The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (22 page)

I reappeared in my room in Sky, facing the windows. The sky here was still mostly dark, though there was a hint of pale against the distant horizon. I was alone, to my surprise, but also to my relief. It had been a very long, very difficult day. Without undressing I lay down—but sleep did not come immediately. I lay where I was awhile, reveling in the silence, letting my mind rest. Like bubbles in still water, two things rose to the surface of my thoughts.

My mother had regretted her bargain with the Enefadeh. She had sold me to them, but not without qualm. I found it perversely comforting that she had tried to kill me at birth. That seemed like her, choosing to destroy her own flesh and blood rather than let it be corrupted. Perhaps she had only decided to accept me on her terms—later, without the heady rush of new motherhood to color her feelings. When she could look into my eyes and see that one of the souls in them was my own.

The other thought was simpler, yet far less comforting.

Had my father known?

DURING THOSE NIGHTS, those dreams, I saw through a thousand eyes. Bakers, blacksmiths, scholars, kings—ordinary and extraordinary, I lived their lives every night. But as with all dreams, I now remember only the most special.

In one, I see a darkened, empty room. There is almost no furniture. An old table. A messy, half-ragged pile of bedding in one corner. A marble beside the bedding. No, not a marble; a tiny, mostly blue globe, its nearer face a mosaic of brown and white. I know whose room this is.

“Shhh,” says a new voice, and abruptly there are people in the room. A slight figure, half-draped across the lap of another body that is larger. And darker. “Shhh. Shall I tell you a story?”

“Mmm,” says the smaller one. A child. “Yes. More beautiful lies, Papa, please.”

“Now, now. Children are not so cynical. Be a proper child, or you will never grow big and strong like me.”

“I will never be like you, Papa. That is one of your favorite lies.”

I see tousled brown hair. A hand strokes it, long-fingered and graceful. The father? “I have watched you grow these long ages. In ten thousand years, a hundred thousand…”

“And will my sun-bright father open his arms when I have grown so great, and welcome me to his side?”

A sigh. “If he is lonely enough, he might.”

“I don’t want him!” Fitfully, the child moves away from the stroking hand and looks up. His eyes reflect the light like those of some nocturnal beast. “I will never betray you, Papa. Never!”

“Shhh.” The father bends, laying a gentle kiss on the child’s forehead. “I know.”

And the child flings himself forward then, burying his face in soft darkness, weeping. The father holds him, rocking him gently, and begins to sing. In his voice I hear echoes of every mother who has ever comforted her child in the small hours, and every father who has ever whispered hopes into an infant’s ear. I do not understand the pain I perceive, wrapped around both of them like chains, but I can tell that love is their defense against it.

It is a private moment; I am an intruder. I loosen invisible fingers, and let this dream slip through them and away.

I felt the poor sleep keenly when I dragged myself awake well into the next day. The inside of my head felt muddy, congealed. I sat on the edge of the bed with my knees drawn up, gazing through the windows at a bright, clear noon sky and thinking, I am going to die.

I am going to DIE.

In seven days—no, six now.

Die.

I am ashamed to admit that this litany went on for some time. The seriousness of my situation had not sunk in before; impending death had taken second place to Darr’s jeopardy and a celestial conspiracy. But now I had no one yanking on my soul to distract me, and all I could think of was death. I was not yet twenty years old. I had never been in love. I had not mastered the nine forms of the knife. I had never—gods. I had never really lived, beyond the legacies left to me by my parents: ennu, and Arameri. It seemed almost incomprehensible that I was doomed, and yet I was.

Because if the Arameri did not kill me, I had no illusions about the Enefadeh. I was the sheath for the sword they hoped to draw against Itempas, their sole means of escape. If the succession ceremony was postponed, or if by some miracle I succeeded in becoming Dekarta’s heir, I was certain the Enefadeh would simply kill me. Clearly, unlike other Arameri, I had no protection against harm by them; doubtless that was one of the alterations they had applied to my blood sigil. And killing me might be the easiest way for them to free Enefa’s soul with minimal harm. Sieh might mourn the necessity of my death, but no one else in Sky would.

So I lay on the bed and trembled and wept and might have continued to do so for the rest of the day—one-sixth of my remaining life—if there had not come a knock at the door.

That pulled me back to myself, more or less. I was still wearing the clothes I’d slept in from the day before; my hair was mussed; my face was puffy and my eyes red. I hadn’t bathed. I opened the door a crack to see T’vril, to my great dismay, with a tray of food in one hand.

“Greetings, Cousin—” He paused, took a second look at me, and scowled. “What in demons happened to you?”

“N-nothing,” I mumbled, then tried to close the door. He slapped it open with his free hand, pushing me back and stepping inside. I would have protested, but the words died in my throat as he looked me up and down with an expression that would have made my grandmother proud.

“You’re letting them win, aren’t you?” he asked.

I think my mouth might have dropped open. He sighed. “Sit down.”

I closed my mouth. “How do you—”

“I know nearly everything that happens in this place, Yeine. The upcoming ball, for example, and what will happen afterward. Halfbloods usually aren’t told, but I have connections.” He gently took me by the shoulders. “You’ve found out, too, I suspect, which is why you’re sitting here going to rot.”

On another occasion I would have been pleased that he’d finally called me by my name. Now I shook my head dumbly and rubbed my temples where a weary ache had settled. “T’vril, you don’t—”

“Sit down, you silly fool, before you pass out and I have to call Viraine. Which, incidentally, you don’t want me to do. His remedies are effective but highly unpleasant.” He took my hand and guided me over to my table.

“I came because they told me you hadn’t ordered breakfast or a midday meal, and I thought you might be starving yourself again.” Sitting me and the tray down, he picked up a dish of some sort of sectioned fruit, speared a piece on a fork, and thrust this at my face until I ate it. “You seemed a sensible girl when you first came here. Gods know this place has a way of knocking the sense out of a person, but I never expected you to yield so easily. Aren’t you a warrior, or something like that? The rumors have you swinging through trees half-naked with a spear.”

I glared at him, affront cutting through my muddle. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“So you’re not dead yet. Good.” He took my chin between his fingers, peering into my eyes. “And they haven’t defeated you yet. Do you understand?”

I jerked away from him, clinging to my anger. It was better than despair, if just as useless. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. My people… I came here to help them, and instead they’re in more danger because of me.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard. You do realize that both Relad and Scimina are consummate liars, don’t you? Nothing you’ve done caused this. Scimina’s plans were set in motion long before you ever arrived in Sky. That’s how this family does things.” He held a hunk of cheese to my mouth. I had to bite off a piece, chew it, and swallow just to get his hand out of the way.

“If that’s—” He pushed more fruit at me; I batted the fork aside and the fruit flew off somewhere near my bookcases. “If that’s true, then you know there’s nothing I can do! Darr’s enemies are preparing to attack. My land is weak; we can’t fight off one army, let alone however many are gathering against us!”

He nodded, sober, and held up a new chunk of fruit for me. “That sounds like Relad. Scimina is usually more subtle. But it could be either of them, frankly. Dekarta hasn’t given them much time to work, and they both get clumsy under pressure.”

The fruit tasted like salt in my mouth. “Then tell me—” I blinked back tears. “What am I supposed to do, T’vril? You say I’m letting them win, but what else can I do?”

T’vril set down the dish and took my hands, leaning forward. I realized suddenly that his eyes were green, though a deeper shade than my own. I had never before considered the fact that we were relatives. So few of the Arameri felt human to me, much less like family.

“You fight,” he said, his voice low and intent. His hands gripped my own fiercely enough to hurt. “You fight in whatever way you can.”

It might have been the strength of his grip, or the urgency of his voice, but abruptly I realized something. “You want to be heir yourself, don’t you?”

He blinked in surprise, and then a rueful smile crossed his face. “No,” he said. “Not really. No one would want to be heir under these conditions; I don’t envy you that. But…” He looked away, toward the windows, and I saw it in his eyes: a terrible frustration that must have been burning in him all his life. The unspoken knowledge that he was just as smart as Relad or Scimina, just as strong, just as deserving of power, just as capable of leadership.

And if the chance were ever given to him, he would fight to keep it. To use it. He would fight even if he had no hope of victory, because to do otherwise was to concede that the stupid, arbitrary assignment of fullblood status had anything to do with logic; that the Amn truly were superior to all other races; that he deserved to be nothing more than a servant.

As I deserved to be nothing more than a pawn. I frowned.

T’vril noticed. “That’s better.” He put the dish of fruit in my hands and stood up. “Finish eating and get dressed. I want to show you something.”

I had not realized that it was a holiday. Fire Day; some Amn celebration I’d heard of, but never paid much attention to. When T’vril brought me out of my room, I heard the sounds of laughter and Senmite music drifting through the corridors. I had never liked the music of this continent; it was strange and arrhythmic, full of eerie minors, the sort of thing only people with refined tastes were supposed to be able to comprehend or enjoy.

I sighed, thinking we were headed in that direction. But T’vril cast a grim look that way and shook his head. “No. You don’t want to attend that celebration, Cousin.”

“Why not?”

“That party is for highbloods. You’d certainly be welcome, and as a halfblood I could go, too, but I would suggest that you avoid social events with our fullblooded relatives if you actually want to enjoy yourself. They have… odd notions of what constitutes fun.” His grim look warned me off further questioning. “This way.”

He led me in the complete opposite direction, down several levels and angling toward the palace’s heart. The corridors were bustling with activity, though I saw only servants as we walked, all of them moving so hurriedly that they barely had time to bob a greeting at T’vril. I doubt they even noticed me.

“Where are they all going?” I asked.

T’vril looked amused. “To work. I’ve scheduled everyone on rotating short shifts, so they’ve probably waited until the last minute to leave. Didn’t want to miss any of the fun.”

“Fun?”

“Mmm-hmm.” We rounded a curve and I saw a wide set of translucent doors before us. “Here we are; the centeryard. Now, you’re friendly with Sieh so I imagine the magic will work for you, but if it doesn’t—if I disappear—just return to the hall and wait, and I’ll come back out to get you.”

“What?” I was growing used to feeling stupid.

“You’ll see.” He pushed the doors open.

The scene beyond was almost pastoral—would have been if I hadn’t known I was in the middle of a palace hovering a half mile above the earth. We looked into some sort of vast atrium at the center of the palace, in which rows of tiny cottages bordered a cobblestone path. It surprised me to realize that the cottages were made, not of the pearly material that comprised the rest of the palace, but of ordinary stone and wood and brick. The style of the cottages varied wildly from that of the palace, too—the first sharp angles and straight lines I’d seen—and from cottage to cottage. Many of the designs were foreign to my eye, Tokken and Mekatish and others, including one with a striking bright-gold rooftop that might have been Irtin. I glanced up, realizing that the centeryard sat within a vast cylinder in the body of the palace; directly above was a circle of perfectly clear blue sky.

But the whole place was silent and still. I saw no one in or around the cottages; not even wind stirred.

T’vril took my hand and pulled me over the threshold—and I gasped as the stillness broke. In a moment’s flicker there were suddenly many people about, all around us, laughing and milling and exclaiming in a cacophony of joy that would not have startled me so much if it hadn’t come out of nowhere. There was music, too, more pleasant than the Senmite but still nothing I was used to. It came from much closer, somewhere in the middle of the cottages. I made out a flute and a drum, and a babel of languages—the only one I recognized was Kenti—before someone grabbed my arm and spun me around.

“Shaz, you came! I thought—” The Amn man who’d caught my hand started when he saw my face, then paled further. “Oh, demons.”

“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “An honest mistake.” From behind I could pass for Tema, Narshes, or half the other northern races—and it had not escaped me that he’d called me by a boy’s name. That was clearly not the source of his horror. His eyes had locked on my forehead and the fullblood circle there.

“It’s all right, Ter.” T’vril came up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “This is the new one.”

Relief restored color to the man’s face. “Sorry, miss,” he said, bobbing a greeting to me. “I just… well.” He smiled sheepishly. “You understand.”

I reassured him again, though I was not entirely sure that I did understand. The man wandered off after that, leaving T’vril and I to ourselves—inasmuch as we could be alone amid such a horde. I could see now that everyone present wore lowblood marks; they were all servants. There must have been nearly a thousand people in the centeryard’s sprawling space. T’vril was so good at keeping them unobtrusive that I’d had no idea there were this many servants in Sky, though I suppose I should have guessed they would outnumber the highbloods.