brutal and unwinnable clash of armies. Neither making a good enough point to override the other. Janelsa chuckled at how indecisive she had become from the words of just one smarmy man and an old guru. Even now that she had calmed down, she couldn’t bring herself to think logically. Her head was blank, refusing to work like it was demanding sleep. 

 She ran her hand down her now fully repaired chest. Even her clothes had reformed. That was something she never understood. Flesh regrew even when you weren’t a spirit. Then again, she never understood why she was a spirit. Northerners she met claimed people became spirits through great deeds or by just wanting to stay among the living, for good or ill. That made sense to her, but then again, she had known many warriors who fought valiantly or heads of houses who cursed her to their dying days. They hadn’t become spirits, so she wondered why was she. Janelsa was fully visible as well and nothing on the mortal plane shuttered to keep up with her actions. Janurana had come into the borderlands a few times, where the border between the spirit plane was much less ossified. Still, she had never gotten the hang of slipping between the planes.

With practice, Janelsa knew she could. The plateau had bowed to her, and nothing could be harder than that.

“Except thinking,” she said aloud, sucking her teeth.

Still, her mind said nothing, so she forced the issue with a bull’s strength. She curled her brow, focusing.

“Janurana needs to die.” She looked back to the rubble. “But… Urgh… Come on. Think.”

“Perhaps your mind needs a rest,” Muli sighed behind her.

“I’ll rest when I’m dead… When she’s dead.”

“Mm-hmm. Janelsa, why do you think I attacked your army at random times?”

She didn’t answer, instead just looking away. 

“Because it kept your warriors on edge. They didn’t have a moment to rest, it made them weak and slow. You haven’t stopped focusing and thinking in… How long?”

“Two hundred, ninety-seven years, and four months,” she rattled off and scowled at having forgotten the exact days.

“Exactly. I don’t understand how you haven’t—” Muli stopped himself from saying ‘gone crazy’. “You’ve always been able to focus, especially when the focus made you angry. But now, for the first time in almost three, hundred, years you can take a break.”

Janelsa shot up, throwing a finger in his face. “How can I—”

“Because you realize that right now, killing our little kumari won’t mean anything and there are larger enemies to fight. For the first time in that long you have new information. Your mind has revolted and demanded time to process and change tactics.” Muli leaned in, almost putting his nose on her fingertip.

Janelsa recoiled, then scoffed. “Killing one girl should be easy enough.” She sighed. “A quick objective to not leave an enemy garrison behind your lines.”

“Janelsa, Janurana won’t attack you. You don’t have to try and attack Hegwous directly again. Now, rather than take revenge on them through Janurana, our little kumari, you can kill them yourself, the monsters who did this to you, to her, to me.”

It was too much again and Janelsa felt her mind shut down. Instead, she strolled casually down the built in stone stairs. There were never any like these in her own garden or up to her house. 

“Should have made these instead of letting them use that stupid beaten down path.” She scoffed. The stone’s rough tactile comfort calmed her just as the pillows inside did. A bird fluttered by, not skipping at all and Janelsa watched in all its simple, brown beauty. Coming to the edge of the mountain, she enjoyed the reddish expanse of her plateau beyond the borderlands; its flat, occasionally rolling hill, the gaps of canyons, the rises and mesas, the splotches of green with the pocket forests. Every inch of it was hers. Even the sloping borderlands, more green than the plateau in the wet season, paid their ‘don’t invade me’ tax to house Malihabar. But her plateau had a charm she would never forget. It wasn’t that it was hers, more that something which seemed so barren at first glance could hold so much. So many towns and cities, creatures and monsters, people with their own stories and lives scratched out of the dust. Powerful rulers, meek vassals, tales of courage and cowardice all in something so often featureless. Pocket forests somehow seemed to contain as much wonder as the infinitely thicker jungle behind her. Examining the expanse that was once hers, she sighed, being once again at the top of the world, over everything, looking down with each spot, each city, town, each house and person bowing to her and this spot. 

“I, can, do it.” Chahua asserted, bracing himself against his walking stick, wheezing.

Janelsa leapt back, but much shorter than she expected. The small burst of energy bounced off her weary mind like an arrow off bronze. She couldn’t even summon the wherewithal to move back or hide, or leave the home of these monks, the one she had attacked. Instead, she just watched them ascend.

“You said that this morning,” Diktala groaned. 

“Just let us carry you,” Jura said, coming up behind Chahua to scoop him up.

“No!” He wiggled rather than shove Jura away. “Almost… Still… Sun…” The Light was doing nothing for him.

“At least stop and breathe.” Neesha folded her hands. “Come on, do a mantra with me.”

“I can—”

“You’re gonna pass out again!” Jura scooped him up, making Chahua yelp.

“We’re very proud of you for trying but we’d all like to just get home and—” Neesha and the whole group stopped, rounding the top, seeing Janelsa standing nonplussed directly in their path.

She and the four of them locked eyes. Janelsa’s tattered muga and trailing hair sailed with the wind slowly picking up. She stood alone, her blue and grays making her isolation all the more piercing among the greens of the plants and reddish brown of the rocks. The setting sun glinted off her eyes, but in them, the group couldn’t find a hint of anger or harmful intentions. Neesha and Jura both stole a quick glance to Chahua and Diktala, both northern, to see if this obvious spirit was something they had seen before. But both of them were silent and still. 

Chahua’s breath remembered it was wheezing before and broke the silence. “Sh-She’s…”

“Observant,” Janelsa said, she turned to let them pass. 

But just as she did, Neesha fired off a pillar of light from her shaking fingers, so Janelsa inadvertently dodged. It still stung, however. 

Janelsa didn’t move, and the group noticed. 

For half a moment, Janelsa considered how her mind would be made up if she simply let the monks and their magic kill her now. But death didn’t stop her before. She just nodded to their temple instead.

The ascetics didn’t move, except to take some kind of battle stance. Even Chahua did, who slid from Jura’s arms. 

“Your form is awful. You wouldn’t last a day under my command.” Janelsa shook her head. 

Every monk’s feet shook along with their fingers, each trying to copy the stance Guru Brachen took when sending off spirits before. However, none of them had actually seen Janelsa during the attack, having run away right when Brachen’s barrier fell.

“You are the one who…” Jura began.

“You wouldn’t last half a day under my command.” Janelsa rolled her eyes.

Diktala looked to Chahua, who was focusing his breathing, then to Neesha, who gave a rapid shrug. 

“Great spirit.” The young northern man said in northern without dropping his hands. “For what reason do you come here? Er, What reason are you here, stay here? Why are you still here? Great spirit.”

Janelsa didn’t understand a word of it. She had learned some northern in her time but those memories had faded to dust. But rather than berate them further for thinking she knew the language, Janelsa cocked her brow. His due reverence was refreshing. 

“Again, please. In southern,” she said.

Diktala blinked in surprise, half expecting an attack. “Um, yes, great spirit.”

Janelsa crossed her arms after he repeated himself. “Been trying to figure that out, boy.”

“Do you want anything to do with us?” Diktala followed up.

She thought about this for a moment. “I suppose not.”

“You’re not gonna kill us?” Jura asked.

“What did I just say?”

“Then why, by the Light, did you attack us??” He exploded, “The door! The whole temple, Guru Brachen’s child!”

“As I told your guru, they were in the way.” She rolled her head along with her eyes as if Brachen would surely have told them about the conversation he had with her. 

“Could you, perhaps, move on, great spirit?” Neesha asked, turning slightly to let Janelsa pass.

The display almost amused Janelsa, but her mind asked ‘and go where’, sending her into the same answer lacking spiral as before. Her feet wanted to move, sending her against her daughter as always. Still, they refused to budge and she blurted out, “I don’t know where to go.” 

Her sheepish tone smacked into the group, knocking each of them out of their haphazard battle stances. Each exchanged a confused look of dismay like deer being asked by a tiger if it could share in some of the grass.

“Anywhere!” Jura shouted. “Get out of here!” 

He raised his hands and launched a beam of Light. Janelsa leapt into a patch of flowers, barely dodging. The attack passed close and singed her cheek which she angrily rubbed as the pedals fluttered around her.

“You disgusting brat!” she screamed.

The ascetics cowered or turned to run, but before the spirit could take revenge, Neesha leapt forward and threw out her arms between them all. Her face was frozen. She stared at nothing as if she were already a corpse, and Janelsa cocked her head again while pausing mid charge. 

After patting her head to make sure it was still attached to her body, Neesha quickly turned to their attacker and bowed ninety degrees. 

“It seems as if you require help,” she said. “We help all the Light—”

“Oh, shut up!” Jura hauled himself from the dirt since his legs had collapsed. “Are you serious??” He went to blast Janelsa again. 

Diktala grabbed his arm. “Guru Brachen and his warrior daughter couldn’t stop her. It would be best not to fight.”

“What?? Four of us, two of them!” Jura held up his fingers.

“One of me, and plenty of chances already to attack as you bicker.” Janelsa checked her nails. “Fine, girl. You want to help, fetch me a nail cleaner or something. Not a stick. I’m no animal.”

Jura’s mouth hung open as Diktala and Neesha bowed dutifully and ran off into the temple, stepping over the broken statue that had crushed Dhanur. When Chahua coughed and clutched his chest, Jura stepped back between him and Janelsa with a furrowed frown.

Janelsa blinked slowly and pursed her lips. Without looking behind her, she held out her hand into which Neesha put Guru Brachen’s personal nail pick. “Thank you, girl.”

“It is Neesha.”

“Your name does no—” Janelsa paused right before cleaning. She turned and bowed one degree. “Neesha, a sweet name.”

“The guru’s own!?” Jura knelt, taking Chahua’s arm over his shoulder. 

“Must you continue? Ugh. Fine, boy. Go into your temple. I will not follow. I have had many an opportunity to kill you this day, and I had more to kill your guru when he was weakened and you left him.”

“He told us to leave!”

“I’m sure that thought will help you sleep tonight. Now I suggest you fulfill the teachings of your order and help all those the Light touches,” she waved her hand in front of her face to cast a shadow over it. “Or take your shot.”

Janelsa turned her back to him with a calming breath.

Chahua was able to stand on his own as he had gotten control of his breathing but Jura still held him.

“She could have blocked the path up,” Diktala said, shrugging. “Or waited inside to surprise us.”

Jura sputtered nonsense and Chahua coughed. “Fine!” he yelled and hustled the still recovering ascetic inside, past Janelsa. He wanted to look into her eyes, to let her know he would be watching everything she did, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. 

Janelsa wouldn’t have seen as her eyes were closed, happy with either outcome he chose. She opened one as Jura ushered Chahua to his bed and went to get the hot ointment that always helped when rubbed on his chest.

“Now that the dissenter is quieted, shall we?” Janelsa flicked her hair back and started cleaning her nails. “Suppose I can get right to the point.”

“Your name would be helpful, great spirit.” Diktala bowed with hands at his side. “You may sit if you like… Do you want to come inside instead?”

“Great spirit?” Neesha leaned in.

Janelsa hadn’t finished her one blink. “Your guru didn’t mention the talk we had? Him and I?”

“No, great spirit. He did not.” Diktala curled his lips. 

“I am sure it is only because he was in such a hurry! Much was happening after he rejoined us. Perhaps you would like something to eat? Or drink? Much is different for spirits on our plane, yes?” Neesha looked for Diktala to respond.

“Oh! Of course, great spirit. Neesha is right. I will go and fetch something now!” He nodded, running off. 

Neesha reached out after him, not wanting to be left alone, then curled her arm back with an awkward smile. “I’m sure you will enjoy these bits of hospitality. You are a spirit of the south, yes?”

“I had some with your guru.” Janelsa slowly lowered her head. “Only a drink.”

“Oh, um, then I am sure you will like more? No food then?”

 “I don’t care!” Jura yelled, unimpressed as Diktala relayed the information about Brachen’s chat with their attacker. “Is that for her??” He pointed to Diktala’s bowl of dried northern fruit with ointment covered hands.

“Guru Brachen would have fed her!” Diktala yelled back, running backwards through the door and spinning on his heel when Jura broke eye contact.

“There you are, great spirit!” Neesha proudly presented her fellow ascetic’s offerings.

She made no attempt to apologize for such a commoner’s fare. Neither did Diktala who first greeted her with such honored reverence. 

“He really didn’t talk about me?” Janelsa asked.

“No. Only that you would probably want to chase your daughter.” Neesha wrung her hands. “I’m sorry.”

Janelsa stared at the dried fruit, and a single tear moisturized one. 

Diktala snatched them back, half expecting an attack, and both the monks looked to the tear, then each other. Diktala shrugged, having never heard of a spirit crying. As another drop hit the path, Neesha stepped forward.

“Please, what is your name?” She put a hand on Janelsa’s shoulder. 

Janelsa did not recoil, she did not collapse, she did not scream. Instead, she shook her head. Brachen didn’t know her name, his disciples didn’t know her name. In the time Janurana spent here, she had never even mentioned the family’s name, the last remnant that needed purged from her legacy. Janelsa simply clenched her eyes to let out three more tears that quickly faded away on the path. “Janelsa. That is my name.”

“Janelsa. A strong name,” Neesha said, putting both hands on both shoulders, then stepping back as Diktala offered her the fruit again.

“Indeed. A beautiful name,” he said.

With a forced smile, Janelsa bowed to both of them, taking the bowl. The first bite may as well have been fresh. In all two hundred and ninety-seven years, Janelsa hadn’t even tried to eat. Sometimes before her death she lamented the time she had to spend eating, sleeping, grooming, and all the trappings of life. How much more she could have gotten done without them made her head swirl. But now, a dried date made her legs almost give out under her. Even though it was preserved and wrinkled, it felt new. The pit crunched between her jagged teeth. 

The ascetics almost died of fright when she stopped chewing. Her eyes were wide, but as she realized what happened, Janelsa started to chuckle. That too surprised her, the forgotten sound of her own laughter, but she continued. “Right! They have pits!” She spit it out and showed it to both the stupefied people before her. “Remember??”

“Yes, of course,” Neesha said awkwardly.

“As meat does bones,” Diktala added.

“Oh, ugh! I hate that! Do you hate that? So much peeling and getting your hands dirty. It was always so divine to have the cooks remove the bones before presenting it to me.” She scooped a handful of dates and fed them to herself like a servant would. 

“I have found it can get irritating but we can always wipe our hands clean, yes?” Neesha said.

“I suppose so,” Janelsa lamented.

“There is always something we can do, Great Spirit Janelsa.” Diktala nodded along.

Janelsa shook her head, not dismissively, but just to coincide with her sigh. Once again, she looked out over what had been her domain and what had changed. New stone walls far in the distance, marking the towns and cities that had been erected in her absence, the scorched landscape recovering where under her rule it had provided countless treasures, roads she could somewhat remember snaking through forests and hills, it all mocked her at its impermanence. “And what if you don’t see what you can do?”

“I would suggest a light,” Diktala said.

“Funny.” Janelsa meant it. “And what if that light hurts you? What if it only illuminated one’s failures? How helpless we are? What if that darkness hid how everything we have done was pointless?” She kicked a pebble clear off the mountain to its new, unmarked home somewhere in the borderland’s dirt.

“Blocking it out won’t help.” Neesha watched it soar away.

“And why not? It makes questions like these far less frequent. Easier to focus on a fire in the dark without your own torch stealing your attention.”

“Then won’t you trip?”

“That is true.” Diktala seized on that. “It will be much harder to see a pebble or stone in the way, Great Spirit Janelsa.”

“Just Janelsa is fine.” Even before she was a spirit her night vision was as good as any other warriors, but she had clonked her shins on plenty of things when wandering her home at night. “Perhaps I’d rather trip once than stumble the whole way.”

“That doesn’t sound very brave,” Neesha dared to say. She flustered as Janelsa raised one brow, looking over her shoulder. “I, ah, just mean that, well, because you are so brave. Clearly! Yes?”

Diktala parroted “Yes” a few times but contributed nothing.

“Ah, because you—”

Janelsa turned cocking her brow more. “Your Guru has not yet taught you his way with words, I see.” She rubbed her hands where the fragments of the cup he gave her had dug into her flesh.

“It is that you came to our home, our Light sends back spirits, many of them tried and uh—” Neesha cleared her throat to start again. “You were very brave to attack us on your own.”

“Huh.” Janelsa drummed her fingers, then started cleaning them again. 

“You are quite smart too.” Diktala stepped forward, offering more food, but Janelsa waved him away. Still, the compliment made her look less annoyed. “You said you saw ways to attack us. You are smart and brave, thus you would want the Light to show you all so you can deal with it all properly.”

“Don’t presume to know me, boy.” She shot him a soft glare, for he wasn’t wrong. 

“What is it you saw in the Light that was too much? What was it that you think was pointless?” Neesha asked.

“That those that killed me are still alive and that no one even thinks to talk of me anymore. No one recalls my successes, my name. Even your Guru doesn’t seem to care that we spoke. In another life you would have fallen to your knees in supplications at the mention of me. And now…”

“Jura falls over when you move.” Diktala handed her a starfruit, this one fresh.

Janelsa chuckled again, but it faded. “I chased… my daughter. I’m certain you saw, she’s a fool when it comes to hiding things.” She rolled the fruit between her fingers, feeling it squish. “She’s become a monster, the last fragment of my house. But now, no one even remembers the whole of its existence, and the last fragment is just another stone on the path. Every waking moment for so long…” She wanted to crush the fruit. Yet, her hands just didn’t have the strength. “Every moment wanting her dead, erased, and now… What was the point? Your Guru was right. My accomplishments don’t matter anymore. So what am I supposed to do?” she asked the two young ascetics who were barely as old as Janurana looked. 

“Make new accomplishments?” Diktala suggested.

“You have weathered many a monsoon, it seems.” Neesha pointed to Janelsa’s tattered clothes. 

“Why thank you for that.”

“No no, Janelsa, I meant that you, of all people, must deserve the Light after it. Um,” Neesha took a moment to think, recalling some advice Brachen had told her about the cave. “Yes. When we struggle through the dark, it is easier every time as we now know where each hole in the path is. As long as we are alive, we can walk it again and again.” She cleared her throat and turned to Diktala. “Are spirits…”

“You can still make new choices,” he jumped in. “And if you do follow the same path, you can make sure you don’t make the same mistake again. You said you chased your daughter, but now you see that is a mistake. It seems like you have made your decision.”

Janelsa rubbed her head. Before she had tried to kill Brachen for insinuating that she shouldn’t kill Janurana and her life was pointless but here a pair of children were telling her the same. She closed her eyes.

“Yes, mother?” Janurana called.

Janelsa snapped up from her desk. The horned helmet of her conquests rattled and her reed wedge fell from her forehead, having been pressed in as she passed out. The drapery of her chambers fluttered with the beaming plateau sun, mimicking the spider’s web she left alone on her balcony that so dutifully kept her room fly free. Her daughter was straight backed, clutching a parasol much too big for her, as dutiful as the spider waiting in her immaculate sari, even with how small she was. But to Janelsa she was always a giant. No child ever looked so huge as your own. And hers twice as thick because of her wild hair. It still had her comb stuck in it where she gave up brushing today. 

“What have I told you?” Janelsa pointed with her reed at the comb.

Janurana groaned, rolling her head as Janelsa did to accentuate her eye roll. She stopped half way as her mother raised an eyebrow. “That I must finish what I start.”

“Always. When we are finished here, I want you to comb that tangled mes- The tangles from your hair. Understood, Shzahd?”

“Yes, mother.” Janurana bowed and almost left. 

“I called you in here to ask for your help.” 

Janurana looked back and forth, then giggled. “Me?”

“Yes, you. If you are to rule when I am gone, it is imperative that—”

“What does imperative mean?”

“What do you say when interrupting me?”

“Excuse me, mother?” Janurana hid her confusion at why her mother could interrupt whoever she wanted.

“Yes, Shzahd?”

“What does imperative mean?”

“It means something is very, very important. So it is imperative that you learn what I do and what is on all those tablets I have you dry.”

“I can’t read yet.” 

“You will soon. Now let me finish.”

“Oh. Sorry, mother.”

“I need you to help me with some decisions. Come.” She turned on her chair, beckoning her daughter up. With some help, the heir to house Malihabar ascended the work throne, settling in on her mother’s lap. The weight of her daughter sent a wave of contentment through Janelsa and she wrapped an arm around Janurana. “Look here.” She pointed out the exact words. “This tablet is from house Deuhera, their governor Doivi is mad.”

“Lots of people are mad.”

“They can be. We’re trying to make sure the ones that are mad can’t hurt us. She doesn’t like that I said some of her warriors and builders had to come work for me.”

“Why?”

“Because I need them to help secure the house here. Abbaji is worried I might have to go fight again, not just little fights with northerners.”

“Will Doivi have to fight too?”

“Yes, but I think she might want to fight me.”

“But you always win!” Janurana was mortified.

“I know.” She pushed Muli’s repetitive voice deep down into the recesses of her mind. “So, by taking some of her people, she’ll be less likely to wanna fight me and will need me to help her if the people who I fight try to fight her.”

“That seems smart.”

“The other is from Commander Malindani. Do you remember him?”

“Yes, he’s one of your warriors.” Janurana nodded.

“One of my best. He commands them along with me. He thinks it’s not a good idea to keep Doivi’s warriors and builders here. If she does want to fight me, they’ll know how I made the city stronger since they helped make the walls and such. Or they may leave flaws. Worse, he thinks the warriors might try to sneak in to stab me and him, maybe you.” She squeezed Janurana’s sari.

Her daughter noticed and squeezed her parasol. 

Janelsa looked away, she had never told Janurana how close she had come to not waking up during the assassination attempt. It still haunted her just how lucky it was the idiot had said anything before he stabbed her. 

As far as Janurana knew when she ran into Janelsa’s chambers at the commotion, a man was dead and that man wanted to kill her mother. 

The times Janelsa woke with memories of that night she didn’t remember the assassin’s words or feel his life leaving him, but instead the inconsolable screams of her heir bursting past the guards and around the body. Janurana’s worry was all the answer she needed.

“You’re right. A spear I can see is far less deadly than one behind me. Thank you, Shzahd. Now go. Finish with your hair.” She put her daughter down and gave her a kiss on the forehead, waited a moment, then hugged her around the massive poof of hair that happened to contain her head.

“I love you, mother.” Janurana refused to let go. “Please, send them away.”

Janelsa did that night, foiling the plans of one assassin who took his chances and rushed her as she personally ordered them home. 

“Janelsa?” Neesha called.

Janelsa lifted her head. She pawed at her forehead to dislodge her reed stylus again, but only dropped the nail pick.

“I suppose you children are right.” She scoffed and took a bite of starfruit. It was fresh, garnishing the bowl they had brought her. Just as the soma filled her with energy, the crisp pop of the fruit reawakened tastebuds that were practically atrophied. It at least answered one question she never got around to asking a northerner, that being if spirits actually ate anything.

“I am sorry our paths have made us enemies before. Perhaps we may leave here on better terms?” Neesha said and bowed, followed by Diktala, but both stood up when Janelsa said nothing. 

She was busy staring out over the borderlands and taking in every scent the wind brought her way, then noticed Muli standing behind them. His smirk was always obvious behind his glorious beard. But now, he simply smiled and it was near imperceptible. More than he had in the past three hundred years, he stared into her eyes. It made Janelsa crack a smile back. The muscles in her face ached from the single effort, and the father of her heir bowed so deeply that he disappeared behind the young ascetics.

“Light Lost, stupid—” Jura tripped over Janurana’s ax. He was tossing the broken stones and bits of statue from Janelsa’s attack out towards the door and hadn’t noticed it buried under the rubble.

“Jura!” Neesha turned, about to run, but bowed again. “Excuse me, Janelsa.” 

Janelsa waved her off even though Neesha didn’t wait to be given leave, which made the conqueror of the south cock her brow. Regardless, she took another bite of her fruit and chuckled as she spit out a seed. “What hospitality. Can’t even pit your dates or seed your fruit?”

“Apologies, Great Spirit. Please, forgive our mistake there.” Diktala put his hands to his side and bowed.

“Suppose I can for now.” Janelsa looked past him at Jura and Neesha, who was scolding her larger comrade for scuffing the floor with the stones he tossed, then settled her eyes on Janurana’s ax.

“Uhm, Janelsa? Great spirit? Is something wrong?” Diktala jogged after her as she pushed right past him.

“It’s just rock! Who cares??” Jura launched a stone right into the ground. It broke and a piece plinked Neesha in her arm.

“Ow! Calm yourself!” She pushed him.

He reciprocated. “The spirit who broke our walls gets fruit but I get a push?!” He was bowled right out of the way as Janelsa stormed between the arguing couple.

Jura stumbled back and tripped over a statue arm, then took aim.

“Wait! Don’t!” Neesha leapt forward and grabbed his arm, struggling to hold him down until Diktala joined. Even still, he wrested the pair off him. But rather than face some rampaging spirit, he only watched as Janelsa went to one knee in front of her double-headed ax. 

For a moment, Janelsa hesitated picking it up, and looked it over instead. She ran her gaze over the polished, yet now dented and repaired head. The sharpening scrapes were deliberate, practiced, and a bit sloppy, as if done by skilled hands that weren’t used to this weapon. The leather was oiled, but could use another dose. The wood even had proper treatment. She grazed her finger tips over the shaft, then along the bronze. One side of the ax heads was brighter than the other, indicating it was probably a replacement. Still leaving it on the ground, she rolled it over to inspect the other side. There were two long scratches down the center that couldn’t have been sanded away being so deep. She picked at them, finding flecks of resin that had filled it at some point but was never replaced once it fell out. 

In a flash Janelsa snatched it up and leapt to her feet. She spun it to and fro, mock slashing, hacking through invisible shields, cracking the nonexistent spears that jabbed at her from all sides. She brought it to her side and slid it onto a belt holder that wasn’t there either. Before it could clatter to the ground, she fumbled it back into her hands.

“Feels… Right,” Janelsa whispered to herself. 

She narrowed her eyes and peeled away at the leather ties on the grip. Her longer, sharper nails made it both easier and more difficult. She could slice through them, but she tried to pick them open naturally. When the first two tries didn’t work, she huffed and just cut one to roll the grip down to the second tie. A few more scratches were exposed and Janelsa ran her finger over them. One was clearly a blocked puncturing strike, almost like a fang. It lined up with a hole in the grip. The other two were much more weathered, covered in other scuffs and discoloration. Any semblance of what originally made them was long gone.

“Right where…” Janelsa blinked.

She spun around, eyes narrowed and mumbling to herself, and looked past the four young ascetics crowded together. They were eyeing her intently, half holding Jura, half waiting for Janelsa to make a move. 

“Excuse me, children,” she said and briskly marched through them.

Janelsa slipped the ax into her muga’s sash which assuaged enough of the monks’ fears for them to step aside. The wind was still blowing as she exited the temple and stormed up to the edge of the cliff. Again, she surveyed the borderlands, following each canyon she saw, marking each ruined town or bridge. She scanned south to the plateau and focused as best she could on the specks in the distance. A few scorched or ruined southern towns were just as obscure as the patches of pocket forest. But she focused on the Capital. Janelsa had heard that gwomoni eyes were much stronger once, and she snarled at her daughter being able to see her coming like a hawk spying their prey. But the capital’s mudbrick walls and white-walled Keep gleamed in the distance enough that anyone could spot it if they squinted. The hill on which the keep sat was almost completely obscured by the city’s defenses, and Janelsa tried to look beyond both rings to see only the hill and Keep.

She pointed with her ax, not even noticing that she pulled it out, and ran a line from the capital, to her spot.

“No… Did she…” Janelsa turned and blinked at the jungle wall behind the mountain. “No. Did she just make a circle home?”