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He had to know He had to Except that she was not being led away under guard She was not being taken to the quiet chambers and questioned If he did not know, he et word to Adrah and the Galts They would know better than she what to do with this NIaati Vaupathai If he was a threat, he would be added to the list I3iitrah, Danat, Kaiin, Otah, Maati The ently, and he nodded to her One more name could make little difference now, and he, at least, was no one she loved
"WHEN ARE THEY SENDING YOU?" KIYAN ASKED AS SIZE POURED OUT THE bucket Gray water flowed over the bricks that paved the shandled brush and swept the water off to the sides, leaving the ay deep red and glistening in the sunlight He felt Kiyan&039;s gaze on hiardens srew here In a feeeks, the place would be thick with growing things: basil andthese bricks week after week over the span of years until they wore se of fondness for the ay He smiled to himself
"Itani?"
"I don&039;t know That is, I know they wanthalf the couriers he has up there, it see&039;s happening"
"But I haven&039;t decided to go"
The silence bore down on him now, and he turned Kiyan stood in the doorway-in her doorway Her crossed arle frown-line drawn vertically between her brows, made Otah smile He leaned on his brush
"We need to talk, sweet," he said "There are soswe have some business, I think, to attend to"
Kiyan answered by taking the brush fro room at the back of the house It was small but formal, with a thick wooden door and athat looked out on the corner of the interior courtyard The sort of place she th 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 atiles Otah sat across fro herself back, he knew She was restraining herself fro until she knew, so that if what he said did not ed to hear, the disappointment would not he so heavy For a moment, his mind flickered back to a bathhouse in Saraykeht and another woman&039;s eyes He had had this conversation once before, and he doubted he would ever have it again
"I don&039;t want to go to the north," Otah said "For more reasons than one
"Why not?" Kiyan asked
"Sweet, there are sos about an, 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 Khaie 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 h at hi madness Or to sweep him into her arms and say that she&039;d known, she&039;d always known he was so 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 theThe 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&039;d chosen to take her offer to ith her here at the wayhouse, but she knew that already and lifted her hands before he could say the words
"Iranilover, if this isn&039;t trueif this is a joke, please tell me Now"
"It isn&039;t a joke," he said
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly When she spoke, she seee 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&039;t ever come back or tell anyone who you are or who I ao you understand that?"
"I understand that you&039;re angry with ht to be But you don&039;t kno carefully I have had to guard this"
Kiyan tilted her head, like a fox that&039;s heard a strange noise, then laughed once
"You think I&039;m upset you didn&039;t tell me? You think I&039;m upset because you had a secret and you didn&039;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&039;ve kept them a hundred times better"
`But you want me to leave?
"Of course I want you to leave Are you diuarded your eldest brother? They&039;re dead Do you recall what happened when the Khai Yalakeht&039;s sons turned on each other six years back? &039;t&039;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 telland ods I&039;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 al to take that chance, if it were only h It&039;s everyone and everything I&039;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 daet out If you&039;re here in half a hand&039;s tiuard"
Outside the , a flutter of wings and then the fluting bird The constant distant sound of the river The scent of pine
"Do you believe uard on you if you stay?"
"I do," he said
"Then go"
"I love you"
"I know you do, &039;Tani-kya Go"
House Siyanti had quarters in the city for its people-sh 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 calow of the coals and listened to patter of water against leaves mix with the voices fro a nomad&039;s harp, and the music was lively and sorrowful at the sa or laughter He turned Kiyan&039;s words over in his mind and noticed how empty they made him feel
He&039;d been a fool to tell her, a fool to say anything If he had only kept his secrets secret, he could have made a life for himself based on lies, and if the brothers he only knew as shadows and moments from a halfrecalled childhood had ever discovered hih to know hi why
Kiyan had not been wrong
A gentle murmur of thunder came and went Otah rose from his cot and walked out A at a fire grate, poking the crackling flath of iron while he joked over his shoulder with the five ed on cushions and low chairs He smiled when he saw Otah and called for a howl of wine for hi looked so calentlenized it for the businessthat it was
"Itani-cha is one of the couriers I mean to send north, if I can pry him away from his love of sloth and coreeted him and made him welco said here that he was not permitted to know Amiit&039;s introduction had established with the subtlety of a master Otah&039;s rank and the level of trust to be afforded him, and no one in the room was so thick as toThe two surviving sons of Machi had vanished Neither had appeared in the other cities of the Khaie for support as tradition would have them do Nor had the streets of Machi erupted in bloodshed as their bases of poithin the city vied for advantage The best estimates were that the old Khai wouldn&039;t see another winter, and even so to offer up their sons as the new Khai should the succession fail to deliver a single living heir So, and House Siyanti-like everyone else in the world-was aching with curiosity Otah could hear it in their voices, could see it in the way they held their wine Even when the conversation shifted to the glassblowers of Cetani and the collapse of the planned summer fair in Amnat-Tan, allnorth was dangerous He knew that, and still it didn&039;t escape hi by inches was his father, that these ue ain If he was going to be haunted his whole life by the city, perhaps he should at least see it The only thing he risked was his life
At length, the conversation turned to less weighty matters andwithout a word or shift in voice or hed asas loudly when the pipe players joined them But when he stretched and turned to leave, Aether, as if they had only happened to rise at the same time, and Otah knew that no one in the drunken, boisterous room they left had failed to notice it
"So, it sounds as if all the interesting things in the world were happening in Machi," Otah said as they strode back through the hallways of the house co to send reed "But I have other plans if you have some of your own"
"I don&039;t," Otah said, and Aht, Otah let the old host of some old sorrow, and then he took a pose of condolence
"I thought you had come to quit the house," Amiit said
"I&039;dit
Aether they retired to A with tapestries and lit by a dozen candles Utah sat on a low seat by a table, and Amiit took a box from his shelf Inside were two small porcelain bowls and a white stoppered bottle that matched them When Amiit poured, the scent of rice wine filled the roo his bowl "May they never drink to us"
Otah drank the wine at a gulp It was excellent, and he felt his throat groarers and nodded Aift from an old friend," Amiit said "I love to drink it, but I hate to drink alone"
"I&039;m pleased to be of service," Otah said as As with the woman didn&039;t work out?"
"No," Utah said
"I&039;m sorry"
"It was entirely my fault"
"If it&039;s true, you&039;re a wiseit Either way"
"I think it would hethat is, if there are any letters to be carried, I think traveljust now I don&039;t really care to stay in Udun"
Ahed and nodded
"To We&039;ll arrange so"
Afterwards, they finished the rice wine and talked of nothing important-of old stories and old travels, the women they had known and loved or else hated Or both Otah said nothing of Kiyan or the north, and Amiit didn&039;t press him When Otah rose to leave, he was surprised to find how drunk he had becoated his way to his roo the resolve to pull off his robes Morning found hied robes and went down to the bathhouse, forcing his ht before He was fairly certain he had said nothing to implicate hi out with Kiyan He wondered what the old man would have made of the truth, had he known it
The packet of letters waited for hi on A houses in Machi, though there were four that were to go to members of the utkhaiem Otah turned the packet in his hands Behind hiiggled
"You have tio back to her on your knees If the letters wait another day, there&039;s little lost And she ht relent"
Otah tucked the letters into their pouch and slipped it into his sleeve
"An old lover ofI&039;d ever won, I won by leaving," Otah said
"The island girl?"