Seasons of War

broke. By the time a servant boy came to light the lanterns, a moon so full it seemed too heavy to rise glowed in the indigo sky. Gnats and midges buzzed through the open windows, ignored by both men as they discussed Balasar’s intentions and strategies. The general was open and forthcoming and honest, and with every unfolding scheme, Sinja understood that his life was worth whatever Balasar Gice said it was worth. It was up to him to convince the general that letting him live after he’d heard all this wouldn’t be a mistake. It was a clever tactic, all the more so because once Sinja understood the trick, it lost none of its power.
    Afterward, armsmen escorted him to a small, well-appointed bedchamber with windows too narrow to crawl out and a bar on the outside of the door. Sinja lay in the bed, listening to the nearly inaudible hiss and tick of the candle flame. His body felt poorly attached, likely to slip free of his mind at any moment. Light-headed, he washed his face in cold water, cracked his knuckles, anything to bring his mind to something real and immediate. Something the Galtic general had not just torn away.
    It was as if he had fallen into a nightmare, or woken to something worse than one. He felt as if he’d just watched a man he knew well die by violence. The Galt’s plan would end the world he had known. If it worked. And in his bones, he knew it would.
    The hours passed, the night seeming to stretch on without end. Sinja paced his room or sat or lay sleepless on the bed, remembering the illness he had felt after his first battle. This was the same disease, back again. But the more he thought about it, the more his mind tracked across the maps he and the general had considered, the more his conviction grew.
    The turncoat poet and the army were only a part of it - in some ways the least. It was the general’s audacity and certainty and caution. It was the force of his personality. Sinja had seen commanders and wardens and kings, and he could tell the sort that fated themselves to lose. Balasar Gice was going to win.
    And so, Sinja supposed with a sense of genuine regret, the right thing was to work for him.

6
    T he poet’s house was warm, the scent of trees thick in the air. The false dawn, prolonged by the mountains to the east, had just come, the sun making its way above the peaks to bathe the world in light. Through the opened door, Maati could hear the songs of birds deep in the yearly quest to draw mates to their nests. The dances and parties of the utkhaiem were much the same - who had the loveliest plumage, the more enticing song. There were fewer differences between men and birds than men liked to confess.
    He sat on a couch, watching Cehmai at one side of the small table and Stone-Made-Soft at the other. Between them was the game board with its worn lines and stones. The game had been central to the binding Manat Doru had performed generations ago that first brought Stone-Made-Soft into existence, and as part of the legacy he bore, Cehmai had to play the game again - white stones moving forward against the black - as a reaffirmation of his control over the spirit. Fortunately, Manat Doru had also made Stone-Made-Soft a terrible player. Cehmai tapped his fingertips against the wood and shifted a black stone in the center of the board toward the left. Stone-Made-Soft frowned, its wide face twisted in concentration.
    ‘No word yet,’ Cehmai said. ‘It’s early days, though.’
    ‘What do you think he’ll do?’ Maati asked.
    ‘I’m trying to think, please,’ the andat rumbled. They ignored it.
    Cehmai leaned back in his seat. The years had treated him kindly. The fresh-faced, talented young man Maati had met when he first came to Machi was still there. If there was the first dusting of gray in the boy’s hair, if the lines at the corners of his mouth were deeper now, and less prone to vanish when he relaxed, it did nothing to take away from the easy smile or the deep, grounded sense of self that Cehmai had always had. And even the respect he had for Maati - no longer a dread-touched awe, but still profound in its way - had never failed with familiarity.
    ‘I’m afraid he’ll do the thing,’ Cehmai said. ‘I suppose I’m also afraid that he won’t. There’s not a good solution.’
    ‘He could take a middle course,’ Maati said. ‘Demand that the Galts hand back Riaan on the threat of taking action. If the Dai-kvo tells them that he knows, it might be enough.’
    The