them. The fastest route to Utani would be overland to the Qiit, then by

boat up the river. Any hope they had of overtaking Maati and Eiah would

come on the roads, where the steamcarts gave Otah an advantage. They

would have to sleep in the open more than if they had kept to wider

roads, and the rough terrain increased the possibility of the carts

breaking or getting stuck. Even of the boiler bursting and killing

anyone too near it. But Idaan's voice spoke in Otah's mind of the next

day, and the next, and the next, so he pushed them and himself.

Four of the armsmen rode ahead in the lowering gloom of night to scout

out the next day's path. The others prepared a simple meal of pork and

rice, Ashti Beg sitting with them and trading jokes. Danat's slow cir

cling of their camp took the name of defense but seemed more to be

avoiding the still-closed shed where Idaan and Ana rested. Otah sat

alone near the steamcart's kiln, reflecting that it was very much like

his son to shift between noble dedication in the morning and childish

pouting as night came on. He had been much the same as a young man, or

imagined that he had.

The door opened, Ana's laughter spilling out into the night. Idaan led

the girl forward, letting Ana keep a careful grip on her. Her dark eyes

and Ana's unfocused gray ones were both light and merry. Ana's hair had

been combed and braided in the style of children in the winter cities.

In the dim moonlight, it made Ana seem hardly more than a girl.

Idaan steered the girl to the cart's front and helped her sit beside

Otah. He coughed once to make sure the girl knew he was there, but she

seemed unsurprised at the sound. Idaan placed a hand on the back of the

girl's neck.

"I'll go get some food," Idaan said. "My brother here should be able to

keep you out of trouble for that long."

Ana took a pose that offered thanks. She did a creditable job of it.

Idaan snorted, patted the girl's neck, and lowered herself to the

ground. Otah heard her footsteps crushing the snow as she walked away.

"Ana-cha," Otah said. His voice was more tentative than he liked. "I

hope you're well?"

"Fine," she said. "Thank you. I'm sorry I delayed things today. It won't

happen again."

"Hardly worth thinking about," Otah said, relieved that her infirmity

had passed. Grief, he suspected, over what the poet had done to her, to

her family, her nation.

"I misjudged you," Ana said. "I know it seems like everything we do is

another round of apology, but I am sorry for it."

"It might be simpler to agree to forgive each other in advance," Otah

said, and Ana laughed. It was a warmer sound than he'd expected. A

tension he hadn't known he felt lessened and he smiled into the glowing

coals of the kiln. "It is fair to ask in what manner you judged me poorly?"

"I thought you were cold. Hard. You have to understand, I grew up with

monster stories about the Khaiem and the andat."

"I do," Otah said, sighing. "I look back, and I suspect that more than

half of the problems between Galt and the Khaiem came from ignorance.

Ignorance and power are a poor combination."

"Tell me ..." Ana said, and then stopped. Her brow furrowed, and in the

dim light he thought she was blushing. Otah put his hand over hers. She

shook her head, and then turned her milky eyes to him. "You've forgiven

me in advance if this is too much to ask. Tell me about Danat's mother."

"Kiyan?" Otah said. "Well. What do you want to know about her?"

"Anything. Just tell me," the girl said.

Otah collected himself, and then began to pluck stories. The night

they'd met. The night he'd told her that he was more than a simple

courier and she'd thrown him out of her wayhouse. The ways she had

helped to smooth things as he learned how to become first Khai Machi and

then Emperor. He didn't tell the hard stories. The conflict over Sinja's

feelings for her, and Otah's poor response to them. The long fears they

suffered together when Danat was young and weak in the lungs. Her death.

Still, he didn't think he kept all the sorrow from his voice.

Idaan returned halfway through one story, four bowls in her hands like a

teahouse servant juggling food for a full table. Otah took one without

pausing, and Idaan squatted on the boards at Ana's feet and pressed

another into the girl's hands. Otah went on with other little stories-

Kiyan's balancing the combined populations of Machi and Cetani with

Balasar Gice's crippled army in the wake of the war. Her refusal to

allow servants to bathe her. The story of when the representative of

Eddensea had mistaken something she'd said and thought she'd invited him

to bed with her.

Danat arrived out of the darkness, drawn by their voices. Idaan gave him

the last bowl, and he sat at Otah's side, then shifted, then shifted

again until his back rested against Ana's shin. He added stories of his

own. His mother's sharp tongue and wayhouse keeper's vocabulary, the

songs she'd sung, all the scraps and moments that built up a boy's

memory of his mother. It was beautiful to listen to. It wasn't something

Otah himself had ever had.

In the end, Ana let Danat lead her back to her shelter, leaving Otah and

his sister alone by the black and cooling kiln. The armsmen had prepared

sleeping tents for them, but Idaan seemed content to sit up drinking

watered wine in the cold night air, and Otah found himself pleased

enough to join her.

"I don't suppose you'd care to explain to your poor idiot brother what

happened today?" he said at length.

"You haven't put it together?" Idaan said. "This Vanjit creature has

destroyed the only home Ana-cha had to go to. She's had to look long and

hard at what her life could be in the place she's found herself,

crippled in a foreign land, and it shook her."

"She's in love with Danat?"

"Of course she is," Idaan said. "It would have happened in half the time

if you and her mother hadn't insisted on it. I think that's more

frightening for her than the poet killing her nation."

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"She's spent her life watching her mother linked with her father," Idaan

said. "There are only so many years you can soak in the regrets of

others before you start to think that all the world's that way."

"I had the impression that Farrer-cha loved his wife deeply," Otah said.

"And I had it that there's more than a husband to make a marriage,"

Idaan said. "It isn't her mother she fears being, it's Farrer-cha. She's

afraid of having her love merely tolerated. I spent most of the day

talking about Cehmai. I told her that if she really wanted to know what