The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (20 page)

I shuddered at the thought and finally pushed myself to my feet. I did not turn to Nahadoth again.

“Are you done being angry with me?” I asked, brushing wrinkles out of my skirt. “I think we have unfinished business.”

THE PRIESTS DO MENTION THE GODS’ WAR sometimes, mainly as a warning against heresy. Because of Enefa, they say. Because of the Betrayer, for three days people and animals lay helpless and gasping for air, hearts gradually slowing and bellies bloating as their bowels ceased to function. Plants wilted and died in hours; vast fertile plains turned to gray desert. Meanwhile the sea we now call Repentance boiled, and for some reason all the tallest mountains were split in half. The priests say that was the work of the godlings, Enefa’s immortal offspring, who each took sides and battled across the earth. Their fathers, the lords of the sky, mostly kept their fight up there.

Because of Enefa, the priests say. They do not say, because Itempas killed her.

When the war finally ended, most of the world was dead. What remained was forever changed. In my land, hunters pass down legends of beasts that no longer exist; harvest songs praise staples long lost. Those first Arameri did a great deal for the survivors, the priests are careful to note. With the magic of their war-prisoner gods they replenished the oceans, sealed the mountains, healed the land. Though there was nothing to be done for the dead, they saved as many as they could of the survivors.

For a price.

The priests don’t mention that, either.

There had in fact been very little business to discuss. In light of the looming ceremony, the Enefadeh needed my cooperation more than ever, and so—with palpable annoyance—Kurue agreed to my condition. We all knew there was little chance I could become Dekarta’s heir. We all knew the Enefadeh were merely humoring me. I was content with that, so long as I did not think about it too deeply.

Then one by one they vanished, leaving me with Nahadoth. He was the only one, Kurue had said, who had the power to carry me to and from Darr in the night’s few remaining hours. So in the silence that fell, I turned to face the Nightlord.

“How?” he asked. The vision, he meant, of his defeat.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s happened before. I had a dream once, of the old Sky. I saw you destroy it.” I swallowed, chilled. “I thought it was just a dream, but if what I just saw is what really happened…” Memories. I was experiencing Enefa’s memories. Dearest Skyfather, I did not want to think about what that meant.

His eyes narrowed. He wore that face again—the one I feared because I could not help wanting it. I fixed my eyes on a point just above his shoulder.

“It is what happened,” he said slowly. “But Enefa was dead by then. She never saw what he did to me.”

And I wish I hadn’t. But before I could speak, Nahadoth took a step toward me. I very quickly took a step back, and he stopped.

“You fear me now?”

“You did try to rip out my soul.”

“And yet you still desire me.”

I froze. Of course he would have sensed that. I said nothing, unwilling to admit weakness.

Nahadoth moved past me to the window. I shivered as he passed; a tendril of his cloak had curled ’round my calf for just an instant in a cool caress. I wondered if he was even aware of this.

“What exactly do you hope to accomplish in Darr?” he asked.

I swallowed, glad to be on another subject. “I need to speak with my grandmother. I thought of using a sigil sphere, but I don’t understand such things. There could be a way for others to eavesdrop on our conversation.”

“There is.”

It gave me no pleasure to be right. “Then the questions must be asked in person.”

“What questions?”

“Whether it’s true what Ras Onchi and Scimina said, about Darr’s neighbors arming for war. I want to hear my grandmother’s assessment of the situation. And… I hope to learn…” I felt inexplicably ashamed. “More about my mother. Whether she was like the rest of the Arameri.”

“I have told you already: she was.”

“You will forgive me, Lord Nahadoth, if I do not trust you.”

He turned slightly, so that I could see the side of his smile. “She was,” he repeated, “and so are you.”

The words, in his cold voice, hit me like a slap.

“She did this, too,” he continued. “She was your age, perhaps younger, when she began asking questions, questions, so many questions. When she could not get answers from us with politeness, she commanded them—as you have done. Such hate there was in her young heart. Like yours.”

I fought the urge to swallow, certain he would hear it.

“What sort of questions?”

“Arameri history. The war between my siblings and I. Many things.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I didn’t care.”

I took a deep breath and forced my sweaty fists to unclench. This was his way, I reminded myself. There had been no need for him to say anything about my mother; he just knew it was the way to unsettle me. I had been warned. Nahadoth didn’t like to kill outright. He teased and tickled until you lost control, forgot the danger, and opened yourself to him. He made you ask for it.

After I had been silent for a few breaths, Nahadoth turned to me. “The night is half over. If you mean to go to Darr, it should be now.”

“Oh. Ah, yes.” Swallowing, I looked around the room, anywhere but at him. “How will we travel?”

In answer, Nahadoth extended his hand.

I wiped my hand unnecessarily on my skirt, and took it.

The blackness that surrounded him flared like lifting wings, filling the room to its arched ceiling. I gasped and would have stepped back, but his hand became a vice on my own. When I looked at his face I felt ill: his eyes had changed. They were all black now, iris and whites alike. Worse, the shadows nearest his body had deepened, so much that he was invisible beyond his extended hand.

I stared into the abyss of him and could not bring myself to go closer.

“If I meant to kill you,” he said, and his voice was different, too, echoing, shadowed, “it would already be too late.”

There was that. So I looked up into those terrible eyes, mustered my courage, and said, “Please take me to Arrebaia, in Darr. The temple of Sar-enna-nem.”

The blackness at his core expanded so swiftly to envelop me that I had no time to cry out. There was an instant of unbearable cold and pressure, so great I thought it would crush me. But it stopped short of pain, and then even the cold vanished. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. I stretched out my hands—including the hand that I knew he held—and felt nothing. I cried out and heard only silence.

Then I stood on stone and breathed air laden with familiar scents and felt warm humidity soak into my skin. Behind me spread the stone streets and walls of Arrebaia, filling the plateau on which we stood. It was later in the night than it had been at Sky, I could tell, because the streets were all but empty. Before me rose stone steps, lined on either side by standing lanterns, at the top of which were the gates to Sar-enna-nem.

I turned back to Nahadoth, who had reverted to his usual, just-shy-of-human appearance.

“Y-you are welcome in my family’s home,” I said. I was still shivering from our mode of travel.

“I know.” He strode up the steps. Caught off guard, I stared at his back for ten steps before remembering myself and trotting to follow.

Sar-enna-nem’s gates are heavy, ugly wood-and-metal affairs—a more recent addition to the ancient stone. It took at least four women to work the mechanism that swung them open, which made a vast improvement over the days when the gates had been made of stone and needed twenty openers. I had arrived unannounced, in the small hours of the morning, and knew that this meant upsetting the entire guardstaff. We had not been attacked in centuries, but my people prided themselves on vigilance nonetheless.

“They might not let us in,” I murmured, drawing alongside the Nightlord. I was hard-pressed to keep up; he was taking the steps two at a time.

Nahadoth said nothing in reply and did not slow his pace. I heard the loud, echoing sound of the great latch lifting, and then the gates swung open—on their own. I groaned, realizing what he’d done. Of course there were shouts and running feet as we passed through, and as we stepped onto the grassy patch that served as Sar-enna-nem’s forecourt, two clusters of guards came running forth from the ancient edifice’s doors. One was the gate company—just men, since it was a lowly position that required only brute strength.

The other company was the standing guard, composed of women and those few men who had earned the honor, distinguished by white silk tunics under the armor. This one was led by a familiar face: Imyan, a woman from my own Somem tribe. She shouted in our language as she reached the forecourt, and the company split to surround us. Very quickly we were surrounded by a ring of spears and arrows pointed at our hearts.

No—their weapons were pointed at my heart, I noticed. Not a single one of them had aimed at Nahadoth.

I stepped in front of Nahadoth to make it easier for them, and to signal my friendliness. For a moment it felt strange to speak in my own tongue. “It’s good to see you, Captain Imyan.”

“I don’t know you,” she said curtly. I almost smiled. As girls we had gotten into all manner of mischief together; now she was as committed to her duty as I.

“You laughed the first time you saw me,” I said. “I’d been trying to grow my hair longer, thinking to look like my mother. You said it looked like curly tree moss.”

Imyan’s eyes narrowed. Her own hair—long and beautifully Darre-straight—had been arranged in an efficient braids-and-knot behind her head. “What are you doing here, if you’re Yeine-ennu?”

“You know I’m no longer ennu,” I said. “The Itempans have been announcing it all week, by word of mouth and by magic. Even High North should’ve heard by now.”

Imyan’s arrow wavered for a moment longer, then slowly came down. Following her lead, the other guards lowered their weapons as well. Imyan’s eyes shifted to Nahadoth, then back to me, and for the first time there was a hint of nervousness in her manner. “And this?”

“You know me,” Nahadoth said in our language.

No one flinched at the sound of his voice. Darren guards are too well-trained for that. But I saw not a few exchanged looks of unease among the group. Nahadoth’s face, I noticed belatedly, had begun to waver again, a watery blur that shifted with the torchlight shadows. So many new mortals to seduce.

Imyan recovered first. “Lord Nahadoth,” she said at last. “Welcome back.”

Back? I stared at her, then at Nahadoth. But then a more familiar voice greeted me, and I let out a breath of tension I hadn’t realized that I felt.

“You are indeed welcome,” said my grandmother. She came down the short flight of steps that led to Sar-enna-nem’s living quarters, and the guards parted before her: a shorter-than-average elderly woman still clad in a sleeping tunic (though she’d taken the time to strap on her knife, I noted). Tiny as she was—I had unfortunately inherited her size—she exuded an air of strength and authority that was almost palpable.

She inclined her head to me as she came. “Yeine. I’ve missed you, but not so much that I wanted to see you back so soon.” She glanced at Nahadoth, then back at me. “Come.”

And that was that. She turned to head into the columned entrance, and I moved to follow—or would have, had Nahadoth not spoken.

“Dawn is closer, here, to this part of the world,” he said. “You have an hour.”

I turned, surprised on several levels. “You aren’t coming?”

“No.” And he walked away, off to the side of the forecourt. The guards moved out of his way with an alacrity that might have been amusing under other circumstances.

I watched him for a moment, then moved to follow my grandmother.

Another tale from my childhood occurs to me here.

It is said the Nightlord cannot cry. No one knows the reason for this, but of the many gifts that the forces of the Maelstrom bestowed upon their darkest child, the ability to cry was not one of them.

Bright Itempas can. Legends say his tears are the rain that sometimes falls while the sun still shines. (I have never believed this legend, because it would mean Itempas cries rather frequently.)

Enefa of the Earth could cry. Her tears took the form of the yellow, burning rain that falls around the world after a volcano has erupted. It still falls, this rain, killing crops and poisoning water. But now it means nothing.

Nightlord Nahadoth was firstborn of the Three. Before the others appeared, he spent countless aeons as the only living thing in all of existence. Perhaps that explains his inability. Perhaps, amid so much loneliness, tears become ultimately useless.

Sar-enna-nem was once a temple. Its main entrance is a vast and vaulted hall supported by columns hewn whole from the earth, erected by my people in a time long before we knew of such Amn innovations as scrivening or clockwork. We had our own techniques back then. And the places we built to honor the gods were magnificent.

After the Gods’ War, my ancestors did what had to be done. Sar-enna-nem’s Twilight and Moon Windows, once famed for their beauty, were bricked up, leaving only the Sun. A new temple, dedicated exclusively to Itempas and untainted by the devotion once offered to his siblings, was built some ways to the south; that is the current religious heart of the city. Sar-enna-nem was repurposed as nothing more than a hall of government, from which our warrior council issued edicts that I, as ennu, once implemented. Any holiness was long gone.

The hall was empty, as befitted the late hour. My grandmother led me to the raised plinth where, during the day, the Warriors’ Council members sat on a circle of thick rugs. She took a seat; I took one opposite.

“Have you failed?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I replied. “But that is only a matter of time.”

“Explain,” she said, so I did. I will admit I edited the account somewhat. I did not tell her of the hours I wasted in my mother’s chambers weeping. I did not mention my dangerous thoughts about Nahadoth. And I most certainly did not speak of my two souls.