Page 83 of Sins of His Wrath

The morning sun beat relentlessly against Naya's back as they rode across the parched landscape. Neither she nor Akoro had spoken since they'd left the palace gates, the silence between them stiff and vast. His presence loomed behind her, imposing yet somehow reassuring as he guided thenniraeacross rocky terrain that gradually gave way to flat, barren plains.

Naya's thoughts raced with unasked questions. What was his plan today? Would it truly help her find the Solution, or was it another distraction, another way to justify his hatred toward her people? The tension between them had shifted since last night—not dissolved, but charged.

When thenniraecrested a small ridge, a glimpse of their destination came into view. Another village lay in ruins before them, similar to the one they'd visited yesterday. Broken stone walls still stood in defiant fragments, and unlike yesterday's site, occasional pieces of cloth fluttered from collapsed beams, faded but not yet completely decomposed by the elements.

Akoro brought thenniraeto a halt at the village's edge. His touch was firm but careful as he helped her dismount, placing her close to him. Though the heat of the day had barely begun to build, sweat already beaded along his brow, trailing down the strong column of his neck.

"What is this place?" Naya asked, breaking the hours-long silence between them.

Akoro's gaze swept across the ruins, a haunting look seeping into his face. "This was Nshaar. A farming settlement." His voice dropped lower. "I grew up here."

Naya turned to him, unable to hide her surprise. "Here? But it looks as devastated as the village we saw yesterday." Her eyes roamed over the destruction. "How could you have spent time in a place that was already destroyed?"

"It wasn't always like this." Akoro starting walking, carefully guiding her around a fallen beam. "When I was growing up, this was a functioning village. Struggling, yes, but alive."

Naya followed him, careful to match her footsteps to his as they navigated the treacherous path. "I don't understand. Yesterday's village was destroyed generations ago, you said. This looks just as old."

Akoro paused beside a partially standing wall, his large hand bracing against the weathered stone. "There were two waves of destruction." He turned to look at her, his expression grave. "The first caused by my ancestors' greed, as I told you yesterday. It devastated the region, but some places, like Onn Kkulma and outlying villages like this one, managed to partially recover. Life continued, difficult but possible."

"And the second wave?" she asked, sensing where this was heading.

"The second wave came just before I took the throne. It destroyed what remained of Onn Kkulma, where the Sy dynasty had begun to regroup, to rebuild." His expression hardened. "The second destruction happened when someone from your land removed the last remaining Sy magic artifacts. After that, it was discovered that the initial device that had caused the first wave had been interfered with."

Naya kept herself steady. "My land? You're certain?"

"Yes." The word cut through the air between them. "After the second wave, when the last artifacts were taken, the remaining magical infrastructure collapsed entirely. The Sy Dynasty was left with nothing. This village, which had been recovering, was reduced to what you see now."

Naya turned, taking in the devastation. "How can you be sure it was someone from my land? You've never visited the Lox Empire before me."

"They announced themselves." Akoro moved to a collapsed doorway, crouching to brush sand from a piece of carved wood. "We didn’t know they were here before the destruction, but afterward they told us where they were from.” His voice hardened. "They boasted that they were from 'the Known Lands,' a place they said Tsashokra would never be able to reach or touch."

The words sent a wave of disbelief through Naya. "The Known Lands?"

"Yes." Akoro's eyes met hers. "They spoke a different language and wore strange clothes. We had no idea what 'the Known Lands' meant until I visited your empire myself."

A heaviness settled in Naya's chest. It couldn’t be true, and yet she couldn’t say so confidently. She wanted to deny it, to argue that no one from her land would do such a thing. But history of the Known Lands is a cruel one—the conflicts, the ambitions, the lengths to which some rulers had gone to secure their power.

"It’s hard for me to believe," she said quietly. "I don’t know why anyone would do that—you’re no threat to us. There must be some mistake."

"There is no mistake," Akoro said, his voice unyielding. "I've spent years gathering proof, piecing together what happened. They said we were a threat because eventually we would learn how to come to your land. We would learn your Ancient Tongue, and we would be just ‘cruel’ to your people as we were to our people." Akoro’s eyes flashed with tightly-controlled fury. “They calleduscruel!”

A coldness settled in Naya’s stomach. “What did you say? You would learn what?”

“The Ancient Tongue,” Akoro said. He watched her. “Do you know what that is? Is it from your land?”

Naya could do nothing but nod with dismay.

Akoro cursed in his language, his whole body rigid.

She looked up at him, studying the harsh lines of his face, weathered by sun and hardship and anger. "If what you say is true, then it's a terrible crime. But it still doesn't justify kidnapping me or threatening my empire. Most of our people would have known nothing about this."

Akoro said nothing for a long moment, his eyes boring into her. “If I never took you, I wouldn’t have known you were mine,” he muttered, low an guttural. “You cannot make me regret it.”

Naya sighed. His regret was the last thing she would expect. "You said you spent time in this village growing up. Why? If you're from the Sy Dynasty, why were you here and not in Onn Kkulma?"

Akoro exhaled long and heavy, as though releasing the steam of old anger. "After the first wave, the surviving Sy became obsessed with preserving what little remained of their status and wealth. They isolated themselves in what was left of the palace in Onn Kkulma."

Moving, he led her deeper into the ruins, to what might once have been a communal eating area. The stone floor was still partially intact, swept clean by wind and time.

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