The Broken Kingdoms (7 page)

Mother, I noted, with the part of my mind that remained fascinated by such things even after years of living in Shadow. Godlings did mate among themselves sometimes. Was Shiny Sieh’s father, then?

“Mortals don’t come into the world with nothing,” I said carefully. “We have history. A home. Family.”

Sieh’s lip curled. “Only the fortunate ones among you. He doesn’t deserve to be that lucky.”

I shuddered and inadvertently thought of how I’d found Shiny, light and beauty discarded like trash. All this time I had assumed misfortune on his part; I had speculated that he suffered from some godly disease, or an accident that had stripped all but a vestige of his power. Now I knew his condition had been deliberately imposed. Someone—these very gods, perhaps—had done this to him, as a punishment.

“What in the infinite hells did he do?” I murmured without thinking.

I didn’t understand the boy’s reaction at first. I would never be as good at perceiving things with my eyes as I was with my other senses, and the look on Sieh’s face alone was not enough for me to interpret. But when he spoke, I knew: whatever Shiny had done, it had been truly terrible, because Sieh’s hate had once been love. Love betrayed has an entirely different sound from hatred outright.

“Maybe he’ll tell you himself one day,” he said. “I hope so. He doesn’t deserve a friend, either.”

Then he and the woman vanished, leaving me alone among gods and corpses.

BY NOW YOU’RE PROBABLY CONFUSED. That’s all right; so was I. The problem wasn’t just my misunderstanding—though that was part of it—but also history. Politics. The Arameri, and maybe the more powerful nobles and priests, probably know all this. I’m just an ordinary woman with no connections or status, and no power beyond a walking stick that makes an excellent club in a pinch. I had to figure everything out the hard way.

My education didn’t help. Like most people, I was taught that there were three gods once, and then there was a war between them, which left two. One of them wasn’t actually a god anymore—though he was still very powerful—so really that left just one. (And a great many godlings, but we never saw them.) For most of my life, I was raised to believe that this state of affairs was ideal, because who wants a bunch of gods to pray to when one will do? Then the godlings returned.

Not just them, though. Suddenly the priests began to say odd prayers and write new teaching poems into the public scrolls. Children learned new songs in the White Hall schools. Where once the world’s people had been required to offer their praises only to Bright Itempas, now we were urged to honor two additional gods: a Lord of Deep Shadows and someone called the Gray Lady. When people questioned this, the priests simply said, The world has changed. We must change with it.

You can imagine how well that went over.

It wasn’t as chaotic as it might have been, though. Bright Itempas abhors disorder, after all, and the people who were most upset were the ones who had taken His tenets to heart. So quietly, peacefully, and in an orderly fashion, those people just stopped attending services at the White Halls. They kept their children at home for schooling, teaching them as best they could on their own. They stopped paying tithes, even though this had once meant prison or worse. They committed themselves to preserving the Bright, even as the whole world seemed determined to turn a little darker.

Everyone else held their breath, waiting for the slaughter to begin. The Order answers to the Arameri family, and the Arameri do not tolerate disobedience. Yet no one was imprisoned. There were no disappearances, of individuals or towns. Local priests visited parents, exhorting them to bring their children back to school for the children’s sake, but when the parents refused, their children were not taken away. The Order-Keepers issued an edict that everyone was to pay a basal tithe to cover public services; those who didn’t do this were punished. But for people who chose not to tithe to the Order—nothing.

No one knew what to make of that. So there were other quiet rebellions, these more challenging to the Bright. Everywhere, heretics started worshipping their gods openly. Some nation up in High North—I can’t recall which one—declared that it would teach children its own language first, then Senmite, instead of the other way around. There were even people who chose to worship no god at all, despite new ones appearing in Shadow every day.

And the Arameri have done nothing.

For centuries, millennia, the world has danced to a single flute. In some ways, this has been our most sacred and inviolable law: thou shalt do whatever the hells the Arameri say. For this to change… well, that’s more frightening to most of us than any shenanigans the gods might pull. It means the end of the Bright. And none of us knows what will come after.

So perhaps my confusion on a few points of metaphysical cosmology is understandable.

I figured things out pretty quickly after that, thank goodness. When I turned back to the alley—

—the blonde godling was licking something on the ground.

I thought at first it was Shiny. As I came closer, though, I realized the positioning was wrong. Shiny was on that side of the alley. The only things on the side where she crouched were—

My gorge rose. The dead Order-Keepers.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were the same as her hair: gold mottled with irregular spots of darker color. I stared at her and suffered a pang of epiphany. When people looked at my eyes, was this what they saw? Ugliness that should have been beauty?

“Flesh freely given,” the godling said, and flashed me a hungry smile.

I skirted wide around her and moved back to Shiny’s side.

“You try me, Oree,” Madding said, shaking his head as I passed him. “You really do.”

“All I did was ask a question,” I snapped, and crouched to examine Shiny. Gods knew what the Order-Keepers had done to him, even before Sieh’s attack. I didn’t let myself think about the bodies behind me, and who had done that.

“He was trying to keep you alive,” replied Madding’s lieutenant, the female one.

I ignored her, though she was probably right. I just didn’t feel like admitting it. When I explored Shiny’s face with my fingers, I discovered his mouth was cut, and someone had blacked his eye; it was swollen almost shut. Those wounds did not concern me. I felt my way to his ribs, trying to find the break—

Something planted itself on my chest and shoved. Hard. Startled, I cried out, flying backward with such force that my back struck the far alley wall, knocking the sense out of me.

“Oree! Oree!”

Hands pulled at me. I blinked away stars and saw Madding crouched before me. I didn’t realize at first what had happened. Then I saw Madding swing around, his face contorting with fury—at Shiny.

“I’m all right,” I said vaguely, though I was not at all sure of this. Shiny had not been gentle. My head rang dully where the back of my skull had impacted stone. I let Madding help me to my feet, grateful for his support when the shining forms of him and the blonde woman blurred unpleasantly. “I’m all right!”

Madding snarled something in the gods’ singsong, guttural language. I saw the words spill from his mouth as glittering arrows that darted away to strike Shiny. Most of the words were harmless, I gathered by the way they shattered into nothing, but a few of them seemed to land and sink in.

The blonde godling’s rusty laugh interrupted this tirade. “Such disrespect, little brother,” she said, licking charcoal and grease from her lips. No blood; she hadn’t nibbled. Yet.

“Respect is earned, Lil.” Madding spat off to the side. “Did he ever try to earn ours, instead of demanding it?”

Lil shrugged, bowing her head until ragged hair obscured her face. “What does it matter? We did what we had to do. The world changes. As long as there is life to be lived and food to be savored, I am content.”

With that, she abandoned her human guise. Her mouth opened wide, wider, stretching impossibly as she bent over the Order-Keepers’ huddled forms.

I covered my mouth, and Madding looked disgusted. “Flesh freely given, Lil. I thought that was your creed?”

She paused. “This was given.” Her mouth did not move as she spoke. It could not possibly have formed words in the human fashion, as it was.

“By whom? I doubt those men volunteered to be roasted for your pleasure.”

She lifted an arm, pointing one skeletal finger at the place where Shiny huddled. “His kill. His flesh to give.”

I shuddered as she confirmed my fears. Madding noticed this and leaned close to examine me, touching my shoulders and head gingerly. The soreness where he touched warned me there would be bruises come morning.

“I’m all right,” I said again. My head was clearing, so I let Madding help me to my feet. “I’m fine. Let me see him.”

Madding scowled. “He really tried to hurt you, Oree.”

“I know.” I stepped around Madding. Beyond him, I heard the unmistakable, hideous sounds of flesh being torn and bone crunching. I made certain not to move far from Madding, whose broad body blocked my view.

Instead I focused on Shiny, or where I guessed he was. Whatever magic he’d used to kill the Order-Keepers was long gone. He was weak now, wounded, lashing out in his pain like a beast—

No. I had spent my life knowing the hearts of others through the press of skin to skin. I had felt the petulant anger in that shove. Perhaps it was only to be expected: the quiet goddess had told him to be grateful for having me as a friend. I might never know Shiny well, but I could tell he was too proud to take that as anything but an insult.

He was panting again. Shoving me had spent what little strength he’d regained. But I felt it when he managed to lift his head and glare at me.

“My home is still open to you, Shiny,” I said, speaking very softly. “I’ve always helped people who needed me, and I don’t intend to stop now. You do need me, whether you like it or not.” Then I turned away, extending my hand. Madding put my stick into it. I took a deep breath, tapping the ground twice to hear the comforting clack of wood on stone.

“Find your own way back,” I told Shiny, and left him there.

Madding did not delegate the task of caring for me to someone else. That was what I’d expected, since things had been awkward between us since the breakup. Yet he stayed, bathing me as I knelt shivering in the cold water. (Madding could have heated the water for me—gods were handy that way—but the cold was better for my back.) When that was done, he bundled me into a soft, fluffy robe that he had conjured, tucked me into bed on my belly, and settled in beside me.

I didn’t protest, though I gave him an amused look. “I suppose this is just to keep me warm?”

“Well, not just,” he said, snuggling closer and resting a hand on the small of my back. That part was unbruised. “How’s your head?”

“Better. I think the cold helped.” It felt nice, having him there against me. Like old times. I told myself not to get used to it, but that was like telling a child not to want candy. “There isn’t even a lump.”

“Mmm.” He brushed aside a few coils of hair and sat up to kiss the nape of my neck. “Might be one come morning. You should rest.”

I sighed. “It’s hard to rest if you keep doing things like that.”

Madding paused, then sighed, his breath tickling my skin. “Sorry.” He lingered there for a moment with his face pressed against my neck, breathing my scent, and finally he sat up, shifting to put a few inches between us. I missed him immediately and turned my face away so that he would not see.

“I’ll have someone bring… Shiny… back, if he hasn’t made it on his own by morning,” he said finally, after a long, uncomfortable silence. “That was what you asked me to do.”

“Mmm.” There was no point in thanking him. He was the god of obligation; he kept his promises.

“Be careful of him, Oree,” he said quietly. “Yeine was right. He doesn’t think much of mortals, and you saw what his temper’s like. I have no idea why you took him in—I have no idea why you do half the things you do—but just be careful. That’s all I ask.”

“I’m not sure I should let you ask anything of me, Mad.”

I knew I’d pissed him off when the room lit up in bright, rippling blue-green. “It doesn’t all go one way between us, Oree,” he snapped. His voice was softer in this form, cool and echoing. “You know that.”

I sighed, started to turn over, and thought better of it when my bruises throbbed. Instead I turned just my face to him. Madding had become a shimmering, humanoid shape that was only vaguely male, but the look that boiled in his face was wholly that of an injured lover. He thought I was being unfair. He might even have been right.

“You say you still love me,” I said. “But you don’t want to be with me anymore. You won’t share anything. You drop these vague warnings about Shiny rather than telling me anything useful. How do you expect me to feel?”

“I can’t tell you anything more about him.” The liquid of his form abruptly became hard crystal, delicately faceted aquamarine and peridot. I loved it when he went solid, though it usually meant stubbornness on his part. “You heard Sieh. He must wander this world, nameless and unknown—”

“Tell me about Sieh, then, and that woman. Yeine, you called her? You were afraid of them.”

Madding groaned, setting all his facets ashiver. “You’re like a magpie, dropping one subject to jump after a prettier one.”

I shrugged. “I’m mortal. I don’t have all the time in the world. Tell me.” I wasn’t angry anymore. Neither was he, really. I knew he still loved me, and he knew that I knew. We were just taking a hard day out on each other. It was easy to fall into old habits.

Madding sighed and leaned back against the bed’s headboard, resuming his human form. “It wasn’t fear.”

“Looked like fear to me. All of you were afraid, except that one with the mouth. Lil.”

He made a face. “Lil isn’t capable of fear. And it wasn’t fear. It was just…” He shrugged, frowning. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Everything is with you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeine is… Well, she’s very young, as our kind goes. I don’t know what to think of her yet. And Sieh, despite how he looks, is the oldest of us.”