down the side of her face, three white hairs dancing in and out among
the black. He felt the faint urge-echo of a habit long forgotten-to
brush it back.
"'There," Otah said and picked up his wine bowl. "There, I've said it."
"I'm sorry," Liat said, and Otah took a pose accepting her sympathy
without knowing quite why she was offering it. She looked down at her
hands. The silence between them was profound but not uncomfortable; he
felt no need to speak, to fill the void with words. Liat drank her wine,
Otah his. The wind muttered to itself and to the stones of the city.
"It's not a job I'd want," Liat said. "Khai NIachi."
"It's all power and no freedom," Otah said. "If Nayiit were to have it,
he'd likely curse my name. There are a thousand different things to
attend to, and every one of them as serious as bone to someone. You
can't do it all."
"I know how it feels," Liat said. "I only have a trading house to look
after, and there's days I wish that it would all go away. Granted, I
have men who work the books and the negotiations and appeals before the
low judges and the utkhaiem ..
"I have all the low judges and the utkhaiem appealing to me," Otah said.
"It's never enough."
""I'here's always the descent into decadence and self-absorption," Liat
said, smiling. It was only half a joke. "They say the Khai Chaburi- 'Ian
only gets sober long enough to bed his latest wife."
"Tcnipting," Otah said, "but somewhere between taking the chair to
protect Kiyan and tonight, it became my city. I came from here, and even
if I'm not much good at what I do, I'm what they have."
""That makes sense," Liat said.
"Does it? It doesn't to me."
Liat put down her bowl and rose. He thought her gaze spoke of
determination and melancholy, but perhaps the latter was only his own.
She stepped close and kissed him on the check, a firm peck like an aunt
greeting a favorite nephew.
"Amat Kyaan would have understood," she said. "I won't tell Nayiit about
this. If anyone asks, I'll deny it unless I hear differently from you."
""I'hank you, Liat-cha."
She stepped back. Otah felt a terrible weariness bearing him down, but
forced a charming smile. She shook her head.
""Thank you, Most High."
"I don't think I've done anything worth thanking me."
"You let my son live," Liat said. "That was one of the decisions you had
to make, wasn't it?"
She took his silence as an answer, smiled again, and left him alone.
Otah poured the last of the wine from carafe to howl, and then watched
the light die in the west as he finished it; watched the stars come out,
and the full moon rise. With every day, the light lasted longer. It
would not always. High summer would come, and even when the days were at
their warmest, when the trees and vines grew heavy with fruit, the
nights would already have started their slow expansion. He wondered
whether Danat would get to play outside in the autumn, whether the boy