as I can see, all of them oppose your treaty with the Galts or are
closely related to someone who does. And they all have the close
connections to the palace that Maati boasted of."
Otah held out his hand. Idaan didn't pass the tablet to him.
"I think about what would have happened if I had been given that kind of
power," she said. "I think of the girl I was back then. And the things I
did. Can you imagine what I might have done?"
"It wouldn't have happened," Otah said. "Cehmai only answered to you so
long as the Dai-kvo told him to. If you had started draining oceans or
melting cities, he would have forbidden it."
"The Dai-kvo is dead, though. Years dead, and almost forgotten."
"What are you saying, Idaan-cha?"
She smiled, but her eyes made it sorrow.
"All the restraints we had to keep the poets from doing as they saw fit?
They're gone now. I'm saying you should remember that when you see this
list. Remember the stakes we're playing for."
The tablet was heavy in his hand, the dark wax scored with white where
she had written on it. He frowned as his finger traced down the names.
Then he stopped, and the blood left his face. He understood what Idaan
had been saying. She was telling him to be ruthless, to be cold. She
meant to steel him against the pain of what he might have to sacrifice.
"My daughter's name is on this list," he said, keeping his voice low and
matter-of-fact.
His sister replied with silence.
12
"There," Vanjit said, her finger pointing up into a featureless blue
sky. "Right there."
On her hip, the andat squirmed and waved its tiny hands. She shifted her
weight, drawing the small body closer to her own, her outstretched
finger still indicating nothing.
"I don't see it," Maati said.
Vanjit smiled, her attention focusing on the babe. Clarity-of-Sight
mewled, shook its head weakly, and then stilled. Vanjit's lips pressed
thin, and the sky above Maati seemed to sharpen. Even where there was
nothing to see, the blue itself seemed legible. And then he caught sight
of it. Little more than a dot at first, and then a moment later, he made
out the shape of the outstretched wings. A hawk, soaring high above the
ground. Its beak was hooked and sharp as a knife. Its feathers, brown
and gold, trembled in the high air. A smear of old blood darkened its
talons. There were mites in its feathers.
Maati closed his eyes and looked away, shaken by vertigo.
"Gods!" he said. He heard Vanjit's delighted chuckle.
The spirit of elation filled the stone halls, the ruined gardens, the
spare meadows. All the days since the binding, it had felt to Maati as
if the world itself had taken a deep breath and then laughed aloud.
Whenever the chores and classes had allowed it, the girls had crowded
around Vanjit and Clarity-of-Sight, and himself along with them.
The andat itself was beautiful and fascinating. Its form was identical
to a true human child, but small things in its behavior showed Vanjit's