Shadow and Betrayal

of her celebration. Only she knew how badly she needed the mask.
    The night candle was just past its middle mark when they broke away, she and Adrah with their arms around each other as if they were lovers. No one they saw had any question what they were planning, and no one would object. Half of the city had paired off already and slunk away to find an empty bed. It was the night for it. They laughed and stumbled toward the high palaces - her father’s.
    Once, when they were hidden behind a high row of hedges and it wasn’t a performance for anyone, Adrah kissed her. He smelled of wine and the warm, musky scent of a young man’s skin. Idaan kissed him back, and for that moment - that long silent, sensual moment - she meant it. Then he pulled away and smiled, and she hated him again.
    The celebrations in the halls and galleries of the Khai’s palace were the nearest to exhaustion - everyone from the highest family of the utkhaiem to the lowest firekeeper had dressed in their finest robes and set out to stain them with something. The days of revelry had taken their toll, and with the night half-passed, the wildest celebrations were over. Music and song still played, people still danced and talked, drew one another away into alcoves and corners. Old men talked gravely of who would benefit from Danat’s survival and promotion. But the sense was growing that the time was drawing near when the city would catch its breath and rest a while.
    She and Adrah made their way through to the private wings of the palace, where only servants and slaves and the wives of the Khai moved freely. They made no secret of their presence. There was no need. Idaan led the way up a series of wide, sweeping staircases to apartments on the south side of the palace. A servant - an old man with gray hair, a limp, and a rosy smile - greeted them, and Idaan instructed him that they were not to be disturbed for any reason. The old man took a solemn expression and a pose of acknowledgment, but there was merriment in his eyes. Idaan let him believe what she, after all, intended him to. Adrah opened the great wooden doors, and he also closed them behind her.
    ‘They aren’t the best rooms, are they?’ Adrah said.
    ‘They’ll do,’ Idaan said, and went to the windows. She pulled open the shutters. The great tower, Otah Machi’s prison, stood like a dark line inked in the air. Adrah moved to stand beside her.
    ‘One of us should have gone with them,’ she said. ‘If the upstart’s found safely in his cell come morning . . .’
    ‘He won’t be,’ Adrah said. ‘Father’s mercenaries are competent men. He wouldn’t have hired them for this if he hadn’t been sure of them.’
    ‘I don’t like using hired men,’ Idaan said. ‘If we can buy them, so can anyone.’
    ‘They’re armsmen, not whores,’ Adrah said. ‘They’ve taken a contract, and they’ll see it through. It’s how they survive.’
    There were five lanterns, from small glass candleboxes to an oil lamp with a wick as wide as her thumb and heavy enough to require both of them to move it. They pulled them all as near the open window as they could, and Adrah lit them while Idaan pulled the thin silks from under her robes. The richest dyes in the world had given these their color - one blue, the other red. Idaan hung the blue over the window’s frame, and then peered out, squinting into the night for the signal. And there, perhaps half a hand from the top of the tower, shone the answering light. Idaan turned away.
    With all the light gathered at the window, the rooms were cast into darkness. Adrah had pulled a hooded cloak over his robes. Idaan remembered again the feeling of hanging over the void, feeling the wind tugging at her. This wasn’t so different, except that the prospect of her own death had seemed somehow cleaner.
    ‘He would want it,’ Idaan said. ‘If he knew that we’d planned this, he would allow it. You know that.’
    ‘Yes, Idaan-kya. I know.’
    ‘To live so weak. It disgraces him. It makes him seem less before the court. It’s not a fit ending for a Khai.’
    Adrah drew a thin, blackened blade. It looked no wider than a finger, and not much longer. Adrah sighed and squared his shoulders. Idaan felt her stomach rise to her throat.
    ‘I want to go with you,’ she said.
    ‘We discussed this, Idaan-kya. You stay in case someone comes. You have to convince them that I’m still in here with you.’
    ‘They won’t come. They’ve no reason to.