In chilly Machi, Maati is befriended by young poet Cehmai Tyan - who's responsible for the andat Stone-Made-Soft - and his investigation is aided by the insights of bad-tempered librarian Baarath. In parallel, kind-hearted Maati, who has lived in disgrace in the village of the poets since events in Saraykeht, is summoned by the poets' powerful leader, the Dai-kvo, and asked to discover whether Otah killed Biitrah, under the guise of research in the Machi library. While this is happening, Otah/Itani is given a new assignment, one that takes him back to the world of his childhood and into a trap that tightens inexorably around him. The remaining brothers deny all knowledge of the assassination, and suspicion falls on their missing youngest brother Otah. Though brothers killing each other off is the norm when a Khai dies, it does not happen in the usual way this time. His father is slowly dying, and his elder brother Biitrah, a good man and a skilled engineer, is murdered. Maati later became involved with Otah's lover Liat, who bore a son, Nayiit.Īs the second book opens, Itani works as a courier for House Siyanti in Udun. Heshai's new apprentice, young Poet Maati Vaupathai - who knew Otah from their training days and became his friend for a time - was embroiled in all of this. Learning of the Galt plot, Itani was forced to take a pivotal role and to make a hard decision. Otah Machi, the sixth son of the despotic Khai Machi, rejected the cruel discipline of a Poet's training and fled his heritage to hide himself as Itani, a common laborer. In the first book, Galt agents worked to destroy Poet Heshai in the southern summer city of Saraykeht. But the number of andats is dwindling and foreigners (the Galts) plot against the Khaiem. It takes place in a civilization, the Khaiem, where Poets fuel the economy via their magical bindings of andats - powerful ' Concepts translated into a form that includes volition'. A Betrayal in Winter: Book Two of the Long Price Quartet by Daniel AbrahamĪ Betrayal in Winter follows A Shadow in Summer (taking place a decade and a half later) as the second in Daniel Abraham's wonderful Long Price Quartet.

Shadow and Betrayal by Daniel Abraham