“You are a stone in the lung of our temple,” sneered Vanlala, the temple’s star bender, who could whistle a blade of air so sharp it split a falling raindrop. “You dishonor our songs.”
Kima was a boy who could not whistle.
Vanlala tried her Chhakchhuak . The three-toned cry rose—then choked. The Ash Eater’s leader, a hollow-eyed man named Thangchhuaka, inhaled her cyclone into his lungs and exhaled nothing. Vanlala fell, gasping, her shawl turning to ash.