The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(77)

"There are," Danat said, and his voice pulled Otah back.

Otah shifted to sit at his son's side. Something in his left knee clicked, but there was no particular pain, so he ignored it. Danat laced his fingers.

"You're angry that I've come?" Otah said.

"No," Danat said. "It's not ... not that, quite. But I hadn't thought that you would be here, or that we'd be going west. I made arrangements with my own plan set, and you've changed it."

"I can apologize. But this is the right thing. I can't swear that Pathai is-

"That's not what I'm trying ... Gods," Danat said. He turned to his father, his eyes catching the kiln light and flashing with it. "Come on. You might as well know."

Danat shifted, rose, and walked across the wide, wooden back of the steamcart. The shed's door was shut fast. As Otah pulled himself up, grunting, Danat worked a thick iron latch. The armsmen's singing faltered. Otah was aware of eyes fixed upon them, though he couldn't see the men as more than silhouettes.

Otah made his way to the shed's open door. Inside was pure darkness. Danat stood, latch in his hand, silent. Otah was about to speak when another voice came from the black.

"Danat?" Ana Dasin asked. "Is it you?"

"It is," Danat said. "And my father."

Gray-eyed, the Galtic girl emerged from the darkness. She wore a blouse of simple cotton, a skirt like a peasant worker's. Her hands moved before her, testing the air until they found the wood frame of the shed's door. Otah must have made a sound, because she turned as if to look at him, her gaze going past him and into nothing. He almost took a pose of formal greeting but stopped himself.

"Ana-cha," he said.

"Most High," she replied, her chin high, her brows raised.

"I didn't expect to see you here," he said.

"I went to her as soon as I heard what had happened," Danat said. "I swore it was nothing that we'd done. We hadn't been trying to recapture the andat. She didn't believe me. When I decided to go, I asked her to come. As a witness. We've left word for Farrer-cha. Even if he disapproves, it doesn't seem he'd be able to do much about it before we returned."

"You know this is madness," Otah said softly.

Ana Dasin frowned, hard lines marking her face. But then she nodded.

"It makes very little difference whether I die in the city or on the road," she said. "If this isn't treachery on the part of the Khaiem, then I don't see that I have anything to fear."

"We are on an improvised campaign against powers we cannot match. I can name half-a-dozen things to fear without stopping to think," Otah said. He sighed, and the Galtic girl's expression hardened. Otah went on, letting a hint of bleak amusement into his voice. "But I suppose if you've come, you've come. Welcome to our hunt, Ana-cha."

He nodded to his son and stepped back. Her voice recalled him.

"Most High," she said. "I want to believe Danat. I want to think that he had nothing to do with this."

"He didn't," Otah said. The girl weighed his words, and then seemed to accept them.

"And you?" she said. "Was any of this yours?"

Otah smiled. The girl couldn't see him, but Danat did.

"Only my inattention," Otah said. "It's a failure I've come to correct."

"So the andat can blind you as easily as he has us," Ana said, stepping out of the shed and onto the steamcart. "You aren't protected any more than I am."

"That's true," Otah said.

Ana went silent, then smiled. In the dim light of the fire, he could see her mother in the shape of her cheek.

"And yet you take our side rather than ally with the poets," she said. "So which of us is mad?"

The snow fell and stayed, as deep as Maati's three fingers together. The winds of autumn whistled through the high, narrow windows that had never known glass. The women-Eiah, Irit, and the two Kaeswere in a small room, clustered around a brazier and talking with hushed fervor about grammar and form, the distinctions between age and wounds and madness. Vanjit, wrapped in thick woolen robes and a cloak of waxed silk, was sitting on a high wall, her gaze to the east. She sang lullabies to Clarity-of-Sight, and her voice would have been beautiful if she'd been cradling a real babe. Maati considered interrupting her or else returning to the work with the others, but both options were worse than remaining alone. He turned away from the great bronze door and retreated into the darkness.

It would be only weeks until winter was upon them. Not the killing storms of the north, but enough that even the short journey to Pathai would become difficult. He tried to imagine the long nights and cold that waited for him, for all of them, and he wondered how they would manage it.

A darkness had taken Eiah since her return. He saw it in her eyes and heard the rasp of it in her voice, but there was no lethargy about it. She was awake before him every morning and took to her bed long after sunset. Her attention was bent to the work of her binding, and her ferocity seemed to pull the others in her wake. Only Vanjit held herself apart, attending only some of Eiah's discussions. It was as if there were a set amount of attention, and as Eiah bore down, Vanjit floated up like a kite. Maati, caught between the pair, only felt tired and sick and old.