She watched the sanisi and the boy leave the dining room. Then she sat in one of the tall chairs and stared at the crystal place settings. The slaves had set the table for eight – for Patron Rajavaa and his ministers of finance, agriculture, commerce, foreign relations, health and education, transport and infrastructure, and her, the acting minister of war. She remembered standing here at Alaar’s side, more than twenty years before, when he was the minister of commerce and she just a young sanisi bound by oath and blood to the Patron at the head of the table. She did not know what she saw in Alaar then. It went beyond his quick wit and generous but firm hand. She realized it was his willingness to end all the bloody internal wars and rebellions and invest heavily in their gifted arts and infrastructure. Oma was only a century from rising, he had told the table. Every astronomer said it. It was not just myth. It was coming. Saiduan had to be the most stable country in the world, united, strong, to take on whatever invaders Oma brought with it this turn. It was he who reinstated the minister of health and education. After his bloody ascension, they had sat here together to build a fine new country.

Alaar had not been made for war. He was made for peace. Perhaps Kadaan had done her a favor. She could never have killed him herself, even knowing the rules, even knowing it was necessary. She would have secreted him away somewhere – simply sent him into stasis by slowing down his fibrous heart – and brought him back after the tide was turned back and they needed a man with a head for politics instead of a stomach for strategy.

The loss was still painful. Putting her brother on the seat meant she had finally given up on that dream of peace.

“Maralah?”

She glanced up. Rajavaa entered, dressed in Alaar’s soft amber robes. Her heart clenched. She stood.

“Yes, Patron,” she said.

“I need a woman’s guidance on something,” he said.

“Then I am not the person to ask,” she said.

The Saiduan had six words that described types of snow, and Roh had seen every one of them. He trudged across an icy tundra, trailing after twelve sanisi. They had thrown off their dark garb for white fur coats and boots. They were making for Shoratau, staying far away from the roads and regular paths. The days blurred together, so many that Roh woke one day and felt blinded by the blank stretch of white.

Roh traveled mostly with Luna at the back of the group, spending their rest periods and evenings poring over the Talamynii book.

“Did you tell them about Shodav?” Luna asked early on. It was the first thing Luna said to him.