Shadow and Betrayal

of summer.’
    The whisperers began, but the hush of their voices was quickly drowned out by cheering and applause. Idaan raised her head and smiled as if the smears on her cheeks were from joy. Every man and woman in the chamber had risen. She turned to them and took a pose of thanks, and then to Adrah and his father, and then, finally, to her own. He was still weeping - a show of weakness that the gossips and backbiters of the court would be chewing over for days. But his smile was so genuine, so hopeful, that Idaan could do nothing but love him and taste ashes.
    ‘Thank you, most high,’ she said. He bowed his head, as if honoring her.
    The Khai Machi left the dais first, attended by servants who lifted him into his litter and others who bore him away. Then Idaan herself retreated. The others would escape according to the status of their families and their standing within them. It would be a hand and a half before the chamber was completely empty. Idaan strode along white marble corridors to a retiring room, sent away her servants, locked the door and sobbed until her heart was empty again. Then she washed her face in cool water from her basin, arrayed her kohl and blush, whitener and lip rouge before a mirror and carefully made a mask of her skin.
    There would be talk, of course. Even without her father’s unseemly display of humanity - and she hated them all for the laughter and amusement that would occasion - there would be enough to pick apart. The strength of Adrah’s voice would be commented on. The way in which he carried himself. Even his unease when the ritual slipped from its form might speak well of him in people’s memory. It was a small thing, of course. In the minds of the witnesses, it had been clear that she would be the daughter of a Khai only very briefly and merely sister to the Khai was a lower status. House Vaunyogi was buying something whose value would soon drop. It must be a love match, they would say, and pretend to be touched. She wondered if it wouldn’t be better - cleaner - to simply burn the city and everyone in it, herself included. Let a hot iron clean and seal it like searing a wound. It was a passing fantasy, but it gave her comfort.
    A knock came, and she arranged her robes before unlocking the door. Adrah stood, his house servants behind him. He had not changed out of his ritual robes.
    ‘Idaan-kya,’ he said, ‘I was hoping you might come have a bowl of tea with my father.’
    ‘I have gifts to present to your honored father,’ Idaan said, gesturing to a cube of cloth and bright paper the size of a boar. It was already lashed to a carrying pole. ‘It is too much for me. Might I have the aid of your servants?’
    Two servants had already moved forward to lift the burden.
    Adrah took a pose of command, and she answered with one of acquiescence, following him as he turned and left. They walked side by side through the gardens, not touching. Idaan could feel the gazes of the people they passed, and kept her expression demure. By the time they reached the palaces of the Vaunyogi, her cheeks ached with it. Idaan and Adrah walked with their entourage through a hall of worked rosewood and mother-of-pearl, and to the summer garden where Daaya Vaunyogi sat beneath a stunted maple tree and sipped tea from a stone bowl. His face was weathered but kindly. Seeing him in this place was like stepping into a woodcut from the Old Empire - the honored sage in contemplation. The gift package was placed on the table before him as if it were a meal.
    Adrah’s father put down his bowl and took a pose that dismissed the servants.
    ‘The garden is closed,’ he said. ‘We have much to discuss, my children and I.’
    As soon as the doors were shut and the three were alone, his face fell. He sank back to his seat like a man struck by fever. Adrah began to pace. Idaan ignored them both and poured herself tea. It was overbrewed and bitter.
    ‘You haven’t heard from them, then, Daaya-cha?’
    ‘The Galts?’ the man said. ‘The messengers I send come back empty-handed. When I went to speak to their ambassador, they turned me away. Things have gone wrong. The risk is too great. They won’t back us now.’
    ‘Did they say that?’ Idaan asked.
    Daaya took a pose that asked clarification. Idaan leaned forward, holding back the snarl she felt twisting at her lip.
    ‘Did they say they wouldn’t back us, or is it only that you fear they won’t?’
    ‘Oshai,’ Daaya said. ‘He knows