Daniel Abraham - THE

could have ended every man who had ever taken a woman against her will

or hurt a child. Between one breath and the next, I could have wiped

them from the world."

Eiah turned her gaze to him. In the cool moonlight, her eyes seemed lost

in shadow.

"I look at those things-all the things I might have done-and I wonder

whether I would have. And if I had, would they have been wrong?"

"And what do you believe?"

"I believe I saved myself when I set that perversion free," she said. "I

only hope the price the rest of the world pays isn't too high."

Otah stepped forward and took her in his arms. Eiah held back for a

moment, and then relaxed into the embrace. She smelled of herbs and

vinegar and blood. And mint. Her hair smelled of mint, just as her

mother's had done.

"You should go see him," she said. He knew who she meant.

"Is he well?"

"For now," she said. "He's weathered the attacks so far. But his blood's

still slowing. I expect he'll be fine until he isn't, and then he'll die."

"How long?"

"Not another year," she said.

Otah closed his eyes.

"He misses you," she said. "You know he does."

He stepped back and kissed her forehead. In the distance, someone

screamed. Eiah glanced over his shoulder with disgust.

"That will be Yaniit," she said. "I'd best go tend to him. Tall as a

tree, wide as a bear, and wails if you pinch him."

"Take care," Otah said.

His daughter walked away with the steady stride of a woman about her own

business, leaving the bare garden for him. He looked up at the moon, but

it had lost its poetry and charm. His sigh was opaque in the cold.

Maati's cell was the most beautifully appointed prison in the cities,

possibly in the world. The armsmen led Otah into a chamber with vaulted

ceilings and carved cedar along the walls. Maati sat up, waving the

servant at his side to silence. The servant closed the book she'd been

reading but kept the place with her thumb.

"You're learning Galtic tales now?" Otah asked.

"You burned my library," Maati said. "Back in Machi, or don't you recall

that? The only histories your grandchild will read are written by them."

"Or by us," Otah said. "We can still write, you know."

Maati took a pose that accepted correction, but with a dismissive air

that verged on insult. So this was how it was, Otah thought. He motioned

to the armsmen to take the prisoner and follow him, then spun on his

heel. The feeble sounds of protest behind him didn't slow his pace.

The highest towers of Utani were nothing in comparison to those in

Machi; they could be scaled by stairways and corridors and didn't re

quire a rest halfway along. Under half the height, and Otah liked them

better. They were built with humanity in mind, and not the raw boasting

power of the andat.

At the pinnacle, a small platform stood high above the world. The

tallest place in the city. Wind whipped it, as cold as a bath of ice

water. Otah motioned for Maati to be led forward. The poet's eyes were

wild, his breath short. He raised his thick chin.

"What?" Maati spat. "Decided to throw me off, have you?"

"It's almost the half-candle," Otah said and went to stand at the edge.

Maati hesitated and then stepped to his side. The city spread out below

them, the streets marked by lanterns and torches. A fire blazed in a

courtyard down near the riverfront, taller than ten men with whole trees

for logs. Otah could cover it with his thumbnail.

The chime came, a deep ringing that seemed to shake the world. And then

a thousand thousand bells rang out in answer to mark the deepest part of

the longest night of the year.

"Here," Otah said. "Watch."

Below, light spread through the city. Every window, every balcony, ever

parapet glowed with newly lit candles. Within ten breaths, the center of

the Empire went from any large city in darkness to something woven from

light, the perfect city-the idea of a city-made for a moment real. Maati

shifted. When his voice came, it was little more than a whisper.

"It's beautiful."

"Isn't it?"

A moment later, Maati said, "Thank you."

"Of course," Otah replied.

They stood there for a long time, neither speaking nor arguing,

concerned with neither future nor past. Below them, Utani glowed and

rang, marking the moment of greatest darkness and celebrating the yearly

return of the light.

EPILOG

We say that the flowers return every spring, but that is a lie.

CALIN MACHI, ELDEST SON OF THE EMPEROR REGENT, KNELT BEFORE HIS father,

his gaze downcast. The delicate tilework of the floor was polished so

brightly that he could watch Danat's face and seem to be showing respect

at the same time. Granted, Danat was reversed-wide jaw above gray

temples-and it made the nuances of expression difficult to read. It was

enough, though, for him to judge approximately how much trouble he was in.

"I've spoken to the overseer of my father's apartments. Do you know what

he told me?"

"That I'd been caught hiding in Grandfather's private garden," Calin said.

"Is that true?"

"Yes, Father. I was hiding from Aniit and Gaber. It was a part of a game.

Danat sighed, and Calin risked looking up. When his father was deeply

upset, his face turned red. He was still flesh-colored. Calin looked

back down, relieved.

"You know you're forbidden from your grandfather's apartments."

"Yes, but that was what made them a good place to hide."

"You're sixteen summers old and you're acting twelve of them. Aniit and

Gaber look to you for how to behave. It's your duty to set an example,"

Danat said, his voice stern. And then he added, "Don't do it again."

Calin rose to his feet, trying to keep his rush of joy from being

obvious. The great punishment had not fallen. He was not barred from the

steam caravan's arrival. Life was still worth living. Danat took a pose

that excused his son and motioned to his Master of Tides. Before the

woman could glide over and lead his father back into the constant

business of negotiating with the High Council, Calin left the audience

chamber, followed only by his father's shouted admonition not to run.

Aniit and Gaber were waiting outside, their eyes wide.

"It's all right," Calin said, as if his father's lenience were somehow

proof of his own cleverness. Aniit took an exaggerated pose of

congratulations. Gaber clapped her hands. She was young, though. Only

fourteen summers old and barely marriageable.

"Come on, then," Calin said. "We can pick the best places for when the

caravan comes."

The roadway had been five years in the building, a shallow canal of

smooth worked iron that began at the seafront in Saraykeht and followed

the river up to Utani. The caravan was the first of its kind, and the

common wisdom in the streets and teahouses was evenly divided between

those who thought it would arrive even earlier than expected and those

who predicted they'd find splinters of blown boilers and nothing else.

Calin dismissed the skeptics. After all, his grandmother was arriving

from her plantations in Chaburi-Tan, and she would never put herself on

the caravan if it was going to explode.

The sweet days of early spring were short and cold. Frost still sent

white fingers up the stones of the palaces in the morning and snow

lingered in the deep shadows. A hundred times Calin and his friends had

gone through the elaborate ritual of how they would greet the caravan,