Read Online A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) by Daniel Abraham - Free Book Online Page A

their
    fault. If her friends or her brothers transgressed against the etiquette
    of the court, consequences came upon them, shame or censure. But Idaan
    was the favored daughter. She might steal a rival girl's gown or arrive
    late to the temple and interrupt the priest. She could evade her
    chaperones or steal wine from the kitchens or dance with inappropriate

men. She was Idaan Machi, and she could do as she saw fit, because she
    didn't matter. She was a woman. And if she'd never screamed at her
    father in the middle of his court that she was as much his child as
    Biitrah or Danat or Kaiin, it was because she feared in her bones that
    he would only agree, make some airy comment to dismiss the matter, and
    leave her more desperate than before.
     
    Perhaps if once someone had taken her to task, had treated her as if her
    actions had the same weight as other people's, things would have ended
    differently.
     
    Or perhaps folly is folly because you can't see where it moves from
    ambition into evil. Arguments that seem solid and powerful prove hollow
    once it's too late to turn back. Arguments like Why should it be right
    for them but wrong for me?
     
    She haunted the Second Palace now, breathing in the emptiness that her
    eldest brother had left. The vaulted arches of stone and wood echoed her
    soft footsteps, and the sunlight that filtered though the stone shutters
    thickened the air to a golden twilight. Here was the bedchamber, bare
    even of the mattress he and his wife had slept upon. There, the workshop
    where he had labored on his enthusiasms, keeping engineers by his side
    sometimes late into the night or on into morning. The tables were empty
    now. Dust lay thick on them, ignored even by the servants until the time
    came for some new child of the Khaiem to take residence ... to live in
    this opulence and keep his ear pricked for the sound of his brother's
    hunting dogs.
     
    She heard Adrah coming long before he stepped into the room. She
    recognized his gait by the sound of it, and didn't call. He was clever,
    she thought bitterly; if he wanted to find her, he could puzzle it out.
    Adrah Vaunyogi, bright-eyed and broad-shouldered, father of her children
    if all went well. Whatever well meant anymore.
     
    "There you are," Adrah said. She could see his anger in the way he held
    his body.
     
    "What have I done this time?" she demanded, her tone carrying a sarcasm
    that dismissed his concerns even before he spoke them. "Did your patrons
    want me to wear red on a day I chose yellow?"
     
    The mention of his hackers, even as obliquely as that, made him stiffen
    and peer around, looking for slaves or servants who might overhear.
    Idaan laughed-a cruel, short sound.
     
    "You look like a kitten with a bell on its tail," she said. "There's no
    one here but us. You needn't worry that someone will roll the rock off
    our little conspiracy. We're as safe here as anywhere."
     
    Adrah strode over and crouched beside her all the same. He smelled of
    crushed violets and sage, and it struck Idaan that it had not been so
    long ago that the scent would have warmed her heart and brought a flush
    to her cheeks. His face was long and pretty-almost too pretty to be a
    man's. She had kissed those lips a thousand times, but now it seemed
    like the act of another woman-some entirely different Idaan Machi whose
    body and memory she had inherited when the first girl died. She smiled
    and raised her hands in a pose of formal query.
     
    "Arc you mad?" Adrah demanded. "Don't speak about them. Not ever. If
    we're found out ..."
     
    "Yes. You're right. I'm sorry," Idaan said. "I wasn't thinking."
     
    ""There are rumors you spent a day with Cchmai and the andat. You were
    seen.
     
    "The rumors are true, and I meant to be seen. I can't see how my having
    a close relationship to the poet would hurt the cause, and in fact I
    think it will help, don't you? When the time comes that half the houses
    of the utkhaiem arc vying for my father's chair, an