Danat took a pose of agreement.
"It's what I was trying to say," he said.
"Lift yourself above this," Idaan said. "See it as if you were someone
else. Someone less hurt by it."
Otah lifted his hands, palms out, refusing it all. His jaw ached, but
the heat in his chest and throat, the blood in his ears, washed him out
of the room. He heard Danat cry out behind him, and Idaan's softer
voice. He stalked out to the road. No one followed. His mind was a
cacophony of voices, all of them his own.
Alone on the dimming road, he excoriated Maati and Eiah, Danat and
Idaan, Balasar and Sinja and Issandra Dasin. He muttered all the venom
that rose to his lips, and, in time, he sat at the base of an ancient
tree, throwing stones at nothing. The rage faded and left him as empty
as an old skin. The sun was gone and the sky darkening blue to indigo
and indigo to starlit black.
Alone as he had not been in years, he wept. At first it was only the
loss of Sinja, but then of the fleet and Chaburi-Tan. Eiah and his
warring senses of guilt and betrayal. Galt, blind and dying. It ended
where he had known it would. All rivers led to the sea, and all his
sorrows to the death of Kiyan.
"Oh, love," he said to the empty air. "Oh, my love. Can this never go well?"
Nothing answered back.
The tears faded. The sorrow and rage, spent, left his heart and mind
clearer. The tree at his back scratched, its bark as rough as broken
stone. It offered no comfort, but he let himself rest against it. He
noticed the scent of fresh earth for the first time, and the hushing of
a breeze that stirred the treetops without descending to the path they
covered. A falling star lit the sky and was gone.
He must, Otah thought, have looked like he was on the edge of murder the
whole day for his son and his sister to face him down that way. He must
have seemed like a man gone mad. It was near enough to the truth.
The night air was cold and his robes insufficient. He went back to the
wayhouse more for warmth than the desire to continue any conversation.
There was an odd silence in his mind now that felt fragile and
comforting. He knew as he stepped into the yard that he wouldn't be able
to maintain it.
Voices raised in anger filled the yard. Danat and the captain of the
armsmen stood so close to each other their chests nearly touched, each
of them shouting at the other. Idaan stood at Danat's right, her arms
crossed, her expression deceptively calm. The captain had his armsmen
arrayed behind him, lit torches in their hands. Otah made out words like
protection and answerable from the captain and disrespect and mutiny
from Danat. Otah rubbed his hands together to fight off the numbness and
made his way toward the confrontation. The captain saw him first and
stopped talking, his face flushed red by blood and torchlight. Danat
took a moment longer, then glanced over his shoulder.
"I suppose this is to do with me," Otah said.
"We only wanted to see that you were safe, Most High," the captain said.
The words were strangled. Otah hesitated, then took a pose of apology.