streets as if a cloud had shattered and fallen to earth. Cithrin sat in an open garden with a lantern behind her, sluggish moths beating at the glass with thick, furry bodies. She had contracts and ledgers spread before her in the buttery light. The wide carved timbers above her gathered the shadows in close, cradling them. The history of the Medean bank in Suddapal seemed less important now than its future.
The trade of Elassae relied on the traffic of metalwork from the north, textiles and cloth from the Free Cities, and spice and gold from Lyoneia. The mines and forges of Sarakal might fall under the control of the Severed Throne, but the trade would remain. Or she thought it would.
Or the armies of Antea might burn them all, as they had Vanai. Surely Magistra Isadau was selling letters of credit to the nervous and wealthy, transferring the gold and jewels of Elassae into paper that could go west, to the safer ports, father from Antean blades. There would be a way to move that wealth away from Suddapal before the end came. Before the armies. Before it burned.
She shook herself, turned back to her books, and found she’d lost the thread of them. Her fingers were on a payment entry, and she could no more say what deposit it came from than she could will the sun to dance on the seashore. She said something vulgar and closed the books. She could sit here enjoying the moment of cool in the midsummer’s heat with her mind scattered and lost or go back to her rooms and stare sleepless at the walls. The knot in her belly didn’t permit anything else.
She snuffed out the lanterns and stacked the wax trays with her notes in a corner with a strip of red cloth that would tell the servants to leave them undisturbed. The sensual music of reed flute and sanded drum that made their hymns murmured even in the darkness of midnight. More than any other race she knew, the old men and women of the Timzinae turned away from sleep. The compound—indeed the five cities of Suddapal—only rested. They never slept. She found herself drawn toward the music and the promise of company and warmth, but it was an illusion. She didn’t know the songs. The snapping of her pale, soft fingers wouldn’t give the sharp percussion of Timzinae hands.
She wondered if Yardem was on guard duty. Or any of her little retinue from Porte Oliva. She wondered where Cary and Sandr and Hornet were tonight. She wondered what Captain Wester was doing and what would make him think that Yardem Hane would ever betray him. She wondered where Geder Palliako slept that night and if he ever thought of her. She hoped he didn’t.
In her own room, the servants had left a lamp burning low. Her window let in a spray of moonlight, the cool blue mixing with the gold of the flame. She changed into her night clothes and slipped her legs beneath the thin summer sheets, sitting with her back against the wall.
Sleep wouldn’t come. She already knew it. She could lie in the darkness and stew in her own thoughts or turn up the lamp and read through the essays and histories Magistra Isadau had assigned her along with the books of the bank. Both options sounded equally unpleasant. For an hour she only sat, listening to the fire mutter in its stove, the distant whisper of drums.
She rose sometime in the darkness well after midnight, turning up the lamp’s wick more for variety’s sake than from any real desire. The floor cooled her feet. The papers waited on her bedside table, held down against the breeze by the old dragon’s tooth. Cithrin lifted it now, running her finger idly along its serrated edge, as she considered the writing beneath without really caring what it said.
The war was coming. It was all happening again, just the way it had in Vanai. She could feel it like a storm. The blades of Antea wouldn’t be stopped. As much as she wished otherwise, she knew the violence would spill past Sarakal. Perhaps to Elassae. Or into Borja. Or turn west toward Northcoast and Birancour. It was like a fire. She might not know where the flames would jump, but wherever it landed it would burn. And Magistra Isadau knew it too, as much as she pretended doubt. Cithrin understood the impulse to pretend the danger away. She’d