"I knew a physician in Lachi. She told me about being in a low town when

one of the men caught blood fever. He was a good person. Wellliked. This

was a long time ago, so he had children. He'd gone out hunting and come

back ill. She had them smother him and burn the body. His children

stayed in their house and screamed the whole time they did it. She

didn't sleep well for years afterward."

Her eyes were focused on nothing, her jaw forward as if she was facing

someone down. Man or god or fate.

"You're saying it's not her fault," Maati said softly, careful not to

speak Vanjit's name. "She was a little girl who had her family

slaughtered before her. She was a lost woman who wanted a child and

could never have one. What's wrong with her mind was done to her."

Eiah took a pose that disagreed.

"I'm saying no matter how little my physician friend slept, she saved

those children's lives," Eiah said. "There are some herbs. When we stop

for the night, I can gather them. I'll see it's done."

"No. No, I'll do the thing. If it's anyone, it should-"

"It will have to be quick," Eiah said. "She mustn't know it's coming.

You can't do that."

Maati took a pose that challenged her, and Eiah folded his hands gently

closed.

"Because you still want to save her," she said. Something about

weariness and determination made her look like her father.

Otah, who had killed a poet once too.

23

Otah rose in the mornings with stiff, aching joints and a pain in his

side that would not fade. The steamcarts allowed each of them the chance

to sleep for a hand or two in the late mornings or just after the midday

meal. Without the rest, Otah knew he wouldn't have been able to keep

pace with the others.

The courier found them on the road. His outer robe was the colors of

House Siyanti and mud-spattered to the waist. His mount cantered

alongside the carts now, cooling down from the morning's travel as its

rider waited for replies. The man's satchel held a dozen letters at

least, but only one had occasioned his speed. It was written on paper

the color of cream, sewn with black thread, and the imprint in the wax

belonged to Balasar Gice. Otah sat in his saddle, afraid to open it and

afraid not to.

The thread ripped easily and the pages unfolded. Otah skimmed the letter

from beginning to end, then began again, reading more slowly, letting

the full import of the words wash over him. He folded the letter and

slipped it into his sleeve, his heart heavy.

Danat drew closer, his hands in a pose that both called for inclusion

and offered sympathy. The boy might not know what had happened, but he'd

drawn the fact that it wasn't good.

"Chaburi-Tan," Otah said, beginning with the least of the day's losses.

"It's gone. Sacked. Burned. We don't know whether the mercenaries turned

sides or simply wouldn't protect it, but it comes to the same thing. The

pirates attacked the city, took what they could, and set the rest alight."

"And the fleet?"

Otah looked at the roadside. Sun had melted the snow as far as its light

could reach, but the shadows were still pale. Otah had known Sinja

Ajutani for more years than not. The dry humor, the casual disrespect of

all things pompous or self-certain, the knife-sharp and unsentimental

analysis of any issue. When Kiyan died, they had been the only two men

in the world who truly understood what had been lost.

Now, only Otah knew.

"What ships remain have been set to guard the seafront at Saraykeht," he

said when he could speak again. "The thought is that winter will protect

Yalakeht and Amnat-Tan. When the thaw comes in spring, we may have to

revisit the plan."

"Are you all right, Papa-kya?"

"I'll be fine," Otah said, then he raised his hand and called the

courier close. "Tell them I read it. Tell them I understood."

The courier made his obeisance, turned his mount, and rode away. Otah

let himself sit with his grief. The other letters for him could wait.

They had come from his Master of Tides, and from others he'd named to

watch the Empire crumble in his absence. Two had been for Ana Dasin, and

he assumed they were from her parents. The letters had made their way up

from Saraykeht and then along the low roads, tracking Otah and his party

for days. And each day had marked the ending of lives, in Galt

especially, but everywhere.

He had known that Sinja might die. He'd sent the fleet out knowing it

might happen, and Sinja had gone without any illusions of safety. If it

hadn't been this and now, it would have been something else at some

other time. Every man and woman died, in time.

And in truth, death wasn't the curse he'd set out to break. All his work

and sacrifice had been only so that they could balance the constant

withering of age with some measure of renewal. He thought of his own

children: Eiah, Danat, and even long-dead Nayiit. They had each of them

been wagers he'd placed against a cruel world. A child comes into the

world, and its father holds it close and thinks, If all goes as it

should, I will die first. This one, I can love and never mourn for. That

was all he wanted to leave for Danat and Eiah. The chance of knowing a

love that they would never be called to bury. It was the world as it was

intended to be.

He didn't notice Idaan riding close to him until she spoke. Her voice

was gruff, but he imagined he could hear some offer of comfort in it.

"It's past time to shift. Crawl up on that cart and rest awhile. You've

been riding that thing for five hands together."

"Have I?" Otah said. "I didn't notice."

"I know. It's why I came," she said. After a moment's pause, she added,

"Danat told us what happened."

Otah took a pose that acknowledged having heard her, but nothing more

than that. There wasn't anything more that could be meaningfully said.

Idaan respected it and let him turn his horse aside and shift to the

steamcart where Ana Dasin and Ashti Beg sat, their sightless eyes fixed

on nothing. Otah sat on the wide boards not far from them, but not so

near that their conversation would include him. Ana laughed at something

Ashti Beg had said. The older woman looked vaguely pleased. Otah lay

back, his closed eyes flooded with the red of sun and blood. He willed

himself to sleep, certain that it would elude him.

He woke when the cart jerked to a halt. He sat up, half-thoughts of

snapped axles and broken wheels forming and falling apart like mist in a