Kiyan's quiet, sane, thoughtful voice was the most soothing thing he
knew. She was right. It wasn't strange, it wasn't a sign that Eiah would
grow up to be her aunt Idaan, scheming and killing and lying for the
pleasure of it. It was a girl of fourteen summers seeing how far she
could go, and the answer was not so far as this. Otah kissed Kiyan
before they left, his lips on her cheek. She smiled. There were
crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes now. White strands had shot her
hair since she'd been young, but there were more now. Her eyes still
glittered as they had when he'd met her in tJdun when she'd been the
keep of a wayhouse and he had been a courier. She seemed to sense his
thoughts, and put her hand to his cheek.
"Shall we go be the troll-like, unfair, unfeeling, stupid, venal
dispensers of unjust punishment?" she asked.
The blue chamber was wide and round, a table of white marble dominating
it like a sheet of ice floating in a far northern sea. The windows
looked out on the gardens through walls so thick that sparrows and
grackles perched in the sills and pecked at the carved meshwork of the
inner shutters. Eiah had been pacing, but stopped when they came in. She
looked from one to the other, trying for an innocence of expression that
she couldn't quite reach.
"Come, sit," Kiyan said, gesturing to the table. Eiah came forward as if
against her will and sat in one of the carved wooden chairs. Her gaze
darted between the two of them, her chin already beginning to slide forward.
"I understand you took something from a jeweler. A brooch," Otah said.
"Is that true?"
"Who told you that?" Eiah asked.
"Is it true?" Otah repeated, and his daughter looked down. When she
frowned, the same small vertical line appeared between her brows that
would sometimes show Kiyan's distress. Otah felt the passing urge to
soothe her fears, but this wasn't the moment for comfort. Ile scowled
until she looked up, then down again, and nodded. Kiyan sighed.
"Who told you?" Eiah asked again. "It was Shoyen, wasn't it? She's
jealous because Talit and I were-"
"You told us, just now," Otah said. "That's all that matters."
Eiah's lips closed hard. Kiyan took a turn, telling Eiah that she'd done
wrong, and they all knew it. Even she had to know that simply taking
things wasn't right. They had paid her debt, but now she would have to
make it good herself. 'T'hey had decided that she would work with the
physicians for a week, and if she didn't go, the physicians had
instructions to send for ...
"I'm not going to," Eiah said. "It's not fair. "Ialit Radaani sneaks
things out of her father's warehouse all the time and no one ever makes
her do anything for it."
"I can see that changes," Otah said.
"Don't!" Eiah barked. The birds startled away; a flutter of wings that
sounded like panic. "Don't you dare! 'Ialit will hate me forever if she
thinks I'm making her ... Papa-kya! Please, don't do that."
"It might be wise," Kiyan said. "All three girls were party to it."
"You can't! You can't do that to me!" Eiah's eyes were wild. She pushed