“I don’t understand,” Kiem said, his voice changing to bewilderment. “Why didn’t you tell someone they revoked your clearance? Why didn’t you tell me—

Taam— anyone? Or did you?”

“There was nothing to be done,” Jainan said shortly, because that hurt even more, and he wanted to head it off. “I agreed to marry Taam and live here. That means I agreed to be bound by palace procedures. I have no quarrel with Internal Security.”

“I don’t get it.” They had come to a stop just before the central rise of the

bridge. Behind Kiem, the palace was spread out in all its crystalline glory, the towers blurring with the white-gray snow clouds. “You got cut off from everyone. Just because the palace told you it was a matter of security doesn’t mean that’s okay!”

Jainan felt a surge of something shockingly like anger. “That’s exactly what it means!” His hands had formed white-knuckled fists in the pockets of the coat.

For a moment he felt almost warm, though it was a prickly, unpleasant heat. “I am here to maintain the treaty. I am a diplomat.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

Now this was near mockery. “I know what it is to do my duty by my people,”

Jainan said sharply. “I have never shirked that.”

Kiem looked strange. It seemed to take him a while to form words, while Jainan waited and tasted metal in his mouth.

“I didn’t mean that,” Kiem said. “I’m sorry, I would never imply— I know you always do your duty.” He broke off. “Obviously.” He took a step forward, closing some of the distance. Jainan felt a strange anger course through his body.

“But doing your duty doesn’t have to make you this unhappy, does it?” Kiem said. If Jainan hadn’t known better, it would have sounded like Kiem was pleading. He stopped half a pace away and lifted his hand in an empty gesture.

“Come on. Not—pointlessly. Not like this.”

Jainan’s rock-solid certainty started to drain away. He could be intractably stubborn, when the issue was important—it was one of the things that made him a bad choice for a goodwill representative. But this wasn’t anger. He didn’t know what it was, but in the face of it, his conviction was falling apart.

“It’s how it is,” he said instead. “You know that.”

“I don’t, ” Kiem said. He shut his mouth deliberately, as if challenging Jainan to fill the gap.

Jainan was silent. Kiem stared at him, still waiting for an answer, and rubbed his arms against the cold. Jainan belatedly realized they’d been standing still for too long. The tension around Kiem’s arms and shoulders was turning into shivers. “Okay,” Kiem said. “I think we might be talking about different things here—what are you doing?”

Jainan had pulled off the coat and held it out. “You’re cold,” he said before he could stop himself. Too direct: that would hit an Iskaner’s pride. “It’s my fault.”

Not much better.