'I know it,' Kiyan said, and the weariness in her voice checked Otah's frustration. 'Really, love, I'm quite clear.'
'I'm sorry, Kiyan-kya,' he said. 'It's just…'
He shook his head.
'Hard feeling powerless?' she said gently. Otah nodded. Kiyan sighed softly, a sympathy for his pain. Then, 'Agoat?'
'It was what came to mind.'
After the meal, after their hands had been washed for them in silver howls, after Otah had suffered yet another change of robes, Kiyan kissed him and retreated to her rooms. Otah stepped down from his palace, instructed the retinue of servants that he wished to be left alone, and made his way west, toward the library. The sun had long since slipped behind the mountains, but the sky remained a bright gray, the clouds touched with rose and gold. Spring would soon give way to summer, the long, bright days and brief nights. Still, it was not so early in the season that lanterns didn't glow from the windows that he passed. Stars glittered in the east as the night rose. The library itself was dark, but candles burned in Maati's apartments, and Otah made his way down the path.
Voices came to him, raised in laughter. A man's and a woman's, and both familiar as memory. They sat on chairs set close together. In the yellow candlelight, Maati's cheeks looked rosy. Liat's hair had escaped its bun, locks of it tumbling across her brow, down the curve of her neck. The air smelled of mulling spices and wine, and Eiah lay on a couch, one long, thin arm cast over her eyes. Liat's eyes went wide when she caught sight of him, and Maati turned toward the door to see what had startled her.
'Otah-kvo!' he said, waving him forward. 'Come in. Come in. It's my fault. I've kept your daughter too long. I should have sent her home sooner. I wasn't thinking.'
'Not at all,' Otah said, stepping in. 'I've come for your help actually.'
Maati took a pose of query. His hands were not perfectly steady, and Liat stifled a giggle. Both of them were more than a little drunk. A howl of warmed wine sat on the edge of the brazier, a silver serving cup hooked to the rim. Otah glanced at it, and Maati waved him on. There were no bowls, so Otah drank from the serving cup.
'What can I do, Most High?' Maati asked with a grin that was for the most part friendly.
'I need a book. Something with children's stories in it. Fables, or light epics. History, if it's well enough written. Danat's asking me to tell stories, and I don't really know any.'
Liat chuckled and shook her head, but Maati nodded in understanding. Otah sat beside his sleeping daughter while Maati considered. The wine was rich and deep, and the spices alone made Otah's head swim a little.
'What about the one from the Dancer's Court?' Liat said. 'The one with the stories about the half-Bakta boy who intrigued for the Emperor.
Maati pursed his lips.
'They're a bit bloody, some of them,' he said.
'Danat's a boy. He'll love them. Besides, you read them to Nayiit without any lasting damage,' Liat said. 'Those and the green hook. The one that was all political allegories where people turned into light or sank into the ground.'
'The Silk Hunter's Dreams,' Maati said. 'That's a thought. I have a copy of that one too, where I can put my hand on it. Only, Otah-kvo, don't tell him the one with the crocodile. Nayiit-kya wouldn't sleep for days after I told him that one.'
'I'll trust you,' Otah said.
'Wait,' Maati said, and with a grunt he pulled himself to standing. 'You two stay here. I'll be back with it in three heartbeats.'
An uncomfortable silence fell on Otah and Liat. Otah turned to consider Eiah's sleeping face. Liat shifted in her chair.
'She's a lovely girl,' Liat said softly. 'We spent the day together, the three of us, and I was sure she'd wear us thin by the end of it. Still, we're the ones that lasted longest, eh?'
'She doesn't have a head for wine yet,' Otah said.
'We didn't give her wine,' Liat said, then chuckled. 'Well, not much anyway.
'If the worst she does is sneak away to drink with the pair of you, I'll be the luckiest man alive,' Otah said. As if hearing him, Eiah sighed in her sleep and shifted away, pressing her face to the cushions.
'She looks like her mother,' Liat said. 'Her face is that same shape. The eyes are your color, though. She'll he stunning when she's older. She'll break hearts. But I suppose they all do. Ours if no one else's.'
Otah looked up. Liat's expression had darkened, the shadows of lanternlight gathering on the curves of her face. It had been another lifetime, it seemed, when Otah had first known her. Only four years older than Eiah was now. And he'd been younger than Nayiit. Babies, it seemed. Too young to know what they were doing, or how precarious the world truly was. It hadn't seemed that way at the time, though. Otah remembered it all with a terrible clarity.
'You're thinking of Saraykcht,' she said.
'Was it that obvious?'
'Yes,' Liat said. 'How much have you told them? About what happened?'
'Kiyan knows everything. A few others.'
'They know how Seedless was freed? And Heshai-kvo, how he was killed?'
For a sick moment, Otah was back in the filthy room, in the stink of mud and raw sewage from the alley. He remembered the ache in his arms. He remembered the struggle as the old poet fought for air with the cord biting into his throat. It had seemed the right thing, then. Even to Heshai. The andat, Seedless, had come to Otah with the plan. Aid in Heshai-kvo's suicide-for in many ways that was what it had been-and Liat would be saved. Maati would be saved. A thousand Galtic babies would stay safely in their mother's wombs, the power of the andat never turned against them.
Otah wondered when things had changed. When he had stopped being someone who would kill a good man to protect the innocent, and become willing to let a nation die if it meant protecting his own. Likely it had been the moment he'd first seen Eiah squirming on Kiyan's breast.
'Do you know?' Otah asked. 'How it happened, I mean.'
'Only guesses,' Liat said. 'If you wanted to tell me…'
'Thank you,' Otah said with a sigh, 'but maybe it's best to leave that buried. It's all finished now, and there's no undoing any of it.'
'Perhaps you're right.'
'We will need to talk about Nayiit,' Otah said. 'Not now. Not with
…' lie nodded to the sleeping girl.
'I understand,' Liat said and brushed her hair back from her eyes. 'I don't mean any harm, 'Iani. I wouldn't hurt you or your family. I didn't come here… I wouldn't have come here if I hadn't had to.'
The door swung open, a gust of cool air coming from it, and Maati stood triumphantly in the frame. He held a small hook hound in blue silk as if it were a trophy of war.
'(; or the bastard!' he said, and walked over to Otah, presenting it over one arm like a sword. 'For you, Most High, and your son.'
Over Nlaati's shoulder, Otah could see Liat look away. Utah only took the hook, adopted a pose of thanks, and turned to gently shake Eiah's shoulder. She grunted, her brow furrowing.
'It's time to come home, Eiah-kya,' Otah said. 'Come along.'
`M'wake,' Eiah protested, but slowly. Rubbing her eyes with the hack of one hand, she rose.
They said their good nights, and Otah led his daughter out, closing the door to Maati's apartments behind them. The night had grown cool, and the stars had occupied the sky like a conquering army. Otah laid his arm across Eiah's shoulder, hers under it, around his ribs. She leaned into him as they walked. Night-blooming flowers scented the air, soft as rain. 't'hey were just coming in sight of the entrance of the First Palace when Eiah spoke, her voice still abstracted with sleep.
'Nayiit-cha's yours, isn't he, Papa-kya?'
Liat woke in dim moonlight; the night candle ihad gone out or else they hadn't bothered to light it. She couldn't recall which. Beside her, Nlaati mumbled something in his sleep, as he always had. Liat smiled at the dim profile on the pillow beside her. He looked younger in sleep, the lines at his mouth softened, the storm at his brow calmed. She resisted the urge to caress his cheek, afraid to wake him. She had taken lovers in the years since she'd
