An Autumn War

"If you like," Liat said.

The lantern cast a thousand broken shadows as Kiyan moved across the

room. The tapestries on the wall, hidden so long in darkness, seemed to

breathe. Hat considered the space in which she had been for so many days

without seeing it. It was small. The furnishings were costly and

exquisite. It didn't matter. Kiyan went to the wall sconces, taking down

the pale wax candles, touching them to the lantern flame, putting them

back in their places glowing. The soft light slowly filled the air, the

shadows smoothed away.

"I heard you had missed your breakfast," Kiyan said, her voice cheerful

and forced, as she lit the last of the candles.

"And my di

"Yes, I heard that too."

The lantern made a clunking sound-iron on wood-as Kiyan set it on the

bedside table. She sat on the mattress at Liat's side. Otah's wife

looked weary and drawn. Perhaps the andat's price had been worse for her

than it had for Hat. Perhaps it was something else.

"'They've put the Galts in the southern tu

almost no room. I don't know how it will he when the worst of the cold

comes. And spring ... we'll have to start sending people south and east

as soon as it's safe to travel."

"Good that so many died," Liat said, and saw the other woman flinch. Now

that she'd said it, the words did seem pointed. Liat hadn't meant them

to he; she only couldn't he bothered to weigh the effect of her actions

just now. Kiyan fumbled in her sleeve and drew out a small package

wrapped in waxed cloth. Liat could smell the raisins and honey. She knew

it should have been appetizing. Without speaking, Kiyan placed the

little cake on the bedside table and rose to leave.

"Stop it," Liat said, sitting up on her bed.

Otah's wife, the mother of his children, turned hack, her hands in a

pose of query.

"Stop moving around me like I'm made of eggshell," Liat said. "It's not

in your power to keep me from breaking. I've broken. Move on."

"I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"Didn't what? Didn't mean to throw your boy and mine onto a company of

Galtic swords? Didn't mean to have your daughter play findme-find-you

until it wasn't safe to flee? Well, there's a relief. And here I thought

you wanted both our children dead instead of just mine."

Kivan's face hardened. Liat felt the rage billow in her like she was a

sheet thrown over a fire. It ate her and it held her up.

"I didn't mean to treat you as if you were fragile," Kiyan said. "Ve

both know I didn't mean for Nayiit-"

"Didn't mean for him to be a threat to your precious Danat? Didn't mean

to let him he a threat to your family? I Ic wasn't. Ile never was. I

offered to have him take the brand."

"I know," Kiyan said. "Otah told me."

But she might as well not have spoken. Liar could no more stop the words

now than will the blood to stop flowing from a wound.

"I offered to take him away. I didn't want him fighting to he the Khai

any more than you did. I wouldn't have put him in danger, and he would

never have hurt I)anat. IIe would never have hurt your boy. Ide wouldn't

have hurt anyone. It's your mewling half-dead son that's caused this. If

he'd been able to fight off a cough, Otah would never have kept Nayiit

from the brand. Nayiit would never have fought, never have hurt rin

hods' children. Ile was ... he was ..."

The tears came again. She couldn't say what would have come. She

couldn't say that Danat and Nayiit would never have come to face one

another as custom demanded. perhaps in the years ahead the gods would

have pitted them against each other. If the world was what it had been.

If things hadn't changed. Sobs as violent as sickness racked her, and

she found Kiyan's arms around her, her own fists full of the soft wool

of the woman's robe, her screams echoing as if by will alone she could

pull the stones down and bury then all.

Time changed its nature. The sorrow and rage and the physical ache of

her heart went on forever and only a moment. The only measure was that

the candles had burned a quarter of their length before the fit passed,

and exhaustion reclaimed her again. She was embarrassed to see the damp

spot she had left on Kiyan's shoulder, but when she tried to smooth it

away, Kiyan only took her hand, lacing their fingers together like

half-grown girls trading gossip at a dance. Liat allowed it.

"Thu know you can stay here," Kiyan said.

"You know I can't."

"I only meant you'd be welcome," Kiyan said. "Then a moment later, "What

will you do when the thaw comes?"

"Go south," Liat said. "Go to Saraykeht. See what's left. I may still

have a grandson. I can hope it. And better that he not lose a father and

grandmother both."

"Navilt was a good man," Kiyan said.

"He was nothing of the sort. He was a charming bastard who fled his own

family and slept with half the women between here and Saraykeht. But I

loved him."

"lie died saving my son," Kiyan said. "He's a hero."

"That doesn't help me."

"I know it," Kiyan said, and with a distant surprise, Liat found herself

smiling.

"Aren't you going to tell me it will pass?" Liat asked.

"Will it?"

The tu

and cold; dry and damp. Sometimes, if no one was speaking, if there were

no words to say, Liat could hear it like a breath. Like a long, low,

endless exhalation.

"I will never stop missing him," Liat said. "I want him back."

Kiyan nodded, and sat there with her, keeping the vigil for another

night as outside autumn fell into winter and winter crawled toward

spring. The world slowly changing.

"I UNI)ERSTANI) YOUR SON HAS FALLEN ILL?"

Otah's first impulse, unthinking as a reflex, was to deny it. Balasar

Gice was a small-framed man, unimposing until he spoke, and then

charming and warm enough to fill a room with his ironic half-smile. He

was the man who had brought down everything. "Thousands of people who

were alive in the spring were now dead or enslaved through this man's

ambition. Otah's first impulse was to keep anything about Danat away

from the man, because he was a Galt and the enemy.

His second impulse, as unreasoned as the first, was to tell Balasar the