The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(33)

His voice was thick with distress. A gust of stronger wind came, rattling the shutters in their frames. Otah slid the wood closed, and the meeting room dimmed, gold tiles turning bronze, blue tiles black.

"It will be fine," Otah said. "At worst, there are other councillors with other daughters. It won't be a pleasant transition, but-"

"A different girl won't fix this. At best we'd find a girl less willing to struggle. At worst, we'd find someone who hated me just as much, but better versed in deceit."

Otah took his seat again. He could feel his brow furrow. If he hadn't been so tired to begin with, it wouldn't have taken him as long to think through Danat's words.

"Are you . . ." Otah said, then stopped and began again. "You're saying you won't have Ana?"

"I thought I could. I would have, if she hadn't done what she did. But I've spent all night looking at it, and I don't see a way."

"I do. I see it perfectly clearly. High families have been arranging marriages for as long as there have been high families. It binds them together. It shows trust."

"You didn't. You were Khai Machi. You could have had dozens of wives, but you didn't. Even after the fever took Mother, you didn't. You could have," Danat said. And then, "You could now. You could make one of these girls your wife. Marry Ana-cha."

"You know quite well that I couldn't. A man of my years bedding a girl? They wouldn't see a marriage so much as a debauch."

"Yes," Danat said. "And putting me in your place would only change how it looked, not what it was. I'll do whatever I can to help. You know that. I could marry a stranger and make the best of it. But I won't father a child on an unwilling girl."

"Don't be an idiot," Otah said, and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing. His son's smile was a mask now, cold and bright and hard as stone. Otah raised his hands in a pose that took the words back, but Danat ignored it.

"I won't do something I know in my bones is wrong," Danat said. "If it's the only way to save us, then we aren't worth saving."

Otah watched the boy leave. There were a thousand arguments to make, a thousand ways to rephrase the issue, to make something different of these same circumstances. None of them would matter. He let his head sink to his hands.

There had been a time when Otah had been young and the world had been, if not simple, at least certain. Decades and experience had made him sure that his sense of right and wrong were not the only ones. Before he'd had that beaten out of him by the gods, he might well have taken the same stand Danat had just now. Do what he believed to be right and endure the consequences, no matter how terrible.

If only his children were less like him.

There had to be a way. The whole half-dead mess of it had to be salvageable. He had only to see how.

Voices and argument filled the halls as he made his way through the palaces. Columns wrapped in celebratory cloth mocked him. Uncertain, falsely bright gazes met his own and were ignored. The thick air of the summer cities left sweat running down Otah's spine and the sense of a damp cloth pressed against his face. There was a way to salvage this. He had only to find it.

Letters and requests for audiences waited for him, stacks of paper as long as his forearm. He ignored them for now and sent his servants scurrying for fresh paper and chilled tea. He sat at his desk, the pen's bright bronze nib in the air just above the brick of ink, and gave himself a moment before he began.

Kiyan-kya-

Well, love, it's all gone as well as a wicker fish boat. Ana won't have Danat. Danat won't have Ana. I find myself host to the worst gathering in history not actually struck by plague. I think the only thing I've done well was that I didn't wrestle our son to the ground when he walked away from me. I feel like everyone is wrapped up in what happened before, and I'm alone in fearing what will come after. We won't survive, love. The Khaiem and the Galts both are sinking, and we're so short-sighted and mean of spirit we're willing to die if it means the other bastard goes down too.

I don't mean Ana or Danat. They're only young and brave and stupid the way young, brave people are. I mean herfather. FarrerDasin is happy to see this fail. I imagine there are a ./air number in my court who feel the same way.

There are too sides to this, love. But they aren't the two sides we think of-not the Khaiem and the Galts. It's the people in love with the past and the ones who./car./or the future. And, though the gods alone know how I'm going to do it, I have to win Danat and Ana over from the one camp to the other.

Otah paused, something shifting in the back of his mind. It felt the way it had when Kiyan was alive and speaking to him from the next room, her voice too low to make out the words. He put down the pen and closed his eyes.

Win Ana over. He had to win Ana over.

"Oh," he said.

"ISSANDRA-CHA. THANK YOU FOR COMING. YOU KNOW MY SON, I THINK," OTAH said.

The sun touched the hills to the west of Saraykeht. Ruddy air rich with the scent of evening roses came through the unshuttered windows. A small meal of cheese and dried apple and plum wine waited for their pleasure on a low lacquered table. Issandra Dasin rose from her divan to greet Danat as he came forward.

"Issandra-cha," Danat said and returned her welcome.

"Danat needs your help," Otah said. Danat glanced over at him, surprise in his gaze. "You see, your daughter has convinced him that it would be wrong to marry an unwilling woman. I can argue it to be the lesser evil, but if we two work together, I think the issue might be avoided altogether."