The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(121)

"No, he isn't mad," Eiah said, her hands never slowing their dance across the face of the broken tablets. "He's just not equal to the task he set himself. He always meant well."

"And I'm sure the two dozen remaining Galts will feel better because of it," Idaan said acidly. And then, in a gentler voice, "It doesn't matter what story you tell yourself, you know. We've done what we've done."

"I wish you would stop that," Eiah said.

Idaan's surprise was clear on her face, and apparently in her silence as well. Eiah shook her head and went on, her tone damning and conversational.

"Every third thing you say is an oblique reference to killing my grandfather. We all know you did the thing, and we all know you regret it. None of this is anything to do with that. Papa-kya and Maati love each other and they hate each other, and it doesn't pertain either. Maati's overwhelmed by the consequences of misjudging Vanjit, and he might not be if he weren't hauling Nayiit and Sterile and Seedless along behind him."

Idaan looked like she'd been slapped. The armsmen were crowded so close, Otah could hear the low flutter of the torches burning, but the men pretended not to have heard.

"The past doesn't matter," Eiah said. "A hundred years ago or last night, it's all just as gone. I have a binding to work, and I'd like to make the attempt before Vanjit blinds Maati and walks him off something tall. I think we have something like half a hand."

They worked together in silence, three pairs of hands putting the wax into place quickly. There were still sections missing, and some parts of the tablets were shattered so thoroughly that Eiah's markings were all but lost. His daughter passed her fingertips slowly over each of the surfaces, her brow furrowed, her lips moving as if reciting something under her breath. Whether it was the binding or a prayer, Otah couldn't guess.

Idaan leaned close to Otah, her breath a warm and whispering breeze against his ear.

"She takes the tact from her mother's side, I assume?"

His tension and fear gave the words a hilarity they didn't deserve, and he fought to contain his laughter. The quay was dark around them; the torches kept his eyes from adapting to the darkness. It was as if the world had narrowed to a few feet of lichen-slicked flagstone, a single unshuttered window in the distance, and countless, endless, unnumbered stars.

"All right," Eiah said. "I can't be disturbed while I do this. If we could have the armsmen set up a guard formation? It would be in keeping with my luck to have a stray boar stumble into us at the wrong moment."

The captain didn't wait for Otah's approval. The men shifted, Idaan and Danat with them. Only Otah stayed. As if she saw him there, Eiah took a querying pose.

"You may die from this," he said.

"I'm aware of it," she said. "It doesn't matter. I have to try. And I think you have to let me."

"I do," Otah agreed. Smiling, she looked young.

"I love you too, Papa-kya."

"May I sit with you?" he asked. "I don't want to distract you, but it would be a favor."

He brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips. She took him by the sleeve of his robe and pulled him down to sit beside her. The fingers of her left hand laced with his right. For a moment, the only sounds were the gentle lapping of the river against the stone, the diminished hush of torch fire, the cooing of owls. Eiah leaned forward, her fingertips on the first tablet. Otah let go, and both of her hands caressed the wax. She began to chant.

The words were only words. He recognized a few of them, some phrases. Her voice went out on the cool night air as she moved slowly across each of the shattered tablets. When she reached the end, she went back to the beginning.

Though there were no walls or cliffs to sound against, her voice began first to resonate and then to echo.

Maati traveled through the darkness alone. The sense of unreality was profound. He had refused Otah Machi, Emperor of the Khaiem. He had refused Otah-kvo. For years, perhaps a lifetime, he had admired Otah or else despised him. Maati had broken the world twice, once in Otah's service, and now, through Vanjit, in opposition to him. But this once, Otah had been wrong, and he had been right, and Otah had acknowledged it.

How strange that such a small moment should bring him such a profound sense of peace. His body itself felt lighter, his shoulders more nearly square. To his immense surprise, he realized he had shed a burden he'd been carrying unaware for most of his life.

Maati traveled through the darkness of Udun alone, because he had chosen to.

The brown vines and bare branches stirred in a soft breeze. The flutter of wings came from all around him, from nowhere. The air was cold enough to make his breath steam, and the voice of the river was a constant hush. With each step, some new detail of his path would come clear: an axe consumed by rust, a door still hanging from rotten leather hinges, the green-glowing eyes of some small predator. Cracks appeared in the paving stones, running out before him as if his passage were corrupting the city rather than revealing the decay already there.

He and Vanjit carried a history together. They had known each other, had helped each other. She would see that it was the andat's intervention that had turned him against her. The palaces of the Khai Udun grew taller and taller without ever seeming to come close until, it seemed between one breath and the next, he stepped into a grand courtyard. Moss and lichen had almost obscured the swirling design of white and red and gold stones. Maati paused, his lantern held over his head.