The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(45)

Otah left with the uncomfortable impression that his sister pitied him. He made his way back to his apartments, ate half of the meal the servants brought him, and refused the singers and musicians whose only function in the world was to wait upon his whim. Instead, he took a chair out to his balcony and sat in the starlight, looking south to the sea.

Thin clouds streaked the high air, and the ocean was a vast darkness. The city that spilled down the hills before him glittered brighter than the stars; torches and lanterns, candles and firekeepers' kilns. The breeze smelled of smoke and salt and the lush flowers of early autumn. He closed his eyes.

He could feel the palaces behind him, looming like a weight he'd shifted off his back for a moment and would need to shoulder again. His mind ran free without him, bouncing from one crisis to another without ever pausing long enough to make sense of any one of them. And, intruding upon all of it, he found himself replaying his conversation with Idaan, searching for the cutting replies that hadn't occurred to him at the time.

Who was she to pity him? She'd made a low-town judge of herself, and now a farmer. It was an improvement from traitor and murderer, but it didn't give her moral authority over him. And to instruct him on the nature of his feelings about Maati and Cehmai was ridiculous. She hardly knew him. Coming to court in the first place had been a kind of madness on her part. He could have had her killed outright rather than sit like a dog while she heaped her abuse on him.

She thought he'd broken the world, did she? Well, what about the old way had been worth saving? It hadn't brought justice. The peace it offered had been purchased at the cost of lives of misery and struggle. And from that first moment, more than forty summers earlier, when the Daikvo had told him that they could not offer Saraykeht a replacement should Seedless slip its leash, Otah had known it was doomed.

The genius of the Galts-of all the rest of the world, for that-was that they had built their power on ideas that could grow one on another. A better forge led to better metalwork led to stronger tools and so on to the end of their abilities. By contrast, the Empire, the Second Empire, the cities of the Khaiem: all of them had wielded unthinkable power and fashioned wonders. And when the first poet had bound the first andat, anything had been possible. Anything a mind could fathom could be harnessed; anything that could be thought could be done.

But when the first andat had escaped and been harder to recapture, that potential had dropped a degree. Once a binding failed, each one that followed had to be different, and there were only so many ways to describe a thing fully enough to hold it as a slave. It was the central truth of the long, slow, dwindling of power that had brought them all here.

It was like a man's life. For a time in his youth, Otah had been capable of anything. His body had been strong, his judgment so certain he'd been willing to kill a man. And every day and every decision had narrowed him. Every year had weakened his back and his knees, eaten at his sight and wrinkled his skin. Time had taken Kiyan from him. His judgment had lost him his daughter.

He could have done anything, and he had chosen this. Or had it chosen for him.

And he wasn't yet dead, so there were other choices still to be made. Other days and years to live through. Other duties and failures and disappointments he would be responsible for not making right. His anger with Idaan was perfectly comprehensible. He was enraged by her because she had seen to the heart of something he hadn't wanted to understand.

He tried to imagine Kiyan sitting on the stone rail, smiling down at him the way she had. It was very, very easy.

111'hat should I dot he asked the ghost his mind had conjured.

You can do anything, love, she said, it's just that you can't do everything.

Otah, Emperor of the Khaiem, wept, and he couldn't say how much was from sorrow and how much from relief.

In the morning, he had the Master of Tides clear his schedule. He met with Balasar and Sinja first. The meeting room was blond stone, ornately carved. Otah had heard that the carvings illustrated some ancient epic, but he'd never bothered to consider it. They were only figures in stone, unmoving and incapable of change. Unlike the men.

Balasar and Sinja sat across from each other, their spines straight and their expressions polite. They were divided by blood and broken faith. Otah poured the tea himself.

"I am placing you in joint control of the fleets and what armsmen we have," Otah said. "Between the two of you, you will protect Chaburi-Tan from the raiders and bring the mercenary forces into compliance with their contracts. I've written an edict that officially grants you my unrestricted permissions."

"Most High," Balasar said. His voice was careful and precise. "Forgive me, but is this wise? I am not one of your countrymen."

"Of course you are," Otah said. "Once Danat and Ana marry, we will be a united empire. Are you refusing the command?"

Sinja replied in the general's place.

"We're an odd pairing, Most High," he said. "It might be better if-"

"You've been my right hand for decades. You know our resources and our strengths. You're known and you're trusted," Otah said. "Balasar- cha's the best commander in Galt. You're both grown men."

"What exactly do you want from us?" Balasar asked.

"I want you to take this problem from me and fix it," Otah said. "I'm only one man, and I'm tired and overcommitted. Besides which, I'm a third-rate war leader, as I think we are all aware."