though the man's face remained turned away. Otah wondered, not for the

first time, what brokering this agreement had cost Issandra Dasin.

He glanced at the stairs down which her daughter had vanished, and then

back, his hands shifting into a pose that made an implicit offer.

Issandra raised an eyebrow, a half-smile making a dimple in one cheek.

Otah tugged at his robes, straightening the lines, and stepped carefully

down from the dais. The girl Ana would be his daughter too, soon enough.

If her true mother and father weren't placed to speak with her in her

distress, perhaps it was time that Otah did.

Below decks, the Galtic ship was as cramped and close and ripe with the

scent of tightly quartered humanity as any ship Otah had sailed with.

Under normal circumstances, the deck now peopled with the guests of the

Dasin family would have given room to a full watch of sailors. Instead,

most were lurking in the tiny rooms, waiting for the songs to end and

their own turn with fresh air to come. Still, Otah, Emperor of the

Khaiem, found a way cleared for him, conversations stopping when he came

in view. He made his way forward, squinting into the darkness for a

glimpse of the rabbit-faced girl.

Galtic design divided the cargo hold in sections, and it was in one of

these dark chambers that he heard the girl's voice. Crates and boxes

loomed above him to either side, the binding ropes creaking gently with

the rolling ship. Rats chattered and complained. And there, hunched over

as if she were protecting something pressed to her belly, sat Ana Dasin.

"Excuse me," Otah said. "I don't mean to intrude, but ... may I sit?"

Ana looked up at him. Her dark eyes shone in the dim light. Her nod was

so faint it might almost have been the movement of the ship. Otah

stepped carefully over the rough board, hitched his robes up to his

shins, and sat at the girl's side. They were silent. Above them, the

singers struck a complex rhythm, like jugglers tossing pins between

them. Otah sighed.

"I know this isn't easy for you," he said.

"What isn't, Most High?"

"Otah. Please, my name is Otah. You can call me that. I mean all of

this. Being uprooted, married off to a man you've never met in a city

you've never been to."

"It's what's expected of me," she said.

"Yes, I know, but ... it isn't really fair."

"No," she said, her voice suddenly hard. "It isn't."

Otah clasped his hands, fingers laced together.

"He isn't a bad man, my son," Otah said. "He's clever and he's strong,

and he cares about people. He feels deeply. He's probably a better man

than I was at his age."

"Forgive me, Most High," Ana Dasin said. "I don't know what you want me

to say."

"Nothing. Nothing in particular. Only know that this life that we've

forced on you ... it might have some redeeming qualities. The gods all

know the life I've had wasn't the one I expected, either. We do what we

have to do. In my ways, I'm as constrained by it as you are."

She looked at him as if he were speaking a language she hadn't heard

before. Otah shook his head.

"It's nothing, Ana-cha," he said. "Only know that I know how hard this

time is, and it will get better. If you allow room for it, this new life

might even surprise you."

The girl was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed. She shook her head.

"Thank you?" she said.

Otah chuckled ruefully.

"I'm not doing a particularly good job of this, am I?" he said.

"I don't know," Ana Dasin said after a pause. Her tone carried the

shielded contempt of an adolescent for her elders. "I don't know what

you're doing."

Making his way back through the crowded belly of the ship, Otah wondered

what he had thought he would say to a Galtic girl who had seen

forty-five fewer summers than himself. He had expected to offer some

kind of wisdom, some variety of comfort, and instead it had been like

trying to hold a conversation with a cat. Who would have thought a man

could be as old as he was, wield the power of empire, and still be so

naive as to think his heart would be explicable to an eighteen-year-old

girl?

And, of course, as he reached the plank stairway that led up, he found

what he wished he had said. He should have said that he knew what

courage it took to face sacrifice. He should have said that he knew her

suffering was real, and that it was in a noble cause. It made them

alike, the Emperor and the Empress-to-be, that they compromised in order

to make the lives of uncountable strangers better.

More than that, he should have encouraged her to speak, and he should

have listened.

An approving roar came from the deck above him. A reed organ hummed and

sang, flute and drum following a heartbeat later. Otah hesitated and

turned back. He would try again. At worst, the girl would think he was

ridiculous, and she likely already did that.

As he drew near the hold, he heard her weeping again, her voice

straining at words he couldn't make out. A man's voice answered, not her

father's. Otah hesitated, then quietly stepped forward.

In the gloom, Ana Dasin knelt, her arms around a young man. The boy,

whoever he was, wore the work clothes of a sailor, but his arms were

thin and his skin was as pale as the girl's. He returned her embrace,

his arms finding their way around her as if through long acquaintance;

his tear-streaked face nuzzled her hair. Ana Dasin stroked the boy's

head, murmuring reassurances.

Ah, Otah thought as he stepped back, unnoticed. That's how it is.

Above deck, he smiled and nodded at Issandra and pretended to turn his

attention back to the music. He wondered how many other sacrifices he

had demanded in order to remake the world according to his vision, how

many other lovers would be parted to further his little scheme to save

two empires. He would likely never know the full price of it. As if in

answer, the candles guttered in the breeze, the reed organ took a

mournful turn, and the sea through which they sailed grew darker.

4

The midday sun beat down on the lush green; gnats and flies filled the

air. The river-not the Qiit proper but one of its tributariesthreaded

its way south like a snake. Maati tied his mule under the wide leaves of

a catalpa and squatted down on a likely-looking boulder. Pulling a pouch

of raisins and seeds from his sleeve, he looked out over the summer. The

wild trees, the rough wagon track he'd followed from the farmers' low