Otah felt the air go out of the room. Eiah's eyes went wide, aware that
she had just done something worse than stealing a bauble, but unsure
what it was. Only Kiyan seemed composed and calm. She smiled dangerously.
"Sit down, love," she said. "Please. Sit."
Eiah sat. Otah clasped his hands hard enough the knuckles ached, but
there weren't words for the mix of guilt and shame and anger and sorrow.
His heart was too many things at once. Kiyan didn't look at him when she
spoke; her gaze was on Eiah.
"You will never repeat what you've just said to anyone. Nayiit-cha is
Liat's son by M1aati. Because if he isn't, if he's the thing you just
said, then he will have to kill Danat or Danat will have to kill him.
And when that happens, the blood will he on your hands, because you
could have prevented it and chose not to. Don't speak. I'm not finished.
If any of the houses of the utkhaiem thought Danat was not the one and
only man who could take his father's place, some of them would start
thinking of killing him themselves in expectation of Nayiit-cha favoring
them once he became Khai Nlachi. I can't protect him from everyone in
this city, any more than I can protect him from air or his own body. You
have done a wrong thing, stealing. And if you truly mean to hold your
brother's life hostage to keep from being chastised for it, I would like
to know that now."
Eiah wept silently, shocked by the cold fire in Kiyan's voice. Utah felt
as if he'd been slapped as well. As if he ought somehow to have known,
all those years ago, in that distant city, that the consequences of
taking to his lover's bed would come back again to threaten everything
he held dear. Ilis daughter took a pose that begged her mother's
forgiveness.
"I won't, Mama-kya. I won't say anything. Not ever."
"You'll apologize to the man you stole from and you will go in the
morning to the physician's house and do whatever they ask of you. I will
decide what to do about 'l alit and Shoyen."
"Yes, :Mama-kya."
"You can leave now," Kiyan said and looked away. Eiah rose, silent
except for the rough breath of tears, and left the room. The door closed
behind her.
"I'm sorry-"
"Don't," Kiyan said. "Not now. I can't ... I don't want to hear it just
now.
Otah rose and walked to the window. The sun was high, but the towers
cast shadows across the city all the same, like trees above children.
Far to the west, clouds were gathering over the mountains, towering
white thunderheads with bases dark as a bruise. "There would be a storm
later. It would come. One of the sparrows returned, considered Otah once
with each eye, and then flew away again.
"What would you ask me to do?" Otah said. His voice was placid. No one
would have known from the words how much pain lay behind them. No one
except Kiyan. "I can't unmake him. Should I have him killed?"
"How did Eiah know?" Kiyan asked.
"She saw. Or she guessed. She knew the way that you did."