time. Amiit Foss is sending half the couriers he has up there, it seems.
"Of course he is. It's where everything's happening."
"But I haven't decided to go."
The silence bore down on him now, and he turned. Kiyan stood in the
doorway-in her doorway. Her crossed arms, her narrowed eyes, and the
single frown-line drawn vertically between her brows, made Otah smile.
He leaned on his brush.
"We need to talk, sweet," he said. "There are some things ... we have
some business, I think, to attend to."
Kiyan answered by taking the brush from him, leaning it against the
wall, and marching to a meeting room at the back of the house. It was
small but formal, with a thick wooden door and a window that looked out
on the corner of the interior courtyard. The sort of place she might
give to a diplomat or a courier for an extra length 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 a man playing tiles.
Otah sat across from her, careful not to touch her hand. She was holding
herself back, he knew. She was restraining herself from hoping until she
knew, so that if what he said did not match what she longed to hear, the
disappointment would not he so heavy. For a moment, his mind flickered
back to a bathhouse in Saraykeht and another woman's eyes. He had had
this conversation once before, and he doubted he would ever have it again.
"I don't want to go to the north," Otah said. "For more reasons than one.
"Why not?" Kiyan asked.
"Sweet, there are some things I haven't told you. Things about my
family. About myself...."
And so he began, 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 Khaiem and utkhaiem
struggled in hope of one day being 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 more than half expected her to
laugh at him. Or to accuse him of a self-aggrandizing madness. Or to
sweep him into her arms and say that she'd known, she'd always known he
was something 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 the window. The 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'd chosen to take her offer to work with her here at the wayhouse, but
she knew that already and lifted her hands before he could say the words.
"Irani ... lover, if this isn't true ... if this is a joke, please tell
me. Now."
"It isn't a joke," he said.
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When she spoke, she
seemed calm in a way that he knew meant rage beyond expression. At the
first tone of it, his heart went tight.