Shadow and Betrayal

We’re deposed and killed horribly in the streets. Fine. Lift your gaze up from your own corpse for a moment and tell me what happens next?’
    ‘There’s a struggle. Some other family takes the chair.’
    ‘Yes. And what will the new Khai do?’
    ‘He’ll slaughter my family,’ Adrah said, his voice hollow and ghostly. Idaan leaned forward and slapped him.
    ‘He’ll have Stone-Made-Soft level a few Galtic mountain ranges and sink some islands. Do you think there’s a Khai in any city that would sit still at the word of the Galtic Council arranging the death of one of their own? The Galts won’t own you because your exposure would mean the destruction of their nation and the wholesale slaughter of their people. So worry a little less. You’re supposed to be overwhelmed with the delight of marrying me.’
    ‘Shouldn’t you be delighted too, then?’
    ‘I’m busy mourning my father,’ she said dryly. ‘Do we have any wine?’
    ‘How is he? Your father?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Idaan said. ‘I try not to see him these days. He makes me . . . feel weak. I can’t afford that just now.’
    ‘I heard he’s failing.’
    ‘Men can fail for a long time,’ she said, and stood. She left the bowl on the floor and walked back to her bedroom, holding her hands out before her, sticky with juice. Adrah followed along behind her and lay on her bed. She poured water into her stone basin and watched him as she washed her hands. He was a boy, lost in the world. Perhaps now was as good a time as any. She took a deep breath.
    ‘I’ve been thinking, Adrah-kya,’ she said. ‘About when you become Khai.’
    He turned his head to look at her, but did not rise or speak.
    ‘It’s going to be important, especially at the first, to gather allies. Founding a line is a delicate thing. I know we agreed that it would always be only the two of us, but perhaps we were wrong in that. If you take other wives, you’ll have more the appearance of tradition and the support of the families who bind themselves to us.’
    ‘My father said the same,’ he said.
    Oh did he? Idaan thought, but she held her face still and calm. She dried her hands on the basin cloth and came to sit on the bed beside him. To her surprise, he was weeping; small tears coming from the outer corners of his eyes, thin tracks shining on his skin. Without willing it, her hand went to his cheek, caressing him. He shifted to look at her.
    ‘I love you, Idaan. I love you more than anything in the world. You are the only person I’ve ever felt this way about.’
    His lips trembled and she pressed a finger against them to quiet him. These weren’t things she wanted to hear, but he would not be stopped.
    ‘Let’s end this,’ he said. ‘Let’s just be together, here. I’ll find another way to move ahead in the court, and your brother . . . you’ll still be his blood, and we’ll still be well kept. Can’t we . . . can’t we, please?’
    ‘All this because you don’t want to take another woman?’ she said softly, teasing him. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
    He took her hand in his. He had soft hands. She remembered thinking that the first time they’d fallen into her bed together. Strong, soft, wide hands. She felt tears forming in her own eyes.
    ‘My father said that I should take other wives,’ he said. ‘My mother said that, knowing you, you’d only agree to it if you could take lovers of your own too. And then you weren’t here last night, and I waited until it was almost dawn. And you . . . you want to . . .’
    ‘You think I’ve taken another man?’ she asked.
    His lips pressed thin and bloodless, and he nodded. His hand squeezed hers as if she might save his life, if only he held onto her. A hundred things came to her mind all at once. Yes, of course I have. How dare you accuse me? Cehmai is the only clean thing left in my world, and you cannot have him. She smiled as if Adrah were a boy being silly, as if he were wrong.
    ‘That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do just now,’ she said, neither lying nor speaking the truth of it. She leaned forward to kiss him, but before their mouths touched, a voice wild with excitement called out from the atrium.
    ‘Idaan-cha! Idaan-cha! Come quickly!’
    Idaan leapt up as if she’d been caught doing something she ought not, then gathered herself, straightened her robes. The mirror showed that the paint on her mouth and eyes was smudged from eating and weeping, but there