Idaan put her hands to her mouth. Her fingers were shaking. It was a
dream. It was a sick dream, and she would wake from it. She would wake
up, and none of it would have been true.
"He's used us," she said. "Otah's used us to do his work."
"What?"
"Look at it! We've done everything for him. We've killed them all. Even
... even my father. We've done everything he would have needed to do. He
knew. He knew from the start. He's planned for everything we've done."
Adrah made an impatient sound at the back of his throat.
"You're imagining things," he said. "He can't have known what we were
doing, or how we would do it. He isn't a god, and he isn't a ghost."
"You're sure of that, are you? We've fallen into his trap, Adrah! It's a
trap!"
"It is a rumor started by Cehmai'Iyan. Or maybe it's Maati Vaupathai
who's set you a trap. He could suspect us and say these things to make
us panic. Or Cehmai could."
"He wouldn't do that," Idaan said. "(:ehmai wouldn't do that toto us."
"TO you, you mean," Adrah said, pulling the words out slow and bitter.
Idaan stopped her pacing and took a pose of query, her gaze locked on
Adrah's. As much challenge as question. Adrah leaned hack in his chair,
the wood creaking tinder his weight.
"He's your lover, isn't he?" Adrah said. "This limp story about wanting
to offer condolences and being willing to back my claim only if he could
see you, could speak with you. And you sending me away like I was a
puppy you'd finished playing with. Do you think I'm dim, Idaan?"
Her throat closed, and she coughed to loosen it, only the cough didn't
end. It became laughter, and it shook her the way a dog might shake a
rat. It was nothing about mirth, everything about violence. Adrah's face
went red, and then white.
"This?" Idaan finally managed to stammer. "This is what we're going to
argue about?"
"Is there something else you'd prefer?"
"You're about to live a life filled with women who aren't me. You and
your father must have a list drawn up of allies we can make by taking
their daughters for wives. You have no right to accuse me of anything."
"That was your choice," he said. "We agreed when we started this ...
this landslide. It would he the two of us, together, no matter if we won
this or lost."
"And how long would that have lasted after you took my father's place?"
she asked. "Who would I appeal to when you broke your word?"
Adrah rose to his feet, stepping toward her. His hand open flat, pointed
toward her like a knife.
"That isn't fair to me. You never gave me the chance to fail you. You
assumed it and went on to punish me as though it had happened."
"I'm not wrong, Adrah. You know I'm not wrong."
"There's a price for doing what you say, do you know that? I loved you
more than I loved anything. My father, my mother, my sisters, anything
or anyone. I did all of this because it was what you wanted."
"And not for any gain of your own? How selfless. Becoming Khai Machi
must be such a chore for you."
"You wouldn't have had me if my ambition didn't match yours," Adrah
said. "What I've become, I've become for you."
"That isn't fair," Idaan said.
Adrah whooped and turned in a wide circle, like a child playing before
an invisible audience.
"Fair! When did this become about fair? When someone finally asked you
to take some responsibility? You made the plans, love. This is yours,
Idaan! All of it's yours, and VOL] won't blame me that you've got to
live with it!"
He was breathing fast now, as if he'd been running, but she could see in
his shoulders and the corners of his mouth that the rage was failing. He
dropped his arms and looked at her. His breath slowed. His face relaxed.
They stood in silence, considering each other for what felt like half a
hand. There was no anger now and no sorrow. He only looked tired and
lost, very young and very old at once. He looked the way she felt. It
was as if the air they both breathed had changed. He was the one to look
away and break the silence.
"You know, love, you never said Cehmai wasn't your lover."
"He is," Idaan said, then shrugged. The battle was over. They were both
too thin now for any more damage to matter. "He has been for a few weeks."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Because he wasn't part of all this. Because he was clean."
"Because he is power, and you're drawn to that more than anything?"
Idaan hit back her first response and let the accusation sit. "Then she
nodded.
"Perhaps a bit of that, yes," she said.
Adrah sighed and leaned against the wall. Slowly, he slid down until he
was sitting on the floor, his arms resting on his knees.
"There is a list of houses and their women," he said. ""There was before
you and Cehmai took tip with each other. I argued against it, but my
father said it was just as an exercise. Just in case it was needed
later. Only tell me ... today, when he came ... you didn't ... the two
of you didn't ..."
Idaan laughed again, but this was a lower sound, gentler.
"No, I haven't lain down for another man in your house, Adrah-kya. I
can't say why I think that would be worse than what I have done, but I do."
Adrah nodded. She could see another question in the way he shifted his
eyes, the way he moved his hands. They had been lovers and conspirators
for years. She knew him as if he were her family, or a distant part of
herself. It didn't make her love him, but she remembered when she had.
"The first time I kissed you, you looked so frightened," she said. "Do
you remember that? It was the middle of winter, and we'd all gone
skating. "There must have been twenty of us. We all raced, and you won."
"And you kissed me for the prize," he said. "Noichi Vausadar was chewing
his own tongue, he was so jealous of me."
"Poor Noichi. I half did it to annoy him, you know."
"And the other half?"
"Because I wanted to," she said. "And then it was weeks before you came
hack for another."
"I was afraid you'd laugh at me. I went to sleep every night thinking
about you, and woke up every morning just as possessed. Can you imagine
only being afraid that someone would laugh at you?"
"Now? No."
"Do you remember the night we both went to the inn. With the little dog
out front?"
"The one that danced when the keep played flute? Yes."
Idaan smiled. It had been a tiny animal with gray hair and soft, dark
eyes. It had seemed so delighted, rearing up on its hind legs and
capering, small paws waving for balance. It had seemed happy. She wiped