and they'll see it through. It's how they survive."
There were five lanterns, from small glass candleboxes to an oil lamp
with a wick as wide as her thumb and heavy enough to require both of
them to move it. They pulled them all as near the open window as they
could, and Adrah lit them while Idaan pulled the thin silks from under
her robes. The richest dyes in the world had given these their colorone
blue, the other red. Idaan hung the blue over the window's frame, and
then peered out, squinting into the night for the signal. And there,
perhaps half a hand from the top of the tower, shone the answering
light. Idaan turned away.
With all the light gathered at the window, the rooms were cast into
darkness. Adrah had pulled a hooded cloak over his robes. Idaan
remembered again the feeling of hanging over the void, feeling the wind
tugging at her. This wasn't so different, except that the prospect of
her own death had seemed somehow cleaner.
"He would want it," Idaan said. "If he knew that we'd planned this, he
would allow it. You know that."
"Yes, Idaan-kya. I know."
"To live so weak. It disgraces him. It makes him seem less before the
court. It's not a fit ending for a Khai."
Adrah drew a thin, blackened blade. It looked no wider than a finger,
and not much longer. Adrah sighed and squared his shoulders. Idaan felt
her stomach rise to her throat.
"I want to go with you," she said.
"We discussed this, Idaan-kya. You stay in case someone comes. You have
to convince them that I'm still in here with you."
"They won't come. They've no reason to. And he's my father."
"More reason that you should stay."
Idaan moved to him, touching his arm like a beggar asking alms. She felt
herself shaking and loathed the weakness, but she could not stop it.
Adrah's eyes were as still and empty as pebbles. She remembered Danat,
how he had looked when he arrived from the south. She had thought he was
ill, but it had been this. He had become a killer, a murderer of the
people he had once respected and loved. That he still respected and
loved. Adrah had those eyes now, the look of near-nausea. He smiled, and
she saw the determination. There were no words that would stop him now.
The stone had been dropped, and not all the wishing in the world could
call it back into her hand.
"I love you, Idaan-kya," Adrah said, his voice as cool as a gravestone.
"I have always loved you. From the first time I kissed you. Even when
you have hurt me, and you have hurt me worse than anyone alive, I have
only ever loved you."
He was lying. He was saying it as she'd said that her father would
welcome death, because he needed it to be true. And she found that she
needed that as well. She stepped back and took a pose of gratitude.
Adrah walked to the door, turned, nodded to her, and was gone. Idaan sat
in the darkness and looked at nothing, her arms wrapped around herself.
The night seemed unreal: absurd and undeniable at the same time, a
terrible dream from which she might wake to find herself whole again.