Shadow and Betrayal

well at House Wilsin?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Liat said. ‘Amat Kyaan’s come back, and she tries to use me, but there doesn’t seem to be as much to do as there once was. I think . . . I think she doesn’t trust me. I can’t blame her, after what happened. And Wilsin-cha’s the same way. They keep me busy, but not with anything serious. No one’s actually told me I’m only a clerk again, but for how I’ve been spending my days, I may as well be.’
    ‘I’m sorry. It’s wrong, though. It isn’t your fault that this happened. You should just be—’
    ‘Itani’s going to leave me. Or Otah. Whichever. He’s going to leave me,’ she said. She hadn’t meant to, but the words had come out, like vomiting. She stared at her hands and they kept coming. ‘I don’t think he knows it yet, but when he left, there was something in him. In the way he treated me that . . . He isn’t my first lover, and I’ve seen it before. It’s just a kind of distance, and then it’s something more, and then . . .’
    ‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ Maati said, and his voice sounded confident for the first time that day. ‘He won’t.’
    ‘Everyone else has,’ she said.
    ‘Not him.’
    ‘He went, though. He didn’t only have to; he wanted to. He wanted to get away from me, and when he comes back, he’ll have had time to think. And then . . .’
    ‘Liat-cha . . . Liat. I know we haven’t known each other before this, but Otah-kvo was my first teacher, and sometimes I think he was my best one. He’s different from other people. And he loves you. He’s told me as much.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Liat said.
    ‘You love him, don’t you?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said, and the silence after it was worse than walking through the rain. She wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. ‘I love Itani. I know Itani. Otah, though? He’s a son of the Khaiem. He’s . . . he isn’t who I thought he was, and I’m just an apprentice overseer, and not likely to be that for long. How can we stay together when he’s what he is, and I’m this?’
    ‘You did when you were an overseer and he was just a laborer. This isn’t any different.’
    ‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘He always knew he was born to something higher than he was. I’m not. I’m just me.’
    ‘Otah-kvo is one of the wisest men I know,’ Maati said. ‘He isn’t going to walk away from you.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because,’ Maati said softly, ‘he’s one of the wisest men I know.’
    She laughed, partly at the sincerity in the boy’s voice, partly because she wanted so badly for it to be true, partly because her only other option was weeping. Maati moved to her, put his arm around her. He smelled of the cedar soap than Itani used to shave with. She leaned into his shoulder.
    ‘These next weeks,’ she said when she’d gathered herself enough to speak. ‘They aren’t going to be easy.’
    ‘No,’ Maati agreed and heaved a sigh. ‘No, they aren’t.’
    ‘We can see each other through them, though. Can’t we?’ Liat said, trying to keep the pleading out of the words. The patter of the rain filled the silence, and Liat closed her eyes. It was Maati, at last, who had the courage to say what she hadn’t been able to.
    ‘I think I’m going to need a friend if I’m going to come through this,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we’re in the same place. If I can help, if a half-ragged student poet who spends most of his days feeling like he’s worn thin enough to see through can be of any comfort, I’d welcome the company.’
    ‘You don’t have to.’
    ‘Neither do you, but I hope you will.’
    The kiss she gave him was brief and meant to be sisterly. If he caught his breath at it, she imagined he was only a little surprised and embarrassed. She smiled, and he did as well.
    ‘We’re a sorry pair,’ she said. ‘Itani . . . he’ll be back soon.’
    ‘Yes,’ Maati said. ‘And things will be better then.’
     
    The door burst open, and a body fell forward onto the meeting room floor. For a moment, the sounds of the teahouse penetrated - voices, music - and then Torish Wite and two of his men followed the man they’d pushed through and closed the door. Silence returned as if it had never gone. Amat, sitting at the long wooden table, gathered herself. The man beside her wore the simple robes of a firekeeper and the expression of someone deeply amused by a dogfight.
    The fallen man rose unsteadily to his knees. A white cloth covered