"I heard the Khai Cetani speaking today," she said.
"Really?"
"l le was in one of the teahouses. And, honestly, not one of the best ones.
"I won't ask what you were doing in a third-rate tea house," Otah said,
and Kiyan chuckled.
"Nothing more scandalous than listening to the Khai," she said. "But
that might be enough. Ile thinks quite highly of you."
"Oh gods," Otah said. "Did the term come up again?"
"Yes, the word emperor figured highly in the conversation. He seems to
think the sun shines brighter when you tell it to."
"Ile seems to forget that first battle where I got everyone killed. And
that I didn't manage to keep the [)ai-kvo from being slaughtered."
"Ile doesn't forget. But lie does say you were the only man who tried to
stop the Galts, who banded cities together instead of letting them fall
one at a time, and in the end the only man who put them to flight."
"He should stop that," Utah said, and sighed. "Ile seemed so reasonable
when I first met him. Who'd have guessed he was so easily wooed."
"He may not he wrong, you know. We'll need to do something when this is
over. An emperor or a way to choose new families to act as Khaiem. A
I)ai-kvo. That would have to be ylaati or Cehmai, wouldn't it:'
It was how all the conversations went now-how to rebuild, how to remake.
The polite fiction that the poets were sure to succeed was the tissue
that seemed to hold people together, and Utah couldn't bring himself to
break it now.
"I suppose so," Utah said. "It'll be a life's work, though. Perhaps
more. It was getting hard enough finding andat that could still be hound
before this. We've lost so much now, going hack will be harder than it
was at the first. If we have a new I)ai-kvo, he won't have time for
am-thing more than that."
"An emperor, then. One man protecting all the cities. With the poets
answering to him. liven just one poet with one andat would he enough. It
would protect us."
"I recommend someone else do it. I've decided on a beach hut on Bakta,"
Utah said, trying to make it a joke. I Ic saw Kivan's expression. "It's
too far ahead to think about now, love. Let it pass, and we'll solve it
later if it still needs solving."
Kiyan turned and took his hand. The days since he'd come home hadn't
allowed them time together, not as they had had before the war. First,
when he and his men had marched across the bridge to trumpets and drums
and dancing, it had been a mad festival. 't'hey had cone out to meet
him. I Ic had embraced her, and Eiah, and little [)gnat whom he had
danced around until they were both dizzy. Otah had found himself whirled
from one pavilion to the next, balancing the giddy joy of survival with
the surprisingly complex work of taking an army-even one as improvised
and unformed as his own-apart. And afterward, he'd discovered that Kiyan
was still as much in demand now tending the things she'd set in motion
as when he had been gone.
Men and women of all classes seemed to have need of her time and
attention, coordinating the stores of food and the arrangements of the