covert school, as all the others had, through a series of happy
accidents. Another of his students-Umnit-had fallen into conversation
with her, and something had sparked between them. Umnit had presented
Vanjit as a candidate to join in their work. Reluctantly, Maati had
accepted her.
The girl had a brilliant mind, no question. But she had been a child in
Udun, the only one of her family to survive when the Galts had come, and
the memory of that slaughter still touched her eyes from time to time.
She might laugh and talk and make music, but she bore scars on her body
and in her mind. In the months he had spent working with her, Maati had
come to realize what had first unnerved him about the girl: of all the
students he had taught, she was most like him.
He had lost his family in the war as well-his almost-son Nayiit, his
lover Liat, and the man he had once thought his dearest friend. Otah,
Emperor of the Khaiem. Otah, favored of the gods, who couldn't fall down
without landing on rose petals. They had not all died, but they were all
lost to him.
"Maati-cha?" Vanjit said. "Did I say something wrong?"
Maati blinked and took a pose of query.
"You looked angry," she said.
"Nothing," Maati said, shifting the chalk to his other hand and shaking
the ache from his fingers. "Nothing, Vanjit-kya, my mind was just
wandering. Come, sit. There's nothing that you need to do, but you can
keep me company while I get ready."
She sat on the bench, one leg tucked under her. He noticed that her hair
and robe were wet from the rain. There was mud on her boots. She'd been
walking out in the weather. Maati hesitated, chalk halfway back to the
stone.
"Or," he said slowly, "perhaps I should ask if you've been well?"
She smiled and took a pose that dismissed his concerns.
"Bad dream again," she said. "That's all."
"About the baby," Maati said.
"I could feel him inside of me," she said. "I could feel his heartbeat.
It's strange. I hate dreaming about him. The nightmares that I'm back in
the war-I may scream myself awake, but at least I'm pleased that the
dream's ended. When I dream about him, I'm happy. I'm at peace. And then
..."
She gestured at the childless world around them.
"It's worse, wishing I could sleep and dream and never awake."
Maati's heart rang in sympathy, like a crystal bowl taking up the
ringing of a great bell. How many times had he dreamed that Nayiit
lived? That the world had not been broken, or, if it had, not by him?
"We'll bring him," Maati said. "Have faith. Every week, we come closer.
Once the grammar is built solidly enough, anything will be possible."
"Are we coming closer?" she asked. "Be honest, Maati-cha. Every week we
spend on this, I think we're on the edge, and every week, there's more
after it."
He tucked the chalk into his sleeve and sat at the girl's side. She
leaned forward, and he thought there was something in her expressionnot