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He didn&039;t speak She was standing alone and apart, the sorrow and guilt heating her like storm waves, and then his arms folded her into him His skin smelled dark and musky and male He didn&039;t kiss her, he didn&039;t try to open her robes He only held her there as if he had never wanted anything h he was a branch hanging over a precipice She heard herself sob, and it sounded like violence

"I&039;m sorry," she said "I&039;m so sorry I&039;m so sorry I want it back I want it all back I&039;m so sorry"

"What, love? What do you want back?"

"All of it," she wailed, and the blackness and despair and rage and sorrow rose tip, taking her in its teeth and shaking her Cehmai held her close, murmured soft words to her, stroked her hair and her face When she sank to the ground, he sank with her

She couldn&039;t say how long it was before the crying passed She only knew that the night around them was perfectly dark, that she was curled in on herself with her head in his lap, and that her body was tired to the bone She felt as if she&039;d swuers with his, wondering where daas It seeht had already lasted for years Surely there would be light soon

"You feel better?" he asked, and she nodded her reply, trusting hiainst his flesh

"Do you want to tell hter for a e in her body, because he raised her hand to his lips His mouth was so soft and so warm

"I do," she said "I want to But I&039;m afraid"

"Ofin his expression Not a hardening, not a pulling away, but a change It was as if she&039;d confir you can say that will hurt me," Cehi, isn&039;t it? It&039;s Adrah"

"I can&039;t, love Please don&039;t talk about it"

But he only ran his free hand over her arht&039;s silence When he spoke again, Cehent

"It&039;s about your father and your brothers, isn&039;t it?"

Idaan sed, trying to loosen her throat She didn&039;t answer, not even with a movement, but Cehmai&039;s soft, beautiful voice pressed on

"Otah Machi didn&039;t kill them, did he?"

The air went thin as a mountaintop&039;s Idaan couldn&039;t catch her breath Cehently He leaned forward and kissed her teht," he said "Tell me"

"I can&039;t," she said

"I love you, Idaan-kya And I will protect you, whatever happens"

Idaan closed her eyes, even in the darkness Her heart see she wanted it so badly to he true She wanted so badly to lay her sins before hiiven And he knew already He knew the truth or else guessed it, and he hadn&039;t denounced her

"I love you," he repeated, his voice softer than the sound of his hand stroking her skin "How did it start?"

"I don&039;t know," she said And then, a , I think"

Quietly, she told hi her brothers sent to the school and being told that she could not go herself because of her sex Watching her mother brood and suffer and know that one day she would be sent away or else die there, in the wo that had borne a Khai&039;s babies

She told his about the sons of the Khaieirl, she&039;d pretend to be one of them and force her playmates to take on the roles of her rivals And the sense of injustice that her older brothers would pick their oives and command their own fates, while she would be sold at convenience

At so her, and only listened, but that open, receptive silence was all she needed of hi The wild, impossible plans she&039;d woven with Adrah The intinitary had coht not be iain they had struck-access to a library&039;s depth of old books and scrolls traded for power and freedoression, inevitable as water flowing toward the sea, that led Adrah to her father&039;s sleeping chambers and her to the stillhome

With every phrase, she felt the horror of it case It lost none of the sorrow, none of the regret, but the bleak, soul-eating despair began to fade froray By the ti following it, the birds outside had begun to trill and sing It would be light soon Daould coer answer than you hoped for, h," he said

Idaan shifted and sat up, pulling her hair back from her face Cehmai didn&039;t move

"Hiami told me once," she said, "just before she left, that to becoet how to love I see why she believed that But it isn&039;t what&039;s happened Not touess how much I needed to tell you all that It wasit was too ry with me now?"

"Of course not," he said

"Are you horrified by ht The pause stretched, her heart sickening with every beat

"I love you, Idaan," he said at last, and she felt the tears coain, but this time with a very different pressure behind them It wasn&039;t joy, but it was perhaps relief

She shifted forward in the darkness, found his body there waiting, and held him for a time She was the one who kissed him this time She was the one who moved their conversation from the intimacy of confession to the intimacy of sex Ceh her body noould betray some deeper moment that they had shared But Idaan led him to his bed in the darkness, opened her own robes and his, and coaxed his flesh until whatever objection he&039;d fostered was forgotten She found herself at ease, lighter, almost as if she was half in dream

Afterwards, she lay nestled in his arms, warht pressed at the closed shutters as she drifted down to sleep

The tunnels beneath Machi were a city unto themselves Otah found himself drawn out into them more and more often as the days crept forward Sinja and A the storehouse beneath the underground palaces of the Sava, but Otah had overruled the abandoned corridors was less, he judged, than the risk of going quietlyin the same sunless room day after day Sinja had convinced hiuard when he went

Otah had expected the darkness and the quiet-wide halls ehs dry-hut the beauty he stumbled on took him by stirprise Here a wide square of stone s tip fro silk made from stone And down another corridor, a bathhouse left dry for the winter but rich with the scent of cedar and pine resin

Even when lie returned to the storehouse and the voices and faces he knew, lie found his alleries, unsure whether the iht of a thousand candles were iht hi open Amiit and Sinja walked in, already half into a conversation Sinja&039;s expression was ht, sees worse," Amiit said

"We&039;d earn more time And it isn&039;t as if they&039;d accuse Otah-cha here of it They think he&039;s dead"

"&039;T&039;hen they&039;ll accuse him of it once they find he&039;s alive," Amiit said and turned to Otah "Sinja wants to assassinate the head of a high family in order to slow the work of the council"

"We won&039;t do that," Otah said "My hands aren&039;t particularly bloodied yet, and I&039;d like to keep it that way-"

"It isn&039;t as though people are going to believe it," Sinja said "If you&039;re going to carry the bla"

"It&039;ll be easier to convince them of ," Otah said, "hut there may be other roads that co else that would slow the council and doesn&039;t involve putting holes in so as if he were reading text written in the air He half-smiled

"Perhaps Let me look into that"

With a pose that ended his conversation, Sinja left Ahed and lowered himself into one of the chairs

"What news?" A their forces," Otah said "Most of the talks see a knife The Loiya, Bentani, and (:oirah have all been quietly, and so far as I can tell, independently, backing the Vaunyogi"

"And they all have contracts with Galt," Amiit said "What about the others?"

"Of the faainst them And none for, or at least not openly"

"There should be les and coalitions Alliances should be for by the mogle going on If the decision was already made, it would look exactly like this"

"Yes There are tiht Any word froain Maati had gone fro, and he&039;d seemed convinced Otah had been sure at the time that he wouldn&039;t betray them He was sure in his bones He only wished he&039;d had his thoughts more in order at the time He&039;d been swept up in the moment, more concerned with his lies about Liat&039;s son than anything else He&039;d had time since to reflect, and the other worries had swarht candle was at its halfway s he needed to consider It hadn&039;t lent hi," Amiit said "You must feel like you&039;re back up in that tower"

"That was easier Then at least I kneas going to happen I wish I could go out If I could be up there listening to the people theht teahouse, I&039;d knowdown here for days Yes, I know You&039;ve the bestto reports isn&039;t the sa"

"I know it More than half uess the truth out of a dozen different reports of a thing There&039;s a knack to it You&039;ll have your practice with it"

"If this ends well," Otah said

"Yes," Areed "If that"

Otah filled a tin cup ater frorit swam at the cup&039;s bottoht away If there was any time in his life to be sober as stone, this was it, but his unease shifted and tightened He looked up froaze on him, his expression quizzical

"We have to i are to blaives them power, they&039;ll be able to wash away any number of crimes And all those fas quiet If it coi killed the Khai in order to raise up his son and half the families of the utkhaieuilt Being in the right won&039;t mean much then"

"There&039;s ti ahen he said it

"And what happens if we fail?"

"That all depends on hoe fail If we&039;re discovered before we&039;re ready to move, we&039;ll all be killed If Adrah is named Khai, we&039;ll at least have a chance to slip away quietly"

"You&039;ll take care of Kiyan?"

Amiit smiled "I hope to see to it that you can perform that duty"

"But if not?"

"Then of course," Aain, and the door opened on a young s in House Siyanti, but he couldn&039;t recall his naof friends, and left The youngfree, half closing Otah drank the last of his water, the grit rough in his throat Maati came in slowly, a diffidence in his body and his face, like a ood or ill or soether Otah gestured to the door, and Maati closed it