Shadow and Betrayal

And all those families that supported them will be invested in keeping things quiet. If it comes out that Daaya Vaunyogi killed the Khai in order to raise up his son and half the families of the utkhaiem took money to support it, they’ll all share in the guilt. Being in the right won’t mean much then.’
    ‘There’s time yet,’ Amiit said, but he was looking away when he said it.
    ‘And what happens if we fail?’
    ‘That all depends on how we fail. If we’re discovered before we’re ready to move, we’ll all be killed. If Adrah is named Khai, we’ll at least have a chance to slip away quietly.’
    ‘You’ll take care of Kiyan?’
    Amiit smiled. ‘I hope to see to it that you can perform that duty.’
    ‘But if not?’
    ‘Then of course,’ Amiit said. ‘Provided I live.’
    The rapping came again, and the door opened on a young man. Otah recognized him from the meetings in House Siyanti, but he couldn’t recall his name.
    ‘The poet’s come,’ the young man said.
    Amiit rose, took a pose appropriate to the parting of friends, and left. The young man went with him, and for a moment the door swung free, half closing. Otah drank the last of his water, the grit rough in his throat. Maati came in slowly, a diffidence in his body and his face, like a man called in to hear news that might bring him good or ill or some unimagined change that folded both inextricably together. Otah gestured to the door, and Maati closed it.
    ‘You sent for me?’ Maati asked. ‘That’s a dangerous habit, Otah-kvo. ’
    ‘I know it, but . . . Please. Sit. I’ve been thinking. About what we do if things go poorly.’
    ‘If we fail?’
    ‘I want to be ready for it, and when Kiyan and I were talking last night, something occurred to me. Nayiit? That’s his name, isn’t it? The child that you and Liat had?’
    Maati’s expression was cool and distant and misleading. Otah could see the pain in it, however still the eyes.
    ‘What of him?’
    ‘He mustn’t be my son. Whatever happens, he has to be yours.’
    ‘If you fail, you don’t take your father’s title—’
    ‘If I don’t take his title, and someone besides you decides he’s mine, they’ll kill him to remove all doubt of the succession. And if I succeed, Kiyan may have a son,’ Otah said. ‘And then they would someday have to kill each other. Nayiit is your son. He has to be.’
    ‘I see,’ Maati said.
    ‘I’ve written a letter. It looks like something I’d have sent Kiyan before, when I was in Chaburi-Tan. It talks about the night I left Saraykeht. It says that on the night I came back to the city, I found the two of you together. That I walked into her cell, and you and she were in her cot. It makes it clear that I didn’t touch her, that I couldn’t have fathered a child on her. Kiyan’s put it in her things. If we have to flee, we’ll take it with us and find a way for it to come to light - we can hide it at her wayhouse, perhaps. If we’re found and killed here, it will be found with us. You have to back that story.’
    Maati steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair.
    ‘You’ve put it with Kiyan-cha’s things to be found in case she’s slaughtered?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Otah said. ‘I don’t think about it when I can help it, but I know she could die here. There’s no reason that your son should die with us.’
    Maati nodded slowly. He was struggling with something, Otah could see that much, but whether it was sorrow or anger or joy, he had no way to know. When the question came, though, it was the one he had been dreading for years.
    ‘What did happen?’ Maati asked at last, his voice low and hushed. ‘The night Heshai-kvo died. What happened? Did you just leave? Did you take Maj with you? Did . . . did you kill him?’
    Otah remembered the cord cutting into his hands, remembered the way Maj had balked and he had taken the task himself. For years, those few minutes had haunted him.
    ‘He knew what was coming,’ Otah said. ‘He knew it was necessary. The consequences if he had lived would have been worse. Heshai was right when he warned you to let the thing drop. The Khai Saraykeht would have turned the andat against Galt. There would have been thousands of innocent lives ruined. And when it was over, you would still have been yoked to Seedless. Trapped in the torture box just the way Heshai had been all those years. Heshai knew that, and he waited for me to do the thing.’
    ‘And you did it.’
    ‘I