7 "No, I will not forbid her a goddamned thing. The girl's got more spine than all the rest of us put together. We could learn something from her," Farrer Dasin said, his arms folded before him, his chin high and proud. And when he said the rest of its, Otah was clear that he meant the Galts. The courts of the Khaiem, the cities and people of Otah's empire were not part of Farrer Dasin's us; they were still apart and the enemy. Six members of the High Council sat at the wide marble table along with Balasar Gice and Issandra Dasin. Otah, Danat, and representatives of four of the highest families of the utkhaiem sat across from them. Otah wished he'd been able to scatter each side among the other instead of dividing the table like a battlefield. Or else keep the group smaller. If it had been only himself, Farrer, and Issandra, there might have been a chance. Ana, the girl who had taken a stick to this political beehive, was not present, nor was she welcome.
