'It's my fault,' he said. 'I've been too busy with the court. I haven't been a decent father to her. All the time she's spent with the daughters of the utkhaiem, playing idiot court games about who has the prettiest dress or the most servants-'
'Or the highest marriage,' Kiyan said.
Otah put his hand over his eyes. That was more than he could think about just now. How to correct his daughter, how to show her what she'd done wasn't right, how to try to be a father to her; yes, that he could sit with. '['hat it was too late, that she was already old enough to be another man's wife; that was too much to bear.
'It's a problem, love, yes,' Kiyan said. 'But sweet. She's fourteen summers old. She stole a pretty thing to see if she could. It's not actually unusual. I was a year older than her when my father caught me sneaking apples off the back of a farmer's cart.'
'And did he marry you off to the farmer in punishment?'
'I'm sorry I brought up the marriage. I only meant that Eiah's world's no simpler than ours. It only seems that way from here. 'l'o her, it's just as confused and difficult as anything you deal with. She's only half a girl, and not quite half a woman.'
Kiyan frowned. Her eyes were rueful and resigned, and she stretched her arms until the elbows cracked.
'My father made me apologize to the farmer and work for the man until I'd earned back twice the cost of what I'd taken. I don't know that's much guidance for us, though. I don't think any of these girls could do work worth three lengths of gold.'
'So what do we do?'
'It doesn't matter, love. As long as she's clear that what she did didn't end the way she'd hoped, we'll have come as close as we can. I'd say restrict her from seeing 'Ialit Radaani for a week's time, but that hardly seems equal to the stakes.'
'She could assist the physicians,' Otah said. 'Carry out the night pans, wash dressings for the hurt. A week of that to pay back the city for what it bought her.'
Kiyan chuckled.
'So long as she doesn't start enjoying it. She plays at being repulsed by blood because it's expected of her. I think at heart, there's nothing she'd like more than to cut a body apart and see how it's built. She'd have made a fine physician if she'd been born a bit lower.'
They talked a bit longer, and Otah felt his rage and uncertainty fade. Kiyan's quiet, sane, thoughtful voice was the most soothing thing he knew. She was right. It wasn't strange, it wasn't a sign that Eiah would grow up to be her aunt Idaan, scheming and killing and lying for the pleasure of it. It was a girl of fourteen summers seeing how far she could go, and the answer was not so far as this. Otah kissed Kiyan before they left, his lips on her cheek. She smiled. There were crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes now. White strands had shot her hair since she'd been young, but there were more now. Her eyes still glittered as they had when he'd met her in tJdun when she'd been the keep of a wayhouse and he had been a courier. She seemed to sense his thoughts, and put her hand to his cheek.
'Shall we go be the troll-like, unfair, unfeeling, stupid, venal dispensers of unjust punishment?' she asked.
The blue chamber was wide and round, a table of white marble dominating it like a sheet of ice floating in a far northern sea. The windows looked out on the gardens through walls so thick that sparrows and grackles perched in the sills and pecked at the carved meshwork of the inner shutters. Eiah had been pacing, but stopped when they came in. She looked from one to the other, trying for an innocence of expression that she couldn't quite reach.
'Come, sit,' Kiyan said, gesturing to the table. Eiah came forward as if against her will and sat in one of the carved wooden chairs. Her gaze darted between the two of them, her chin already beginning to slide forward.
'I understand you took something from a jeweler. A brooch,' Otah said. 'Is that true?'
'Who told you that?' Eiah asked.
'Is it true?' Otah repeated, and his daughter looked down. When she frowned, the same small vertical line appeared between her brows that would sometimes show Kiyan's distress. Otah felt the passing urge to soothe her fears, but this wasn't the moment for comfort. Ile scowled until she looked up, then down again, and nodded. Kiyan sighed.
'Who told you?' Eiah asked again. 'It was Shoyen, wasn't it? She's jealous because Talit and I were-'
'You told us, just now,' Otah said. 'That's all that matters.'
Eiah's lips closed hard. Kiyan took a turn, telling Eiah that she'd done wrong, and they all knew it. Even she had to know that simply taking things wasn't right. They had paid her debt, but now she would have to make it good herself. 'T'hey had decided that she would work with the physicians for a week, and if she didn't go, the physicians had instructions to send for…
'I'm not going to,' Eiah said. 'It's not fair. 'Ialit Radaani sneaks things out of her father's warehouse all the time and no one ever makes her do anything for it.'
'I can see that changes,' Otah said.
'Don't!' Eiah barked. The birds startled away; a flutter of wings that sounded like panic. 'Don't you dare! 'Ialit will hate me forever if she thinks I'm making her… Papa-kya! Please, don't do that.'
'It might be wise,' Kiyan said. 'All three girls were party to it.'
'You can't! You can't do that to me!' Eiah's eyes were wild. She pushed back the chair as she stood. 'I'll tell them Nayiit's your son! I'll tell!'
Otah felt the air go out of the room. Eiah's eyes went wide, aware that she had just done something worse than stealing a bauble, but unsure what it was. Only Kiyan seemed composed and calm. She smiled dangerously.
'Sit down, love,' she said. 'Please. Sit.'
Eiah sat. Otah clasped his hands hard enough the knuckles ached, but there weren't words for the mix of guilt and shame and anger and sorrow. His heart was too many things at once. Kiyan didn't look at him when she spoke; her gaze was on Eiah.
'You will never repeat what you've just said to anyone. Nayiit-cha is Liat's son by M1aati. Because if he isn't, if he's the thing you just said, then he will have to kill Danat or Danat will have to kill him. And when that happens, the blood will he on your hands, because you could have prevented it and chose not to. Don't speak. I'm not finished. If any of the houses of the utkhaiem thought Danat was not the one and only man who could take his father's place, some of them would start thinking of killing him themselves in expectation of Nayiit-cha favoring them once he became Khai Nlachi. I can't protect him from everyone in this city, any more than I can protect him from air or his own body. You have done a wrong thing, stealing. And if you truly mean to hold your brother's life hostage to keep from being chastised for it, I would like to know that now.'
Eiah wept silently, shocked by the cold fire in Kiyan's voice. Utah felt as if he'd been slapped as well. As if he ought somehow to have known, all those years ago, in that distant city, that the consequences of taking to his lover's bed would come back again to threaten everything he held dear. Ilis daughter took a pose that begged her mother's forgiveness.
'I won't, Mama-kya. I won't say anything. Not ever.'
'You'll apologize to the man you stole from and you will go in the morning to the physician's house and do whatever they ask of you. I will decide what to do about 'l alit and Shoyen.'
'Yes,: Mama-kya.'
'You can leave now,' Kiyan said and looked away. Eiah rose, silent except for the rough breath of tears, and left the room. The door closed behind her.
'I'm sorry-'
'Don't,' Kiyan said. 'Not now. I can't… I don't want to hear it just now.
Otah rose and walked to the window. The sun was high, but the towers cast shadows across the city all the same, like trees above children. Far to the west, clouds were gathering over the mountains, towering white thunderheads with bases dark as a bruise. 'There would be a storm later. It would come. One of the sparrows returned, considered Otah once with each eye, and then flew away again.
'What would you ask me to do?' Otah said. His voice was placid. No one would have known from the words how much pain lay behind them. No one except Kiyan. 'I can't unmake him. Should I have him killed?'
'How did Eiah know?' Kiyan asked.
