Seasons of War

men and women and children in Nantani and Utani and Chaburi-Tan and all the other sacked cities. The children at the poets’ school.
    Every one of them had a mother. Every mother who had not had the luck to die was trapped in the quiet desperation that imprisoned her now. Liat thought of all these other grieving women, held them up in her mind as proof that she was being stupid and weak. Mothers lost their sons all the time, all across the world. In every nation, in every city, in every age. Her suffering wasn’t so much compared with all of them.
    And then she would hear someone cough in Nayiit’s voice, or she’d mistake the shape of a man’s back, and her idiot, traitor heart would sing for a moment. Even as her mind told her no it wasn’t, her heart would soar before it fell.
    The scratch at her door was so faint and tentative, Liat thought at first it was only a rat tricked by the darkness into believing the room empty. But the sound came again, the intentional rhythm of a hand against wood.
    Likely it was Otah, coming again to hold her hand and sit quietly. He had done so several times, when he could free himself from the rigors of peace and war and Empire. They spoke little because there was too much to say, and no words adequate. Or perhaps one of his physicians, come to look in on her health. Or a servant sent to declaim poems or sing. Someone to distract her in the name of comfort. She wished they wouldn’t come.
    The scratch repeated itself, more loudly.
    ‘Who?’ Liat managed to ask. For answer, the door slid open, and Kiyan stood framed in the doorway, a lantern in her hand. The expression on the woman’s fox-thin face seemed equally pity and unease.
    ‘Liat-kya,’ she said. ‘May I come in?’
    ‘If you like,’ Liat said.
    The lantern cast a thousand broken shadows as Kiyan moved across the room. The tapestries on the wall, hidden so long in darkness, seemed to breathe. Liat considered the space in which she had been for so many days without seeing it. It was small. The furnishings were costly and exquisite. It didn’t matter. Kiyan went to the wall sconces, taking down the pale wax candles, touching them to the lantern flame, putting them back in their places glowing. The soft light slowly filled the air, the shadows smoothed away.
    ‘I heard you had missed your breakfast,’ Kiyan said, her voice cheerful and forced, as she lit the last of the candles.
    ‘And my dinner,’ Liat said.
    ‘Yes, I heard that too.’
    The lantern made a clunking sound - iron on wood - as Kiyan set it on the bedside table. She sat on the mattress at Liat’s side. Otah’s wife looked weary and drawn. Perhaps the andat’s price had been worse for her than it had for Liat. Perhaps it was something else.
    ‘They’ve put the Galts in the southern tunnels,’ Kiyan said. ‘There’s almost no room. I don’t know how it will be when the worst of the cold comes. And spring . . . we’ll have to start sending people south and east as soon as it’s safe to travel.’
    ‘Good that so many died,’ Liat said, and saw the other woman flinch. Now that she’d said it, the words did seem pointed. Liat hadn’t meant them to be; she only couldn’t be bothered to weigh the effect of her actions just now. Kiyan fumbled in her sleeve and drew out a small package wrapped in waxed cloth. Liat could smell the raisins and honey. She knew it should have been appetizing. Without speaking, Kiyan placed the little cake on the bedside table and rose to leave.
    ‘Stop it,’ Liat said, sitting up on her bed.
    Otah’s wife, the mother of his children, turned back, her hands in a pose of query.
    ‘Stop moving around me like I’m made of eggshell,’ Liat said. ‘It’s not in your power to keep me from breaking. I’ve broken. Move on.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t—’
    ‘Didn’t what? Didn’t mean to throw your boy and mine onto a company of Galtic swords? Didn’t mean to have your daughter play find-me-find-you until it wasn’t safe to flee? Well, there’s a relief. And here I thought you wanted both our children dead instead of just mine.’
    Kiyan’s face hardened. Liat felt the rage billow in her like she was a sheet thrown over a fire. It ate her and it held her up.
    ‘I didn’t mean to treat you as if you were fragile,’ Kiyan said. ‘We both know I didn’t mean for Nayiit—’
    ‘Didn’t mean for him to be a threat to your precious Danat? Didn’t mean to let him be a threat to your family? He