The Broken Kingdoms (35 page)

“Oh, gods,” I whispered, understanding too late. I turned away, but there was no avoiding the horrible sounds: Serymn’s gagging cry, T’vril’s grunt of effort, the wet tear of flesh. It took only a moment. T’vril handed the tongs back to the servant with a sigh of disgust; the servant took them away. Serymn made a single, raw sound, not so much a scream as a wordless protest, and then she sagged between the guards, moaning.

“Hold her head forward, please,” T’vril cautioned. I heard him as if from a distance, through fog. “We don’t want her to choke.”

“W-wait,” I said. Gods, I could not think. That sound would echo in my nightmares.

“Yes, Eru Shoth?” Other than sounding a bit winded, the Lord Arameri’s tone was the same as always: polite, soft-spoken, warm. I wondered if I would throw up.

“Dateh,” I said, “and the missing godlings. She… she could have told us….” Now Serymn would say nothing, ever again.

“If she knew, she would never tell,” he said. He mounted the steps and sat down again. The servant, having disposed of the tongs behind the curtain, hurried back out and handed him a cloth for his hands, which he used to wipe each finger. “But most likely, she and Dateh agreed to separate in order to protect each other. Serymn is a fullblood, after all; she would have known to expect harsh questioning in the event of capture.”

Harsh questioning. Noble language for what I’d just witnessed.

“And unfortunately, the matter is out of my hands,” he continued. I caught a hint of a gesture. The main doors opened and another servant entered, carrying something that caught my eye at once because it glowed as brightly as the rest of this so-magical palace. And unlike the walls and floor, the object that the servant carried was a bright, cheerful rose color. A small rubber ball, like something a child might play with.

T’vril took this ball from the servant and continued. “Not only has my cousin forgotten that Bright Itempas no longer rules the gods, but she has also forgotten that we Arameri now answer to several masters rather than one. The world changes; we must change with it or die. Perhaps, after hearing of Serymn’s fate, more of my fullblood cousins will remember this.”

He turned his hand and let the pink ball fall. It bounced against the floor beside his chair and he caught it, then bounced it twice more.

A boy appeared before him. I recognized him at once and gasped. Sieh, the child-godling who had once tried to kick Shiny to death. The Trickster, who had once been an Arameri slave.

“What?” he asked, sounding annoyed. He glanced toward my gasp once, then looked away with no change in his expression. I prayed to no god in particular that he had not recognized me—though with Shiny standing beside me, that was a thin hope.

T’vril inclined his head respectfully. “Here is one of the killers of your siblings, Lord Sieh,” he said, gesturing at Serymn.

Sieh raised his eyebrows, turning to her. “I remember her. Dekarta’s third-removed niece or something, left years ago.” A wry, unchildlike smile crossed his face. “Really, T’vril, the tongue?”

T’vril handed the pink ball back to the servant, who bowed and took it away. “There are those in the family who believe I am… too gentle.” He shrugged, glancing at the guards. “An example was necessary.”

“So I see.” Sieh trotted down the steps until he stood before Serymn, though I saw him fastidiously step around the blood that darkened the floor. “Having her will help, but I don’t think Naha will restore the sun until you have the demon. Do you?”

“No,” said T’vril. “We’re still looking for him.”

Serymn made a sound then, and the little hairs on my skin prickled. I could feel her attention, could see her straining toward me as she made the sound again. There was no way to make out words, or even be certain she had tried to speak, but somehow I knew: she was trying to tell Sieh about me. She was trying to say, There is a demon.

But T’vril had seen to it she would never tell my secret, not even to the gods.

Sieh sighed at Serymn’s struggles to speak. “I don’t care what you have to say,” he said. Serymn went still, watching him in fresh apprehension. “Neither will my father. If I were you, I’d save my strength to pray he’s not in a creative mood.”

He waved a hand, lazy, careless, and perhaps only I saw the flood of black, flamelike raw power that lashed out from that hand, coiling for a moment like a snake before it lunged forward and swallowed Serymn whole. Then it vanished, and Serymn went with it.

And then Sieh turned to us.

“So you’re still with him,” he said to me.

I was very aware of my hand, holding Shiny’s. “Yes,” I replied. I lifted my chin. “I know who he is now.”

“Do you really?” Sieh’s eyes flicked to Shiny, stayed there. “Somehow I doubt that, mortal girl. Not even his children know him anymore.”

“I said I know him now,” I said, annoyed. I had never liked being patronized, regardless of who was doing it—and I had been through enough in recent weeks to no longer fear a godling’s temper. “I don’t know what he was like before. That person is gone, anyway; he died the day he killed the Lady. This is just what’s left.” I jerked my head toward Shiny. His hand had gone slack, I think with shock. “It’s not much, I’ll grant you. Sometimes I want to kick him senseless myself. But the more I get to know him, the more I realize he’s not as much of a lost cause as all of you seem to think.”

Sieh stared at me for a moment, though he recovered quickly. “You don’t know anything about it.” He clenched his fists. I half expected him to stamp his feet. “He killed my mother. All of us died that day, and he’s the one who killed us! Should we forget that?”

“No,” I said. I could not help it; I pitied him. I knew how it felt to lose a parent in a way that defied all sense. “Of course you can’t forget. But”—I lifted Shiny’s hand—“look at him. Does it look like he spent the centuries gloating?”

Sieh’s lip curled. “So he regrets what he did. Now, after we’ve freed ourselves, and after he’s been sentenced to humanity for his crimes. So very remorseful.”

“How do you know he didn’t regret it before?”

“Because he didn’t set us free!” Sieh thumped a hand against his chest. “He left us here, let humans do as they pleased with us! He tried to force us to love him again!”

“Maybe he couldn’t think of another way,” I said.

“What?”

“Maybe that was the only thing that made sense, mad as it was, after the mad thing he’d already done. Maybe he wanted time to fix things, even though it was impossible. Even though he was making things worse.” My anger had already faded. I remembered Shiny the night before, on his knees before me, empty of hope. “Maybe he thought it was better to keep you prisoner and be hated than lose you entirely.”

I knew it was a pointless argument. Some acts were beyond forgiveness; murder, unjust imprisonment, and torture were probably among them.

And yet.

Sieh closed his mouth. He looked at Shiny. His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing. “Well? Does this mortal speak for you, Father?”

Shiny said nothing. His whole body radiated tension, but none of that found its way into words. I wasn’t surprised. I loosened my hand from his to make it easier for him to let me go when he walked away.

His hand snapped closed on mine, suddenly, tightly. I couldn’t have pulled away if I’d wanted to.

While I blinked and wondered at this, Sieh sighed in disgust. “I don’t understand you,” he said to me. “You don’t seem stupid. He’s a waste of your energy. Are you the sort of woman who tortures herself to feel better or who takes only lovers who beat her?”

“Madding was my lover,” I said quietly.

At that, Sieh actually looked chagrined. “I forgot. Sorry.”

“So am I.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes, which were aching again. Too much magic in Sky; I wasn’t used to being able to see like this. I missed the familiar magic-flecked darkness of Shadow.

“It’s just that… all of you will live forever.” Then I remembered and amended myself, smiling bleakly. “Barring murder, I mean. You’ll have forever with one another.” As Madding and I could never have had, even if he hadn’t been killed. Oh, I was tired; it was harder to keep the sorrow at bay. “I just don’t see the point of spending all that time full of hate. That’s all.”

Sieh gazed at me, thoughtful. His pupils changed again, becoming catlike and sharp, but this time there was no sense of threat accompanying the transformation. Perhaps, like me, he needed strange eyes to see what others couldn’t. He turned those eyes on Shiny then, for a long, silent perusal. Whatever he saw didn’t make his anger fade, but he didn’t attack again, either. I counted that as a victory.

“Sieh,” Shiny said suddenly. His hand tightened more on mine, on the threshold of pain. I set my teeth and bore it, afraid to interrupt. I felt him draw in a breath.

“Never apologize to me,” Sieh said. He spoke very softly, perhaps sensing the same thing that I did. His face had gone cold, devoid of anything but a skein of anger. “What you did can never be absolved by mere words. To even attempt it is an insult—not just to me, but to my mother’s memory.”

Shiny went stiff. Then his hand twitched on mine, and he seemed to draw strength from the contact, because he spoke at last.

“If not words,” he said, “will deeds serve?”

Sieh smiled. I was almost sure his teeth were sharp now. “What deeds can make up for your crimes, my bright father?”

Shiny looked away, his hand loosening on my own at last. “None. I know.”

Sieh drew in a deep breath and let it out heavily. He shook his head, glanced at me, shook his head again, and then turned away.

“I’ll tell Mother you’re doing well,” Sieh said to T’vril, who had sat silent throughout this conversation, probably holding his breath. “She’ll be glad to hear it.”

T’vril inclined his head, not quite a bow. “And is she well, herself?”

“Very well, indeed. Godhood suits her. It’s the rest of us who are a mess these days.” I thought I saw him hesitate for a moment, almost turning back to us. But he only nodded to T’vril. “Until the next time, Lord Arameri.” He vanished.

T’vril let out a long sigh in his wake. I felt that this spoke for all of us.

“Well,” he said. “With that business out of the way, we are left with only one matter. Have you considered my proposal, Eru Shoth?”

I had latched on to one hope. If I lived and let the Arameri use me, I might someday find a way free. Somehow. It was a thin hope, a pathetic one, but it was all I had.

“Will you settle things with the Order of Itempas for me?” I asked, trying for dignity. Now it was I who clung to Shiny for support. It was easier, somehow, to give up my soul with him there beside me.

T’vril inclined his head. “Already done.”

“And”—I hesitated—“can I have your word that this mark, the one I must wear, will do nothing but what you said?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You have little room to bargain here, Eru Shoth.”

I flinched, because it was true, but I clenched my free hand, anyhow. I hated being threatened. “I could tell the godlings what I am. They’ll kill me, but at least they won’t use me the way you mean to.”

The Lord Arameri sat back in his chair, crossing his legs. “You don’t know that, Eru Shoth. Perhaps the godling you tell will have her own enemies to get rid of. Would you really risk exchanging a mortal master for an immortal one?”

That was a possibility that had never occurred to me. I froze, horrified by it.

“You will not be her master,” Shiny said.

I jumped. T’vril drew in a deep breath, let it out. “My lord. I’m afraid you weren’t privy to our earlier conversation. Eru Shoth is aware of the danger if she remains free.” And you are in no position to negotiate on her behalf, his tone said. He did not have to say it aloud. It was painfully obvious.

“A danger that remains if you lay claim to her,” Shiny snapped. I could hardly believe my ears. Was he actually trying to fight for me?

Shiny let go of my hand and stepped forward, not quite in front of me. “You cannot keep her existence a secret,” he said. “You can’t kill enough people to safely make her your weapon. It would be better if you had never brought her here—then at least you could deny knowledge of her existence.”

I frowned in confusion. But T’vril uncrossed his legs.

“Do you intend to tell the other gods about her?” he asked quietly.

And then I understood. Shiny was not powerless. He could not be killed, not permanently. He could be imprisoned, but not forever, because he was supposed to be wandering the world, learning the lessons of mortality. At some point, inevitably, one of the other gods would come looking for him, if only to gloat over his punishment. And then T’vril’s plan to make me the Arameri’s latest weapon would come apart.

“I will say nothing,” Shiny said softly, “if you let her go.”

I caught my breath.

T’vril was silent for a moment. “No. My greatest concern hasn’t changed: she’s too dangerous to leave unprotected. It would be safer to kill her.” Which would erase Shiny’s leverage, besides ending my life.

It was a game of nikkim: feint against feint, each trying to outplay the other. Except I had never paid attention to such games, because I could not see them, so I had no idea what happened if there was a draw. I definitely didn’t like being the prize.

“She was safe until the Order began to harass her,” Shiny said. “Anonymity has protected her bloodline for centuries, even from the gods. Give that to her again, and all will be as it was.” Shiny paused. “You still have the demon blood you took from the House of the Risen Sun before you destroyed it.”

“He took—” I blurted, then caught myself. But my hands clenched. Of course they would never have let such a valuable resource go to waste. My blood, Dateh’s blood, the arrowheads—perhaps they had even learned Dateh’s refining method. The Arameri had their weapon, with or without me. Damn them.

Shiny was right, though. If the Lord Arameri had that, then he didn’t need me.

T’vril rose from his chair. He descended the steps and walked past the guards, moving to stand at one of the long windows. I saw him pause there, gazing out at the world that he owned—and at the black sun, warning sign of the gods who threatened it. He clasped his hands behind his back.