". . . but, Wilsin-kya, don't make the mistake again of thinking that you or your people matter to me. Our paths have split. Do you understand me?"
"You can't," Wilsin said. "We've been in this together from the start—you and the Council both. Haven't we done everything that you asked?"
"Yes. I suppose you have."
"You owe us something," Wilsin said, ashamed at the desperation he heard in his own voice.
The andat considered this, then slowly stood and took a pose of thanks that carried nuances of both dismissal and mockery.
"Then take my thanks," the andat said. "Wilsincha, you have been insincere, selfish, and short-sighted as a flea, but you were the perfect tool for the work, and for that, I thank you. Hurt Maati again, and your nation dies. Interfere with my plans, and I'll tell Amat Kyaan the full story and save her her troubles. This game's moved past you, little man. It's too big. Stay out if it."
THE DREAM, if it was a dream, was painful and disjointed. Liat thought she heard someone crying, and thought it must be from the pain. But the pain was hers, and the weeping wasn't, so that could hardly be. She found herself in a rainstorm outside the temple, all the doors locked against her. She called and called, but no one opened the doors, and the patter of rain turned to the clicking of hail and the hailstones grew and grew until they were the size of a baby's fist, and all she could do was curl tight and let the ice strike her neck and the back of her head.
She woke—if the slow swimming up to lucidity was truly waking—with her head throbbing in pain. She lay on an unfamiliar bed—worked wood and brass—in a lavish room. A breeze came though the opened shutters and stirred the fine silk netting with the scent of rain. The rough cough and the clearing of a throat made her turn too quickly, and pain shot from her neck to her belly. She closed her eyes, overcome by it, and opened them to find the poet Heshai at the bedside in a pose of apology.
"I didn't see you were awake," he said, his wide mouth in a sheepish smile. "I'd have warned you I was here. You're in the Second Palace. I'd have taken you to the poet's house, but the physicians are nearer."
Liat tried to take a pose of casual forgiveness, but found that her right arm was strapped. She tried for the first time to understand where she was and how she'd come there. There had been something—a teahouse and Maati, and then . . . something. She pressed her left palm to her eyes, willing the pain to stop and give her room to think. She heard the rustle of cloth pulled aside, and the mattress dipped to her left where the poet sat beside her.
"Maati?" she asked.
"Fine," the poet said. "You took the worst of it. He had his brain rattled around a bit for him, and a shard cut his scalp above the ear. The physician says it's not such a bad thing for a boy to bleed a little when he's young, though."
"What happened?"
"Gods. Of course. You wouldn't know. Loose tiles, two of them. The utkhaiem are fining the owner of the compound for not keeping his roof better repaired. Your shoulder and arm—no, don't move them. They're strapped like that for good cause. The first tile broke some bones rather badly. Once they found who Maati was, they brought you both to the Khai's palaces. The Khai's own physicians have been watching over you for the last three days. I asked for them myself."
Her mind seemed foggy. Simple as his explanation was, the details of the poet's words swam close, darted away. She took hold of one.
"Three days?" Liat asked. "I've been asleep for three days?"
"Not so much asleep," the poet admitted. "We've been giving you poppy milk for the pain. Maati's been here most of the time. I sent him off to rest this morning. I promised him I'd watch over you while he was gone. I have some tea, if you'd like it?"
Liat began to take a pose of thanks and the pain sang in her neck and shoulder. She paled and nodded. The poet stood slowly, trying, she could tell, not to jostle her. He was back in a moment, helping her to sip from a bowl of lemon tea, sweet with honey. Her stomach twisted at the intrusion, but her mouth and throat felt like the desert in a rainstorm. When he pulled the bowl back and helped her ease back down, Liat saw an odd expression on the poet's face—tenderness, she thought. She had always thought of Heshai as an ugly man, but in that light, at that moment, the wide lips and thinning hair seemed to transcend normal ideas of beauty. He looked strong and gentle. His movements were protective as a mother's and as fierce. Liat wondered why she'd never seen it before.
"I should thank you, in a way," he said. "You've given me a chance to give back part of what Maati's done for me. Not that we talk of it in those terms, of course."