Seasons of War

to slaughter history was a task best done by the ignorant. Only a man who did not understand his actions would be callous enough to destroy these without qualm.
    And yet what must be done, must be done. And it was time.
    Carefully, Balasar laid the books open in the brazier. The pages shifted in the breeze, scratching one on another like dry hands. He ran his fingers along one line, translating as best he could, reading the words for the last time. The lemon candle spilled its wax across his knuckles as he carried it, and the flame leapt to twice its height. He touched the open leaves with the burning wick as a priest might give a blessing, and the books seemed to embrace the fire. He sat, watching the pages blacken and curl, bits of cinder rise and dance in the air. A pale smoke filled the air, and Balasar rose, opening the flap of the pavilion to the wide night air.
    The firefly darted past him, glowing. Balasar watched it fly out to freedom and the company of its fellows until it went dark and vanished. The cook fires were fewer, the stars hanging in the sky bright and steady. A strange elation passed through him, as if he had taken off a burden or been freed himself. He grinned like an idiot at the darkness and had to fight himself not to dance a little jig. If he’d been certain that none of his men were near, that no one would see, he would have allowed himself. But he was a commander and not a child. Dignity had its price.
    When he returned to the brazier, nothing was left but blackened hinges, split leather, gray ash. Balasar stirred the ruins with a stick, making sure no text had survived, and then, satisfied, turned to his cot. The day before him would be long.
    As he lay in the darkness, half asleep, he felt the ghosts again. The men he had left in the desert. The men still alive whom he would leave in the field. Riaan, books cradled in his arms. Balasar’s sacrifices filled the pavilion, and their presence and expectation comforted him until a small voice came from the back of his mind.
    Kya , it said. Sinja -kya, he called him. Sinja -cha would have been the proper form, wouldn’t it? Kya is used for a lover or a brother. Why would Riaan have thought of Sinja as a brother?
    And then, as if Eustin were seated beside the cot, his voice whispered, Seemed like he might be trying to keep the poor bastard from saying something .
     
    Liat walked through darkness between the Khai’s palaces and the library where Maati, she hoped, was still awake and waiting for her. She felt like a washrag wrung out, soaked, and wrung out again. It was seven days now since Stone-Made-Soft had escaped, and she’d spent the time either meeting with the Khai Machi or waiting to do so. Long days spent in the gilded halls and corridors of the palaces were, she found, more tiring than travel. Her back ached, her legs were sore, and she couldn’t even think what she had done to earn the pain. Sitting shouldn’t carry such a price. If she’d lifted something heavy, there would at least be a reason . . .
    The city seemed darker now than when she’d arrived. It might be only her imagination, but there seemed fewer lanterns lit on the paths, fewer torches at the doorways. The windows of the palaces that shone with light seemed dimmed. No slaves sang in the gardens, the members of the utkhaiem that she saw throughout her day all shared a tension that she understood too well.
    Candles flickered behind Maati’s closed shutters, a thin line of light where the wooden frames had warped over the years. Liat found herself more grateful than she had expected to be as she took the last steps down the path that led to his door.
    Maati sat on the low couch, a bowl of wine cradled in his fingers. A bottle less than half full sat on the floor at his feet. He smiled as she let herself in, but she saw at once that something wasn’t well. She took a pose of query, and he looked away.
    ‘Maati-kya?’
    ‘I’ve had a letter from the Dai-kvo,’ Maati said. ‘The timing of all this isn’t what I’d hoped, you know. I’ve spent years puttering through the library here, looking for nothing in particular, and only stumbled on my little insight now. Just when the Galts have gotten out of hand. And now Cehmai. And . . . forgive me, love, and you. And our boy.’
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Liat said. ‘The Dai-kvo. What did he say?’
    ‘He said that I should come.’ Maati sighed. ‘There’s nothing in the letter about the Galts or the