him. To her surprise, he was weeping; small tears corning from the outer
corners of his eyes, thin tracks shining on his skin. Without willing
it, her hand went to his cheek, caressing him. He shifted to look at her.
"I love you, Idaan. I love you more than anything in the world. You are
the only person I've ever felt this way about."
His lips trembled and she pressed a finger against them to quiet him.
These weren't things she wanted to hear, but he would not be stopped.
"Let's end this," he said. "Let's just be together, here. I'll find
another way to move ahead in the court, and your brother ... you'll
still be his blood, and we'll still be well kept. Can't we ... can't we,
please?"
"All this because you don't want to take another woman?" she said
softly, teasing him. "I find that hard to believe."
He took her hand in his. He had soft hands. She remembered thinking that
the first time they'd fallen into her bed together. Strong, soft, wide
hands. She felt tears forming in her own eyes.
"My father said that I should take other wives," he said. "My mother
said that, knowing you, you'd only agree to it if you could take lovers
of your own too. And then you weren't here last night, and I waited
until it was almost dawn. And you ... you want to ..."
"You think I've taken another man?" she asked.
His lips pressed thin and bloodless, and he nodded. His hand squeezed
hers as if she might save his life, if only he held onto her. A hundred
things came to her mind all at once. Yes, of course I have. How dare you
accuse me? Cehmai is the only clean thing left in my world, and you
cannot have him. She smiled as if Adrah were a boy being silly, as if he
were wrong.
"That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do just now," she
said, neither lying nor speaking the truth of it. She leaned forward to
kiss him, but before their mouths touched, a voice wild with excitement
called out from the atrium.
"Idaan-cha! Idaan-cha! Come quickly!"
Idaan leapt up as if she'd been caught doing something she ought not,
then gathered herself, straightened her robes. The mirror showed that
the paint on her mouth and eyes was smudged from eating and weeping, but
there wasn't time to reapply it. She pushed hack a stray lock of hair
and stormed out.
The servant girl took a pose of apology as Idaan approached her. She
wore the colors of her father's personal retinue, and Idaan's heart sank
to her belly. He had died. It had happened. But the girl was smiling,
her eyes bright.
"What's happened?" Idaan demanded.
"Everything," the girl said. "You're summoned to the court. The Khai is
calling everyone."
"Why? What's happened?"
"I'm not to say, Idaan-cha," the girl said.
Idaan felt the rage-blood in her face as if she were standing near a
fire. She didn't think, didn't plan. Her body seemed to move of its own
accord as she slid forward and clapped her hand on the servant girl's