and fear. Vanjit was weeping a bit as well now. He heard voices coming
down the hallway-Eiah and Ashti Beg-but Irit and Large Kae were silent.
He was certain they were watching them. He didn't care.
"We'll be careful," he said. "We'll make it work."
Her smile outshone the sun. Maati nodded; yes, they would attempt the
binding. Yes, Vanjit would be the first woman in history to hold an
andat or else the next of his students to die.
7
"No, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl's got more spine
than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from
her," Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and
proud. And when he said the rest of its, Otah was clear that he meant
the Galts. The courts of the Khaiem, the cities and people of Otah's
empire were not part of Farrer Dasin's us; they were still apart and the
enemy.
Six members of the High Council sat at the wide marble table along with
Balasar Gice and Issandra Dasin. Otah, Danat, and representatives of
four of the highest families of the utkhaiem sat across from them. Otah
wished he'd been able to scatter each side among the other instead of
dividing the table like a battlefield. Or else keep the group smaller.
If it had been only himself, Farrer, and Issandra, there might have been
a chance.
Ana, the girl who had taken a stick to this political beehive, was not
present, nor was she welcome.
"There are agreements in place," Balasar said. "We can't unmake them on
a whim."
"Yes, Dasin-cha. Contracts have been signed," one of the utkhaiem said.
"Is it Galt's intention that any contract can be invalidated if the
signer's daughter objects?"
"That isn't what happened," the councilman at Farrer's right hand said.
"We have our hands full enough without exaggerating."
And so it started off again, voices raised each over the other with the
effect that nothing but babble could be heard. Otah didn't add to the
clamor, but sat forward in his chair and watched. He considered the
architecturevaulted ceiling of blue and gold tiles, the sliding wooden
shutters. He found a scent in the air: sugared almonds. He struggled to
hear a sound beyond the table: the wind in the treetops. Then, slowly,
he pulled his awareness back to the people before him. It was an old
trick he'd learned during his days as a courier, a way of withdrawing
half a step from the place where he was and considering the ways that
people moved and held themselves, the expressions they wore when they
were silent and when they spoke. It often said more than the words. And
now, he saw three things.
First, he was not the only silent one at the table. Issandra Dasin was
rocked a degree back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the middle
distance. Her expression spoke of exhaustion and a barely hidden sorrow,
the complement to her husband's self-destructive pleasure. Danat was
also withdrawn, but with his body canted forward, as if he was trying to
hear every phrase that fluttered through the heavy air. He might as