Seasons of War

wasn’t that he was trying to keep his bloodline pure. Really, there’s a strong case that my lineage isn’t particularly high. My mother didn’t come from the utkhaiem, and for some people that’s as much an insult as marrying a Westlander.’
    ‘Or a Galt,’ Ana said, tartly.
    ‘Exactly,’ Danat said. ‘So, yes. Of course there are people in the court who want some kind of purity, but they’ve gotten used to disappointment over the last few decades.’
    ‘They would never accept me.’
    ‘You?’ Danat said.
    ‘Anyone like me.’
    ‘If they won’t, then they won’t accept anyone. So it hardly matters what they think, because they won’t have any sons or daughters at court. The world’s changed, and the families that can’t change with it won’t survive.’
    ‘I suppose,’ Ana said. They were silent for a moment. Otah debated whether he should scratch on her door or back quietly away, and then Ana spoke again. Her voice had changed. It was lower now, and dark as rain on stone. ‘It doesn’t really matter, though, does it. There isn’t going to be a Galt.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ Danat said.
    ‘Every day that we’re like . . . like this, more of us are dying. It’s harvest time. How are they going to harvest the grain if they can’t see it? How do you raise sheep and cattle by sound?’
    ‘I knew a blind man who worked leather in Lachi,’ Danat said. ‘His work was just as good as a man’s with eyes.’
    ‘One man doesn’t signify,’ Ana said. ‘He wasn’t baking his own bread or catching his own fish. If he needed to know what a thing looked like, there was someone he could ask. If everyone’s sightless, it’s different. It’s all falling apart.’
    ‘You can’t know that,’ Danat said.
    ‘I know how crippled I am,’ Ana said. ‘It gives me room to guess. I know how little I can do to stop it.’
    There was a soft sound, and Danat hushing her. Otah took a careful step back, away from the door. When Ana’s voice came again, it was thick with tears.
    ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me one of those stories. The ones where a child with two races could still win out.’
    ‘In the sixteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Adani Beh,’ Danat said, his voice bright and soft, ‘there came to court a boy whose blood was half-Bakta, his skin the color of soot, and his mind as clever as any man who had ever lived. When the Emperor saw him . . .’
    Otah backed away, his son’s voice becoming a murmur of sound, inflected like words but too faint to mean anything. Their whole journey, it had been like this. Each time Otah thought they might have a moment alone, Ana was near, or one of the armsmen, or Otah had brought himself to the edge of speech and then failed. Every courier they stopped along the road was another reminder to Otah that his son had to know, had to be told. But no word had come from Idaan, and Danat still didn’t know that Eiah was involved in the slow death of Galt and, with it, the future Otah had fought for.
    Before Pathai, Otah had told himself when they were on the road. During the journey itself, it hardly mattered whether Danat knew, but once they reached their destination, his son couldn’t be sent out without knowing what it was they were searching for and why. Otah had no faith that another, better chance would come the next day. He made his way back upstairs, found a servant woman, and had cheese, fresh bread, and a carafe of rice wine taken to Danat’s room. Otah waited there until the Galtic clock, clicking to itself in a corner, marked the night as almost half-gone. Otah didn’t notice that he was dozing until the opening door roused him.
    Otah broke the news as gently as he could, outlining his own half-knowledge of Maati’s intentions, Idaan’s appearance in Saraykeht, Eiah’s appearance on the list of possible backers, and his own decision to set his sister to hunt down his daughter. Danat listened carefully, as if picking through the words for clues to some deeper mystery. When, at length, Otah went silent, Danat looked into the fire in its grate, wove his fingers together, and thought. The flames made his eyes glitter like jewels.
    ‘It isn’t her,’ he said at last. ‘She wouldn’t do this.’
    ‘I know you love her, Danat-kya. I love her too, and I don’t want to think this of her either, but—’
    ‘I don’t mean she didn’t back Maati,’ Danat said. ‘We don’t know that she did, but at least that part’s