Abraham Daniel - A Betrayal in Winter

murder.

Maati let his imagination play a scene: Otah-kvo appearing before him in

the darkness, blade in hand. In Maati's imagination, his eyes were hard,

his voice hoarse with anger. And there he faltered. He might call for

help and see Otah captured. He might fight him and end the thing in

blood. He might accept the knife as his due. For a dream with so vivid a

beginning, Maati could not envision the end.

He closed the shutter and went to throw another black stone onto the

fire. His indulgence had turned the room chilly, and he sat on the

cushion near the fire as the air warmed again. His legs didn't fold as

easily as Cehmai's had, but if he shifted now and again, his feet didn't

go numb. He found himself thinking fondly of Cehmai-the boy was easy to

befriend. Otah-kvo had been like that, too.

Maati stretched and wondered again whether, if all this had been a song,

he would have sung the hero's part or the villain's.

No ONE HAD EVER SEEN IDAAN'S REBELLIONS AS HUNGER. THA'1' HAD BEEN their

fault. If her friends or her brothers transgressed against the etiquette

of the court, consequences came upon them, shame or censure. But Idaan

was the favored daughter. She might steal a rival girl's gown or arrive

late to the temple and interrupt the priest. She could evade her

chaperones or steal wine from the kitchens or dance with inappropriate

men. She was Idaan Machi, and she could do as she saw fit, because she

didn't matter. She was a woman. And if she'd never screamed at her

father in the middle of his court that she was as much his child as

Biitrah or Danat or Kaiin, it was because she feared in her bones that

he would only agree, make some airy comment to dismiss the matter, and

leave her more desperate than before.

Perhaps if once someone had taken her to task, had treated her as if her

actions had the same weight as other people's, things would have ended

differently.

Or perhaps folly is folly because you can't see where it moves from

ambition into evil. Arguments that seem solid and powerful prove hollow

once it's too late to turn back. Arguments like Why should it be right

for them but wrong for me?

She haunted the Second Palace now, breathing in the emptiness that her

eldest brother had left. The vaulted arches of stone and wood echoed her

soft footsteps, and the sunlight that filtered though the stone shutters

thickened the air to a golden twilight. Here was the bedchamber, bare

even of the mattress he and his wife had slept upon. There, the workshop

where he had labored on his enthusiasms, keeping engineers by his side

sometimes late into the night or on into morning. The tables were empty

now. Dust lay thick on them, ignored even by the servants until the time

came for some new child of the Khaiem to take residence ... to live in

this opulence and keep his ear pricked for the sound of his brother's

hunting dogs.

She heard Adrah coming long before he stepped into the room. She

recognized his gait by the sound of it, and didn't call. He was clever,

she thought bitterly; if he wanted to find her, he could puzzle it out.

Adrah Vaunyogi, bright-eyed and broad-shouldered, father of her children

if all went well. Whatever well meant anymore.

"There you are," Adrah said. She could see his anger in the way he held

his body.

"What have I done this time?" she demanded, her tone carrying a sarcasm

that dismissed his concerns even before he spoke them. "Did your patrons

want me to wear red on a day I chose yellow?"

The mention of his hackers, even as obliquely as that, made him stiffen

and peer around, looking for slaves or servants who might overhear.

Idaan laughed-a cruel, short sound.

"You look like a kitten with a bell on its tail," she said. "There's no

one here but us. You needn't worry that someone will roll the rock off

our little conspiracy. We're as safe here as anywhere."

Adrah strode over and crouched beside her all the same. He smelled of

crushed violets and sage, and it struck Idaan that it had not been so

long ago that the scent would have warmed her heart and brought a flush

to her cheeks. His face was long and pretty-almost too pretty to be a

man's. She had kissed those lips a thousand times, but now it seemed

like the act of another woman-some entirely different Idaan Machi whose

body and memory she had inherited when the first girl died. She smiled

and raised her hands in a pose of formal query.

"Arc you mad?" Adrah demanded. "Don't speak about them. Not ever. If

we're found out ..."

"Yes. You're right. I'm sorry," Idaan said. "I wasn't thinking."

""There are rumors you spent a day with Cchmai and the andat. You were

seen.

"The rumors are true, and I meant to be seen. I can't see how my having

a close relationship to the poet would hurt the cause, and in fact I

think it will help, don't you? When the time comes that half the houses

of the utkhaiem arc vying for my father's chair, an upstart house like

yours would do well to boast a friendship with Cehmai."

"I think being married to a daughter of the Khai will be quite enough,

thank you," Adrah said, "and your brothers aren't dead yet, in case

you'd forgotten."

"No. I remember."

"I don't want you acting strangely. Things are too delicate just now for

you to start attracting attention. You are my lover, and if you are off

half the time drinking rice wine with the poet, people won't be saying

that I have strong friendship with him. They'll be saying that he's

cuckolding me, and that Vaunyogi is the wrong house to draw a new Khai

from."

"So you don't want me seeing him, or you just want more discretion when

I do?" Idaan asked.

That stopped him. His eyes, deep brown with flecks of red and green,

peered into hers. A sudden memory, powerful as illness, swept over her

of a winter night when they had met in the tunnels. He had gazed at her

then by firelight, had been no further from her than he was now. She

wondered how these could be those same eyes. Her hand rose as if by

itself and stroked his cheek. He folded his hands around hers.

"I'm sorry," she said, ashamed of the catch in her voice. "I don't want

to quarrel with you."

"What are you doing, little one?" he asked. "Don't you see how dangerous

this is that we're doing? Everything rests on it."

"I know. I remember the stories. It's strange, don't you think, that my

brothers can slaughter each other and all the people do is applaud, but

if I take a hand, it's a crime worse than anything."

"You're a woman," he said, as if that explained everything.

"And you," she said calmly, almost lovingly, "are a schemer and an agent

of the Galts. So perhaps we deserve each other."

She felt him stiffen and then force the tension away. His smile was

crooked. She felt something warm in her breast-painful and sad and warm

as the first sip of rum on a midwinter night. She wondered if it might

be hatred, and if it were, whether it was for herself or this man before

her.

"It's going to be fine," he said.

"I know," she said. "I knew it would be hard. It's the ways it's hard

that surprise me. I don't know how I should act or who I should be. I

don't know where the normal grief that anyone would feel stops or turns

into something else." She shook her head. "This seemed simpler when we

were only talking about it."

"I know, love. It will be simple again, I promise you. It's only this in