ability hasn't impressed her, and Idaan has a way of finding
comfort in strange places.
Nothing has ever come out the way I expected, love. It
seemed so simple. T' e had men who could sire a child, they
had women who could bear. And instead, I am sending the
least reliable man I know to save everything and everyone by
talking a madwoman into sanity. If I could find any way not
to do this, I'd take it. I appealed to what Maati and I once
were to each other when I tried to convince him to accept
Ana's company. It was more than half a lie. In truth I can't
say I know this man. The boy I knew in Saraykeht and the man
we knew in Machi has become a stew of bitterness and blind
optimism. He wants the past back, and no sacrifice is too
high. I wonder if he never saw the weakness and injustice
and rot at the heart of the old ways, or if he's only
forgotten them.
If I had it all to do again, I'd have done it differently.
I'd have married you sooner. I'd never have gone north, and
Idaan and Adrah could have taken Machi and had all this on
their heads instead of my own. Only then we'dhave been in
Udun, you andl, andl wouldhave had yourcompany for an even
shorter time. There is no winning this game. I suppose it's
best that we can only play it through once.
You wouldn't like what's become of Udun. I don't like it. I
remember Sinja saying that he kept your wayhouse safe during
the sack, but I haven't had the heart to go and look. The
river still has its beauty. The birds still have their song.
They'll still be here when the rest q f us are gone. I miss
Sinja.
There's something I'm trying to tell you, love. It's taking
me more time than I'd expected to work up the courage. We
all know it. Even Maati, even Ana, even Eiah. None of us can
speak the words; not even me. You're the only one I can say
this to, because, I suppose, you've already died and so
you're safe from it.
Love. Oh, love. This meeting is all we can do, and it isn't
going to work.
MAATI LEFT IN TWILIGHT. THE STARS SHONE IN THE EAST, THE DARKNESS RISing
up like a black dawn as the western sky fell from blue to gold, from
gold to gray. Birdsong changed from the trills and complaints of the day
to the low cooing and complexities of the night. The river seemed to
exhale, and its breath was green and rotting and cold. Maati had a small
pack at his side. In the light of the failing day and the flickering
orange of the torches, he looked older than Otah felt, and Otah felt
ancient.
He tried to see something familiar in Maati's eyes. He tried to see the
boy he'd gone drinking with in dark, lush Saraykeht, but that child was
gone. Both of those children.
"I will do my best, Otah-kvo," Maati said.