seemed to echo hack the song, and the sky above them received it.
As they turned to face each other, he could see the flush in Idaan's
check, and felt the same blood in his own, and then the music whirled
them off again.
In the center of the frenzy, someone took Cehmai's elbow from behind,
and something round and hard was pressed into his hands. A man's voice
whispered urgently in his ear.
"Hold this."
Cehmai faltered, confused, and the moment was gone. He was suddenly
standing alone in a throng of people, holding an empty bowl-a thread of
wine wetting the rim-while Adrah Vaunyogi took Idaan Machi through the
steps and turns of the dance. The pair shifted away from him, left him
behind. Cehmai felt the flush in his cheek brighten. He turned and
walked through the shifting bodies, handing the bowl to a servant as he
left.
"He is her lover," the andat said. "Everyone knows it."
"I don't," Cehmai said.
"I just told you."
"You tell me things all the time; it doesn't mean I agree to them."
"This thing you have in mind," Stone-Made-Soft said. "You shouldn't do it."
Cehmai looked up into the calm gray eyes set in the wide, placid face.
He felt his own head lift in defiance, even as he knew the words were
truth. It was stupid and mean and petty. Adrah Vaunyogi wasn't even
entirely in the wrong. There was a perspective by which the little
humiliation Cehmai had been dealt was a small price for flirting so
openly with another man's love.
And yet.
The andat nodded slowly and turned to consider the dancers. It was easy
enough to pick out Idaan and Adrah. They were too far for Cehmai to be
sure, but he liked to think she was frowning. It hardly mattered. Cehmai
focused on Adrah's movements-his feet, shifting in time with the drums
while Idaan danced to the flutes. He doubled his attention, feeling it
through his own body and also the constant storm at the hack of his
mind. In that instant he was both of them-a single being with two bodies
and a permanent struggle at the heart. And then, at just the moment when
Adrah's foot came hack to catch his weight, Cehmai reached out. The
paving stone gave way, the smooth stone suddenly soft as mud, and Adrah
stumbled backward and fell, landing on his rear, legs splayed. Cehmai
waited a moment for the stone to flow back nearer to smooth, then let
his consciousness return to its usual state. The storm that was
Stone-Made-Soft was louder, more present in his mind, like the proud
flesh where a thorn has scratched skin. And like a scratch, Cehmai knew
it would subside.
"We should go," Cehmai said, "before I'm tempted to do something childish."
The andat didn't answer, and Cehmai led the way through the nightdark
gardens. The music floated in the distance and then faded. Far from the
kilns and dancing, the night was cold-not freezing, but near it. But the
stars were brighter, and the moon glowed: a rim of silver that made the
starless thumbprint darker by contrast. They passed by the temple and