There was time. She could call for armsmen. She could call for Danat.
She could go and stop the blade with her own body. She sat silent,
trying not to breathe. She remembered the ceremony of her tenth summer,
the year after her mother's death. Her father had taken her to sit at
his side during all that day's ritual. She had hated it, bored by the
petitions and formality until tears ran down her cheeks. She re membered
a meal with a representative from some Westlands warden where her father
had forced her to sit on a hard wooden chair and swallow a cold bean
soup that made her gag rather than seem ungracious to the Westlander for
his food.
She fought to remember a smile, an embrace. She wanted a moment in the
long years of her childhood to which she could point and say here is how
I know he loved me. The blue silk stirred in the breeze. The lantern
flames flickered, dimmed, and rose again. It must have happened. For him
to be so desperate for her happiness now, there must have been some
sign, some indication.
She found herself rocking rapidly back and forth. When a sound came from
the door, she jumped up, panicked, looking around for some excuse to
explain Adrah's absence. When he himself came in, she could see in his
eyes that it was over.
Adrah pulled off the cloak, letting it pool around his ankles. His
bright robes seemed incongruous as a butterfly in a butcher's shop. His
face was stone.
"You've done it," Idaan said, and two full breaths later, he nodded.
Something as much release as despair sank into her. She could feel her
body made heavy by it.
She walked to him, pulled the blade and its soft black leather sheath
from his belt, and let them drop to the floor. Adrah didn't try to stop her.
"Nothing we ever do will be so bad as this," she said. "This now is the
worst it will ever be. Everything will be better than this."
"He never woke," Adrah said. "The drugs that let him sleep ... He never
woke."
"That's good."
A slow, mad grin bloomed on his face, stretching until the blood left
his lips. There was a hardness in his eyes and a heat. It looked like
fury or possession. He took her shoulders in his hands and pulled her
near him. Their kiss was a gentle violence. For a moment, she thought he
meant to open her robes, to drag her back to the bed in a sad parody of
what they were expected to be doing. She pressed a palm to his sex and
was surprised to find that he was not aroused. Slowly, with perfect
control and a grip that bruised her, Adrah brought her away from him.
"I did this thing for you," he said. "I did this for you. Do you
understand that?"
"I do."
"Never ask me for anything again," he said and released her, turning
away. "From now until you die, you are in debt to me, and I owe you
nothing."
"For the favor of killing my father?" she asked, unable to keep the edge
from her voice.