They had made a small common room from what had once been the teachers' cells, and Irit and Large Kae were sitting at the window that Maati remembered looking out when he had been a child called before Tahi-kvo. Bald, mean-spirited Tahi-kvo, who would not have recognized the world as it had become; women studying the andat in his own rooms, the poets almost vanished from the world, Galts on the way to becoming the nobles of this new, rattling, sad, stumble-footed Empire. Nothing was the same as it had been. Everything was different.
Vanjit, sitting with her legs crossed by the fire grate, smiled up at him. Maati took a pose of greeting and lowered himself carefully to her side. Irit and Large Kae both glanced at him, their eyes rich with curiosity and perhaps even envy, but they kept to their window and their conversation. Vanjit held out her bowl of cooked wheat and raisins, but Maati took a pose that both thanked and refused, then changed his mind and scooped two fingers into his mouth. The grain was rich and salted, sweetened with fruit and honey both. Vanjit smiled at him; the expression failed to reach her eyes.
"I looked over your work. Yours and Eiahcha's," he said. "It's interesting."
Vanjit looked down, setting the bowl on the stone floor at her side. After a moment's hesitation, her hands took a pose that invited his judgment.
"I . . ." Maati began, then coughed, looked out past Large Kae and Irit to the bright and featureless blue of the western sky. "I don't want to hurry this. And I would rather not see any more of you pay the price of falling short."
Her mouth tightened, and her eyebrows rose as if she were asking a question. She said nothing.
"You're sure you want this?" he asked. "You have seen all the women we've lost. You know the dangers."
"I want this, Maati-kvo. I want to try this. And ... and I don't know how much longer I can wait," she said. Her gaze rose to meet his. "It's time for me. I have to try soon, or I think I never will."
"If you have doubts about-"
"Not doubts. Only a little despair now and then. You can take that from me. If you let me try." Maati started to speak, but the girl went on, raising her voice and speaking faster, as if she feared what he would say next. "I've seen death. I won't say I'm not afraid of it, but I'm not so taken by the fear that I can't risk anything. If it's called for."
"I didn't think you were," he said.
"And I helped bury Umnit. I know what the price can look like. But I buried my mother and my brother and his daughter too, and they didn't die for a reason. They were only on the streets when Udun fell," she said, and shrugged. "We all die sometime, Maati-kvo. Risking it sooner and for a reason is better than being safe and meaningless. Isn't it?"
Brave girl. She was such a brave girl. To have lost so much, so young, and still be strong enough to risk the binding. Maati felt tears in his eyes and forced himself to smile.
"We chose it for you. Clarityof-Sight," she said. "I saw how hard it is for you to read some days, and Eiah and I thought ... if we could help ..."
Maati laid his hand on hers, his heart aching with something equally joy and fear. Vanjit was weeping a bit as well now. He heard voices coming down the hallway-Eiah and Ashti Beg-but Irit and Large Kae were silent. He was certain they were watching them. He didn't care.
"We'll be careful," he said. "We'll make it work."
Her smile outshone the sun. Maati nodded; yes, they would attempt the binding. Yes, Vanjit would be the first woman in history to hold an andat or else the next of his students to die.
Chapter 7
"No, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl's got more spine than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from her," Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and proud. And when he said the rest of its, Otah was clear that he meant the Galts. The courts of the Khaiem, the cities and people of Otah's empire were not part of Farrer Dasin's us; they were still apart and the enemy.
Six members of the High Council sat at the wide marble table along with Balasar Gice and Issandra Dasin. Otah, Danat, and representatives of four of the highest families of the utkhaiem sat across from them. Otah wished he'd been able to scatter each side among the other instead of dividing the table like a battlefield. Or else keep the group smaller. If it had been only himself, Farrer, and Issandra, there might have been a chance.
Ana, the girl who had taken a stick to this political beehive, was not present, nor was she welcome.
"There are agreements in place," Balasar said. "We can't unmake them on a whim."
"Yes, Dasin-cha. Contracts have been signed," one of the utkhaiem said. "Is it Galt's intention that any contract can be invalidated if the signer's daughter objects?"