andat were back in the world. You've lived your whole life in the
courts. Two or three people whose discretion you trust would be all it
took. A rumor spoken in the right ears. We needn't even say where we are
or what's been bound."
Eiah combed her fingers through her hair. Every breath that she didn't
answer, Maati felt his hopes rise. She would, if he only gave her a
little more time and silence to convince herself. She would announce
their success, and everyone in the cities of the Khaiem would know that
Maati Vaupathai had remained true to them. He had never given up, never
turned away.
"It would mean going to a city," Eiah said. "I can't send half-a-dozen
ciphered letters under my own seal out from a low town without every
courier in the south finding out where we are."
"Then Pathai," Maati said, his hands opening. "We need to step back from
the binding. The letters will win us time to make things right."
Eiah turned, looking out the window. In the courtyard, the maple trees
were losing their leaves. A storm, a strong wind, and the branches would
be bare. A sparrow, brown and gray, hopped from one twig to another.
Maati could see the fine markings on its wings, the blackness of its
eyes. It had been years since sparrows had been more than dull smears.
He glanced at Eiah, surprised to see the tears on her cheek.
His hand touched her shoulder. She didn't look back, but he felt her
lean into him a degree.
"I don't know," she said as if to the sparrow, the trees, the thousand
fallen leaves. "I don't know why it should matter. It's no secret what
he's done or what I think of it. I don't have any doubts that what we're
doing is the right choice."
"And yet," Maati said.
"And yet," she agreed. "My father will be disappointed in me. I would
have thought I was old enough that his opinion wouldn't matter."
He searched for a response-something gentle and kind and that would
strengthen her resolve. Before he found the words, he felt her tense. He
took back his hand, adopting a querying pose.
"I thought I heard something," she said. "Someone was yelling."
A long, high shriek rang in the air. It was a woman's voice, but he
couldn't guess whose. Eiah leaped from her stool and vanished into the
dark hallways before Maati recovered himself. He followed, his heart
pounding, his breath short. The shrieking didn't stop, and as he came
nearer the kitchen, he heard other sounds-clattering, banging, high
voices urging calm or making demands that he couldn't decipher, the
andat's infantile wail. And then Eiah's commanding voice, with the
single word stop.
He rounded the last corner, his fist pressed to his chest, his heart
hammering. The cooking areas were raw chaos come to earth. An
earthenware jar of wheat flour had been overturned and cracked. The thin
stone block Irit used for chopping plants lay in shards on the floor.
Ashti Beg stood in the middle of the room, a knife in her hand, her chin
held high like a statue of abstract vengeance. In the corner, Vanjit
held the stillmewling andat close to her breast. Large Kae, Small Kae,