'That seems wise,' Eiah said.
'The poets. The andat. They can't be kept out of that conversation.'
'I know,' she said. 'I've been thinking about it.'
'I don't suppose there are any conclusions you'd want to share,' he asked, trying to keep his tone light. Eiah pulled at her fingers, one hand and then the other.
'We can't be sure there won't be others,' she said. 'The hardest thing about binding them is the understanding that they can be bound. They burned all the books, they killed every poet they could find, and we remade the grammar. We bound two andat. Other people are going to try to do what we did. Work from the basic structures and find a way.'
'You think they'll do it?'
'History doesn't move backward,' she said. 'There's power in them. And there are people who want power badly enough to kill and die. Eventually, someone will find a way.'
'Without Maati? Without Cehmai?'
'Or Irit, or Ashti Beg, or the two Kaes?' Eiah said. 'Without me? It will be harder. It will take longer. The cost in lives and failed bindings may be huge.'
'You're talking about generations from now,' Otah said.
'Yes,' Eiah said. 'Likely, I am.'
Otah nodded. It wasn't what he'd hoped to hear, but it would do. He took a pose that thanked Eiah. She bowed her head.
'Are you well?' he asked. 'It isn't an easy thing, killing.'
'Vanjit wasn't the first person I've killed, Father. Knowing when to help someone leave is part of what I do,' Eiah said. She looked up, staring at the moon through the bare branches that couldn't shelter them, even from light. 'I'm more troubled by what I could have done and didn't.'
Otah took a pose that asked her to elaborate. Eiah shook her head, and then a moment later spoke softly, as if the words themselves were delicate.
'I could have held all our enemies at bay just by the threat of Wounded,' she said. 'What army would take the field, knowing I could blow out their lives like so many candles? Who would conspire against us knowing that if their agents were discovered, I could slaughter their kings and princes without hope of defense?'
'It would have been convenient,' Otah agreed carefully.
'I could have slaughtered the men who killed Sinja-kya,' Eiah said. 'I could have ended every man who had ever taken a woman against her will or hurt a child. Between one breath and the next, I could have wiped them from the world.'
Eiah turned her gaze to him. In the cool moonlight, her eyes seemed lost in shadow.
'I look at those things-all the things I might have done-and I wonder whether I would have. And if I had, would they have been wrong?'
'And what do you believe?'
'I believe I saved myself when I set that perversion free,' she said. 'I only hope the price the rest of the world pays isn't too high.'
Otah stepped forward and took her in his arms. Eiah held back for a moment, and then relaxed into the embrace. She smelled of herbs and vinegar and blood. And mint. Her hair smelled of mint, just as her mother's had done.
'You should go see him,' she said. He knew who she meant.
'Is he well?'
'For now,' she said. 'He's weathered the attacks so far. But his blood's still slowing. I expect he'll be fine until he isn't, and then he'll die.'
'How long?'
'Not another year,' she said.
Otah closed his eyes.
'He misses you,' she said. 'You know he does.'
He stepped back and kissed her forehead. In the distance, someone screamed. Eiah glanced over his shoulder with disgust.
'That will be Yaniit,' she said. 'I'd best go tend to him. Tall as a tree, wide as a bear, and wails if you pinch him.'
'Take care,' Otah said.
His daughter walked away with the steady stride of a woman about her own business, leaving the bare garden for him. He looked up at the moon, but it had lost its poetry and charm. His sigh was opaque in the cold.
Maati's cell was the most beautifully appointed prison in the cities, possibly in the world. The armsmen led Otah into a chamber with vaulted ceilings and carved cedar along the walls. Maati sat up, waving the servant at his side to silence. The servant closed the book she'd been reading but kept the place with her thumb.
'You're learning Galtic tales now?' Otah asked.
'You burned my library,' Maati said. 'Back in Machi, or don't you recall that? The only histories your grandchild will read are written by them.'
'Or by us,' Otah said. 'We can still write, you know.'
Maati took a pose that accepted correction, but with a dismissive air that verged on insult. So this was how it was, Otah thought. He motioned to the armsmen to take the prisoner and follow him, then spun on his heel. The feeble sounds of protest behind him didn't slow his pace.
The highest towers of Utani were nothing in comparison to those in Machi; they could be scaled by stairways and corridors and didn't re quire a rest halfway along. Under half the height, and Otah liked them better. They were built with humanity in mind, and not the raw boasting power of the andat.
At the pinnacle, a small platform stood high above the world. The tallest place in the city. Wind whipped it, as cold as a bath of ice water. Otah motioned for Maati to be led forward. The poet's eyes were wild, his breath short. He raised his thick chin.
'What?' Maati spat. 'Decided to throw me off, have you?'
'It's almost the half-candle,' Otah said and went to stand at the edge. Maati hesitated and then stepped to his side. The city spread out below them, the streets marked by lanterns and torches. A fire blazed in a courtyard down near the riverfront, taller than ten men with whole trees for logs. Otah could cover it with his thumbnail.
The chime came, a deep ringing that seemed to shake the world. And then a thousand thousand bells rang out in answer to mark the deepest part of the longest night of the year.
'Here,' Otah said. 'Watch.'
Below, light spread through the city. Every window, every balcony, ever parapet glowed with newly lit candles. Within ten breaths, the center of the Empire went from any large city in darkness to something woven from light, the perfect city-the idea of a city-made for a moment real. Maati shifted. When his voice came, it was little more than a whisper.
'It's beautiful.'
'Isn't it?'
A moment later, Maati said, 'Thank you.'
'Of course,' Otah replied.
They stood there for a long time, neither speaking nor arguing, concerned with neither future nor past. Below them, Utani glowed and rang, marking the moment of greatest darkness and celebrating the yearly return of the light.
EPILOG
We say that the flowers return every spring, but that is a lie.
