Shadow and Betrayal

nodded.
    ‘How long?’ Otah asked.
    ‘I could have it tomorrow. In the morning.’
    Otah closed his eyes. His belly felt heavy with dread, his hands trembling as if he were about to attack a man or else be attacked. Someone had to carry the message, and it couldn’t be Maati. It would be him. He would do it himself. The resolve was simply there, like a decision that had been made long before.
    Tahi-kvo’s face loomed up in his imagination, and with it, the sense of the school - its cold, bruising days and nights, the emptiness and the cruelty and the sense he had had, however briefly, of belonging. The anger rose in him again, as if it had only been banked all these years. Someone would have to go to the Dai-kvo, and Otah was ready to see the man again.
    ‘Bring it here then,’ he said. ‘To Liat’s cell. There are always ships leaving for Yalakeht this time of year. I’ll find a berth on one.’
    ‘You’re not going,’ Liat said. ‘You can’t. Your indenture . . .’
    Otah opened the door and moved to one side. He walked Maati out to the passage with a pose that was both a thanks and a promise.
    ‘You’re sure of this?’ Maati asked.
    Otah nodded, then turned away again. When they were alone, the cell fell back into twilight.
    ‘You can’t go,’ Liat said. ‘I need you to stay. I need someone . . . someone by my side. What happened to Maj, what happened to her baby . . . it was my fault. I let that happen.’
    He moved to her, sitting on her desk, stroking her silk-smooth cheek with his knuckles. She leaned into him, taking his hand in both of hers and pressing it to her chest.
    ‘I have to. Not just for this. My past is up there. It’s the right thing.’
    ‘She hasn’t stopped crying. She sleeps and she wakes up crying. I went to see her when the utkhaiem released me. She was the first person I went to see. And when she looks at me, and I remember what she was like before . . . I thought she was callous. I thought she didn’t care. I didn’t see it.’
    Otah slid down, kneeling on the floor, and put his arms around her.
    ‘The reason you’re going,’ Liat whispered. ‘It isn’t because of me, is it? It isn’t to get away from me?’
    Otah sat, her head cradled against his shoulder. He could feel his mind working just below the level of thought - what he would need to do, the steps he would have to take. He stroked her hair, smooth as water.
    ‘Of course not, love,’ he said.
    ‘Because you’ll be a great man one day. I can tell. And I’m just an idiot girl who can’t keep monsters like Oshai from . . . Gods, ’Tani, I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it.’
    She wept, the sobs shaking her as he cooed and rocked her gently. He rested his chin on her bent head, curling her into him. She smelled of musk and tears. He held her until the sobbing quieted, until his arms ached. Her head lay heavy against him and her breath was almost slow as sleep.
    ‘You’re exhausted, love,’ he said. ‘Come to bed. You need sleep.’
    ‘No,’ she said, rousing. ‘No, stay with me. You can’t go now.’
    Gently, he lifted her and carried her to her cot. He sat beside her, her hand wrapping his like vine on brick.
    ‘Three weeks to Yalakeht,’ he said. ‘Then maybe two weeks upriver and a day or two on foot. Less than that coming back, since the river trip will be going with the water on the way down. I’ll be back before winter, love.’
    In the light pressing in at the shutters and the door, he could see her eyes, bleary with grief and exhaustion, seeking his. Her face was unlined, relaxed, halfway asleep already.
    ‘You’re excited to go,’ she said. ‘You want to.’
    And, of course, that was the truth. Otah pressed his palm to her lips, closing them. To her eyes. This wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have. Or perhaps only not with her.
    He kissed her forehead and waited until she was asleep before he quietly opened her door and stepped out into the light.

11
    A mat woke in the darkness, her breath fast, her heart pounding. In her dream, Ovi Niit had been kicking in her door, and even when she’d pulled herself up from sleep’s dark waters, it took some time for her to feel certain that the booming reports from the dream hadn’t been real. Slowly, the panic waned, and she lay back. Above her, the netting glowed like new copper in the light from the night candle and then slowly became brighter and paler as the cool blue light of dawn crept in through the opened