Shadow and Betrayal

you looked so frightened,’ she said. ‘Do you remember that? It was the middle of winter, and we’d all gone skating. There must have been twenty of us. We all raced, and you won.’
    ‘And you kissed me for the prize,’ he said. ‘Noichi Vausadar was chewing his own tongue, he was so jealous of me.’
    ‘Poor Noichi. I half did it to annoy him, you know.’
    ‘And the other half?’
    ‘Because I wanted to,’ she said. ‘And then it was weeks before you came back for another.’
    ‘I was afraid you’d laugh at me. I went to sleep every night thinking about you, and woke up every morning just as possessed. Can you imagine only being afraid that someone would laugh at you?’
    ‘Now? No.’
    ‘Do you remember the night we both went to the inn. With the little dog out front?’
    ‘The one that danced when the keep played flute? Yes.’
    Idaan smiled. It had been a tiny animal with gray hair and soft, dark eyes. It had seemed so delighted, rearing up on its hind legs and capering, small paws waving for balance. It had seemed happy. She wiped away the tear before it could mar her kohl, then remembered that her eyes were only her eyes now. In her mind, the tiny dog leapt and looked at her. It had been so happy and so innocent. She pushed her own heart out toward that memory, pleading with the cold world that the pup was somewhere out there, still safe and well, trusting and loved as it had been that day. She didn’t bother wiping the tears away now.
    ‘We were other people then,’ she said.
    They were silent again. After a moment, Idaan went to sit on the floor beside Adrah. He put his arm across her shoulder, and she leaned into him, weeping silently for too many things for one mind to hold. He didn’t speak until the worst of the tears had passed.
    ‘Do they bother you?’ he asked at last, his voice low and hoarse.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Them,’ he said, and she knew. She heard the sound of the arrow again, and shivered.
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    ‘Do you know what’s funny? It isn’t your father who haunts me. It should be, I know. He was helpless, and I went there knowing what I was going to do. But he isn’t the one.’
    Idaan frowned, trying to think who else there had been. Adrah saw her confusion and smiled, as if confirming something for himself. Perhaps only that she hadn’t known some part of him, that his life was something different from her own.
    ‘When we went in for the assassin, Oshai. There was a guard. I hit him. With a blade. It split his jaw. I can still see it. Have you ever swung a thin bar of iron into hard snow? It felt just like that. A hard, fast arc and then something that both gave way and didn’t. I remember how it sounded. And afterward, you wouldn’t touch me.’
    ‘Adrah . . .’
    He raised his hands, stopping anything that might have been sympathy. Idaan swallowed it. She had no right to pardon him.
    ‘Men do this,’ Adrah said. ‘All over the world, in every land, men do this. They slaughter each other over money or sex or power. The Khaiem do it to their own families. I never wondered how. Even now, I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine doing the things I’ve done, even after I’ve done them. Can you?’
    ‘There’s a price they pay,’ Idaan said. ‘The soldiers and the armsmen. Even the thugs and drunkards who carve each other up outside comfort houses. They pay a price, and we’re paying it too. That’s all.’
    She felt him sigh.
    ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said.
    ‘So what do we do from here? What about Otah?’
    Adrah shrugged, as if the answer were obvious.
    ‘If Maati Vaupathai’s set himself to be Otah’s champion, Otah will eventually come to him. And Cehmai’s already shown that there’s one person in the world he’ll break his silence for.’
    ‘I want Cehmai kept out of this.’
    ‘It’s too late for that,’ Adrah said. His voice should have been cold or angry or cruel, and perhaps those were in him. Mostly, he sounded exhausted. ‘He’s the only one who can lead us to Otah Machi. And you’re the only one he’ll tell.’
     
    Porsha Radaani gestured toward Maati’s bowl, and a servant boy moved forward, graceful as a dancer, to refill it. Maati took a pose of gratitude toward the man. There were times and places that he would have thanked the servant, but this was not one of them. Maati lifted the bowl and blew across the surface. The pale green-yellow tea smelled richly of rice and fresh, unsmoked leaves. Radaani