Shadow and Betrayal

query, her gaze locked on Adrah’s. As much challenge as question. Adrah leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under his weight.
    ‘He’s your lover, isn’t he?’ Adrah said. ‘This limp story about wanting to offer condolences and being willing to back my claim only if he could see you, could speak with you. And you sending me away like I was a puppy you’d finished playing with. Do you think I’m dim, Idaan?’
    Her throat closed, and she coughed to loosen it, only the cough didn’t end. It became laughter, and it shook her the way a dog might shake a rat. It was nothing about mirth, everything about violence. Adrah’s face went red, and then white.
    ‘This?’ Idaan finally managed to stammer. ‘This is what we’re going to argue about?’
    ‘Is there something else you’d prefer?’
    ‘You’re about to live a life filled with women who aren’t me. You and your father must have a list drawn up of allies we can make by taking their daughters for wives. You have no right to accuse me of anything.’
    ‘That was your choice,’ he said. ‘We agreed when we started this . . . this landslide. It would be the two of us, together, no matter if we won this or lost.’
    ‘And how long would that have lasted after you took my father’s place?’ she asked. ‘Who would I appeal to when you broke your word?’
    Adrah rose to his feet, stepping toward her. His hand open flat, pointed toward her like a knife.
    ‘That isn’t fair to me. You never gave me the chance to fail you. You assumed it and went on to punish me as though it had happened.’
    ‘I’m not wrong, Adrah. You know I’m not wrong.’
    ‘There’s a price for doing what you say, do you know that? I loved you more than I loved anything. My father, my mother, my sisters, anything or anyone. I did all of this because it was what you wanted.’
    ‘And not for any gain of your own? How selfless. Becoming Khai Machi must be such a chore for you.’
    ‘You wouldn’t have had me if my ambition didn’t match yours,’ Adrah said. ‘What I’ve become, I’ve become for you.’
    ‘That isn’t fair,’ Idaan said.
    Adrah whooped and turned in a wide circle, like a child playing before an invisible audience.
    ‘Fair! When did this become about fair? When someone finally asked you to take some responsibility? You made the plans, love. This is yours, Idaan! All of it’s yours, and you won’t blame me that you’ve got to live with it!’
    He was breathing fast now, as if he’d been running, but she could see in his shoulders and the corners of his mouth that the rage was failing. He dropped his arms and looked at her. His breath slowed. His face relaxed. They stood in silence, considering each other for what felt like half a hand. There was no anger now and no sorrow. He only looked tired and lost, very young and very old at once. He looked the way she felt. It was as if the air they both breathed had changed. He was the one to look away and break the silence.
    ‘You know, love, you never said Cehmai wasn’t your lover.’
    ‘He is,’ Idaan said, then shrugged. The battle was over. They were both too thin now for any more damage to matter. ‘He has been for a few weeks.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I don’t know. Because he wasn’t part of all this. Because he was clean.’
    ‘Because he is power, and you’re drawn to that more than anything? ’
    Idaan bit back her first response and let the accusation sit. Then she nodded.
    ‘Perhaps a bit of that, yes,’ she said.
    Adrah sighed and leaned against the wall. Slowly, he slid down until he was sitting on the floor, his arms resting on his knees.
    ‘There is a list of houses and their women,’ he said. ‘There was before you and Cehmai took up with each other. I argued against it, but my father said it was just as an exercise. Just in case it was needed later. Only tell me . . . today, when he came . . . you didn’t . . . the two of you didn’t . . .’
    Idaan laughed again, but this was a lower sound, gentler.
    ‘No, I haven’t lain down for another man in your house, Adrah-kya. I can’t say why I think that would be worse than what I have done, but I do.’
    Adrah nodded. She could see another question in the way he shifted his eyes, the way he moved his hands. They had been lovers and conspirators for years. She knew him as if he were her family, or a distant part of herself. It didn’t make her love him, but she remembered when she had.
    ‘The first time I kissed you,