Daniel Abraham - THE

"The other matter?"

"Being addressed," Otah said.

Four of the members of Idaan's list had been quietly looked into, the

irregularities of their behavior clarified. One had been hiding

half-a-dozen mistresses from a wife with a notoriously short temper. Two

others had been conspiring to undercut the glass trades in the north,

setting up workshops nearer the alum mines of Eddensea. The fourth had

also appeared on Ashua Radaani's list, and had no clear connection to Maati.

Sinja had made it perfectly clear that he thought examining Eiah's

actions was the wisest course. If she was Maati's backer, better to find

it quickly and put a stop to the whole affair. If she wasn't, best to

know that and stop losing sleep. There was a cold logic to his argument,

and Otah knew what his own reluctance meant. His daughter had turned to

her Uncle Maati. Turned against her father. And the pain of that loss

was almost more than he could bear.

"Well," Sinja said. "I suppose I'd better go before the sailors all get

too drunk to know sunrise from sunset and land us all in Eymond. If I

don't come back, make sure they put up statues of me."

"You'll come back," Otah said.

"You only say that because I always have before," Sinja replied,

smiling. He sobered. "See that Balasar comes quickly, though. These

ships will make a grand spectacle, but it would be a short fight."

"I'll see to it," Otah said.

Sinja rose and took a pose of leave-taking. It might be the last time

Otah ever saw the man. It was a fact he'd known, but something in the

set of Sinja's body or the studied blankness of his face drove the point

home. For the space of a breath, Otah felt the loss as if the worst had

already happened.

"I would have been lost without you, these last years," Otah said. "You

know that."

"I know you think it," Sinja said, matching Otah's quiet tone. "Take

care, Most High. Do what needs doing."

Sitting now on his dais, watching the ships recede and vanish, Otah

thought the phrase had been intended as last words. Do what needs doing.

Meaning, more specifically, find Eiah. The sun rose from its morning

home in the east; the seafront surged with a hundred languages, creoles,

pidgins. Where the armsmen of the palace ended, merchants set up their

tall, thin stalls and proclaimed their wares. When Otah took his leave,

they would do the same in the space he now inhabited. Returning to the

palaces would be like taking his finger out of water. It wouldn't leave

a hole. He wondered, sometimes, if the whole world wasn't the same.

Back at the palaces, Otah suffered through the ritual change of robes,

the closing ceremony that followed seeing off the fleet. He dearly hoped

that when Balasar's reinforcements departed, he could avoid repeating

the entire pointless exercise. He hoped, but doubted it. Once the last

cymbal had chimed, the last priest intoned the final passage, and Otah

had done his duty as Emperor, he went back to his rooms. Danat and

Issandra were waiting there.

Otah greeted them both with a single pose appropriate to near family. If

it was still an optimism, the Galtic woman didn't comment on it. She put

down a bowl of tea she'd been drinking from, and Danat rose to his feet.

"Thank you for joining me," Otah said. "I wanted to know the ... the

status of your work."

The pair exchanged glances. Issandra spoke.

"In one respect, I think you could say we're doing quite well. Ana's

request that her father add himself to your naval adventure has caused

something of a strain between her and Hanchat. He seems to think she's

being disloyal to Galt in general and therefore him in particular."

"I can understand that," Otah said, lowering himself to a cushion. "The

gods all know she surprised me with it."

"The problem is that she feels she's cleared all accounts by the

gesture," Issandra said. "Any sense of obligation she might have felt

toward Danat-cha from her misbehavior or his clemency toward Hanchat is

done."

"I see," Otah said.

"There's something else," Danat said. "I think Shija-cha has . .

"The imitation lover has developed ambitions," Issandra said.

"Apparently you've entrusted her uncle with some particularly delicate

task?"

Shija Radaani. Ashua's niece.

"I have," Otah said.

"She's taken that fact and the request that she act as Danat's escort,

and drawn the most remarkable conclusion," Issandra said. "She thinks

that Danat-cha is in love with her, and intends to sabotage his

connection to Ana on her behalf."

"It's not only that," Danat said. "This is my fault. I ... I lost my

perspective. It was ..

"You bedded her," Otah said.

Danat's blush could have lit houses. It was as Otah had feared. Issandra

sighed.

"This Radaani woman," she said. "Can you safely offend her family?"

"At the moment, it would be awkward," Otah said.

"Then I can't see that the girl is that far wrong," Issandra said.

"Danat has sabotaged things."

"I'm very sorry," he said. "It wasn't ... gods."

Danat sat again, his head in his hands.

"What is Ana's opinion of the matter of Shija and Danat?" Otah asked.

"I don't know," Issandra said. Her voice went softer, sorrow creeping in

at the seams. "I believe she's avoiding me."

Otah pressed his fingers against his eyelids until colors swam in the

darkness. No one spoke, and the silence pressed on his shoulder like a hand.

"Well," he said at last, "how do the two of you intend to move forward

from here?"

"She wants to put them together," Danat said. His voice was equal parts

plea and outrage. "She wants Shija and Ana to be seated beside each

other at every dance, every meal ..."

"You can't envy what you don't see," Issandra said. "It's more difficult

if this other girl can't be easily removed, but if Ana's run with her

present lover is nearing an end, and Shija makes it clear that she

considers Ana a threat ..."

Danat yelped and began to spout objections, Issandra pressing on against

him. Otah kept his eyes closed, the paired voices draining each other of

meaning. Instead he imagined the girl to be before him as she had been

the night she came to speak with him. Half-drunk. Too proud to be ruled

by pride.

He took a pose that commanded silence. Danat's words ended at once.

Issandra's took a moment longer to trail off.

"Between the two of you, you'll have to devise something," he said. "I

don't have the time or the resources to fix this for you. But consider

that you might be treating Ana with less respect than she deserves.

Danat-cha, do you intend to build a life with Shija Radaani?"

Danat sobered. He took no pose, spoke no word. Otah nodded.

"Then it would be disrespectful to behave as if you did," Otah said. "Be

honest with her, and if it damages relations with House Radaani, then it

does."

"Yes, Father," Danat said, hesitated, and then took a pose that asked

forgiveness before walking from the room.

Otah's spine ached. His eyes felt gritty with the efforts of the day. It

was all far from over.

"Issandra-cha," he said. "I don't know Ana well, but I lost my own

daughter by treating her as the girl I remembered instead of the woman

she'd become. Don't repeat my mistake. Ana may not be subject to the

manipulations that work on younger girls."

Issandra Dasin's face hardened. For a moment, Otah saw the resemblance

between mother and daughter. She took a pose of acknowledgment. It was