end-the celebratory drinks were all laced with certain herbs.
It was still four hands before dawn when they made their escape. Maati
and Eiah drove the cart. Large Kae rode ahead, leading the spare horses.
The others slept in the cart, exhausted bodies fitted in among the
crates and sacks. The moon had already set, and the road before them was
black and featureless apart from Large Kae's guiding torch. The fog had
cleared, but a deep cold kept Maati's cloak wrapped tight. His eyes
wanted nothing more than to close.
"We can make the river in seven days if we go through the night. Large
Kae will fight against it for the horses' sake," Maati said.
"I'll fight against it for yours," Eiah said. "There was a reason I was
trying to make this journey restful."
"I'm fine. I'll last to Utani and years past it, you watch." He sighed.
His flesh seemed about to drip off his bones from simple exhaustion.
"You watch."
"Crawl back," Eiah said. "Rest. I can do this alone."
"You'd fall asleep," Maati said.
"And use you for a pillow, Uncle. I'm fine. Go."
He looked back. There was a place for him. Irit had made it up with two
thick wool blankets. He couldn't see it in the night, but he knew it was
there. He wanted nothing more than to turn to it and let the whole
broken world fade for a while. He couldn't. Not yet.
"Eiah-kya," he said softly. "About your binding. About Wounded. .
She turned to him, a shadow within a shadow. He bent close to her, his
voice as low as he could make it and still be heard over the clatter of
hooves on stone.
"You know the grammar well? You have it all in mind?"
"Of course," she said.
"Could you do it without it being written? It's usual to write it all
out, the way Vanjit-cha did. And it helps to have that there to follow,
but you could do the thing without. Couldn't you?"
"I don't know," Eiah said. "Perhaps. It isn't something I'd thought
about particularly. But why ... ?"
"We should postpone your binding," Maati said. "Until you are certain
you could do it without the reference text."
Eiah was silent. Something fluttered by, the sound of wings against air.
"What are you saying?" Eiah said, her words low, clipped, and precise.
Maati squeezed his hands together. The joints had started aching
sometime earlier in the night. The ancient dagger scar in his belly
itched the way it did when he'd grown too tired.
"If you were performing the binding, and something happened so that you
couldn't see," Maati said. "If you were to go blind when you'd already
started ... you should know the words and the thoughts well enough to
keep to it. Not to slip."
"Not pay its price," Eiah said. Meaning, they both knew, die. A moment
later, "She'd do that?"
"I don't know," Maati said. "I don't know anything anymore. But be ready
if she does."
Eiah shifted the reins, the pattern of the horses' stride altered, and