as if she was half in dream.
Afterwards, she lay nestled in his arms, warm, safe, and calm as she had never been in years. Sunlight pressed at the closed shutters as she drifted down to sleep.
The tunnels beneath Machi were a city unto themselves. Otah found himself drawn out into them more and more often as the days crept forward. Sinja and Amiit had tried to keep him from leaving the storehouse beneath the underground palaces of the Sava, but Otah had overruled them. The risk of a few quiet hours walking abandoned corridors was less, he judged, than the risk of going quietly mad waiting in the same sunless room day after day. Sinja had convinced him to take an armsman as guard when he went.
Otah had expected the darkness and the quiet-wide halls empty, water troughs dry-hut the beauty he stumbled on took him by stirprise. Here a wide square of stone smooth as beach sand, delicate pillars spiraling tip from it like bolts of twisting silk made from stone. And down another corridor, a bathhouse left dry for the winter but rich with the scent of cedar and pine resin.
Even when lie returned to the storehouse and the voices and faces he knew, lie found his mind lingering in the dark corridors and galleries, unsure whether the images of the spaces lit with the white shadowless light of a thousand candles were imagination or memory.
A sharp rapping brought him back to himself, and the door of his private office swung open. Amiit and Sinja walked in, already half into a conversation. Sinja's expression was mildly annoyed. Amiit, Otah thought, seemed worried.
"It would only make things worse," Amiit said.
"We'd earn more time. And it isn't as if they'd accuse Otah-cha here of it. They think he's dead."
"'T'hen they'll accuse him of it once they find he's alive," Amiit said and turned to Otah. "Sinja wants to assassinate the head of a high family in order to slow the work of the council."
"We won't do that," Otah said. "My hands aren't particularly bloodied yet, and I'd like to keep it that way-"
"It isn't as though people are going to believe it," Sinja said. "If you're going to carry the blame you may as well get the advantages from doing the thing."
"It'll be easier to convince them of my innocence later if I'm actually innocent of something," Otah said, "hut there may be other roads that come to the same place. Is there something else that would slow the council and doesn't involve putting holes in someone?"
Sinja frowned, his eyes shifting as if he were reading text written in the air. He half-smiled.
"Perhaps. Let me look into that."
With a pose that ended his conversation, Sinja left. Amiit sighed and lowered himself into one of the chairs.
"What news?" Amiit asked.
"Kamau and Vaunani are talking about merging their forces," Otah said. "Most of the talks seem to involve someone hitting someone or throwing a knife. The Loiya, Bentani, and (:oirah have all been quietly, and so far as I can tell, independently, backing the Vaunyogi."
"And they all have contracts with Galt," Amiit said. "What about the others?"
"Of the families we know? None have come out against them. And none for, or at least not openly."
"There should be more fighting," Amiit said. "There should be struggles and coalitions. Alliances should be forming and breaking by the moment. It's too steady."
"Only if there was a real struggle going on. If the decision was already made, it would look exactly like this."
"Yes. There are times I hate being right. Any word from the poet?"
Otah shook his head and sat, then stood again. Maati had gone from their first meeting, and he'd seemed convinced. Otah had been sure at the time that he wouldn't betray them. He was sure in his bones. He only wished he'd had his thoughts more in order at the time. He'd been swept up in the moment, more concerned with his lies about Liat's son than anything else. He'd had time since to reflect, and the other worries had swarmed out. Otah had sat up until the night candle was at its halfway mark, listing the things he needed to consider. It hadn't lent him peace.
"It's hard, waiting," Amiit said. "You must feel like you're back up in that tower."
"That was easier. Then at least I knew what was going to happen. I wish I could go out. If I could be up there listening to the people themselves ... If