Shadow and Betrayal

feet, Machi itself: the smoke rising from the forges, the torches and lanterns glimmering in the streets and windows smaller and dimmer than fireflies. The winches and pulleys hung in the darkness above her, long lengths of iron chain in guides and hooks set in the stone, ready to be freed should there be call to haul something up to the high reaches of the tower or lower something down. Chains that clanked and rattled, uneasy in the night breeze.
    She leaned forward, forcing herself to feel the vertigo twist her stomach and tighten her throat. Savoring it. Scoot forward a few inches, no more effort really than standing from a chair, and then the sound of wind would fill her ears. She waited as long as she could stand and then drew back, gasping and nauseated and trembling. But she did not pull her legs back in. That would have been weakness.
    It was an irony that the symbols of Machi’s greatness were so little used. In the winter, there was no heating them - all the traffic of the city went in the streets, or over the snows, or through the networks of tunnels. And even in summer, the endless spiraling stairways and the need to haul up any wine or food or musical instruments made the gardens and halls nearer the ground more inviting. The towers were symbols of power, existing to show that they could exist and little enough more. A boast in stone and iron used for storage and exotic parties to impress visitors from the other courts of the Khaiem. And still, they made Idaan think that perhaps she could imagine what it would be to fly. In her way she loved them, and she loved very few things these days.
    It was odd, perhaps that she had two lovers and still felt alone. Adrah had been with her for longer, it felt, than she had been herself. And so it had surprised her that she was so ready to betray him in another man’s bed. Perhaps she’d thought that by being a new man’s lover, she would strip off that old skin and become innocent again.
    Or perhaps it was only that Cehmai had a sweet face and wanted her. She was young, she thought, to have given up flirtation and courtship. She’d been angry with Adrah for embarrassing Cehmai at the dance. She’d promised herself never to be owned by a man. And also, killing Biitrah had left a hunger in her - a need that nothing yet had sated.
    She liked Cehmai. She longed for him. She needed him in a way she couldn’t quite fathom, except to say that she hated herself less when she was with him.
    ‘Idaan!’ a voice whispered from the darkness behind her. ‘Come away from there! You’ll be seen!’
    ‘Only if you’re fool enough to bring a torch,’ she said, but she pulled her feet back in from the abyss and hauled the great bronze-bound oaken sky doors shut. For a moment, there was nothing - black darker than closing her eyes - and then the scrape of a lantern’s hood and the flame of a single candle. Crates and boxes threw deep shadows on the stone walls and carved cabinets. Adrah looked pale, even in the dim light. Idaan found herself amused and annoyed - pulled between wanting to comfort him and the desire to point out that it wasn’t his family they were killing. She wondered if he knew yet that she had taken the poet to bed and whether he would care. And whether she did. He smiled nervously and glanced around at the shadows.
    ‘He hasn’t come,’ Idaan said.
    ‘He will. Don’t worry,’ Adrah said, and then a moment later: ‘My father has drafted a letter. Proposing our union. He’s sending it to the Khai tomorrow.’
    ‘Good,’ Idaan said. ‘We’ll want that in place before everyone finishes dying.’
    ‘Don’t.’
    ‘If we can’t speak of it to each other, Adrah-kya, when will we ever? It isn’t as if I can go to our friends or the priest.’ Idaan took a pose of query to some imagined confidant. ‘Adrah’s going to take me as his wife, but it’s important that we do it now, so that when I’ve finished slaughtering my brothers, he can use me to press his suit to become the new Khai without it seeming so clearly that I’m being traded at market. And don’t you love this new robe? It’s Westlands silk.’
    She laughed bitterly. Adrah did not step back, quite, but he did pull away.
    ‘What is it, Idaan-kya?’ he said, and Idaan was surprised by the pain in his voice. It sounded genuine. ‘Have I done something to make you angry with me?’
    For a moment, she saw herself through his eyes - cutting, ironic, cruel. It wasn’t who she had