A Betrayal in Winter - By Daniel Abraham Page 0,23

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 you might introduce him to your friends."

"I would be honored," Idaan said, her mind considering the thou sand ways that this might be a trap. "Perhaps tomorrow evening you would join me for tea in the winter gardens. I have no doubt there are many people who would be pleased to join us."

"Not too many, I hope," he said. He had an odd voice, she thought. As if he was amused at something. As if he knew how badly he had shaken her. Her fear shifted slightly,