Seasons of War

as yet,’ he said. ‘There are some changes that make me optimistic. By Udun, I’ll have a better-informed opinion.’
    The two Kaes were toasting each other, the fire. Eiah came to Maati and Vanjit. She pressed bowls into their hands, and went back to pour one for herself. Maati drank quickly, grateful for something to do that would occupy his hands and his mind. If only for a moment.
    Vanjit swirled her wine bowl, looking down at it with what might have been serenity.
    ‘Maati-kvo,’ Vanjit said. ‘Do you remember when I first came to you? Gods, it seems like it was a different life, doesn’t it? You were outside Shosheyn-Tan.’
    ‘Lachi,’ Eiah said from across the fire.
    ‘Of course,’ Vanjit said. ‘I remember now. I met Umnit at a bathhouse, and we’d started talking. She brought me to Eiah-cha, and Eiah brought me to you. It was that abandoned house, the one with all the mice.’
    ‘I remember,’ Maati said. The two Kaes exchanged a glance that Maati didn’t understand. Vanjit laughed, throwing back her head.
    ‘I can’t think what you saw in me back then,’ she said. ‘I must have looked like something the dogs wouldn’t eat.’
    ‘They were lean times for all of us,’ Maati said, forcing a jovial tone.
    ‘Not for you,’ she said. ‘Not with Eiah to look after you. No, don’t you pretend that she hasn’t supported us all from the start. Without her, we would never have come this far.’
    Eiah took a pose that accepted the compliment and raised her wine bowl, but Vanjit still didn’t drink from her own. Maati willed her to drink the poison, to end this.
    ‘I think of who I was then,’ Vanjit said, her voice soft and contemplative. She sounded like a child. Or worse, like a grown woman trying to sound childish. ‘Lost. Empty. And then the gods touched my shoulder and turned me toward you. All of you, really. You’ve been the only family I’ve ever had. I mean, since the Galts came.’
    At her feet, Clarity-of-Sight wailed as if heartbroken. Vanjit turned to it, her brow furrowed in concentration. The andat squirmed, shuddered, and became still. The tension in Maati’s shoulders was spreading to his throat. He could see Eiah’s hands clutching her bowl.
    ‘The only family I’ve had,’ Vanjit said, as if finding her place in a practiced speech. And then softly, ‘Did you think I wouldn’t know?’
    Large Kae put down her bowl, her gaze shifting from Eiah to Vanjit and back. Maati shifted to the side, his throat almost too tight for words.
    ‘Know what?’ he asked. The words came out stilted and rough. Even he wasn’t convinced by them. Vanjit stared at him, disappointment in her expression. No one moved, but Maati felt something shifting in his eyes. The andat’s attention was on him, the tiny face growing more and more detailed with each heartbeat.
    Vanjit held out the poisoned wine bowl. The color was wrong. No human would ever have seen the difference, but with the andat driving his vision and hers, there was no mistaking it. The deep red had a greenish taint that no other bowl suffered.
    ‘What . . . what’s that?’ Maati squeaked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Vanjit said in a voice that meant she did. ‘Perhaps you should drink it for me, and we could see. But no. You’re too valuable. Eiah, perhaps?’
    ‘I’m sorry. Did I not clean the bowl well enough?’ Eiah asked. Vanjit threw her bowl into the fire, flames hissing and smoke rushing up in a cloud. There was rage in her expression.
    ‘Vanjit,’ Eiah said. ‘I don’t think . . .’
    Vanjit ignored them, untying her satchel with a fast scrabbling motion. When she lifted it, blocks of wax spilled out, gray and white, like rotten ice. Maati saw bits of Eiah’s writing cut into them.
    ‘You were going to kill me,’ Vanjit said.
    Eiah took a pose that denied the charge. The firelight flickered over Vanjit’s face, and for a moment, Maati thought the poet might believe the lie. He cleared his throat.
    ‘We wouldn’t do that,’ he said.
    Vanjit turned to him, her expression empty and mad. At his feet, the andat made a sound that might have been a warning or a laugh.
    ‘Do you think he only speaks to you?’ Vanjit spat.
    Maati sputtered, falling back a step when Vanjit lunged forward. She only scooped up the andat, turned, and ran into the darkness.
    Maati scrambled after her, calling her name with a deepening sense of despair. The trees were shadows within the night’s larger darkness. His voice