Abraham Daniel - A Betrayal in Winter

"I am proud of all my children. It's why I am not of one mind on this,"

the Khai said. "You would think that I should be, but I am not. With

every day that the search continues, the truce holds, and Kaiin and

Danat still live. I've known since I was old enough to know anything

that if I took this chair, my sons would kill each other. It wasn't so

hard before I knew them, when they were only the idea of sons. But then

they were Biitrah and Kaiin and Danat. And I don't want any of them to die."

"But tradition, most high. If they did not-"

"I know why they must," the Khai said. "I was only wishing. It's

something dying men do, I'm told. Sit with their regrets. It's likely

that which kills us as much as the sickness. I sometimes wish that this

had all happened years ago. That they had slaughtered each other in

their childhood. Then I might have at least one of them by me now. I had

not wanted to die alone."

"You are not alone, most high. The whole court . .

Maati broke off. The Khai Machi took a pose accepting correction, but

the amusement in his eyes and the angle of his shoulders made a sarcasm

of it. Maati nodded, accepting the old man's point.

"I can't say which of them I would have wanted to live, though," the

Khai said, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. "I love them all. Very

dearly. I cannot tell you how deeply I miss Biitrah."

"Had you known him, you would have loved Otah as well."

"You think so? Certainly you knew him better than I. I can't think he

would have thought well of me," the Khai said. Then, "Did you go back?

After you took your robes? Did you go to see you parents?"

"My father was very old when I went to the school," Maati said. "He died

before I completed my training. We did not know each other."

"So you have never had a family."

"I have, most high," Maati said, fighting to keep the tightness in his

chest from changing the tone of his voice. "A lover and a son. I had a

family once."

"But no longer. They died?"

"They live. Only not with me."

The Khai considered him, bloodshot eyes blinking slowly. With his thin,

wrinkled skin, he reminded Maati of a very old turtle or else a very

young bird. The Khai's gaze softened, his brows tilting in understanding

and sorrow.

"It is never easy for fathers," the Khai said. "Perhaps if the world had

needed less from us."

Maati waited a long moment until he trusted his voice.

"Perhaps, most high."

The Khai exhaled a breath of gray, his gaze trapped by the smoke.

"It isn't the world I knew when I was young," the old man said.

"Everything changed when Saraykeht fell."

"The Khai Saraykeht has a poet," Maati said. "He has the power of the

andat."

"It took the Dai-kvo eight years and six failed bindings," the Khai

said. "And every time word came of another failure, I could see it in

the faces of the court. The utkhaiem may put on proud faces, but I've

seen the fear that swims under that ice. And you were there. You said so

in the audience when I greeted you."

"Yes, most high."

"But you didn't say everything you knew," the Khai said. "Did you?"

The yellowed eyes fixed on Maati. The intelligence in them was

unnerving. Maati felt himself squirming, and wondering what had happened

to the melancholy dying man he'd been speaking with only moments before.

"I ... that is ..."

"There were rumors that the poet's death was more than an angry east

island girl's revenge. The Galts were mentioned."

"And Eddensea," Maati said. "And Eymond. There was no end of accusation,

most high. Some even believed what they charged. When the cotton trade

collapsed, a great number of people lost a great amount of money. And

prestige."

"They lost more than that," the Khai said, leaning forward and stabbing

at the air with the stem of his pipe. "The money, the trade. The

standing among the cities. They don't signify. Saraykeht was the death

of certainty. They lost the conviction that the Khaiem would hold the

world at bay, that war would never come to Saraykeht. And we lost it

here too."

"If you say so, most high."

"The priests say that something touched by chaos is never made whole,"

the Khai said, sinking back into his cushions. "Do you know what they

mean by that, Maati-cha?"

"I have some idea," Maati said, but the Khai went on.

"It means that something unthinkable can only happen once. Because after

that, it's not unthinkable any longer. We've seen what happens when a

city is touched by chaos. And now it's in the back of every head in

every court in all the cities of the Khaiem."

Maati frowned and leaned forward.

"You think Cehrnai-cha is in some danger?"

"What?" the Khai said, then waved the thought away, stirring the smoky

air. "No. Not that. I think my city is at risk. I think Otah ... my

upstart son ..."

He's forgiven you, a voice murmured in the back of Maati's mind. The

voice of Seedless, the andat of Saraykeht. They were the words the andat

had spoken to Maati in the instant before Heshai's death had freed it.

It had been speaking of Otah.

"I've called you here for a reason, Maati-cha," the Khai said, and Maati

pulled his attention back to the present. "I didn't care to speak of it

around those who would use it to fuel gossip. Your inquiry into

Biitrah's death. You must move more quickly."

"Even with the truce?"

"Yes, even at the price of my sons returning to their tradition. If I

die without a successor chosen-especially if Danat and Kaiin are still

gone to ground-there will be chaos. The families of the utkhaiem start

thinking that perhaps they would sit more comfortably in my chair, and

schemes begin. Your task isn't only to find Otah. Your task is to

protect my city."

"I understand, most high."

"You do not, Maati-cha. The spring roses are starting to bloom, and I

will not see high summer. Neither of us has the luxury of time."

THE GATHERING WAS ALL THAT CEHMAI HAD HOPED FOR, AND LESS. SPRING

breezes washed the pavilion with the scent of fresh flowers. Kilns set

along the edges roared behind the music of reed organ, flute, and drum.

Overhead, the stars shone like gems strewn on dark velvet. The long

months of winter had given musicians time to compose and practice new

songs, and the youth of the high families week after weary week to tire

of the cold and dark and the terrible constriction that deep winter

brought to those with no business to conduct on the snow.

Cehmai laughed and clapped time with the music and danced. Women and

girls caught his eye, and he, theirs. The heat of youth did where

heavier robes would otherwise have been called for, and the draw of body

to body filled the air with something stronger than the perfume of

flowers. Even the impending death of the Khai lent an air of license.

Momentous things were happening, the world's order was changing, and

they were young enough to find the thought romantic.

And yet he could not enjoy it.

A young man in an eagle's mask pressed a bowl of hot wine into his hand,

and spun away into the dance. Cehmai grinned, sipped at it, and faded

back to the edge of the pavilion. In the shadows behind the kilns,

Stone-Made-Soft stood motionless. Cehmai sat beside it, put the bowl on

the grass, and watched the revelry. Two young men had doffed their robes

entirely and were sprinting around the wide grounds in nothing but their

masks and long scarves trailing from their necks. The andat shifted like