THE

remembered looking out when he had been a child called before Tahi-kvo.

Bald, mean-spirited Tahi-kvo, who would not have recognized the world as

it had become; women studying the andat in his own rooms, the poets

almost vanished from the world, Galts on the way to becoming the nobles

of this new, rattling, sad, stumble-footed Empire. Nothing was the same

as it had been. Everything was different.

Vanjit, sitting with her legs crossed by the fire grate, smiled up at

him. Maati took a pose of greeting and lowered himself carefully to her

side. Irit and Large Kae both glanced at him, their eyes rich with

curiosity and perhaps even envy, but they kept to their window and their

conversation. Vanjit held out her bowl of cooked wheat and raisins, but

Maati took a pose that both thanked and refused, then changed his mind

and scooped two fingers into his mouth. The grain was rich and salted,

sweetened with fruit and honey both. Vanjit smiled at him; the

expression failed to reach her eyes.

"I looked over your work. Yours and Eiah-cha's," he said. "It's

interesting."

Vanjit looked down, setting the bowl on the stone floor at her side.

After a moment's hesitation, her hands took a pose that invited his

judgment.

"I . . ." Maati began, then coughed, looked out past Large Kae and Irit

to the bright and featureless blue of the western sky. "I don't want to

hurry this. And I would rather not see any more of you pay the price of

falling short."

Her mouth tightened, and her eyebrows rose as if she were asking a

question. She said nothing.

"You're sure you want this?" he asked. "You have seen all the women

we've lost. You know the dangers."

"I want this, Maati-kvo. I want to try this. And ... and I don't know

how much longer I can wait," she said. Her gaze rose to meet his. "It's

time for me. I have to try soon, or I think I never will."

"If you have doubts about-"

"Not doubts. Only a little despair now and then. You can take that from

me. If you let me try." Maati started to speak, but the girl went on,

raising her voice and speaking faster, as if she feared what he would

say next. "I've seen death. I won't say I'm not afraid of it, but I'm

not so taken by the fear that I can't risk anything. If it's called for."

"I didn't think you were," he said.

"And I helped bury Umnit. I know what the price can look like. But I

buried my mother and my brother and his daughter too, and they didn't

die for a reason. They were only on the streets when Udun fell," she

said, and shrugged. "We all die sometime, Maati-kvo. Risking it sooner

and for a reason is better than being safe and meaningless. Isn't it?"

Brave girl. She was such a brave girl. To have lost so much, so young,

and still be strong enough to risk the binding. Maati felt tears in his

eyes and forced himself to smile.

"We chose it for you. Clarity-of-Sight," she said. "I saw how hard it is

for you to read some days, and Eiah and I thought ... if we could help ..."

Maati laid his hand on hers, his heart aching with something equally joy

and fear. Vanjit was weeping a bit as well now. He heard voices coming

down the hallway-Eiah and Ashti Beg-but Irit and Large Kae were silent.

He was certain they were watching them. He didn't care.

"We'll be careful," he said. "We'll make it work."

Her smile outshone the sun. Maati nodded; yes, they would attempt the

binding. Yes, Vanjit would be the first woman in history to hold an

andat or else the next of his students to die.

7

"No, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl's got more spine

than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from

her," Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and

proud. And when he said the rest of its, Otah was clear that he meant

the Galts. The courts of the Khaiem, the cities and people of Otah's

empire were not part of Farrer Dasin's us; they were still apart and the

enemy.

Six members of the High Council sat at the wide marble table along with

Balasar Gice and Issandra Dasin. Otah, Danat, and representatives of

four of the highest families of the utkhaiem sat across from them. Otah

wished he'd been able to scatter each side among the other instead of

dividing the table like a battlefield. Or else keep the group smaller.

If it had been only himself, Farrer, and Issandra, there might have been

a chance.

Ana, the girl who had taken a stick to this political beehive, was not

present, nor was she welcome.

"There are agreements in place," Balasar said. "We can't unmake them on

a whim."

"Yes, Dasin-cha. Contracts have been signed," one of the utkhaiem said.

"Is it Galt's intention that any contract can be invalidated if the

signer's daughter objects?"

"That isn't what happened," the councilman at Farrer's right hand said.

"We have our hands full enough without exaggerating."

And so it started off again, voices raised each over the other with the

effect that nothing but babble could be heard. Otah didn't add to the

clamor, but sat forward in his chair and watched. He considered the

architecturevaulted ceiling of blue and gold tiles, the sliding wooden

shutters. He found a scent in the air: sugared almonds. He struggled to

hear a sound beyond the table: the wind in the treetops. Then, slowly,

he pulled his awareness back to the people before him. It was an old

trick he'd learned during his days as a courier, a way of withdrawing

half a step from the place where he was and considering the ways that

people moved and held themselves, the expressions they wore when they

were silent and when they spoke. It often said more than the words. And

now, he saw three things.

First, he was not the only silent one at the table. Issandra Dasin was

rocked a degree back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the middle

distance. Her expression spoke of exhaustion and a barely hidden sorrow,

the complement to her husband's self-destructive pleasure. Danat was

also withdrawn, but with his body canted forward, as if he was trying to

hear every phrase that fluttered through the heavy air. He might as

easily drink a river.

Second, Otah saw that neither side was united. The Galts across from him

ran the gamut from defiant to conciliatory, the utkhaiem from outraged

to fearful. It was the same outside. The palaces, the teahouses, the

baths, the street corners-all of Saraykeht was filled with agreements

and negotiations that were suddenly, violently uncertain. He recalled

something his daughter had said once about the reopened wound being the