Shadow and Betrayal

must have scalded. Perhaps what they’d done had numbed them.
    ‘And you, Idaan-kya?’
    ‘I’m going to the baths. I’ll join you after.’
    Adrah drank the last of the tea, grimaced as if it was distilled wine, and took a pose of leave-taking which Idaan returned. When he was gone, she took herself to the women’s quarters and the baths. She hardly had time to wash her hair before the cry went up. The Khai Machi was dead. Killed horribly in his chambers. Idaan dried herself with a cloth and strode out to meet her brother. She was halfway there before she realized her face was bare; she hadn’t put on her paints. She was surprised that she felt no need for them now.
    Danat was pacing the great hall. The high marble archways echoed with the sound of his boots. There was blood on his sleeve, and his face was empty. When Idaan caught sight of him, she raised her chin but took no formal pose. Danat stopped. The room was silent.
    ‘You’ve heard,’ he said. There was no question to it.
    ‘Tell me anyway.’
    ‘Otah has killed our father,’ Danat said.
    ‘Then yes. I’ve heard.’
    Danat resumed his pacing. His hands worried each other, as if he were trying to pluck honey off them. Idaan didn’t move.
    ‘I don’t know how he did it, sister. There must be people backing him within the palaces. The armsmen in the tower were slaughtered.’
    ‘How did he find our father?’ Idaan asked, uninterested in the answer. ‘He must have found a secret way into the palaces. Someone would have seen him.’
    Danat shook his head. There was rage in him, and pain. She could see them, could feel them resonate in her own breast. But more than that, there was an almost superstitious fear in him. The upstart had slipped his bonds, had struck in the very heart of the city, and her brother feared him like Black Chaos.
    ‘We have to secure the city,’ he said. ‘I’ve called for more guards. You should stay here. We can’t know how far he will take his vendetta.’
    ‘You’re going to let him escape?’ Idaan demanded. ‘You aren’t going to hunt him down?’
    ‘He has resources I can’t guess at. Look! Look what he’s done. Until I know what I’m walking towards, I don’t dare follow.’
    The plan was failing. Danat was staying safe in his walls with his armsmen around him like a blanket. Idaan sighed. It was up to her, of course, to save it.
    ‘Adrah Vaunyogi has a hunt prepared. It was to be for fresh meat for my wedding feast. You stay here, Danat-kya. I’ll bring you Otah’s head.’
    She turned and walked away. She couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t invite him to follow her. He would see it in her gait if she were anything less than totally committed. For a moment, she even believed herself that she was going out to find her father’s killer and bring him down - riding with her hunt into the low towns and the fields to track down the evil Otah Machi, her fallen brother. Danat’s voice stopped her.
    ‘I forbid you, Idaan. You can’t do this.’
    She paused and looked back at him. He was thicker than her father had been. Already his jaw line ran toward jowls. She took a pose that disagreed.
    ‘I’m actually quite good with a bow,’ she said. ‘I’ll find him. And I will see him dead.’
    ‘You’re my child sister,’ Danat said. ‘You can’t do this.’
    Something flared in her, dark and hot. She stepped back toward Danat, feeling the rage lift her up like a leaf in the wind.
    ‘Ah, and if I do this thing, you’ll be shamed. Because I have breasts and you’ve a prick, I’m supposed to muzzle myself and be glad. Is that it? Well I won’t. You hear me? I will not be controlled, I will not be owned, and I will not step back from anything to protect your petty pride. It’s gone too far for that, brother. If a woman shrinks meekly back into the shadows, then you be the woman. See how it feels to you!’
    By the end she was shrieking. Her fists were balled so tight they hurt. Danat’s expression was hard as stone and as gray.
    ‘You shame me,’ he said.
    ‘Live with it,’ she said and spat.
    ‘Send my body servant,’ he said. ‘I’ll want my own bow. And then go to Adrah. The hunt won’t leave without me.’
    She was on the edge of refusing, of telling him that this wasn’t courage. He was only more afraid of losing the respect of the utkhaiem than of dying, and that made him not only a coward but a stupid one. She was the one with courage. She was the one who had the will to act.