This story focuses on twins Mokoya and Akeha, who have been sent to a monastery by their mother the Protector. It's a authoritarian matriarchal society in which children do not declare their gender until they reach puberty and are then accepted in that way, and there was an interesting tension when Mokoya identifies as a woman and then feels separate from her twin for the first time when Akeha identifies as a man. Akeha leaves his mother and sister as they continue to wield power and tries with his limited magic to help the people stand up against his mother, and as a result misses getting to have a relationship with his sister's child, but finds a love of his own.
I like a lot of this story, but I found the ending ultimately unsatisfying - I wouldn't be surprised if this is a novella that's actually intended to be a prologue of a novel, because so much is set up but not fully resolved by the end of it. Akeha was a great character but in the end it wasn't quite enough.
Grade: B
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