Seasons of War

asked for her silence. Her face pale, she went quiet.
    ‘I don’t mean that,’ he said softly. ‘I mean that I don’t . . . Gods. I don’t know how to say this. Danat’s not well. His lungs are fragile, and the winters here are bad. We lose people to the cold every year. Not just the old or the weak. Young people. Healthy ones. I’m afraid that Danat may die, and there’ll be no one to take my place. The city would tear itself apart.’
    ‘But . . . you want . . .’
    ‘I haven’t done a good job as Khai. I haven’t been able to put the houses of the utkhaiem together except in their distrust of me and resentment of Kiyan. There’s been twice it came near violence, and I only held the city in place by luck. But keeping Machi safe is my responsibility. I want Nayiit unbranded, in case . . . in case he becomes my successor.’
    Liat’s mouth hung open, her eyes were wide. A stray lock of hair hung down the side of her face, three white hairs dancing in and out among the black. He felt the faint urge - echo of a habit long forgotten - to brush it back.
    ‘There,’ Otah said and picked up his wine bowl. ‘There, I’ve said it.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Liat said, and Otah took a pose accepting her sympathy without knowing quite why she was offering it. She looked down at her hands. The silence between them was profound but not uncomfortable; he felt no need to speak, to fill the void with words. Liat drank her wine, Otah his. The wind muttered to itself and to the stones of the city.
    ‘It’s not a job I’d want,’ Liat said. ‘Khai Machi.’
    ‘It’s all power and no freedom,’ Otah said. ‘If Nayiit were to have it, he’d likely curse my name. There are a thousand different things to attend to, and every one of them as serious as bone to someone. You can’t do it all.’
    ‘I know how it feels,’ Liat said. ‘I only have a trading house to look after, and there’s days I wish that it would all go away. Granted, I have men who work the books and the negotiations and appeals before the low judges and the utkhaiem . . .’
    ‘I have all the low judges and the utkhaiem appealing to me,’ Otah said. ‘It’s never enough.’
    ‘There’s always the descent into decadence and self-absorption,’ Liat said, smiling. It was only half a joke. ‘They say the Khai Chaburi-Tan only gets sober long enough to bed his latest wife.’
    ‘Tempting,’ Otah said, ‘but somewhere between taking the chair to protect Kiyan and tonight, it became my city. I came from here, and even if I’m not much good at what I do, I’m what they have.’
    ‘That makes sense,’ Liat said.
    ‘Does it? It doesn’t to me.’
    Liat put down her bowl and rose. He thought her gaze spoke of determination and melancholy, but perhaps the latter was only his own. She stepped close and kissed him on the cheek, a firm peck like an aunt greeting a favorite nephew.
    ‘Amat Kyaan would have understood,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell Nayiit about this. If anyone asks, I’ll deny it unless I hear differently from you.’
    ‘Thank you, Liat-cha.’
    She stepped back. Otah felt a terrible weariness bearing him down, but forced a charming smile. She shook her head.
    ‘Thank you , Most High.’
    ‘I don’t think I’ve done anything worth thanking me.’
    ‘You let my son live,’ Liat said. ‘That was one of the decisions you had to make, wasn’t it?’
    She took his silence as an answer, smiled again, and left him alone. Otah poured the last of the wine from carafe to bowl, and then watched the light die in the west as he finished it; watched the stars come out, and the full moon rise. With every day, the light lasted longer. It would not always. High summer would come, and even when the days were at their warmest, when the trees and vines grew heavy with fruit, the nights would already have started their slow expansion. He wondered whether Danat would get to play outside in the autumn, whether the boy would be able to spend a long afternoon lying in the sunlight before the snows came and drove them all down to the tunnels. He was raising a child to live in darkness and planning for his death.
    There had been a time Otah had been young and sure enough of himself to kill. He had taken the life of a good man because they both had known the price that would have to be paid if he lived. He had been able to do that.
    But he had seen forty-eight summers now. There were likely fewer seasons before him than there were behind.