Traitor's Moon

eastern clans my father hoped to sway to our side. My father was delighted—at first.
    â€œIlar was …” The next part came hard. Just speaking the man’s name aloud brought him back like a summoned spirit. “He was handsome, impetuous, and always had plenty of time to go hunting or swimming with my friends and me. He was nearly man grown, and we were all terribly flattered by his attention. I was his favorite from the start, and after a few weeks the two of us began to go off on our own whenever we could.”
    He took a long sip from his cup and saw that his hand was trembling. For years he’d buried these memories, but with a single telling the old feelings surfaced, raw as they’d been that long ago summer.
    â€œI’d had a few flirtations—friends, girl cousins, and the like—but nothing like this. I suppose you could say he seduced me, though as I recall it didn’t take much effort on his part.”
    â€œYou loved him.”
    â€œNo!” Seregil snapped, as memories of silken lips and callused hands against his skin taunted him. “No, not love. I was passion-blind, though. Adzriel and my friends tried to warn me about him, but by then I was so infatuated I’d have done anything for him. And in the end, I did.
    â€œIronically, Ilar was the first to recognize and encourage my less noble talents. Even untrained, I had clever hands and a knack for skulking. He’d devise little challenges to test me—innocent at first, then less so. I lived for his praise.” He glanced guiltily at Alec. “Rather like you and me, back when we first met. It’s one of the things that made me keep you at arm’s length for so long; the fear of corrupting you the way he did me.”
    Alec shook his head. “It was different with us. Go on, finish this and be done with it. What happened?”
    Older than his years
, Seregil thought again. “Very well, then. One of my father’s most vociferous opponents was Nazien í Hari, khirnari of Haman clan. Ilar convinced me that certain papers in Nazien’s tent would aid my father’s cause, that I alone had the skill to sneak in and ‘borrow’ them.” He grimaced, disgusted at the green fool he’d been. “So I went. Everyone else was off at some ritual that night, but one of Nazien’s kinsmen came back and caught me at it. It was dark; he must not have seen that it was a boy he was drawing his dagger against. There was just enough light for me to see the flash of his blade and the angry glint in his eyes. Terrified, I drew my own and struck out. I didn’t mean to kill him, but I did.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I don’t suppose even Ilar expected that when he sent the Haman back.”
    â€œHe
wanted
you to be caught?”
    â€œOh, yes; that’s what all his attentiveness had been leading to. The ’faie seldom stoop to murder, Alec, or even to outright violence. It all comes down to
atui
, our code of honor. Atui and clan are everything—they define the individual, the family.” He shook his head sadly. “Ilar and his fellow conspirators—there were several, as it turned out—had only to manipulate me into betraying the atui of my clan to accomplish their end, which was the disruption of the negotiations. Well, they certainly got that! What followed was all very dramatic and tawdry, given my reputation and my all-too-obviousrelationship with Ilar. I was found guilty of complicity in the plot, and of murder. Did I ever tell you what the penalty is for murder among my people?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s an ancient custom called
dwai sholo
.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Two bowls’?”
    â€œYes. Punishment is the responsibility of the criminal’s clan. The wronged clan claims
teth’sag
against the family of the guilty person. If that clan breaks atui and does not carry out their duty, the wronged family can declare a feud and any killing that follows is not considered murder until honor is restored.
    â€œAnyway, for dwai sholo, the guilty person is shut up in a tiny cell in the house of their own khirnari and every day they are offered two bowls of food. One bowl is poisoned, the other not. The condemned can choose one or refuse both, day after day. If you survive a year and a day, it’s considered a sign from Aura and you’re set free. Few manage it.”
    â€œBut they didn’t