Read A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) for Free Online

light of Old Mani. It's just ..."
     
    He sighed. Kiyan closed the window and relit the night candle.
     
    "It's just that you're brooding," she said. "And you're naked and not
    under the blankets, so you're feeling that you've done something wrong
    and deserve to suffer."
     
    "Ah," Otah said. "Is that why I do this?"
     
    "Yes," she said, untying her robes. "It is. You can't hide it from me,
    Itani. You might as well come out with it."
     
    Otah held the thought in his mind. I'm not who I've told you I am. Itani
    Noygu is the name I picked for myself when I was a child. My father is
    dying, and brothers I can hardly recall have started killing each other,
    and I find it makes me sad. He wondered what Kiyan would say to that.
    She prided herself on knowing him-on knowing people and how their minds
    worked. And yet he didn't think this was something she'd already have
    guessed.
     
    Naked, she lay beside him, pulling thick blankets up over them both.
     
    "Did you find another woman in Chaburi-Tan?" she asked, halfteasing. But
    only half. "Some young dancing girl who stole your heart, or some other
    hit of your flesh, and now you're stewing over how to tell me you're
    leaving me?"
     
    "I'm a courier," Otah said. "I have a woman in every city I visit. You
    know that."
     
    "You don't," she said. "Some couriers do, but you don't."
     
    "No?"
     
    "No. It took me half a year of doing everything short of stripping bare
    for you to notice me. You don't stay in other cities long enough for a
    woman to chip through your reserve. And you don't have to push away the
    blankets. You may want to be cold, but I don't."
     
    "Well. Maybe I'm just feeling old."
     
    "A ripe thirty-three? Well, when you decide to stop running across the
    world, I'd always be pleased to hire you on. We could stand another pair
    of hands around the place. You could throw out the drunks and track down
    the cheats that try to slip away without paying."
     
    "You don't pay enough," Otah said. "I talk to Old Mani. I know what your
    wages are.
     
    "Perhaps you'd get extra for keeping me warm at nights."
     
    "Shouldn't you offer that to Old Mani first? He's been here longer than
    I have."
     
    Kiyan slapped his chest smartly, and then nestled into him. He found
    himself curling toward her, the warmth of her body drawing him like a
    familiar scent. Her fingers traced the tattoo on his breast-the ink had
    faded over time, blurring lines that had once been sharp and clear.
     
    "Jokes aside," she said, and he could hear a weariness in her voice, "I
    would take you on, if you wanted to stay. You could live here, with me.
    Help me manage the house."
     
    He caressed her hair, feeling the individual strands as they flowed
    across his fingertips. There was a scattering of white among the black
    that made her look older than she was. Otah knew that they had been
    there since she was a girl, as if she'd been born old.
     
    "That sounds like you're suggesting marriage," he said.
     
    "Perhaps. You wouldn't have to, but ... it would be one way to arrange
    things. That isn't a threat, you know. I don't need a husband. Only if
    it would make you feel better, we could ..."
     
    He kissed her gently. It had been weeks, and he was surprised to find
    how much he'd missed the touch of her lips. Weeks of travel weariness
    slipped away, the deep unease loosened its hold on his chest, and he
    took comfort in her. He fell asleep with her arm over his body, her
    breath already soft and deep with sleep.
     
    In the morning, he woke before she did, slipped out of the bed, and
    dressed quietly. The sun was not up, but the eastern sky had lightened
    and the morning birds were singing madly as he took himself across an
    ancient stone bridge into Udun.
     
    A river city, Udun was laced with as many canals as roadways. Bridges
    humped up high enough for barges to pass beneath them, and the green
    water of the Qiit lapped at old stone steps that descended into the
    river mud. Otah stopped at a