you some honor or change how it./cels to be without you.
Something. I had a thousand things I thought I would write,
but those were when it was only me. Now, here, with you, all
I can say is thatl miss you.
The children are starting to come back from the loss. I
don't know i f they ever will. I have no experience with
this. I had no mother or father. As a child, I had no
family. I don't have any experience losing a family.
The closest thing I have to solace is knowing that, if I had
gone first, you would have suffered all this darkness
yourself. That I have to bear it is the price of sparing
you. It doesn't make the burden lighter, it doesn't make the
pain less, it doesn't take away any of the longing I have to
see you again or hear your voice. But it does give the pain
meaning. I suppose that's all I can ask: that the pain have
meaning.
I love you. I miss you. I will write again soon.
Ana folded the letter. Thousands of pages of letters to the Empress who
had died. The last Empress before her.
"I don't know what to do," Danat said.
"I love you. You know I love you more than anything except the children?"
"Of course."
"If you burn these, I will leave you. Honestly, love. You've lost enough
of him. You have to keep these."
Danat took a deep shuddering breath and closed his eyes. His hands
pressed flat on his thighs. Another tear slipped down his cheek, and Ana
leaned forward to smooth it away with her sleeve.
"I want to," Danat said. "I want to keep them. I want to keep him. But
it was what he asked."
"He's dead, love," Ana said. "He's dead and gone. Truly. He doesn't care
anymore.
When Danat had finished crying, his body heavy against her own, the sun
had set. The apartments were a collection of shadows. Somewhere in the
course of things, they had made their way to Otah Machi's beda soft
mattress that smelled of roses and had, so far as Ana could tell, never
been slept in. She stroked Danat's hair and listened to the chorus of
crickets in the gardens. Her husband's breath became deeper, more
regular. Ana waited until he was deeply asleep, then slipped out from
under him, lit a candle, and by its soft light gathered the letters and
began to put them in order.
And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.
THE WORLD ITSELF SEEMED TO HAVE CONSPIRED TO MAKE THE DAY SOMBER. Gray
clouds hung low over the city, a cold constant mist of rain darkening
the mourning cloths, the stones, the newly unfurled leaves of the trees.
The pyre stood in the center of the grand court, stinking of coal oil
and pine resin. The torches that lined the pyre spat and hissed in the rain.
The assembly was huge. There weren't enough whisperers to take any words
he said to the back edges of the crowd. If there was a back. As far as
he could see from his place at the raised black dais, there were only