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now. You. Courier. You'll wait until I have word to take back."
The twilight world lost its color like a face going pale. Otah paced the
lush green and blossomless garden, wrenching his mind from one crisis to
the next. A different servant led Balasar into the space between the
willows.
"Find us some light," Otah said. "And Sinja-cha. Get Sinja-cha."
The servant, caught between two needs, hesitated, then hurried off. Otah
led Balasar to a low stone bench. The general wore a lighter jacket,
silk over cotton. His breath smelled of wine, but he gave no sign of
being drunk. Otah looked out at the gray sky, the dark, looming palaces
with windows glimmering like stars and cursed Sinja for his absence.
"Balasar-cha, I need you. The Galtic fleet has to travel to ChaburiTan,"
Otah said.
He outlined the letter he'd had, the history of increasing raids and
attacks, and his half-imagined scheme to show the unity of Galt and the
Khaiem. With every word, Balasar seemed to become stiller, until at the
end, it was like speaking to stone.
"We can only show unity where it exists," Balasar said. His voice was
low, and in the rising darkness it seemed to come from no direction at
all. "After what happened yesterday, the fleet's as likely to turn on
the city as the raiders."
"I don't have the ships and men to protect Chaburi-Tan," Otah said. "Not
without you. The city will fall, and thousands will be killed. If the
Galtic fleet came in, the pirates would turn back without so much as an
arrow flown. And it would halfway unmake yesterday's mess."
"It can't happen," Balasar said.
"Then tell me what can," Otah said.
The general was silent. A moth took wing, fluttering between them like a
clot of shadows and dust before it vanished.
"There is ... something. It will make things here more difficult,"
Balasar said. "There are families who have committed to your scheme.
That have already been brokering contracts and arranging alliances. I
can gather them. It won't be anything like the full force of war, but if
they sent their private ships and soldiers along with whatever you can
muster up, it might serve."
"At the cost of sending away what allies I have," Otah said.
"That would be the price of it," Balasar said. "Send away your friends,
and you're left eating with your enemies. It could poison the court
against us."
Us. At least the man had said us.
"Get them," Otah said. "Get whoever you can quickly, and then send for
me. I can't let another city die."
It only occurred to him as he stalked back through the wide stone halls
and softly glowing lanterns of the first palace that he had been
speaking to the man that had killed Udun and the village of the Daikvo,
the man who had maimed Nantani and Yalakeht.
The meeting chamber was empty when he reached it; Danat and Issandra had
gone. The cheese and apples and wine had been cleared away. The lanterns
had blown out. Otah called for a servant to fetch him food and light. He
sat, his a
climbing a sea cliff.
Ana Dasin and her petulant, self-important father were well on their way
to seeing both empires chewed away one bit at a time by pirates and
foreign conspiracies. And failing crops. And time. Childless years
growing one upon another like a winter with no promise of spring. There
were so many things to fix, so uncountably many things that had gone
wrong. He was the Emperor, the most powerful man in the cities of the
Khaiem, and he was tired to his heart.
When the food arrived-pork in black sauce, spiced rice, sugared apple,
wine and herbs-Otah was hardly hungry any longer. Moments after that,
Sinja finally arrived.
"Where have you been?" Sinja demanded. "I've been wandering around the
winter garden for half a hand looking for you."
"I should ask the same. I must have had half the servants in the palace
looking for you."
"I know. Six of them found me. It got inconvenient telling them all I
was busy. You need to come with me."
"You were busy?"
"Otah-cha, you need to come with me."
He breathed deeply and took a pose that commanded obedience. Sinja's
eyebrows rose and he adopted an answering pose that held nuances of both
query and affront.
"I have no intention of going anywhere until I have finished eating,"
Otah said. It embarrassed him to hear the peevishness in his voice, but
not so much as to unsay it. Sinja tilted his head, stepped forward, and
lifted one end of the table. The plates and bowl spun to the floor. One
shattered. Otah was on his feet with no memory of standing. His face
felt as warm as if he were looking into a fire. His ears filled with a
buzzing of rage.
Sinja took a step back.
"I can have you killed," Otah said. "You know I can have you killed."
"You're right," Sinja said. "That passed the mark. I apologize, Most
High. But you have to come with me. Now."
Servants came in, their eyes wide as little moons, their hands
fluttering over the carnage of his di
"What is it?" Otah said.
"Not here. Not where someone might hear us."
Sinja turned and walked from the room. Otah hesitated, mumbled an
obscenity that made the servants turn their faces away, and followed. As
his own anger faded, he saw the tension in Sinja's shoulders and through
his neck. They were the sorts of signs he should have picked up on at
once. He was tired. He was slipping.
Sinja was quartered in apartments of the third palace, where the Khai
Saraykeht's second son would have lived, had there been a Khai Saraykeht
or any sons. The walls were black marble polished until the darkness
itself shone in the torchlight. Doors of worked silver still showed
where gems had been wrenched from them by Galtic hands. They were
beautiful all the same. Perhaps more beautiful than when they had been
intact; scars created character.
Without speaking, Sinja went to each window in turn, poking his head out
into the night, then closing outer shutters and i
in his sleeves, unease growing in his heart.
"What is this?" Otah said, but the man only took a pose that asked
patience and continued in his errand. At the last, he looked out into
the corridor, sent the servant there away, then closed and bolted the