Seasons of War

plotting to steal Riaan back to the Khaiem, to reveal what it was he had done and, just possibly, find a way to undo it.
    The problem, Balasar thought, was a simple failure of imagination. Eustin had followed Balasar through more than one campaign, had walked through the haunted desert with him, had stood at his side through the long political struggle that had brought this army to this place on this supreme errand. Loyalty was the way Eustin understood the world. The thought of a man who served first one cause and then another made no more sense to him than stone floating on water. Balasar had agreed to his scheme to prove Captain Ajutani’s standing, though he himself had little doubt. He took the exercise seriously for Eustin’s sake if nothing else. Balasar would be ready for them when they came.
    His pavilion was in place before the last light of the sun had vanished in the west: couches made from wood and canvas that could be broken down flat and carried on muleback, flat cushions embroidered with the Galtic Tree, a small writing table. A low iron brazier took the edge from the night’s chill, and half a hundred lemon candles filled the air with their scent and drove away the midges. He’d had it set on the top of a rise, looking down over the valley where the light of cook fires dotted the land like stars in the sky. A firefly had found its way through the gossamer folds of his tent, shining and then vanishing as it searched for a way out. A thousand of its fellows glittered in the darkness between camps. It was like something from a children’s story, where the Good Neighbors had breached the division between the worlds to join his army. He saw the three of them coming toward him, and he knew each long before he could make out their faces.
    Eustin’s stride was long, low, and deceptively casual. Captain Ajutani moved carefully, each step provisional, the weight always held on his back foot until he chose to shift it. Riaan’s was an unbalanced, civilian strut. Balasar rose, opened the flap for them to enter, and rolled down the woven-grass mats to give them a level of visual privacy, false walls that shifted and muttered in the lightest of breezes.
    ‘Thank you all for coming,’ Balasar said in the tongue of the Khaiem.
    Sinja and Riaan took poses, the forms a study in status; Sinja accepted the greeting of a superior, Riaan condescended to acknowledge an honored servant. Eustin only nodded. In the corner of the pavilion, the firefly burst into sudden brilliance and then vanished again. Balasar led the three men to cushions on a wide woven rug, seating himself to face Sinja. When they had all folded their legs beneath them, Balasar leaned forward.
    ‘When I began this campaign,’ he said, ‘it was not my intention to continue the rule of the poets and their andat over the rest of humanity. In the course of my political life, I allowed certain people to misunderstand me. But it is not my intention that Riaan-cha should be burdened by another andat. Or that anyone should. Ever.’
    The poet’s jaw dropped. His face went white, and his hands fluttered toward poses they never reached. Sinja only nodded, accepting the new information as if it were news of the weather.
    ‘That leaves me with an unpleasant task,’ Balasar said, and he drew a blade from his vest. It was a thick-bladed dagger with a grip of worked leather. He tossed it to the floor. The metal glittered in the candlelight. Riaan didn’t understand; his confusion was written on his brow and proclaimed by his silence. If he’d understood, Balasar thought, he’d be begging by now.
    Sinja glanced at the knife, then up at Balasar and then Eustin. He sighed.
    ‘And you’ve chosen me to see if I’d do it,’ the mercenary said with a tone both weary and amused.
    ‘I don’t . . .’ Riaan said. ‘You . . . you can’t mean that . . . Sinja-kya, you wouldn’t—’
    The motion was casual and efficient as swatting at a fly. Sinja leaned over, plucked the knife from the rug, and tossed it into the poet’s neck. It sounded like a melon being cleaved. The poet rose half to his feet, clawing at the handle already slick with his blood, then slowly folded, lying forward as if asleep or drunk. The scent of blood filled the air. The poet’s body twitched, heaved once, and went still.
    ‘Not your best rug, I assume,’ Sinja said in Galtic.
    ‘Not my best rug,’ Balasar agreed.
    ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
    ‘Not now,’ Balasar