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The onset of age was like a dam breaking: slowly at first, then all at once.
Earth, for gravity; Water, for motion; Fire, for hot and cold; Forest, for flesh and blood; Metal, for electricity. Everything else is extra.
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.”
“In the monastery,” Mokoya said, “they taught us that fortune is both intractable and impartial. That when bad things happen, it’s the result of an incomprehensible and inhuman universe working as it does. The mountain shrugs, but thinks nothing of the houses crushed in the avalanche. That was not its purpose.”
They felt less unwelcome than ill-fitting, like a square of tile that was the wrong color.
Mother turned around and stared at them with the curious demeanor of a raptor. Her attention was like sunlight concentrated under curved glass. Akeha’s skin burned, and sweat collected in the small of their back.
He hadn’t been noticed. It was not too late to walk away. But Mokoya wouldn’t, he knew.
“You’re very good at killing people, for a deliveryman.”
In the monotony of light forest cover, routine settled upon them like a fisherman’s net.
Some things might be fixed, but everything around them can be changed. That’s the part that counts.”
A considered silence simmered. Then Yongcheow spoke. “The saying goes, ‘The black tides of heaven direct the courses of human lives.’ To which a wise teacher said, ‘But as with all waters, one can swim against the tide.’” His gaze was unshakeable as it fixed on Akeha. “I chose to swim. So can you.”
A dead body at their feet. One in a long trail that had no beginning and probably no end.
“There are no righteous deaths,” Yongcheow whispered. “Only ones that cannot be avoided.”
