CHAPTER 463: 463: LANTERNS AFTER THE STORM

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Kai stood with Mia just inside the threshold where stone turned the outside world into a quieter one. The air smelled of warm dust, boiled water, and the shallow sweetness of cooked grain. Deeper in, the mountain’s breath was old and clean. He listened a heartbeat longer to the night beyond —the scrape of shields being stacked, the low murmur of count and recount, Alka’s one last circle over the ridge— and brought his attention back to the woman in front of him.

"We’ll talk tomorrow," he said, gentle but final. "You need rest. I need to sit the roof with Miryam."

Mia’s eyes flicked up toward the unseen altar and softened. "Go, then," she said. "If she wakes and sees anyone else first, she’ll make trouble just to make it fair." (She knows almost everything from Kai soul communication.)

"True." His mouth smudged into almost a smile. He looked once to Thea, once to the corridor that led to the guest hall. "Food, water, bandages—take what you need. Silvershadow will post a door-watch. Yavri will have a corner and her captains within reach. I’ll be above until dawn."

Mia nodded. Thea crossed her arms to hold her words still and gave a single stiff tilt of the chin. Yavri, who had waited three paces back while they spoke, answered with the kind of precise bow that places respect where it belongs without spending more than she could afford.

Kai touched Mia’s shoulder —nothing more— and turned away. His steps took the inner stair two at a time, up toward the high air and the humming shell.

He passed Luna and Akayoroi descending. The lamplight cut warm planes along Luna’s cheek; it made small stars along the deep red of Akayoroi’s plates. They both slowed, searching his face the way people search a sky before choosing a road.

"Roof," he said. "I’ll sit with her. Trade with me at dawn."

Luna’s hand brushed his wrist. "We’ll join the others for a little while," she said. "Then we’ll sleep in the hall mouth. If the wind changes, call."

Akayoroi’s antennae dipped once. "Go," she murmured, voice a low string. "The song is changing. She will want you near."

Kai climbed on. The two women carried the lamplight downward.

The guest hall had been cleared after the battle and reset for a different kind of work. Bedrolls lay in ranks against the inside wall; a long table ran the middle, already set with clay cups and a pot that blinked steam like a sleepy eye. The door to the ledge stood unlatched; the night came in as a cool, thin ribbon, enough to keep the heat honest.

Mia eased onto a bench, the small, practical pains announcing themselves now that knives were finished announcing theirs. Thea remained standing, because sitting would have looked like surrender to a piece of furniture she had not vetted. Yavri took the place indicated by Silvershadow’s open palm: near, visible, not surrounded. It was the kind of trust a hard house gives to a disciplined enemy who has stopped being tonight’s problem.

Silvershadow set a bowl by Mia’s hands. "Drink," he said. "It is sweet and dull. That is what you need."

Thea, suspicious by profession, sniffed hers and grudgingly admitted the steam smelled like grain, not schemes. She drank. Her eyes eased one fraction.

Yavri wrapped both hands around her cup and let the heat anchor her. "You risked much on the flats," she said to Mia. Her voice still carried command, even sitting. "The trackers would have found you either way. But your step put you in a place where someone could see you and choose what to do with the sight."

Mia’s mouth curved, rueful. "I was counting on exactly one person making that choice correctly."

"You count boldly," Yavri said.

"I was very tired of counting carefully," Mia replied.

Thea made a small, involuntary sound that could have been a laugh if it had been fed better. She looked past Yavri to the corridor, measuring absences and responsibilities. "And now?" she asked. "Now that you have moved the tidy room into a bigger one?"

"Now I eat this," Mia said, raising the cup, "and answer questions until I fall over. Important talks for later."

"You will not fall," Yavri said, simple and certain, as if telling a shield to keep rain off. She drank, then set the cup down with deliberate care. "I am Yavri," she added, turning her weight to include Thea properly. "Prisoner. Former vice general. I intend to remain useful until a higher voice says otherwise."

Thea’s brows tipped. "Useful is a language I speak," she said. "Keep choosing those words and I won’t waste any of mine on you."

The door sighed. Luna and Akayoroi came in with the kind of presence that changes a room’s posture. Luna carried a second pot, somehow coaxing more warmth from it than clay usually admits. Akayoroi had set aside her heavier plates; the human line of her shoulder made a graceful shape against the lamplight.

Luna set the pot down, smiled at Mia with an assessing softness, and slid onto the bench as if they had always shared tables. Akayoroi remained standing a moment longer, eyes taking the room in as a map: where exits breathed, where shadows sat, where a new person’s weight would help.

Then she stepped to Mia and inclined her head.

"I am Akayoroi," she said. "Queen of the carpenter ants of the south forest."

Mia blinked. The titles rearranged themselves in her mind like pieces of lacquer finding the right fit. "Queen," she repeated. Her own voice sounded too loud; she made it smaller. "Your Majesty."

Akayoroi’s mouth tilted, shy and proud at once. "Here, we have agreed I am ’Akh’ when there is work to do and only friends to hear it. Queens are heavy words for empty stomachs."

Thea made a small noise that might have been approval, which is a rarer thing from her than laughter. "Honest titles," she said. "I’ll take them."

Luna poured, set a cup in Mia’s hands again, and leaned in, eyes bright with curiosity that was never unkind. "You found him first," she said. "Before any of us had names in his house. Tell me what he is like when no one is watching."

Mia, unprepared for ambush from kindness, turned a shade she could not blame on sand or wind. "He is—" she began, then cut herself off with a shake of the head that tried to be stern with her mouth. "We have a good friendship. We helped each other. Nothing... happened."

Thea’s expression went sideways — half skeptical, half protective. Yavri’s gaze warmed a fraction; she did not smile. Akayoroi’s antennae drew a thoughtful arc and settled.

Luna’s eyes stayed on Mia, seeing the new cuts and the old carefulness, the way tired people hold a cup with their whole palm. "You left your kingdom to stand in front of his door," Luna said gently. "You smell like a road and a decision. That reads like something to me."

Mia tried to hide inside her cup and failed. "I came to find the truth," she managed. "About my people. About... other things." She cleared her throat. "And to bring a message. And to see if the heroic stories had put too much smug on his face."

"Did they?" Luna asked, deadpan.

Mia looked down at the cup because the wooden grain in it was easier to look at than anyone’s eyes. "No," she said, much too quickly.

A slow warmth went through the bench like sunlight reaching a winter floor. Thea pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose, as if to scold herself for feeling anything lightly, then lowered her hand and let the corners of her mouth do what they wanted.

Akayoroi had been listening as she always did: not waiting to speak, but choosing the right moment to offer a stone to the weight on the table. "He rescued me," she said, simple. "Me and a handful of sisters. Our brood was broken. Our tunnels were taken. He brought us here when there was no elsewhere." She glanced up toward the roof, where stone hummed, where a cocoon sang. "He promised to return my crown when we had enough hands to carry it again — and enough mouths to feed first."

Mia turned fully to her. Shock and gratitude braided into something bright. "In three months," she breathed. "He has — this?"

Thea’s head tipped, reluctant respect moving like a stiff door finally opening. "He has built a house that holds," she said. "And he has done it while tripping over every rule I prefer."

Yavri’s fingers, resting on the table, tightened once. "He killed three vice generals who can match us, one vs one, and he did it without taking joy," she said. "He was lower rank... That is not common."

Luna nodded, satisfied that the map had lines in the right places. "He will ask you tomorrow to tell him the shape of the court’s wind," she said to Mia. "Tonight, you should tell us what he eats when he is not looking and how often he sleeps in his chair because he pretends he was thinking."