"You were gone for so long," Liat said. "There were days I wondered if you were coming back."
"Here I am."
"Yes," she said. "Here you are. What was it like? Tell me everything."
And so he told her about the ship and the feeling of wood swaying underfoot, the creaking of rope and the constant noise of water. He told her about the courier with his jokes and stories of travelling, and the way Orai had known at once that he'd left a woman behind. About Yalakeht with its tall gray buildings and the thin lanes with iron gates at the mouth that could lock whole streets up for the night like a single apartment.
And he could have gone on—the road to the Dai-kvo's village, the mountain, the town of only men, the Dai-kvo himself, the odd half-offer to take him back. He might even have gone as far as Seedless' threats, and the realization he was still struggling with—that Itani Noyga would be exposed as the son of the Khai Machi. That if Seedless lived, Itani Noyga would have to die. But Liat's breath was heavy, deep, and regular. When he lifted himself over her, she murmured something and curled herself deeper into the bedding. Otah pulled on his robes. The night candle was past the three-quarter mark, the darkness moving closer and closer to dawn. For the first time, he noticed the fatigue in his limbs. He would need to find someplace to sleep. A room, perhaps, or one of the sailor's bunks down by the seafront where he'd be sharing a brazier with nine men who'd drunk themselves asleep the night before.
In the buttery light of the common room, the conversation was still going on, but to his surprise, the focus had shifted. Maj, an observer before like himself, was seated across from Amat Kyaan, stabbing at the tabletop with a finger and letting loose a long string of syllables with no clear break between them. Her face was flushed, and he could hear the anger in her voice without knowing the words. Anger and wine. Amat looked up at he descended the stairs. She looked older than usual.
Maj followed the old woman's gaze, glanced up at the closed door behind him, and said something else. Amat replied in the same language, her voice calm but not placating. Maj stood, rattling the bench, and strode to Otah.
"Your woman sleeps?" Maj said.
"She's asleep. Yes."
"I have questions. Wake her," Maj said, taking a pose that made the words a command. Her breath was a drunk's. Over her shoulder, he saw Amat shake her head no. Otah took a pose of apology. The refusal seemed to break something in Maj, and tears brimmed in her eyes, streaked her cheeks.
"Weeks," she said, her tone pleading. "I am waiting for weeks, and for nothing. There is no justice here. You people you have no justice."
Mitat approached them and put her hand on the island girl's arm. Maj pulled away and went to a different door, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. As the door closed behind her, Otah took a pose of query.
"She didn't understand that the Khai Saraykeht might make his own investigation," Mitat said. "She thought he'd act immediately. When she heard that there'd be another delay . . ."
"It isn't entirely her fault," Amat said. "This can't have been easy for her, any of it." The master of guard—a huge bear of a man—coughed. The way he and Amat considered each other was enough to tell Otah this wasn't the first time the girl had been the subject of conversation. Amat continued, "It will all be finished soon enough. Or our part, at least. As long as she's here to make the case before the Khai, we'll have started the thing. If she goes home after that, she goes home."
"And if she leaves before that?" Mitat asked, sitting on the table.
"She won't," Amat said. "She's not well, and she won't leave before someone answers for her child. And Liat. She's resting?"
"Yes, Amatcha," Otah said, taking a pose of thanks. "She's asleep."
"Wilsincha will know by now that she's not going back to his house," Amat said. "She'll need to stay inside until this is over."
"Another one? And how long's that going to be, grandmother?" Torish Wite asked.
Amat rested her head in her hands. She seemed smaller than she had been, diminished by fatigue and years, but not broken. Weary to her bones perhaps, but unbroken. In that moment, he found that he admired Liat's old teacher very much.
"I'll send a runner in the morning," she said. "This time of year, it might take a week before we get an audience."
"But we aren't ready!" Mitat said. "We don't even know where the first girl was kept or where she's gone. We won't have time to find her!"
"We have all the pieces," Amat said. "And what we don't have, the utkhaiem will find when the Khai looks into it. It isn't all I'd hoped, but it will do. It will have to."