Shadow and Betrayal

did.’
    Maati was silent. Otah sat. His knees seemed less solid than he would have liked, but he didn’t let the weakness stop him.
    ‘It was the worst thing I have ever done,’ Otah said. ‘I never stopped dreaming about it. Even now, I see it sometimes. Heshai was a good man, but what he’d created in Seedless . . .’
    ‘Seedless was only part of him. They all are. They couldn’t be anything else. Heshai-kvo hated himself, and Seedless was that.’
    ‘Everyone hates themselves sometimes. There isn’t often a price in blood,’ Otah said. ‘You know what would happen if that were proven. Killing a Khai would pale beside murdering a poet.’
    Maati nodded slowly, and still nodding, spoke.
    ‘I didn’t ask on the Dai-kvo’s behalf. I asked for myself. When Heshai-kvo died, Seedless . . . vanished. I was with him. I was there. He was asking me whether I would have forgiven you. If you’d committed some terrible crime, like what he had done to Maj, if I would forgive you. And I told him I would. I would forgive you, and not him. Because . . .’
    They were silent. Maati’s eyes were dark as coal.
    ‘Because?’ Otah asked.
    ‘Because I loved you, and I didn’t love him. He said it was a pity to think that love and justice weren’t the same. The last thing he said was that you had forgiven me.’
    ‘Forgiven you?’
    ‘For Liat. For taking your lover.’
    ‘I suppose it’s true,’ Otah said. ‘I was angry with you. But there was a part of me that was . . . relieved, I suppose.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I didn’t love her. I thought I did. I wanted to, and I enjoyed her company and her bed. I liked her and respected her. Sometimes, I wanted her as badly as I’ve ever wanted anyone. And that was enough to let me mistake it for love. But I don’t remember it hurting that deeply or for that long. Sometimes I was even glad. You had each other to take care of, and so it wasn’t mine to do.’
    ‘You said, that last time we spoke before you left . . . before Heshai-kvo died, that you didn’t trust me.’
    ‘That’s true,’ Otah said. ‘I do remember that.’
    ‘But you’ve come to me now, and you’ve told me this. You’ve told me all of it. Even after I gave you over to the Khai. You’ve brought me in here, shown me where you’ve hidden. You know there are half a hundred people I could say a word to, and you and all these other people would be dead before the sun set. So it seems you trust me now.’
    ‘I do,’ Otah said without hesitating.
    ‘Why?’
    Otah sat with the question. His mind had been consumed for days with a thousand different things that all nipped and shrieked and robbed him of his rest. To reach out to Maati had seemed natural and obvious, and even though when he looked at it coldly it was true that each had in some way betrayed the other, his heart had never been in doubt. He could feel the heaviness in the air, and he knew that I don’t know wouldn’t be answer enough. He looked for words to give his feelings shape.
    ‘Because,’ he said at last, ‘in all the time I knew you, you never once did the wrong thing. Even when what you did hurt me, it was never wrong.’
    To his surprise, there were tears on Maati’s cheeks.
    ‘Thank you, Otah-kvo,’ he said.
    A shout went up in the tunnels outside the storehouse and the sound of running feet. Maati wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robes, and Otah stood, his heart beating fast. The murmur of voices grew, but there were no sounds of blade against blade. It sounded like a busy corner more than a battle. Otah walked to the door and, Maati close behind him, stepped out into the main space. A knot of men were talking and gesturing one to the other by the mouth of the stairs. Otah caught a glimpse of Kiyan in their midst, frowning deeply and speaking fast. Amiit detached himself from the throng and strode to Otah.
    ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘Bad news, Otah-cha. Daaya Vaunyogi has called for a decision, and enough of the families have backed the call to push it through.’
    Otah felt his heart sink.
    ‘They’re bound to decide by morning,’ Amiit went on, ‘and if all the houses that backed him for the call side with him in the decision, Adrah Vaunyogi will be the Khai Machi by the time the sun comes up.’
    ‘And then what?’ Maati asked.
    ‘And then we run,’ Otah said, ‘as far and fast and quiet as we can, and we hope he never finds us.’
     
    The sun had passed its highest point and started the