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"The way Seedless wonders about you," Otah said "You should start drinking water You&039;ll be worse for it if you don&039;t"

Maati took a pose of acceptance, but didn&039;t rise or go in for water The sleepinghow it felt It was like falling backwards He was too tired He&039;d never h his shift with Muhatia-cha

"I don&039;t kno Heshai-kvo does it," Maati said, clearly thinking si I don&039;t think I&039;ll be able to do any more today than I did yesterday I mean today I don&039;t knohat I ht What about you?"

"They can do without me," Otah said "Muhatia-cha knows my indenture&039;s alnore my duties It isn&039;t unco their contract"

"And aren&039;t you?" Maati asked

"I don&039;t know"

Otah shifted his weight, turning to look at the young poet in the brown robes of his office The ht made them seem black

"I envy you," Maati said "You know that, don&039;t you?"

"You want to be directionless and unsure what you&039;ll be doing to earn food in a half-year&039;s time?"

"Yes," Maati said "Yes, I think I do You&039;ve friends You&039;ve a place You&039;ve possibilities And "

"And?"

Even in the darkness, Otah could see Maati blush He took a pose of apology as he spoke

"You have Liat," Maati said "She&039;s beautiful"

"She is lovely But there are any number of women at court And you&039;re the poet&039;s student There irls who&039;d take you for a lover"

"There are, I think Maybe I don&039;t know, butI don&039;t understand them I&039;ve never known any - not at the school, and then not with the Dai-kvo They&039;re different"

"Yes," Otah said "I suppose they are"

Liat He&039;d seen her a handful of nights since the audience before the Khai Since his discovery by Maati She was busy enough preparing the woman Maj for the sad trade that she hadn&039;t rowing in her questions and in her silence

"Things aren&039;t going so ith Liat," Otah said, surprised that he would ad himself to some blurry attention His look of concern was almost a parody of the emotion He took a pose of query Otah responded with one that begged ignorance, but let it fall away "It isn&039;t her I&039;ve beenI&039;ve been pulling away from her, I think"

"Why?" Maati asked His incredulity was clear

Otah wondered how he&039;d been drawn into this conversation Maati sees he&039;d hardly had the courage to think through fully It was having soht understand him Someone who knew him for what he was, and who had suffered some of the same flavors of loss

"I&039;ve never told Liat About who I am Do you thinkMaati, can you love someone and not trust them?"

"We&039;re born to odd lives, Otah-kvo," Maati said, sounding suddenly older and more sorrowful "If aited for people we trusted, I think weet some water from the keep, and then find so the soo"

Maati took a pose that was both regret and agreeait for the s, pulling his blood into action He tossed a single length of silver onto the bench where they&039;d sat It would more than cover their drinks and the bread and cheese they&039;d eaten When Maati returned, they struck out for the north, toward the palaces The streets of the city were ht except where a lantern burned at the entrance to a compound or a firekeeper&039;s kiln added a ruddy touch The calls of night birds, the chirping of crickets, the occasional voice of so after the day had ended accompanied them as they walked

It was all as familiar as his own cot or the scent of the seafront, but the boy at his side also changed it For almost a third of his life, Otah had been in Saraykeht He knew the shapes of its streets He knehich firekeepers could be trusted and which could be bought, which teahouses served equally to all its clientele and which saved the better goods for the higher classes And he knew his place in it He would noExcept for Maati

The boyit for the first time The city, the streets, Liat, hi that he had reatest success - the fact that he knew the city deeply and it did not know him - was harder and emptier than it had once been And odd that it hadn&039;t seemed so before

And the memories curled and shifted deep in his ht forgotten, of a time before he&039;d been sent to the school There was a face with dark hair and beard thatand bathing hih for her to lift with one arm He didn&039;t knohether she was his mother or a nurse or a sister But there had been a fire in the grate, and the tub had been worked copper, and he had been young and ahts, other half-forether in hishis so that his father wouldn&039;t see it He re - his brother, perhaps - that it wasn&039;t fair that Otah be sent away, and that he had felt guilty for causing so er He re white beard playing a dru, but not who the man was or how he had known him

He couldn&039;t say which of the memories were truth, which were dreams he&039;d constructed himself He wondered, if he were to travel back there, far in the north, whether these ghost memories would let him retrace paths he hadn&039;t walked in years - know the ways from nursery to kitchen to the tunnels beneath Machi - or if they would lead hilowering at his away, pushed away the boy who had suffered those losses and hu haunted Haunted by who he ht have been

"I think I&039;ve upset you, Otah-kvo," Maati said quietly

Otah turned, taking a questioning pose Maati&039;s brow furrowed and he looked down

"You haven&039;t spoken since we left the teahouse," Maati said "If I&039;ve given offense "

Otah laughed, and the sound seemed to reassure Maati On impulse, Otah put his arht have around a dear friend or a brother

"I&039; this to everyone around me these days No, Maati-kya, I&039;s, and I ods, but I&039;m tired"

"You could stay at the poet&039;s house if you don&039;t care to walk back to your quarters There&039;s a perfectly good couch on the lower floor"

"No," Otah said "If I don&039;t let Muhatia-cha scold e bythat also spoke of regret, and put his own ar now the same mixture of seriousness and jokes that they&039;d ating the streets, and even when the route he chose wasn&039;t the fastest, Otah let him lead He wondered, as they approached the monument of the Emperor Atami where three wide streets roith a brother

"Otah?" Maati said, his stride suddenly slowing "That lanced over Theto the east, and alone Maati was right, though It was the sa to Otah stepped away froht It wouldn&039;t have been the first time that someone from the palaces had been followed from a teahouse and assaulted for the copper they carried

"Come with me," Otah said and walked out to the ed Emperor Atami loomed above the each street, each building

"Otah-kvo?" Maati said, his voice uncertain "Was he following us?"

There was no one there, only the too-fa to the east Otah counted twenty breaths, but no one appeared No shadowsthe question "Probably I don&039;t know Let&039;s keep going And if you see anything, tell me"

The rest of the distance to the palaces, Otah kept the He would send Maati running for help and buy what time he could A fine plan unless there were several of the happened, and Maati safely wished hiht

By the time Otah reached his own quarters, the fear he&039;d felt was gone, the bone-weariness taken back over He fell onto his cot and pulled the netting closed Exhaustion pressed hi murmurs of his cohort should have lulled him to sleep But tired as he was, sleep wouldn&039;t come In the darkness, his mind turned from probleht still be tracking Maati; his indenture was almost over and he would be too weary to hen the dawn came; he had never told Liat of his past As he turned hishis thoughts and being chased by them He didn&039;t notice when he slipped into dream

LIAT LEFT Marchat Wilsin&039;s offices with her spine straight and rage brewing She walked through the co anyone&039;s gaze She closed the door behind her, fastened the shutters so that no one could happen to look in, then sat at her desk and wept

It was profoundly unfair She had done everything she could - she&039;d studied the etiquette, she&039;d taken the island girl to all the appointotiated with the poet even when he&039;d made it perfectly clear that he&039;d be as pleased to have her out of the room - and it was Itani that defeated her Itani!

She stripped off her outer robe, flinging it to the bed She wrenched open her wardrobe and looked for another, a better one One more expressive of wrath

It&039;s not entirely appropriate, Wilsin-cha still said in her ive the ie after the agreeht, she knew he&039;dher lover to try to win favor And worse, Itani - sweet, gentle, shts she&039;d spent working, i for her to complete her task with the sad trade, he&039;d been out spoiling things for her Out with the student poet He hadn&039;t thought of what it would look like, what it would imply about her

And he hadn&039;t even told her

She plucked a formal robe, red shot with black, pulled it on over her inner robes, and tied it fast She braided her hair, pulling it back severely When she was done, she lifted her chin as she iined Amat Kyaan would have and stalked out into the city

The streets were still bustling, the business day far froht or nine hands above the horizon, pressed down and the air et and stifling and still, and it reeked of the sea Itani would still be with his cohort, but she wasn&039;t going to wait and risk letting her anger mellow She would find out what Itani meant by this She&039;d have an explanation for Wilsin-cha, and she&039;d have it now, before the trade was finished Toht

At his quarters, she found that he hadn&039;t gone out with the others after all - he&039;d been out too late and pled illness when Muhatia-cha caather the the working hours assured her with obvious pleasure that Muhatia-cha had been viciously angry

So whatever it was that Itani was up to, it orth risking his indenture as well as her standing with Wilsin-cha Liat thanked the club-foot boy and asked, with a forht find Itani-cha since he was not presently in his quarters The boy shrugged and rattled off teahouses, bathhouses, and places of ease along the seafront It was nearly two full hands before Liat tracked him down at a cheap bathhouse near the river, and her temper hadn&039;t cal to rereat tiled walls echoed with conversations that quieted as she passed The men and women in the public baths considered her, but Liat onlyas Amat would have Itani had taken a private rooh, wet stone, paused, breathed deeply twice as if there was soht fortify her, and pushed her way in

Itani sat in the pool as if at a table, bent slightly forward, his eyes on the surface of the water like a ht He looked up as she slammed the door closed behind her, and his eyes spoke of weariness and preparedness Liat took a pose of query that bordered on accusation

"I meant to come look for you, love," he said

"Oh really?" she said

"Yes"

His eyes returned to the shifting surface of the water His bare shoulders hunched forward Liat stepped to the edge of the pool and stared down at hiaze up to hers He didn&039;t look

"There&039;s a conversation we need to have, love," he said "We should have done before, I suppose, but "

"What are you thinking? Itani? What are you doing? Wilsin-cha just spent half a hand very quietly tellinga fool ofwith the poet&039;s student?"

"Maati," Itani said, distantly "He&039;s na to throw, she&039;d have launched it at Itani&039;s bowed head Instead, she let out an exasperated cry and sta into focus as if he aking fro, open, warm smile

"Itani I&039;m humiliated before the whole court, and you - "

"How?"

"What?"

"Ho isto you?"

"It e after the agreements are complete," she snapped

Itani took a pose that requested clarification

"Isn&039;t thatthe contracts? I thought A over interpretations of language"

It was true, but it hadn&039;t occurred to her when Wilsin-cha had been sitting across his table fro for advantage had never stopped because a contract had been signed

"It&039;s not the same," she said "This is with the Khai You don&039;t do that with the Khai"

"I&039;m sorry, then," Itani said "I didn&039;t know But I wasn&039;t trying to change your negotiation"

"So ere you doing?"

Itani scooped up a double handful of water and poured it over his head His long, northern face took on a look of utter cal to some private decision When he spoke, his voice was almost conversational

"I knew Maati ere boys We were at the school together"

"What school?"

"The school where the courts send their disowned sons Where they choose the poets"

Liat frowned Itani looked up

"What were you doing there?" Liat asked "You were a servant? You never told me you were a servant as a child"

"I was the son of the Khai Machi The sixth son My na myself Itani after I left, so thatthe brand, so it would have been dangerous to go by aze shifted Liat didn&039;t hable And yet she wasn&039;t laughing Her anger was gone like a candle snuffed by a strong wind, and she was only fighting to take in breath It couldn&039;t be true, but it was She kneasn&039;t lying Before her and below her, Itani&039;s eyes were bri like mirth and wiped his eyes with the back of his bare hand

"I&039;ve never told anyone," he said, "until now Until you"

"You " Liat began, then had to stop, s, begin again "You&039;re the son of the Khai Machi?"

"I didn&039;t tell you at first because I didn&039;t know you And then later because I hadn&039;t before But I love you And I trust you I do And I want you to be withto me, &039;Tani?"

"No," he said "It&039;s truth You can ask Maati if you&039;d like He knows as well"

Liat&039;s throat was too tight to speak Itani rose and lifted his ar down his naked chest, fear in his eyes - fear that she would turn away from him Shein the water, were heavy as weights, but she didn&039;t care She pulled hiainst his There were tears on their cheeks, but she didn&039;t knohether they were hers or his His ar

"I knew," she said "I knew you were so about you I always knew"

He kissed her then It was unreal - like so out of an old epic story She, Liat Chokavi, was the lover of the hidden child of the Khai Machi He was hers She pulled back fro at hi him for the first time

"I didn&039;t mean to hurt you," he said

"Am I hurt?" she asked "I could fly, love I could fly"

He held her fiercely then, like a drowning ht save hi off her ruined robes and letting them sink into the bath like water plants at their ankles Skin to skin they stood, the bath cool around their hips, and Liat let her heart sing with the thought that one day, her lover ht be Khai