Seasons of War by Daniel Abraham Page B

aati,’ Liat said, and the man startled like a rabbit. For a long moment, his face was a blank confusion as he struggled to make sense of what he saw. Slowly, she watched him recognize her.

    In all fairness, she might not have known him either, had she not sought him out. Time had changed him: thickened his body and thinned his hair. Even his face had changed shape, the smooth chin and jaw giving way to jowls, the eyes going narrower and darker. The lines around his mouth spoke of sadness and isolation. And anger, she thought.

    She had known when she arrived that she’d found the right apartments. It hadn’t been difficult to get directions to Machi’s extra poet, and the door had been open. She’d scratched at the doorframe, called out his name, and when she’d stepped in, it was the scent that had been familiar. Certainly there had been other things - the way the scrolls were laid out, the ink stains on the arms of the chairs - that gave evidence to Maati’s presence. The faintest hint, a wisp of musk slight as pale smoke, was the thing that had brought back the flood of memory. For a powerful moment, she saw again the small house she’d lived in after she and Maati had left Saraykeht; the yellow walls and rough, wooden floor, the dog who had lived in the street and only ever been half tamed by her offerings of sausage ends from the kitchen window, the gray spiders that had built their webs in the corners. The particular scent of her old lover’s body brought back those rooms. She knew him better by that than to see him again in the flesh.

    But perhaps that wasn’t true. When he blinked fast and uncertainly, when his head leaned just slightly forward and a smile just began to bloom on his lips, she could see him there, beneath that flesh. The man she had known and loved. The man she’d left behind.

    ‘Liat?’ he said. ‘You . . . you’re here?’

    She took a pose of affirmation, surprised to find her hands trembling. Maati stepped forward slowly, as if afraid a sudden movement might startle her into flight. Liat swallowed to loosen the knot in her throat and smiled.

    ‘I would have written to warn you I was coming,’ she said, ‘but by the time I knew I was, I’d have raced the letter. I’m . . . I’m sorry if . . .’

    But he touched her arm, his fingers on the cloth just above her elbow. His eyes were wide and amazed. As if it were natural, as if it had been a week or a day and not a third of their lives, Liat put her arms around him and felt him enclose her. She had told herself that she would hold back, be careful. She was the head of House Kyaan, a woman of business and politics. She knew how to be hardhearted and cool. There was no reason to think that she would be safe here in the farthest city from her home and facing again the two lovers of her childhood. The years had worked changes on them all, and she had parted with neither of them on good terms.

    And yet the tears in her eyes were simple and sincere and as much joy as sorrow, and the touch of Maati’s body against her own - strange and familiar both - wasn’t awkward or unwelcome. She kissed his cheek and drew back enough to see his still wonder-filled face.

    ‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘It’s been a while. It’s good to see you again, Maati-kya. I wasn’t sure it would be, but it is.’

    ‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ he said. ‘I thought, after all this time . . . My letters . . .’

    ‘I got them, yes. And it’s not as if court gossip didn’t tell everyone in the world where you were. The last succession of Machi was the favorite scandal of the season. I even saw an epic made from it. The boy who took your part didn’t look a thing like you,’ she said, and then, in a lower voice, ‘I meant to write back to you, even if it was only to tell you that I’d heard. That I knew. But somehow I never managed. I regret that. I’ve always regretted that. It only seemed so . . . complex.’

    ‘I thought