Shadow and Betrayal

forward, her palms spread on the cool stone of the table. One of the candles sputtered and spat.
    ‘I know a man. A mercenary lord. He’s done work for me before and kept quiet,’ Daaya said at last. He didn’t seem certain.
    ‘We’ll free the upstart and slit the poet’s throat,’ Idaan said. ‘There won’t be any question who’s actually done the thing. No sane person would doubt that it was Otah’s hand. And when Danat rides out to find him, our men will be ready to ride with him. That will be the dangerous part. You’ll have to find a way to get him apart from anyone else who goes.’
    ‘And the upstart?’ Daaya asked.
    ‘He’ll go where we tell him to go. We’ll just have saved him, after all. There will be no reason to think we mean him harm. They’ll all be dead in time for the wedding, and if we do it well, the joy that is our bonding will put us as the clear favorites to take the chair. That should be enough to push the Galts into action. Adrah will be Khai before the harvest.’
    Idaan leaned back, smiling in grim satisfaction. It was Adrah who broke the silence, his voice calm and sure and unlike him.
    ‘It won’t work.’
    Idaan began to take a pose of challenge, but she hesitated when she saw his eyes. Adrah had gone cold as winter. It wasn’t fear that drove him, whatever his father’s weakness. There was something else in him, and Idaan felt a stirring of unease.
    ‘I can’t see why not,’ Idaan said, her voice still strong and sure.
    ‘Killing the poet and freeing Otah would be simple enough to manage. But the other. No. It supposes that Danat would lead the hunt himself. He wouldn’t. And if he doesn’t, the whole thing falls apart. It won’t work.’
    ‘I say that he would,’ Idaan said.
    ‘And I say that your history planning these schemes isn’t one that inspires confidence,’ Adrah said and stood. The candlelight caught his face at an angle, casting shadows across his eyes. Idaan rose, feeling the blood rushing into her face.
    ‘I was the one who saved us when Oshai fell,’ she said. ‘You two were mewling like kittens, and crying despair—’
    ‘That’s enough,’ Adrah said.
    ‘I don’t recall you being in a position to order me when to speak and when to be silent.’
    Daaya coughed, looking from one to the other of them like a lamb caught between wolf and lion. The smile that touched Adrah’s mouth was thin and unamused.
    ‘Idaan-kya,’ Adrah said, ‘I am to be your husband and the Khai of this city. Sit with that. Your plan to free Oshai failed. Do you understand that? It failed . It lost us the support of our backers, it killed the man most effective in carrying out these unfortunate duties we’ve taken on, and it exposed me and my father to risk. You failed before, and this scheme you’ve put before us now would also fail if we did as you propose.’
    Adrah began to pace slowly, one hand brushing the hanging tapestries. Idaan shook her head, remembering some epic she’d seen when she was young. A performer in the role of Black Chaos had moved as Adrah moved now. Idaan felt her heart grow tight.
    ‘It isn’t that it’s without merit - the shape of it generally is useful, but the specifics are wrong. If Danat is to grab what men he can find and rush out into the night, it can’t be because he’s off to avenge a poet. He would have to be possessed by some greater passion. And it would help if he were drunk, but I don’t know that we can arrange that.’
    ‘So if not Maati Vaupathai . . .’ she began, and her throat closed.
    Cehmai, she thought. He means to kill Cehmai and free the andat. Her hands balled into fists, her heart thudded as if she’d been sprinting. Adrah turned to face her, his arms folded, his expression calm as a butcher in the slaughterhouse.
    ‘You said there were three breaths blocking us. There’s a fourth. Your father.’
    No one spoke. When Idaan laughed, it sounded shrill and panicked in her own ears. She took a pose that rejected the suggestion.
    ‘You’ve gone mad, Adrah-kya. You’ve lost all sense. My father is dying. He’s dying, there’s no call to . . .’
    ‘What else would enrage Danat enough to let his caution slip? The upstart escapes. Your father is murdered. In the confusion, we come to him, a hunting party in hand, ready to ride with him. We can put it out today that we’re planning to ride out before the end of the week. Fresh meat for the wedding feast, we’ll say.’
    ‘It won’t