Seasons of War

Keeping him rested.’
    ‘So we go,’ Danat said. ‘We go now, and as fast as we can manage. And attack the poet before she can blind us.’
    ‘Yes,’ Otah said. ‘Burn the books, stop them from binding the andat. Go back, and try to put the world back together again.’
    ‘Only . . . only then how do we fix the people in Galt? How do we cure Ana?’
    ‘There’s a decision to make,’ Otah said. ‘Doing this quickly and well means letting Galt remain sightless.’
    ‘Then we can’t kill the poet,’ Danat said.
    Otah took a long breath.
    ‘Think about that before you say it,’ he said. ‘This is likely the only chance we’ll have to take them by surprise. The Galts in Saraykeht are safe enough. The ones in their own cities are likely dead already. The others could be sacrificed, and it would keep us alive.’
    ‘And childless, so what would the advantage be?’ Danat said. ‘Everything you’d tried to do would be destroyed.’
    ‘Everything I wanted to do has already been destroyed,’ Otah said. ‘There isn’t a solution to this. Not anymore. I’m reduced to looking for the least painful way that it can end. I don’t see how we take these pieces and make a world worth living in.’
    Danat was silent and still, then took Otah’s hand.
    ‘I can,’ Danat said. ‘There’s hope. There’s still hope.’
    ‘This poet? Everything Ashti Beg says paints her as angry and petty and cruel at heart. She hates the Galts and thinks little enough of me. That’s the woman we would be trying to reason with. And if she chooses, there is more than Galt to lose.’
    Danat took a pose that accepted the stakes like a man at a betting table. He would put the world and everything in it at risk for the chance that remained to save Ana’s home. Otah hesitated, and then replied with a pose that stood witness to the decision. A feeling of pride warmed him.
    Kiyan-kya, he thought, we have raised a good man. Please all the gods that we’ve also raised a wise one.
    ‘I’ll go tell the others,’ Danat said.
    He rose and walked for the door, pausing only when Otah called after him. Danat, at the doorway, looked back.
    ‘It’s the right choice,’ Otah said. ‘No matter how poorly this happens, you made the right choice.’
    ‘There wasn’t an option,’ Danat said.
    It had been clear enough that no matter what the next step was, it wouldn’t involve staying at the school. Under Idaan’s direction, the armsmen were already refilling the water and coal stores for the steamcarts, packing what little equipment they had used, and preparing themselves for the road. The sky was white where it wasn’t gray, the snow blurring the horizon. Ashti Beg sat alone beside the great bronze doors that had once opened only for the Dai-kvo. They were stained with verdigris and stood ajar. No one besides Otah saw the significance of it.
    Midmorning saw a thinning of the clouds, a weak, pale blue forcing its way through the very top of the sky’s dome. The horses were in harness, the carts showing their billows of mixed smoke and steam, and everything was at the ready except Idaan and Ana. The armsmen waited, ready to leave. Otah and Danat went back.
    Otah found the pair in a large room. Ana, sitting on an ancient bench, had bent forward. Tears streaked the girl’s cheeks, her hair was a wild tangle, and her hands clasped until the fingertips were red and the knuckles white. Idaan stood beside her, arms crossed and eyes as bleak as murder. Before Otah could announce himself, Idaan saw him. His sister leaned close to the Galtic girl, murmured something, listened to the soft reply, and then marched to the doorway and Otah’s side.
    ‘Is there . . . is something the matter?’ Otah asked.
    ‘Of course there is. How long have you been traveling with that girl?’
    ‘Since Saraykeht,’ Otah said.
    ‘Have you noticed yet that she isn’t a man?’ Idaan’s voice was sharp as knives. ‘Tell the armsmen to stand down. Then bring me a bowl of snow.’
    ‘What’s the matter?’ Otah demanded. And then, ‘Is it her time of the month? Does she need medicine?’
    Idaan looked at him as if he had asked what season came after spring: pitying, incredulous, disgusted.
    ‘Get me some snow. Or, better, some ice. Tell your men that we’ll be ready in a hand and a half, and for all the gods there ever were, keep your son away from her until we can put her back together. The last thing she needs is to feel humiliated.’
    Otah took a