Seasons of War

clarity.
    ‘You’re thinking of Saraykeht,’ she said.
    ‘Was it that obvious?’
    ‘Yes,’ Liat said. ‘How much have you told them? About what happened?’
    ‘Kiyan knows everything. A few others.’
    ‘They know how Seedless was freed? And Heshai-kvo, how he was killed?’
    For a sick moment, Otah was back in the filthy room, in the stink of mud and raw sewage from the alley. He remembered the ache in his arms. He remembered the struggle as the old poet fought for air with the cord biting into his throat. It had seemed the right thing, then. Even to Heshai. The andat, Seedless, had come to Otah with the plan. Aid in Heshai-kvo’s suicide - for in many ways that was what it had been - and Liat would be saved. Maati would be saved. A thousand Galtic babies would stay safely in their mother’s wombs, the power of the andat never turned against them.
    Otah wondered when things had changed. When he had stopped being someone who would kill a good man to protect the innocent, and become willing to let a nation die if it meant protecting his own. Likely it had been the moment he’d first seen Eiah squirming on Kiyan’s breast.
    ‘Do you know?’ Otah asked. ‘How it happened, I mean.’
    ‘Only guesses,’ Liat said. ‘If you wanted to tell me . . .’
    ‘Thank you,’ Otah said with a sigh, ‘but maybe it’s best to leave that buried. It’s all finished now, and there’s no undoing any of it.’
    ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
    ‘We will need to talk about Nayiit,’ Otah said. ‘Not now. Not with . . .’ He nodded to the sleeping girl.
    ‘I understand,’ Liat said and brushed her hair back from her eyes. ‘I don’t mean any harm, ’Tani. I wouldn’t hurt you or your family. I didn’t come here . . . I wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t had to.’
    The door swung open, a gust of cool air coming from it, and Maati stood triumphantly in the frame. He held a small book bound in blue silk as if it were a trophy of war.
    ‘Got the bastard!’ he said, and walked over to Otah, presenting it over one arm like a sword. ‘For you, Most High, and your son.’
    Over Maati’s shoulder, Otah could see Liat look away. Otah only took the book, adopted a pose of thanks, and turned to gently shake Eiah’s shoulder. She grunted, her brow furrowing.
    ‘It’s time to come home, Eiah-kya,’ Otah said. ‘Come along.’
    ‘’M’wake,’ Eiah protested, but slowly. Rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand, she rose.
    They said their good nights, and Otah led his daughter out, closing the door to Maati’s apartments behind them. The night had grown cool, and the stars had occupied the sky like a conquering army. Otah laid his arm across Eiah’s shoulder, hers under it, around his ribs. She leaned into him as they walked. Night-blooming flowers scented the air, soft as rain. They were just coming in sight of the entrance of the First Palace when Eiah spoke, her voice still abstracted with sleep.
    ‘Nayiit-cha’s yours, isn’t he, Papa-kya?’
     
    Liat woke in dim moonlight; the night candle had gone out or else they hadn’t bothered to light it. She couldn’t recall which. Beside her, Maati mumbled something in his sleep, as he always had. Liat smiled at the dim profile on the pillow beside her. He looked younger in sleep, the lines at his mouth softened, the storm at his brow calmed. She resisted the urge to caress his cheek, afraid to wake him. She had taken lovers in the years since she’d returned to Saraykeht. A half-dozen or so, each a man whose company she had enjoyed, and all of whom she could remember fondly.
    She thought, sometimes, that she’d reversed the way women were intended to love. Butterfly flirtations, flitting from one man to another, taking none seriously, were best kept by the young. Had she taken her casual lovers as a girl, they would have been exciting and new, and she would have known too little to notice that they were empty. Instead, Liat had lost her heart twice before she’d seen twenty summers, and if those loves were gone - even this one, sleeping now at her side - the memory of them was there. Once, she had told herself the world was nothing if she didn’t have a man who loved her. A man of importance and beauty, a man whom she might, through her gentle guidance, save.
    She had been another woman, then. And who, she wondered, had she become now?
    She rose quietly, parting the netting, and stepped out onto the cool floor. She found her outer robe and