then by firelight, had been no further from her than he was now. She
wondered how these could be those same eyes. Her hand rose as if by
itself and stroked his cheek. He folded his hands around hers.
"I'm sorry," she said, ashamed of the catch in her voice. "I don't want
to quarrel with you."
"What are you doing, little one?" he asked. "Don't you see how dangerous
this is that we're doing? Everything rests on it."
"I know. I remember the stories. It's strange, don't you think, that my
brothers can slaughter each other and all the people do is applaud, but
if I take a hand, it's a crime worse than anything."
"You're a woman," he said, as if that explained everything.
"And you," she said calmly, almost lovingly, "are a schemer and an agent
of the Galts. So perhaps we deserve each other."
She felt him stiffen and then force the tension away. His smile was
crooked. She felt something warm in her breast-painful and sad and warm
as the first sip of rum on a midwinter night. She wondered if it might
be hatred, and if it were, whether it was for herself or this man before
her.
"It's going to be fine," he said.
"I know," she said. "I knew it would be hard. It's the ways it's hard
that surprise me. I don't know how I should act or who I should be. I
don't know where the normal grief that anyone would feel stops or turns
into something else." She shook her head. "This seemed simpler when we
were only talking about it."
"I know, love. It will be simple again, I promise you. It's only this in
the middle that feels complicated."
"I don't know how they do it," she said. "I don't know how they kill one
another. I dream about him, you know. I dream that I am walking through
the gardens or the palaces and I see him in among a crowd of people."
Tears came to her eyes unbidden, flowing warm and thick down her cheeks,
but her voice, when she continued, was steady and calm as a woman
predicting the weather. "He's always happy in the dreams. He's always
forgiven me."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I know you loved him."
Idaan nodded, but didn't speak.
"Be strong, love. It will be over soon. It will all be finished very soon.
She wiped the tears away with the hack of her hand, her knuckles
darkened where her paints were running, and pulled him close. He seemed
to hold back for a moment, then folded against her, his arms around her
trembling shoulders. He was warm and the smell of sage and violet was
mixed now with his skin-the particular musk of his body that she had
treasured once above all other scents. He murmured small comforts into
her ears and stroked her hair as she wept.
"Is it too late?" she asked. "Can we stop it, Adrah? Can we take it all
hack?"
He kissed her eyes, his lips soft as a girl's. His voice was calm and
implacable and hard as stone. When she heard it, she knew he had been
thinking himself down the same pathways and had come to the same place.
"No, love. It's too late. It was too late as soon as your brother died.
We have started, and there's no ending it now except to win through or die."
They stayed still in each others' embrace. If all went well, she would
die an old woman in this man's arms, or he would die in hers. While
their sons killed one another. And there had been a time not half a year
ago she'd thought the prize worth winning.
"I should go," she murmured. "I have to attend to my father. There's
some dignitary just come to the city that I'm to smile at."
"Have you heard of the others? Kaiin and Danat?"
"Nothing," Idaan said. "They've vanished. Gone to ground."
"And the other one? Otah?"
Idaan pulled back, straightening the sleeves of her robes as she spoke.
"Otah's a story that the utkhaiem tell to make the song more
interesting. He's likely not even alive any longer. Or if he is, he's
wise enough to have no part of this."
"Are you certain of that?"
"Of course not," she said. "But what else can I give you?"
They spoke little after that. Adrah walked with her through the gardens
of the Second Palace and then out to the street. Idaan made her way to
her rooms and sent for the slave boy who repainted her face. The sun
hadn't moved the width of two hands together before she strode again
though the high palaces, her face cool and perfect as a player's mask.
The formal poses of respect and deference greeted and steadied her. She
was Idaan Machi, daughter of the Khai and wife, though none knew it yet,
of the man who would take his place. She forced confidence into her
spine, and the men and women around her reacted as if it were real.
Which, she supposed, meant that it was. And that the sorrow and darkness
they could not see were false.
When she entered the council chambers, her father greeted her with a
silent pose of welcome. He looked ill, his skin gray and his mouth
pinched by the pain in his belly. The delicate lanterns of worked iron
and silver made the wood-sheathed walls glow, and the cushions that
lined the floor were thick and soft as pillows. The men who sat on
them-yes, men, all of them-made their obeisances to her, but her father
motioned her closer. She walked to his side and knelt.
"There is someone I wish you to meet," her father said, gesturing to an
awkward man in the brown robes of a poet. "The I)ai-kvo has sent him.
Maati Vaupathai has come to study in our library."
Fear flushed her mouth with the taste of metal, but she simpered and
took a pose of welcome as if the words had meant nothing. Her mind
raced, ticking through ways that the Dal-kvo could have discovered her,
or Adrah, or the Galts. The poet replied to her gesture with a formal
pose of gratitude, and she took the opportunity to look at him more
closely. The body was soft as a scholar's, the lines of his face round
as dough, but there was a darkness to his eyes that had nothing to do
with color or light. She felt certain he was someone worth fearing.
"The library?" she said. "That's dull. Surely there are more interesting
things in the city than room after room of old scrolls."
"Scholars have strange enthusiasms," the poet said. "But it's true, I've
never been to any of the winter cities before. I'm hoping that not all
my time will be taken in study."
'T'here had to be a reason that the Dai-kvo and the Galts wanted the
same thing. There had to be a reason that they each wanted to plumb the
depths of the library of Machi.
"And how have you found the city, Maati-cha?" she asked. "When you
haven't been studying."
"It is as beautiful as I had been told," the poet said.
"He has been here only a few days," her father said. "Had he come
earlier, I would have had your brothers here to guide him, but perhaps