Shadow and Betrayal

perhaps it was his breath.
    ‘You aren’t sleeping?’ she asked.
    ‘Neither are you,’ he said. The slurred words were half accusation.
    ‘I had a dream,’ she said. ‘It woke me.’
    Adrah lifted the bottle, drinking from its neck. She watched the delicate shifting mechanism of his throat, the planes of his cheeks, his eyes closed and as smooth as a man asleep. Her fingers twitched toward him, moving to caress that familiar skin without consulting him on her wishes. Coughing, he put down the wine, and the eyes opened. Whatever beauty had been in him, however briefly, was gone now.
    ‘You should go to him,’ Adrah said. Perversely, he sounded less drunk now. Idaan took a pose of query. Adrah waved it away with the sloshing bottle. ‘The poet boy. Cehmai. You should go to him. See if you can get more information.’
    ‘You don’t want me here?’
    ‘No,’ Adrah said, pressing the bottle into her hand. As he rose and staggered past her, Idaan felt the insult and the rejection and a certain relief that she hadn’t had to find an excuse to slip away.
    The palaces were deserted, the empty paths dreamlike in their own way. Idaan let herself imagine that she had woken into a new, different world. As she slept, everyone had vanished, and she was walking now alone through an empty city. Or she had died in her sleep and the gods had put her here, into a world with nothing but herself and darkness. If they had meant it for punishment, they had misjudged.
    The bottle was below a quarter when she stepped under the canopy of sculpted oaks. She had expected the poet’s house to be dark as well, but as she advanced, she caught glimpses of candle glow, more light than a single night candle could account for. Something like hope surged in her, and she slowly walked forward. The shutters and door were open, the lanterns within all lit. But the wide, still figure on the steps wasn’t him. Idaan hesitated. The andat raised its hand in greeting and motioned her closer.
    ‘I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,’ Stone-Made-Soft said in its distant, rumbling voice.
    ‘I hadn’t intended to,’ Idaan said. ‘You had no call to expect me.’
    ‘If you say so,’ it agreed, amiably. ‘Come inside. He’s been waiting to see you for days.’
    Going up the steps felt like walking downhill; the pull to be there and see him was more powerful than weight. The andat stood and followed her in, closing the door behind her and then proceeding around the room, fastening the shutters and snuffing the flames. Idaan looked around the room, but there were only the two of them.
    ‘It’s late. He’s in the back,’ the andat said and pinched out another small light. ‘You should go to him.’
    ‘I don’t want to disturb him.’
    ‘He’d want you to.’
    She didn’t move. The spirit tilted its broad head and smiled.
    ‘He said he loves me,’ Idaan said. ‘When I saw him last, he said that he loved me.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Is it true?’
    The smile broadened. Its teeth were white as marble and perfectly regular. She noticed for the first time that it had no canines - every tooth was even and square as the one beside it. For a moment, the inhuman mouth disturbed her.
    ‘Why are you asking me?’
    ‘You know him,’ she said. ‘You are him.’
    ‘True on both counts,’ Stone-Made-Soft said. ‘But I’m not credited as being the most honest source. I’m his creature, after all. And all dogs hate the leash, however well they pretend otherwise.’
    ‘You’ve never lied to me.’
    The andat looked startled, then chuckled with a sound like a boulder rolling downhill.
    ‘No,’ it said. ‘I haven’t, have I? And I won’t start now. Yes, Cehmai-kya has fallen in love with you. He’s young. His passions are still a large part of what he is. In forty years, he won’t burn so hot. It’s the way it’s been with all of them.’
    ‘I don’t want him hurt,’ she said.
    ‘Then stay.’
    ‘I’m not sure that would save him pain. Not in the long term.’
    The andat went still a moment, then shrugged.
    ‘Then go,’ it said. ‘But when he finds you’ve gone, he’ll chew his own guts out over it. There’s been nothing he’s wanted more than for you to come here, to him. Coming this close, talking to me, and leaving? It’d hardly make him feel better about things.’
    Idaan looked at her feet. The sandals weren’t laced well. She’d done the thing in darkness, and the wine had, perhaps, had more effect on