The Broken Kingdoms (4 page)

“A shame,” I said to Shiny. “I never met this one, but I hear she was nice. Goddess of compassion or something like that. She worked as a bonebender down in South Root. Anyone who could pay had to give her an offering, but she never turned away those who couldn’t.” I sighed.

Shiny was a silent, brooding presence beside me, unmoving, barely breathing. Thinking this was grief, I stood and fumbled for his hand and was surprised to find it clenched tight at his side. I’d completely mistaken his mood; he was angry, not sad. Puzzled by this, I slid my hand up to his cheek. “Did you know her?”

He nodded, once.

“Was she… your goddess? Did you pray to her?”

He shook his head, cheek flexing beneath my fingers. What had that been, a smile? A bitter one.

“You cared for her, though.”

“Yes,” he said.

I froze.

He had never spoken to me. Not once in three months. I hadn’t even realized he could talk. For a moment I wondered whether I should say something to acknowledge this momentous event—and then I inadvertently brushed against him and felt the hard, tension-taut muscle of his arm. Foolish of me to fixate on a single word when something far more momentous had occurred: he had shown concern for something in the world besides himself.

I coaxed his fist open and laced my fingers with his, offering the same comfort of contact that I had given Madding the day before. For an instant, Shiny’s hand quivered in mine, and I dared to hope that he might return the gesture. Then his hand went slack. He did not pull away, but he might as well have.

I sighed and stayed by him for a little while, then finally pulled away myself.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I have to go.” He said nothing, so I left him to his mourning and headed over to Art Row.

Yel, the proprietor of the Promenade’s biggest food stand, allowed us artists to store things in her locked stand overnight, which made my life much easier. It didn’t take long to set up my tables and merchandise, though once I sat down, it was exactly as I’d feared. For two whole hours, not a single person came to peruse my goods. I heard the others grumbling about it as well, though Benkhan was lucky; he sold a charcoal drawing of the Promenade that happened to include the alley. I had no doubt he would have ten more drawings like it by the next morning.

I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before, since I’d been up late cleaning Shiny’s mess. I was beginning to nod off when I heard a soft voice say, “Miss? Excuse me?”

Starting awake, I immediately plastered on a smile to cover my grogginess. “Why, hello, sir. See something that interests you?”

I heard his amusement, which confused me. “Yes, actually. Do you sell here every day?”

“Yes, indeed. I’m happy to hold an item if you like—”

“That won’t be necessary.” Abruptly I realized he hadn’t come to buy anything. He didn’t sound like a pilgrim; there wasn’t the faintest hint of uncertainty or curiosity in his voice. Though his Senmite was cultured and precise, I could hear the slower curves of a Wesha accent underneath. This was a man who had lived in Shadow all his life, though he seemed to be trying to conceal that.

I took a guess. “Then what would an Itempan priest want with someone like me?”

He laughed. Unsurprised. “So it’s true what they say about the blind. You can’t see, but your other senses grow finer. Or perhaps you have some other way of perceiving things, beyond the abilities of ordinary folk?” There was the faint sound of something from my table being picked up. Something heavy. I guessed it was one of the miniature Tree replicas that I grew from linvin saplings and trimmed to resemble the Tree. My biggest-selling item, and the one that cost the most in time and effort to produce.

I licked my lips, which were abruptly and inexplicably dry. “Other than my eyes, everything about me is ordinary enough, sir.”

“Is that so? The sound of my boots probably gives me away, then, or the incense clinging to my uniform. I suppose those would tell you a great deal.”

Around me I could hear more of those characteristic boots, and more cultured voices, which were answered in uneasy tones by my fellow Row denizens. Had a whole troop of priests come out to question us? Usually we had to deal with only the Order-Keepers, who were acolytes in training to become priests. They were young and sometimes overzealous, but generally all right unless antagonized. Most of them hated street duty, so they did a lazy job of it, which left the people of the city to find their own ways of resolving problems—exactly as most of us preferred it. However, something told me this man was no lowly Order-Keeper.

He hadn’t asked a question, so I didn’t speak, which he seemed to take as an answer in itself. I felt my front table shift alarmingly; he was sitting on it. The tables weren’t the sturdiest things in the world, since they had to be light enough for me to carry home if necessary. My stomach clenched.

“You look nervous,” he said.

“I’m not,” I lied. I’d heard Order-Keepers used such techniques to throw their targets off-balance. This one worked. “But it might help if I knew your name.”

“Rimarn,” he said. A common name among lower-class Amn. “Previt Rimarn Dih. And you are?”

A previt. They were full-fledged priests, high-ranking ones, and they didn’t leave the White Halls often, being more involved in business and politics. The Order must’ve decided that the death of a godling was of great importance.

“Oree Shoth,” I said. My voice cracked on my family name; I had to repeat it. I thought that he smiled.

“We’re investigating the death of the Lady Role and were hoping you and your friends could assist. Especially given that we’ve been kind enough to overlook your presence here at the Promenade.” He picked up something else. I couldn’t tell what.

“Happy to help,” I said, trying to ignore the veiled threat. The Order of Itempas controlled permits and licenses in the city, among many other things, and they charged dearly for them. Yel’s stand had a permit to sell on the Promenade; none of us artists could afford one. “It’s so sad. I didn’t think gods could die.”

“Godlings can, yes,” he said. His voice had grown noticeably colder, and I chided myself for forgetting how prickly devout Itempans could be about gods other than their own. I had been too long away from Nimaro, damn it—

“Their parents, the Three, can kill them,” Rimarn continued. “And their siblings can kill them, if they’re strong enough.”

“Well, I haven’t seen any godlings with bloody hands, if that’s what you’re wondering. Not that I see much of anything.” I smiled. It was weak.

“Mmm. You found the body.”

“Yes. There was no one around, though, that I could tell. Then Madding—Lord Madding, another godling who lives in town—came and took the body. He said he was going to show it to their parents. To the Three.”

“I see.” The sound of something being put back on my table. Not the miniature Tree, though. “Your eyes are very interesting.”

I don’t know why this made me more uneasy. “So people tell me.”

“Are those… cataracts?” He leaned close to peer at me. I smelled mint tea on his breath. “I’ve never seen cataracts like those.”

I’ve been told my eyes are unpleasant to look at. The “cataracts” that Rimarn had noticed were actually many narrow, delicate fingers of grayish tissue, layered tight over one another like the petals of a daisy yet to bloom. I have no pupils, no irises in the ordinary sense. From a distance, it looks as though I have matte, steely cataracts, but up close the deformity is clear.

“The bonebenders call them malformed corneas, actually. With some other complications that I can’t pronounce.” I tried to smile again and failed miserably.

“I see. Is this… malformation… common among Maroneh?”

There was a crash from two tables over. Ru’s table. I heard her cry out in protest. Vuroy and Ohn started to join in. “Shut up,” snapped the priest who was questioning her, and they all fell silent. Someone from the onlooking crowd—probably a Darkwalker—shouted for the priests to leave us alone, but no one else took up his cry, and he was not brave or stupid enough to repeat it.

I have never been very patient, and fear shortened my temper even more. “What is it you want, Previt Rimarn?”

“An answer to my question would be welcome, Miss Shoth.”

“No, of course my eyes aren’t common among Maroneh. Blindness isn’t common among Maroneh. Why would it be?”

I felt the table shift slightly; perhaps he shrugged. “Some aftereffect of what the Nightlord did, perhaps. Legend says the forces he unleashed on the Maroland were… unnatural.”

Implying that the survivors of the disaster were unnatural as well. Smug Amn bastard. We Maroneh had honored Itempas for just as long as they had. I bit back the retort that first came to mind and said instead, “The Nightlord didn’t do anything to us, Previt.”

“Destroying your homeland is nothing?”

“Nothing beyond that, I mean. Demons and darkness, he didn’t care enough to do anything to us. He destroyed the Maroland only because he happened to be there at the time the Arameri let his leash slip.”

There was a moment’s pause. It lasted just long enough that my anger withered, leaving only horror. One did not criticize the Arameri—certainly not to an Itempan priest’s face. Then I jumped as a loud crash sounded right in front of me. The miniature Tree. He’d dropped it, shattering the ceramic pot and probably doing fatal damage to the plant itself.

“Oh, dear,” Rimarn said, his voice ice cold. “Sorry. I’ll pay for that.”

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. I was still trembling from the crash, but I wasn’t stupid. “Don’t worry about it.”

Another shift, and suddenly fingers took hold of my chin. “A shame about your eyes,” he said. “You’re a beautiful woman otherwise. If you wore glasses—”

“I prefer for people to see me as I am, Previt Rimarn.”

“Ah. Should they see you as a blind human woman, then, or as a godling only pretending to be helpless and mortal?”

What the— I stiffened all over, and then did another thing I probably shouldn’t have done. I burst out laughing. He was already angry. I knew better. But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn’t always guard the gates.

“You think—” I had to work my hand around his to wipe a tear. “A godling? Me? Dearest Skyfather, is that what you’re thinking?”

Rimarn’s fingers tightened suddenly, enough to hurt the sides of my jaw, and I stopped laughing when he forced my face up higher and leaned close. “What I’m thinking is that you reek of magic,” he said in a tight whisper. “More than I’ve ever smelled on any mortal.”

And suddenly I could see him.

It was not like Shiny. Rimarn’s glow was there all at once, and it didn’t come from inside him. Rather, I could see lines and curlicues all over his skin like fine, shining tattoos, winding around his arms and marching over his torso. The rest of him remained invisible to me, but I could see the outline of his body by those dancing, fiery lines.

A scrivener. He was a scrivener. A good one, too, judging by the number of godwords etched into his flesh. They weren’t really there, of course; this was just the way my eyes interpreted his skill and experience, or so I’d come to understand over the years. Usually that helped me spot his kind long before they got close enough to spot me.

I swallowed, no longer laughing now, and terrified.

But before he could begin the real questioning, I felt a sudden shift of the air, signaling movement nearby. That was my only warning before something yanked the previt’s hand off my face. Rimarn started to protest, but before he could, another body blurred my view of him. A larger frame, dark and empty of magic, familiar in shape. Shiny.

I could not see precisely what he did to Rimarn. But I didn’t have to; I heard the gasps of the other Row artists and onlookers, Shiny’s grunt of effort, and Rimarn’s sharp cry as he was bodily lifted and flung away. The godwords on Rimarn’s flesh blurred into streaks as he flew a good ten feet through the air. He stopped glowing only when he landed in a bone-jarring heap.

No. Oh, no. I scrambled to my feet, knocking over my chair, and fumbled desperately for my walking stick. Before I could find it, I froze, realizing that though Rimarn’s glow had vanished, I could still see.

I could see Shiny. His glow was faint, barely noticeable, but growing by the second and pulsing like a heartbeat. As Shiny interposed himself between me and Rimarn, the glow brightened still more, racheting up from a gentle burn toward that eye-searing peak that I had never seen from him outside of the dawn hour.

But it was the middle of the day.

“What the hells are you doing?” demanded a harsh voice from farther away. One of the other priests. This was followed by other shouts and threats, and I snapped back to awareness. No one could see Shiny’s glow except me and maybe Rimarn, who was still groaning on the ground. They had simply seen a man—an unknown foreigner, dressed in the plain, cheap clothing that was all I’d been able to afford for him—attack a previt of the Itempan Order. In front of a full troop of Order-Keepers.

I reached out, caught one of Shiny’s blazing shoulders, and instantly snatched my hand back. Not because he was hot to the touch—though he was, hotter than I’d ever felt—but because the flesh under my hand seemed to vibrate in that instant, like I’d touched a bolt of lightning.

But I pushed that observation aside. “Stop it!” I hissed at him. “What are you doing? You have to apologize, right now, before they—”

Shiny turned to look at me, and the words died in my mouth. I could see his face now completely, as I always could in that perfect instant before he blazed too bright and I had to look away. “Handsome” did not begin to describe that face, so much more than the collection of features that my fingers had explored and learned. Cheekbones did not have their own inner light. Lips did not curve like living things in their own right, sharing with me a slight, private smile that made me feel, for just an instant, like the only woman in the world. He had never, ever smiled at me before.

But it was vicious, that smile. Cold. Murderous. I drew back from it, stunned—and for the first time since I’d met him, afraid.