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The room the Karaba siblings had been given after leaving Simuria was far too large, even though Marulu and Cross insisted it was one of the smallest chambers they had designed when they created the Naunax. And it did not matter how much effort had gone into making it feel less empty and a little more theirs—hanging tapestries woven by Rumelian women, filling the sparse wooden and Mul furniture with the few belongings they had managed to bring with them, or even building a small loom using paha’s carving tools—Dabura and Iranna still felt like thieves for occupying so much space when there were entire families who could have made use of it.
Perhaps the feeling came from having spent years sharing a space barely half this size, one their paternal uncle had offered—forced—on them after their parents died. Or maybe it was because they had never truly belonged anywhere: Dabura’s massive horns and Iranna’s still-growing ones, their physical strength and the sheer force of their rolloluca marked them unmistakably as Deskunte, but the red markings on their skin, the green of their three eyes, the precision with which they handled rolloluca all spoke of Shaama blood instead.
They were both seated on one of the rugs covering the floor. Dabura sat cross-legged, head bowed, hair loose down his back, eyes closed, breathing steadily in and out. Iranna was curled beside him, reading one of maha’s scrolls they had inherited, its Shaaman dialect coiling and winding across the parchment in a strange, almost artistic composition.
There was tension in the air. Dabura would soon depart to take part in a duel he himself had declared, one he did not truly wish to fight. He could not empty his mind of its relentless what ifs. Iranna, meanwhile, was too distracted to read, her attention snapping back to him every few moments. Dabura could almost feel the conflict stirring inside her as she searched for words without wanting to sound harsh—before finally giving up.
“You have gone back to being a weapon.”
Iranna’s words cut through the silence like a poisoned blade, and Dabura felt something inside him fracture. Not for those words themselves—the reality of being a walking weapon had long since taken root in him, like a parasitic seed that had grown enough to suffocate his sense of self—nor because it was Iranna saying them; she had tried more than once to shake him out of that destructive mindset. No, it was her tone, a painful blend of disappointment and resignation, that hurt more than anything else.
“I promised Dura I would protect his tribe, neha,” Dabura said, opening his eyes, even as he could hear how hollow the words sounded to himself. “That is what I am doing.”
“No, nuha,” she replied, shaking her head. The Shaaman charms decorating the braids wrapped around her head and small horns chimed softly. “You are not protecting the Rumelians. You are bowing to their whims, just like you did with the tribe. You have only changed masters.”
She turned to face him. There were no windows, and the room was lit solely by rolloluca lamps scattered throughout the space. Only a few were lit, as the Karaba siblings tended to use only part of the room. The dim light played strangely across Iranna’s face, sharpening her features and making the markings they shared appear like dark red ink.
Iranna held Dabura’s gaze, though his attention drifted briefly to her third eye. When she had been cursed, the chieftain’s rolloluca had pooled there, dark and toxic, suppressing hers to the point of leaving his neha so weak that there were days she could not even stand. Now, far from Simuria, the white was slowly returning to her sclera—but Dabura still wanted to get his hands on the Black Rope as soon as possible. The Simurian leading the Deskunte tribe was clever, greedy, and vindictive, and it was a miracle he had not activated Iranna’s curse when they fled.
In the half-light of the room, Dabura could not bring himself to hold her gaze. Beneath her cold anger and resentment toward the tribe lay an old, enduring pain, one that had long restrained even the faintest hope that things might change. And now, Dabura was giving her every reason to believe their reality would remain stagnant.
I am a terrible nuha, he thought, the familiar burn of guilt settling in his chest.
“Iranna…” he began, without knowing what to say. “Dura—”
“Dura would be furious at how they are treating you, nuha,” she cut in, relentless. “By now he would have put Osuki and his faction back in their place without a second thought.” Then she added, more sharply, “And he would have kicked your ass already, just to remind you that you are someone, not something.”
Yes, Dabura thought, the faintest shadow of a smile tugging at his lips. He would have.
As usual, Iranna was right. Once again, the Deskunte warrior thought that if not for Rumelian mentality, his little neha would have made a far better leader than he ever could. Even Jabaloma, when he first met her, had admitted to thinking the same. Diplomatic relations with humans would have gone smoothly. Cross would not be lying on that white bed with two holes in his chest. And the Rumelians would finally have had land to claim as their own without blood being spilled.
Dabura did not think this simply because he loved her. Iranna’s mind was like that of a Shaaman—curious, sharp—and it had grown more attuned to power dynamics after she was made to serve one of the chieftain’s daughters. At first, it had been a quieter way to keep Dabura and his immense power under control. Until it was no longer enough, until he was forced into that duel against Dura.
And now here he was again, back where he started, preparing to leave the Naunax for the dueling grounds after the ban on killing cursed spirits—so similar yet so different from the Rumelians’ sacred beasts—had been broken.
Why is it always the Kalyans?
Fate had a cruel sense of humor. First with false beings Osuki and his faction had bonded with, whose cursed energy—he refused to call it rolloluca—left a sour taste at the back of Dabura’s tongue, then by forcing sorcerers into a duel, in the way of the Deskunte, just as the chieftain had done two years earlier.
Humans had a saying that fit all too well: history repeats itself.
How ironic.
Iranna huffed softly, muttering under her breath in Shaaman dialect about stupid older brothers, before setting the scroll aside and crawling into his lap—a habit from her childhood she had never entirely abandoned. Dabura shifted and wrapped his arms around her small body, and for a fleeting moment, holding her like this, he felt as though he had returned to his early adolescence: newly orphaned, a tiny neha in his arms, and a grinning Dura at his side, back when the Deskunte and Rumelian tribes still coexisted despite the underlying tension, and things were simpler.
The Karaba siblings remained in silence, holding each other, far from their homeworld, isolated within a tribe that regarded them with suspicion and contempt—and yet depended on Dabura to survive, even though he was the cause of their exile.
“Who is your opponent?” Iranna asked softly under his chin.
Dabura gently ran his nails along the base of his younger sister’s horns, where he knew they tended to itch as they grew, and felt her relax at the familiar gesture.
“I do not know,” he admitted. “I would prefer it to be one of the warriors—” He paused, then corrected himself. “One of the sorcerers allied with the one who left Cross near death.”
Despite a certain curiosity about sorcerers’ techniques, Dabura did not want to face someone who, in the end, had not been involved that rainy day. On one hand, he could endure the thought of killing someone who supported the actions of the wretch who had worsened the disaster—not so much for the Rumelians and their sacred beasts themselves, but because Cross was one of Dura’s sons. On the other hand, he had already injured Usami Kou unintentionally, someone who had fought alongside Jabaloma for peace and had been ready to die in place of his cowardly companion. Dabura did not want to spill any more innocent blood.
“And if it is a young sorcerer?” Iranna pressed. “Like Marulu and Cross’s friends. The Okkotsu siblings.”
Dabura’s hand stilled at the nape of her neck. He thought of the two sorcerers, of how they were barely older than his neha, and swallowed his unease. He hated killing. Taking the life of someone so young was simply repulsive.
“They will not send children into a duel to the death, neha,” he said.
“And if they do?” Iranna insisted.
Dabura did not answer.
Dabura had officially met the Okkotsu during the cultural exchange, but mostly knew them through Dura’s twins. Marulu praised them endlessly, especially Tsurugi. Cross spoke less, but when he did, it was clear he’d grown attached to Yuka.
Not that Dabura had truly spoken with the young sorcerers. Tsurugi lingered in the background, Yuka had addressed him once while helping Tomoe-san carry ingredients and that strange rectangular brazier used for takoyaki—though Dabura had been distracted by Tomoe-san’s dark eyes, her lack of fear, and the realization that someone that beautiful was looking at him with fascination had sent his heart racing, enough for him to walk straight into a doorframe like a boy still learning how to move with horns larger and heavier than his head. Dabura had slipped away afterward, trying to collect himself and steady his heart, and he could almost hear Dura laughing himself sick over it.
Yuka had seemed slight, cheerful, and loud, brimming with rolloluca. Her brother was the opposite: calm, contained. Dabura could see him clearly with his eyes, yet his senses slid past him as if he were a ghost. Marulu explained it was due to a 'Heavenly Restriction', a kind of exchange imposed at birth that either amplified or erased cursed energy entirely—in the Okkotsu boy's case, its complete absence had granted him extraordinary strength.
Dabura found the concept unsettling. How could a newborn agree to a pact? Was it inherited, or was it tied to the strange laws governing human sorcery? The idea raised more questions than answers. Iranna, on the other hand, had listened with quiet fascination, already turning the implications over in her mind.
Iranna sighed again, then straightened to look him in the eyes. Dabura was struck by how suddenly older she seemed, that disillusioned shadow now etched into her face.
“You will win. There is no question about that.” She hesitated, bit her lower lip. “And if you face the twins’ friends... when—when you have to kill them... be gentle. They should not pay for what happened to Cross.”
Dabura felt his throat tighten and pulled his small neha closer. When he had declared the duel, he had been sorely tempted to lie about the need to kill his opponent to win. Provided they were not allied with the man who had struck Cross down, Dabura would have been more than content to simply incapacitate his opponent. But the Rumelians would protest vehemently. If Dura, his dearest friend, died in a duel by his hands, then surely Dabura would have no issue killing a complete stranger, child or not, correct? And Osuki would no doubt add venomously that Cross still lay on the brink of death in the infirmary, so why should Dabura show mercy to someone of the same species that had wounded the boy?
Iranna let out a long, weary sigh and tucked her face beneath Dabura’s chin. “I wish you were more selfish, nuha. And that you learned to say no more often.”
Perhaps that hurt most of all, because it was something the tribe had taken from him when they turned him into a cog. When the chieftain cursed his sister. When Osuki’s words forced his hand and made the threat of the duel.
“Yes, neha,” Dabura admitted after a moment, and it felt like setting down a weight he had carried for far too long. “I wish that too.”