Free The Price Of Spring by Daniel Abraham Page A

They were silent. Above them, the singers struck a complex rhythm, like jugglers tossing pins between them. Otah sighed.
    "I know this isn't easy for you," he said.
    "What isn't, Most High?"
    "Otah. Please, my name is Otah. You can call me that. I mean all of this. Being uprooted, married off to a man you've never met in a city you've never been to."
    "It's what's expected of me," she said.
    "Yes, I know, but ... it isn't really fair."
    "No," she said, her voice suddenly hard. "It isn't."
    Otah clasped his hands, fingers laced together.
    "He isn't a bad man, my son," Otah said. "He's clever and he's strong, and he cares about people. He feels deeply. He's probably a better man than I was at his age."
    "Forgive me, Most High," Ana Dasin said. "I don't know what you want me to say."
    "Nothing. Nothing in particular. Only know that this life that we've forced on you ... it might have some redeeming qualities. The gods all know the life I've had wasn't the one I expected, either. We do what we have to do. In my ways, I'm as constrained by it as you are."
    She looked at him as if he were speaking a language she hadn't heard before. Otah shook his head.
    "It's nothing, Ana-cha," he said. "Only know that I know how hard this time is, and it will get better. If you allow room for it, this new life might even surprise you."
    The girl was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed. She shook her head.
    "Thank you?" she said.
    Otah chuckled ruefully.
    "I'm not doing a particularly good job of this, am I?" he said.
    "I don't know," Ana Dasin said after a pause. Her tone carried the shielded contempt of an adolescent for her elders. "I don't know what you're doing."
    Making his way back through the crowded belly of the ship, Otah wondered what he had thought he would say to a Galtic girl who had seen forty-five fewer summers than himself. He had expected to offer some kind of wisdom, some variety of comfort, and instead it had been like trying to hold a conversation with a cat. Who would have thought a man could be as old as he was, wield the power of empire, and still be so naive as to think his heart would be explicable to an eighteen-year-old girl?
    And, of course, as he reached the plank stairway that led up, he found what he wished he had said. He should have said that he knew what courage it took to face sacrifice. He should have said that he knew her suffering was real, and that it was in a noble cause. It made them alike, the Emperor and the Empress-to-be, that they compromised in order to make the lives of uncountable strangers better.
    More than that, he should have encouraged her to speak, and he should have listened.
    An approving roar came from the deck above him. A reed organ hummed and sang, flute and drum following a heartbeat later. Otah hesitated and turned back. He would try again. At worst, the girl would think he was ridiculous, and she likely already did that.
    As he drew near the hold, he heard her weeping again, her voice straining at words he couldn't make out. A man's voice answered, not her father's. Otah hesitated, then quietly stepped forward.
    In the gloom, Ana Dasin knelt, her arms around a young man. The boy, whoever he was, wore the work clothes of a sailor, but his arms were thin and his skin was as pale as the girl's. He returned her embrace, his arms finding their way around her as if through long acquaintance; his tearstreaked face nuzzled her hair. Ana Dasin stroked the boy's head, murmuring reassurances.
    Ah, Otah thought as he stepped back, unnoticed. That's how it is.
    Above deck, he smiled and nodded at Issandra and pretended to turn his attention back to the music. He wondered how many other sacrifices he had demanded in order to remake the world according to his vision, how many other lovers would be parted to further his little scheme to save two empires. He would likely never know the full price of it. As if in answer, the candles guttered in the breeze, the reed organ took a mournful turn, and the