"Are you about to tell me that he's planned it all from the start again?
It was a cheap, desperate trick. It won't matter, except that anyone who
doesn't like us will say we did it, and anyone who has a grudge against
our enemies will put it to them. Nothing changes."
"Who would do it?"
Adrah shook his head, impatient, and turned to walk back out into the
street and noise and light. "Anyone might have. There's no point trying
to solve every puzzle in the world."
"Don't be stupid, Adrah. Someone's acted against-"
The violence and suddenness of his movement was shocking. He was walking
away, his hack to her, and then a heartbeat later, there was no more
room between them than the width of a leaf His face was twisted,
flushed, possessed by anger.
"Don't be stupid? Is that what you said?"
Idaan took a step hack, her feet unsteady beneath her.
"How do you mean, stupid, Idaan? Stupid like calling out my lover's name
in a crowd?"
"What?"
"Cehmai. The poet boy. When you were running, you called his name.
"I did?"
"Everyone heard it," Adrah said. "Everybody knows. At least you could
keep it between us and not parade it all over the city!"
"I didn't mean to," she said. "I swear it, Adrah. I didn't know I had."
He stepped hack and spat, the spittle striking the wall beside him and
dripping down toward the ground. His gaze locked on her, daring her to
push him, to meet his anger with defiance or submission. Either would be
devastating. Idaan felt herself go hard. It wasn't unlike the feeling of
seeing her father dying breath by breath, his belly rotting out and
taking him with it.
"It won't get better, will it?" she asked. "It will go on. It will
change. But it will never get better than it is right now."
The dread in Adrah's eyes told her she'd struck home. When he turned and
stalked away, she didn't try to stop him.
FELL ME, HE'I) SAID.
I can't, she'd replied.
And now Cehmai sat on a chair, staring at the bare wall and wished that
he'd left it there. The hours since morning had been filled with a kind
of anguish he'd never known. He'd told her he loved her. He did love
her. But ... Gods! She'd murdered her own family. She'd engineered her
own father's death and as much as sold the Khai's library to the Galts.
And the only thing that had saved her was that she loved him and he'd
sworn he'd protect her. He'd sworn it.
"What did you expect?" Stone-Made-Soft asked.
"That it was Adrah. That I'd be protecting her from the Vaunyogi,"
Cehmai said.
"Well. Perhaps you should have been more specific."
The sun had passed behind the mountains, but the daylight hadn't yet
taken on the ruddy hues of sunset. This was not night but shadow. 'The
andat stood at the window, looking out. A servant had come from the
palaces earlier bearing a meal of roast chicken and rich, dark bread.
The smell of it filled the house, though the platter had been set
outside to be taken away. He hadn't been able to eat.
Cehmai could barely feel where the struggle in the back of his mind met
the confusion at the front. Idaan. It had been Idaan all along.
"You couldn't have known," the andat said, its tone conciliatory. "And
it isn't as if she asked you to be part of the thing."
"You think she was using me."
"Yes. But since I'm a creature of your mind, it seems to follow that
you'd think the same. She did extract a promise from you. You're sworn
to protect her."
"I love her."
"You'd better. If you don't, then she told you all that under a false
impression that you led her to believe. If she hadn't truly thought she
could trust you, she'd have kept her secrets to herself."
"I do love her."
"And that's good," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Since all that blood she
spilled is part yours now."
Cehmai leaned forward. His foot knocked over the thin porcelain bowl at
his feet. The last dregs of the wine spilled to the floor, but he didn't
bother with it. Stained carpet was beneath his notice now. His head was
stuffed with wool, and none of his thoughts seemed to connect. He
thought of Idaan's smile and the way she turned toward him, nestling
into him as she slept. Her voice had been so soft, so quiet. And then,
when she had asked him if he was horrified by her, there had been so
much fear in her.
He hadn't been able to say yes. It had been there, waiting in his
throat, and he'd swallowed it. He'd told her he loved her, and he hadn't
lied. But he hadn't slept either. The andat's wide hand turned the bowl
upright and pressed a cloth onto the spill. Cehmai watched the red wick
up into the white cloth.
"Thank you," he said.
Stone-Made-Soft took a brief, dismissive pose and lumbered away. Cehmai
heard it pouring water into a basin to rinse the cloth, and felt a pang
of shame. He was falling apart. The andat itself was taking care of him
now. He was pathetic. Cehmai rose and stalked to the window. He felt as
much as heard the andat come up behind him.
"So," the andat said. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think she's got her legs around him now? Just at the moment, I
mean," the andat said, its voice as calm and placid and distantly amused
as always. "He is her husband. He must get her knees apart now and
again. And she must enjoy him on some level. She did slaughter her
family to elevate Adrah. It's not something most girls would do."
"You're not helping," Cehmai said.
"It could he you're just a part of her plan. She did fall into your bed
awfully easily. Do you think they talk about it, the two of them? About
what she can do to you or for you to win your support? Having the poet's
oath protecting you would be a powerful thing. And if you protect her,
you protect them. You can't suggest anything evil of the Vaunyogi now
without drawing her into it."
"She isn't like that!"
Cehmai gathered his will, but before he could turn it on the andat,
before he pushed the rage and the anger and the hurt into a force that
would make the beast be quiet, Stone-Made-Soft smiled, leaned forward,
and gently kissed Cehmai's forehead. In all the years he'd held it,
Cehmai had never seen the andat do anything of the sort.
"No," it said. "She isn't. She's in terrible trouble, and she needs you