Shadow and Betrayal

himself.
    ‘Itani?’
    ‘I don’t know. That is, I know they want me to go to Machi in two weeks’ time. Amiit Foss is sending half the couriers he has up there, it seems.’
    ‘Of course he is. It’s where everything’s happening.’
    ‘But I haven’t decided to go.’
    The silence bore down on him now, and he turned. Kiyan stood in the doorway - in her doorway. Her crossed arms, her narrowed eyes, and the single frown-line drawn vertically between her brows, made Otah smile. He leaned on his brush.
    ‘We need to talk, sweet,’ he said. ‘There are some things . . . we have some business, I think, to attend to.’
    Kiyan answered by taking the brush from him, leaning it against the wall, and marching to a meeting room at the back of the house. It was small but formal, with a thick wooden door and a window that looked out on the corner of the interior courtyard. The sort of place she might give to a diplomat or a courier for an extra length of copper. The sort of place it would be difficult to be overheard. That was as it should be.
    Kiyan sat carefully, her face as blank as that of a man playing tiles. Otah sat across from her, careful not to touch her hand. She was holding herself back, he knew. She was restraining herself from hoping until she knew, so that if what he said did not match what she longed to hear, the disappointment would not be so heavy. For a moment, his mind flickered back to a bathhouse in Saraykeht and another woman’s eyes. He had had this conversation once before, and he doubted he would ever have it again.
    ‘I don’t want to go to the north,’ Otah said. ‘For more reasons than one.’
    ‘Why not?’ Kiyan asked.
    ‘Sweet, there are some things I haven’t told you. Things about my family. About myself . . .’
    And so he began, slowly, carefully, to tell the story. He was the son of the Khai Machi, but his sixth son. One of those cast out by his family and sent to the school where the sons of the Khaiem and utkhaiem struggled in hope of one day being selected to be poets and wield the power of the andat. He had been chosen once, and had walked away. Itani Noygu was the name he had chosen for himself, the man he had made of himself. But he was also Otah Machi.
    He was careful to tell the story well. He more than half expected her to laugh at him. Or to accuse him of a self-aggrandizing madness. Or to sweep him into her arms and say that she’d known, she’d always known he was something more than a courier. Kiyan defeated all the stories he had spun in his dreams of this moment. She merely listened, arms crossed, eyes turned toward the window. The vertical line between her brows deepened slightly, and that was all. She did not move or ask questions until he had nearly reached the end. All that was left was to tell her he’d chosen to take her offer to work with her here at the wayhouse, but she knew that already and lifted her hands before he could say the words.
    ‘Itani . . . lover, if this isn’t true . . . if this is a joke, please tell me. Now.’
    ‘It isn’t a joke,’ he said.
    She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When she spoke, she seemed calm in a way that he knew meant rage beyond expression. At the first tone of it, his heart went tight.
    ‘You have to leave. Now. Tonight. You have to leave and never come back.’
    ‘Kiyan-kya . . .’
    ‘No. No kya . No sweet . No my love . None of that. You have to leave my house and you can’t ever come back or tell anyone who you are or who I am or that we knew each other once. Do you understand that?’
    ‘I understand that you’re angry with me,’ Otah said, leaning toward her. ‘You have a right to be. But you don’t know how carefully I have had to guard this.’
    Kiyan tilted her head, like a fox that’s heard a strange noise, then laughed once.
    ‘You think I’m upset you didn’t tell me? You think I’m upset because you had a secret and you didn’t spill it the first time we shared a bed? Itani, this may surprise you, but I have secrets a thousand times less important than that, and I’ve kept them a hundred times better.’
    ‘But you want me to leave?
    ‘Of course I want you to leave. Are you dim? Do you know what happened to the men who guarded your eldest brother? They’re dead. Do you recall what happened when the Khai Yalakeht’s sons turned on each other six years back? There were a dozen corpses before that was through, and only two of them were related to the Khai. Now