Free A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) by Daniel Abraham

soon as your brother died.
    We have started, and there's no ending it now except to win through or die."
     
    They stayed still in each others' embrace. If all went well, she would
    die an old woman in this man's arms, or he would die in hers. While
    their sons killed one another. And there had been a time not half a year
    ago she'd thought the prize worth winning.
     
    "I should go," she murmured. "I have to attend to my father. There's
    some dignitary just come to the city that I'm to smile at."
     
    "Have you heard of the others? Kaiin and Danat?"
     
    "Nothing," Idaan said. "They've vanished. Gone to ground."
     
    "And the other one? Otah?"
     
    Idaan pulled back, straightening the sleeves of her robes as she spoke.
     
    "Otah's a story that the utkhaiem tell to make the song more
    interesting. He's likely not even alive any longer. Or if he is, he's
    wise enough to have no part of this."
     
    "Are you certain of that?"
     
    "Of course not," she said. "But what else can I give you?"
     
    They spoke little after that. Adrah walked with her through the gardens
    of the Second Palace and then out to the street. Idaan made her way to
    her rooms and sent for the slave boy who repainted her face. The sun
    hadn't moved the width of two hands together before she strode again
    though the high palaces, her face cool and perfect as a player's mask.
    The formal poses of respect and deference greeted and steadied her. She
    was Idaan Machi, daughter of the Khai and wife, though none knew it yet,
    of the man who would take his place. She forced confidence into her
    spine, and the men and women around her reacted as if it were real.
    Which, she supposed, meant that it was. And that the sorrow and darkness
    they could not see were false.
     
    When she entered the council chambers, her father greeted her with a
    silent pose of welcome. He looked ill, his skin gray and his mouth
    pinched by the pain in his belly. The delicate lanterns of worked iron
    and silver made the wood-sheathed walls glow, and the cushions that
    lined the floor were thick and soft as pillows. The men who sat on
    them-yes, men, all of them-made their obeisances to her, but her father
    motioned her closer. She walked to his side and knelt.
     
    "There is someone I wish you to meet," her father said, gesturing to an
    awkward man in the brown robes of a poet. "The I)ai-kvo has sent him.
    Maati Vaupathai has come to study in our library."
     
    Fear flushed her mouth with the taste of metal, but she simpered and
    took a pose of welcome as if the words had meant nothing. Her mind
    raced, ticking through ways that the Dal-kvo could have discovered her,
    or Adrah, or the Galts. The poet replied to her gesture with a formal
    pose of gratitude, and she took the opportunity to look at him more
    closely. The body was soft as a scholar's, the lines of his face round
    as dough, but there was a darkness to his eyes that had nothing to do
    with color or light. She felt certain he was someone worth fearing.
     
    "The library?" she said. "That's dull. Surely there are more interesting
    things in the city than room after room of old scrolls."
     
    "Scholars have strange enthusiasms," the poet said. "But it's true, I've
    never been to any of the winter cities before. I'm hoping that not all
    my time will be taken in study."
     
    'T'here had to be a reason that the Dai-kvo and the Galts wanted the
    same thing. There had to be a reason that they each wanted to plumb the
    depths of the library of Machi.
     
    "And how have you found the city, Maati-cha?" she asked. "When you
    haven't been studying."
     
    "It is as beautiful as I had been told," the poet said.
     
    "He has been here only a few days," her father said. "Had he come
    earlier, I would have had your brothers here to guide him, but perhaps
    you might introduce him to your friends."
     
    "I would be honored," Idaan said, her mind considering the thou sand
    ways that this might be a trap. "Perhaps tomorrow evening you would join
    me for