"We didn't give her wine," Liat said, then chuckled. "Well, not much

anyway.

"If the worst she does is sneak away to drink with the pair of you, I'll

be the luckiest man alive," Otah said. As if hearing him, Eiah sighed in

her sleep and shifted away, pressing her face to the cushions.

"She looks like her mother," Liat said. "Her face is that same shape.

The eyes are your color, though. She'll he stunning when she's older.

She'll break hearts. But I suppose they all do. Ours if no one else's."

Otah looked up. Liat's expression had darkened, the shadows of

lanternlight gathering on the curves of her face. It had been another

lifetime, it seemed, when Otah had first known her. Only four years

older than Eiah was now. And he'd been younger than Nayiit. Babies, it

seemed. Too young to know what they were doing, or how precarious the

world truly was. It hadn't seemed that way at the time, though. Otah

remembered it all with a terrible clarity.

"You're thinking of Saraykcht," she said.

"Was it that obvious?"

"Yes," Liat said. "How much have you told them? About what happened?"

"Kiyan knows everything. A few others."

"They know how Seedless was freed? And Heshai-kvo, how he was killed?"

For a sick moment, Otah was back in the filthy room, in the stink of mud

and raw sewage from the alley. He remembered the ache in his arms. He

remembered the struggle as the old poet fought for air with the cord

biting into his throat. It had seemed the right thing, then. Even to

Heshai. The andat, Seedless, had come to Otah with the plan. Aid in

Heshai-kvo's suicide-for in many ways that was what it had been-and Liat

would be saved. Maati would be saved. A thousand Galtic babies would

stay safely in their mother's wombs, the power of the andat never turned

against them.

Otah wondered when things had changed. When he had stopped being someone

who would kill a good man to protect the innocent, and become willing to

let a nation die if it meant protecting his own. Likely it had been the

moment he'd first seen Eiah squirming on Kiyan's breast.

"Do you know?" Otah asked. "How it happened, I mean."

"Only guesses," Liat said. "If you wanted to tell me ..."

"Thank you," Otah said with a sigh, "but maybe it's best to leave that

buried. It's all finished now, and there's no undoing any of it."

"Perhaps you're right."

"We will need to talk about Nayiit," Otah said. "Not now. Not with ..."

lie nodded to the sleeping girl.

"I understand," Liat said and brushed her hair back from her eyes. "I

don't mean any harm, "Iani. I wouldn't hurt you or your family. I didn't

come here ... I wouldn't have come here if I hadn't had to."

The door swung open, a gust of cool air coming from it, and Maati stood

triumphantly in the frame. He held a small hook hound in blue silk as if

it were a trophy of war.

"(;or the bastard!" he said, and walked over to Otah, presenting it over

one arm like a sword. "For you, Most High, and your son."

Over Nlaati's shoulder, Otah could see Liat look away. Utah only took

the hook, adopted a pose of thanks, and turned to gently shake Eiah's

shoulder. She grunted, her brow furrowing.

"It's time to come home, Eiah-kya," Otah said. "Come along."

`M'wake," Eiah protested, but slowly. Rubbing her eyes with the hack of

one hand, she rose.

They said their good nights, and Otah led his daughter out, closing the

door to Maati's apartments behind them. The night had grown cool, and

the stars had occupied the sky like a conquering army. Otah laid his arm

across Eiah's shoulder, hers under it, around his ribs. She leaned into

him as they walked. Night-blooming flowers scented the air, soft as

rain. 't'hey were just coming in sight of the entrance of the First

Palace when Eiah spoke, her voice still abstracted with sleep.

"Nayiit-cha's yours, isn't he, Papa-kya?"

LIA'r WOKE IN DIM MOONLIGII"1 ; THE NIGHT CANDLE IHAD GONE OUT OR ELSE

they hadn't bothered to light it. She couldn't recall which. Beside her,

Nlaati mumbled something in his sleep, as he always had. Liat smiled at

the dim profile on the pillow beside her. He looked younger in sleep,

the lines at his mouth softened, the storm at his brow calmed. She

resisted the urge to caress his cheek, afraid to wake him. She had taken

lovers in the years since she'd returned to Saraykeht. A half-dozen or

so, each a man whose company she had enjoyed, and all of whom she could

remember fondly.

She thought, sometimes, that she'd reversed the way women were intended

to love. Butterfly flirtations, flitting from one man to another, taking

none seriously, were best kept by the young. Had she taken her casual

lovers as a girl, they would have been exciting and new, and she would

have known too little to notice that they were empty. Instead, Liat had

lost her heart twice before she'd seen twenty summers, and if those

loves were gone-even this one, sleeping now at her side-the memory of

them was there. Once, she had told herself the world was nothing if she

didn't have a man who loved her. A man of importance and beauty, a man

whom she might, through her gentle guidance, save.

She had been another woman, then. And who, she wondered, had she become now?

She rose quietly, parting the netting, and stepped out onto the cool

floor. She found her outer robe and wrapped it around herself. Her inner

robes and her sandals she could reclaim tomorrow. Now she wanted her own

bed, and pillows less thick with memories.

She slipped out the door, pulling it closed behind her. So far North and

without an ocean to hold the warmth of the day, Machi's nights were

cold, even now with spring at its height. Gooseflesh rose on her legs

and arms, her belly and breasts, as she trotted along the wide, darkened

paths to the apartments that Irani or Otah or the Khai Machi had given

to her and her son.

More than a week had passed since he had come to Maati's apartments,

gathering up a children's hook and a daughter halfway to womanhood and

leaving behind a lasting unease. Liat had not spoken with him since, but

the dread of the coming conversation weighed heavy. As Nayiit had grown,

she'd seen nothing in him but himself. Even when people swore that the

boy had her eyes, her mouth, her way of sighing, she'd never seen it.

Perhaps when there was no space between a mother and her child, the

sameness becomes invisible. Perhaps it merely seemed normal. She would

have admitted that her son looked something like his father. It was only