the stories about the half-Bakta boy who intrigued for the Emperor.
Maati pursed his lips.
""They're a bit bloody, some of them," he said.
"Danat's a boy. He'll love them. Besides, you read them to Nayiit
without any lasting damage," Liat said. "Those and the green hook. The
one that was all political allegories where people turned into light or
sank into the ground."
"The Silk Hunter's Dreams," Maati said. "That's a thought. I have a copy
of that one too, where I can put my hand on it. Only, Otah-kvo, don't
tell him the one with the crocodile. Nayiit-kya wouldn't sleep for days
after I told him that one."
"I'll trust you," Otah said.
"Wait," Maati said, and with a grunt he pulled himself to standing. "You
two stay here. I'll be back with it in three heartbeats."
An uncomfortable silence fell on Otah and Liat. Otah turned to consider
Eiah's sleeping face. Liat shifted in her chair.
"She's a lovely girl," Liat said softly. "We spent the day together, the
three of us, and I was sure she'd wear us thin by the end of it. Still,
we're the ones that lasted longest, eh?"
"She doesn't have a head for wine yet," Otah said.
"We didn't give her wine," Liat said, then chuckled. "Well, not much
anyway.
"If the worst she does is sneak away to drink with the pair of you, I'll
be the luckiest man alive," Otah said. As if hearing him, Eiah sighed in
her sleep and shifted away, pressing her face to the cushions.
"She looks like her mother," Liat said. "Her face is that same shape.
The eyes are your color, though. She'll he stunning when she's older.
She'll break hearts. But I suppose they all do. Ours if no one else's."
Otah looked up. Liat's expression had darkened, the shadows of
lanternlight gathering on the curves of her face. It had been another
lifetime, it seemed, when Otah had first known her. Only four years
older than Eiah was now. And he'd been younger than Nayiit. Babies, it
seemed. Too young to know what they were doing, or how precarious the
world truly was. It hadn't seemed that way at the time, though. Otah
remembered it all with a terrible clarity.
"You're thinking of Saraykcht," she said.
"Was it that obvious?"
"Yes," Liat said. "How much have you told them? About what happened?"
"Kiyan knows everything. A few others."
"They know how Seedless was freed? And Heshai-kvo, how he was killed?"
For a sick moment, Otah was back in the filthy room, in the stink of mud
and raw sewage from the alley. He remembered the ache in his arms. He
remembered the struggle as the old poet fought for air with the cord
biting into his throat. It had seemed the right thing, then. Even to
Heshai. The andat, Seedless, had come to Otah with the plan. Aid in
Heshai-kvo's suicide-for in many ways that was what it had been-and Liat
would be saved. Maati would be saved. A thousand Galtic babies would
stay safely in their mother's wombs, the power of the andat never turned
against them.