bothering to cover herself, but her gaze was on Nayiit. It spoke of both

humiliation and contempt. Nayiit didn't look at her. The woman turned

and stalked away.

"That wasn't kind," Liat said.

"Very little of what she and I do involves kindness," he said. "I don't

expect I'll see her again. By which I mean, I don't suppose she'll see me."

"Is she politically connected? If her family is utkhaiem ..."

"I don't think she is," Nayiit said, his face in his hands. It was hard

to be sure in the firelight, but she thought the tips of his ears were

blushing. "I suppose I should have asked."

He struggled for a moment, trying to speak and failing. his brow

furrowed and Liat had to resist the urge to reach over and smooth it

with her thumb, the way she had when he'd been a babe.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You know that I'm sorry."

"t~ or what?" she asked, her voice low and stern. As if there were any

number of things for which he might he.

"For not being a better man," he said.

The fire popped, as if in comment. Liat took her son's hand, and for a

long moment, they were silent. "Then:

"I don't care what you do with your marriage, Nayiit-kya. If you don't

love her, end it. Or if you don't trust her. As you see fit. People come

together and they part. It's what we do. But the boy. You can't leave

the boy. That isn't fair."

"It's what Maati-cha did to us."

"No," Liat said, giving his hand the smallest pressure, and then

releasing it. "We left him."

Nayiit turned to her slowly, his hands folding into a pose that asked

confirmation. It was as if the words were too dangerous to speak.

"I left him," Liat said. "I took you when you were still a babe, and I

was the one to leave him."

She saw a moment's shock in his expression, gone as fast as it had come.

His face went grave, his hands as still as stones. As still as a man

bending his will to keep them still.

"Why?" he asked. His voice was low and thready.

"Oh, love. It was so long ago. I was someone else, then," she said, and

knew as she said it that it wasn't enough. "I did because he was only

half there. And because I couldn't see to all of his needs and all of

yours and have no one there to look after me."

"It was better without him?"

"I thought it would be. I thought I was cutting my losses. And then,

later, when I wasn't so certain anymore, I convinced myself it had been

the right thing, just so I could tell myself I hadn't been wrong."

lie was shaken, though he tried to cover it. She knew him too well to be

fooled.

"tic wasn't there, Nayiit. But he never left you."

And part of me never left him, she thought. What would the world have

been if I had chosen otherwise? Where would we all be now if that part

of him and of me had been enough? Still in that little hut in the low

town near the I)ai-kvo? Would they all have lived together in the

library these past years as Nlaati had?

"Those other, ghostlike people made a pretty dream, but then there would

have been no one to hear of the Galts and the missing poet, no one to

travel to Nantani. And little Tai would not have been horn, and she

would never have seen Amat Kyaan again. Someone else would have been

with the old woman when she died-someone else or no one. And Liat would

never have taken House Kyaan, would never have proven herself competent

to the world and to her own satisfaction.

It was too much. The changes, the differences were too great to think of

as good or as bad. The world they had now was too much itself, good and

evil too tightly woven to wish for some other path. And still it would

be wrong to say she found herself without regrets.

"Maati loves you," she said, softly. "You should see him. I won't

interfere again. But first, VOL] should go tend to your guest. Smooth

things over.

Nayiit nodded, and then a moment later, he smiled. It was the same

charming smile she'd known when she was a girl and it had been on

different lips. Nayiit would charm the girl, say something sweet and

funny, and the pain would be forgotten for a time. He was his father's

son. Son of the Khai Machi. Eldest son, and doomed to the fratricidal

struggle of succession that stained every city in each generation. She

wondered how far Utah would go to avoid that, to keep his boy safe from

her schemes. 't'hat conversation had to come, and soon. Perhaps it would

he best if she took it to the Khai herself, if she stopped waiting for

him to find a right moment.

Nayiit took a querying pose, and Liat shook herself. She waved his

concern away.

"I'm tired," she said. "I've come all this way back to have my own bed

to myself, and I'm still not in it. I'm too old to sleep in a lover's

arms. They twitch and snore and keep me awake all night."

"They do, don't they?" Nayiit said. "Does it get better, do you think?

With enough time, would you he so accustomed to it, you'd sleep through?"

"I don't know," Liat said. "I've never made the attempt."

"Like mother, like son, I suppose," Nayiit said as he rose. He bent and

kissed the crown of her head before he retreated back into the shadows.

Like mother, like son.

I,iat pulled her robe tighter and sat near the fire, as if touched by a

sudden chill.

7

The jeweler was a small man, squat but broad. To his credit, he seemed

truly ill at ease. It took courage, Otah thought as he listened, to

bring a matter such as this before a Khai. He wondered how many others

had seen something of the sort and looked away. Any merchant has to

expect some losses from theft. And after all, she was the daughter of

the Khai....

When it was over-and it seemed to take half a day, though it couldn't

have lasted more than half a hand-Otah thanked the man, ordered that

payment be made to him, and waited calm and emotionless until the

servants and court followers had gone. Only the body servants remained,

half a dozen men and women of the utkhaiem who dedicated their lives to

bringing him a cracker if he felt like one, or a cup of limed water.

"Find Eiah and take her to the blue chamber. Bring her under guard if

you have to."

"tinder guard?" the eldest of the servants said.