Shadow and Betrayal

the grime and dust of Saraykeht - no small plants or grasses pushed at the joints of the paving stones, no moss stained the corners of the walls. Even more than its singularity of gender, the unnatural perfection of the place made it seem foreign and unsettling and sterile.
    He ate his dinner - venison and wine and fresh black bread - sitting alone at a low table with his back to the fire. A dark mood had descended on him. Visions of Liat and some small house, some simple work, bread cooked in his own kiln, meat roasted in his own kitchens seemed both ludicrous and powerful. He had done what he said he’d set out for. The letter was in the Dai-kvo’s hands, or would be shortly.
    But he had come for his own reasons too. He was Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi, who had walked away from the greatest power in all the nations. He had been offered the chance to control the andat and refused. For the first time, here in this false village, he imagined what that must be to his brothers, his teachers, the boys who had taken the offer gladly when it had been given. To men like Maati.
    And so who was this Itani Noyga, this simple laborer with simple dreams? He had come halfway across the lands of the Khaiem, he realized, to answer that question, and instead he had handed an old man a packet of papers. He remembered, setting out from Saraykeht, that it had seemed an important adventure, not only to Heshai and Seedless, the Khai Machi and Saraykeht, but to himself personally. Now, he wasn’t sure why he’d thought delivering a letter would mean more than delivering a letter.
    He was given a small room, hardly large enough for the stretched-canvas cot and the candle on the table beside it. The blankets were warm and thick and soft. The mattress was clean and free of lice or fleas. The room smelled of cut cedar, and not rat piss or unbathed humanity. Small as it was, it was also perfect.
    The candle was snuffed, and Otah more than half asleep when his door opened. A small man, bald as an egg, stepped in, a lantern held high. His round face was marked by two bushy eyebrows - black shot with white. Otah met his gaze, at first bleary, and then an instant later awake and alert. He took the pose of greeting he’d learned as a boy; he smiled sweetly and without sincerity.
    ‘I am honored by your presence, most high Dai-kvo.’
    Tahi-kvo scowled and moved closer. He held the lantern close to Otah’s face until the brightness of the flame made his old teacher shadowy. Otah didn’t look away.
    ‘It is you.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Show me your hands,’ his old teacher said. Otah complied, and the lantern shifted, Tahi-kvo leaning close, examining the callused palms. He bent so close, Otah could feel the breath on his fingertips. The old man’s eyes were going.
    ‘It’s true then,’ Tahi-kvo said. ‘You’re a laborer.’
    Otah closed his hands. The words were no surprise, but the sting of them was. He would have thought he was beyond caring what opinion Tahi-kvo held. He smiled his charming smile like a mask and kept his voice mild and amused.
    ‘I’ve picked my own path,’ he said.
    ‘It was a poor choice.’
    ‘It was mine to make.’
    The old man - Tahi-kvo, the Dai-kvo, the most powerful man in the world - stood, shaking his head in disgust. His robes whispered as he moved - silk upon silk. He tilted his head like a malefic bird.
    ‘I have consultations to make concerning the message you brought. It may take some days before I draft my reply.’
    Otah waited for the stab of words or the remembered whir of the lacquer rod, but Tahi only stood waiting. At length Otah took a pose of acceptance.
    ‘I will wait for it,’ he said.
    For a moment, something glittered in Tahi-kvo’s eyes that might have been sorrow or impatience, and then without farewell, he was gone, the door closed behind him, and Otah lay back in his bed. The darkness was silent, except for the slowly retreating footsteps. They were long vanished before Otah’s heart and breath slowed, before the heat in his blood cooled.
     
    The days that followed were among the most difficult of Amat Kyaan’s life. The comfort house was in disarray, and her coup only added to the chaos. Each individual person - whores, guards, the men at the tables, the men who sold wine, all of them - was testing her. Three times, fights had broken out. It seemed once a day that she was called on to stop some small liberty, and always with the plaintive explanation that Ovi Niit