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"I don't know. That is, I know they want me to go to Machi in two weeks

time. Amiit Foss is sending half the couriers he has up there, it seems.

"Of course he is. It's where everything's happening."

"But I haven't decided to go."

The silence bore down on him now, and he turned. Kiyan stood in the

doorway-in her doorway. Her crossed arms, her narrowed eyes, and the

single frown-line drawn vertically between her brows, made Otah smile.

He leaned on his brush.

"We need to talk, sweet," he said. "There are some things ... we have

some business, I think, to attend to."

Kiyan answered by taking the brush from him, leaning it against the

wall, and marching to a meeting room at the back of the house. It was

small but formal, with a thick wooden door and a window that looked out

on the corner of the interior courtyard. The sort of place she might

give to a diplomat or a courier for an extra length of copper. The sort

of place it would be difficult to be overheard. That was as it should be.

Kiyan sat carefully, her face as blank as that of a man playing tiles.

Otah sat across from her, careful not to touch her hand. She was holding

herself back, he knew. She was restraining herself from hoping until she

knew, so that if what he said did not match what she longed to hear, the

disappointment would not he so heavy. For a moment, his mind flickered

back to a bathhouse in Saraykeht and another woman's eyes. He had had

this conversation once before, and he doubted he would ever have it again.

"I don't want to go to the north," Otah said. "For more reasons than one.

"Why not?" Kiyan asked.

"Sweet, there are some things I haven't told you. Things about my

family. About myself...."

And so he began, slowly, carefully, to tell the story. He was the son of

the Khai Machi, but his sixth son. One of those cast out by his family

and sent to the school where the sons of the Khaiem and utkhaiem

struggled in hope of one day being selected to be poets and wield the

power of the andat. He had been chosen once, and had walked away. Itani

Noygu was the name he had chosen for himself, the man he had made of

himself. But he was also Otah Machi.

He was careful to tell the story well. He more than half expected her to

laugh at him. Or to accuse him of a self-aggrandizing madness. Or to

sweep him into her arms and say that she'd known, she'd always known he

was something more than a courier. Kiyan defeated all the stories he had

spun in his dreams of this moment. She merely listened, arms crossed,

eyes turned toward the window. The vertical line between her brows

deepened slightly, and that was all. She did not move or ask questions

until he had nearly reached the end. All that was left was to tell her

he'd chosen to take her offer to work with her here at the wayhouse, but

she knew that already and lifted her hands before he could say the words.

"Irani ... lover, if this isn't true ... if this is a joke, please tell

me. Now."

"It isn't a joke," he said.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When she spoke, she

seemed calm in a way that he knew meant rage beyond expression. At the

first tone of it, his heart went tight.

"You have to leave. Now. Tonight. You have to leave and never come hack."

"Kiyan-kya..."

"No. No kya. No sweet. No my lone. None of that. You have to leave my

house and you can't ever come back or tell anyone who you are or who I

am or that we knew each other once. Igo you understand that?"

"I understand that you're angry with me," Otah said, leaning toward her.

"You have a right to be. But you don't know how carefully I have had to

guard this."

Kiyan tilted her head, like a fox that's heard a strange noise, then

laughed once.

"You think I'm upset you didn't tell me? You think I'm upset because you

had a secret and you didn't spill it the first time we shared a bed?

Irani, this may surprise you, but I have secrets a thousand times less

important than that, and I've kept them a hundred times better."

`But you want me to leave?

"Of course I want you to leave. Are you dim? Do you know what happened

to the men who guarded your eldest brother? They're dead. Do you recall

what happened when the Khai Yalakeht's sons turned on each other six

years back? 't'here were a dozen corpses before that was through, and

only two of them were related to the Khai. Now look around you. How do

you expect me to protect my house? How can I protect Old Mani? And think

before you speak, because if you tell me that you'll be strong and manly

and protect me, I swear by all the gods I'll turn you in myself."

"No one will find out," Otah said.

She closed her eyes. A tear broke free, tracing a bright line down her

cheek. When he leaned close, reaching out to wipe it away, she slapped

his hand before it touched her.

"I would almost be willing to take that chance, if it were only me. Not

quite, but nearly. It isn't, though. It's everyone and everything I've

worked for."

"Kiyan-kya, together we could ..."

"Do nothing. Together we could do nothing, because you are leaving now.

And odd as it sounds, I do understand. Why you concealed what you did,

why you told inc now. And I hope ghosts haunt you and chew out your eyes

at night. I hope all the gods there are damn you for making me love you

and then doing this to me. Now get out. If you're here in half a hand's

time, I will call for the guard."

Outside the window, a flutter of wings and then the fluting melody of a

songbird. The constant distant sound of the river. The scent of pine.

"Do you believe me?" she asked. "That I'll call the guard on you if you

stay?"

"I do," he said.

"Then go."

"I love you."

"I know you do, 'Tani-kya. Go."

House Siyanti had quarters in the city for its people-small rooms hardly

large enough for a cot and a brazier, but the blankets were thick and

soft, and the kitchens sold meals at half the price a cart on the street

would. When the rain came that night, Otah lay in the glow of the coals

and listened to patter of water against leaves mix with the voices from

the covered courtyard. Someone was playing a nomad's harp, and the music

was lively and sorrowful at the same time. Sometimes voices would rise

up together in song or laughter. He turned Kiyan's words over in his

mind and noticed how empty they made him feel.

He'd been a fool to tell her, a fool to say anything. If he had only