The Awakened Kingdom

by N. K. Jemisin

  It was nice that Ia did not want me to die. But I did not like that he wanted me to leave the mortal realm.

  “Maybe,” I said, trying to understand even as I spoke, “if I understand what happened, I might understand what my antithesis is, and then I won’t get hurt by it again.”

  Ia shook his head. “This entire realm is inimical to us in so many ways, Shill. Everything is so…concentrated. There’s no way to escape the threat completely while you remain here.”

  “I don’t care! I knew it was dangerous before I came. Even Naha told me not to come, and she’s not scared of anything.”

  “Untrue, Shill. She fears the loss of those she loves.” Ia sobered. “I thought he would never stop mourning Sieh. In the end, he went beyond the edges of our realm, into the nothingness. I followed him for a time, because I can, and because I worried he would…well.” He shrugged a little, but he did not have to say it. Everybody can see that one day, Naha might become a Maelstrom. It is a maybe and not a probably, or worse an eventually, but that it is even a maybe is a scary thing. That’s Naha, though: a scary, changeable thing.

  “But he just mourned,” Ia continued. He gazed into the distance without really seeing it; there was nothingness in his eyes. “Mourned and wandered, as if he was…searching for something. I don’t know what. Eventually he went farther than even I could follow, and there’s no telling how long he was gone. There’s no time in the nothing, you see. When he returned…she was different, in many ways. Perhaps that’s what she needed to heal.” He looked at me. “Nahadoth has had time enough to love you, too, Shill. Will you make her mourn again for a lost child, so soon?”

  I bit my lip and squirmed and looked at my knees. I had learned from the mortals, though, and instead of answering this really hard question, I changed the subject. “Um, Ia? Who is your enulai?”

  He said nothing for a moment. I was scared he would make me answer the question. But finally he said, “I don’t have one.”

  I frowned. “But Fahno said all godlings—”

  “I know.” He seemed to hesitate. “I’m not like other godlings, Shill. Haven’t you noticed?”

  The question confused me because no two godlings were alike. “No?”

  I felt him look at me, like he didn’t quite believe me. But then he shook his head, almost to himself. “It has been so long since a new godling walked among us. I’d forgotten that you don’t see it. Not at first.”

  Then there was a new voice behind us, and I jumped, but Ia only went very still and narrowed his eyes at the sound of it.

  “He is a monster,” said the woman. Said the godling, I realized, even as I turned and looked up—and up—to take in all of her mortal shape. She was like seven feet tall! And wider than me and Ia put together! Her fists were great big, and her bones were great big, and her headkerchief was great big; everything was great big!

  I inhaled, grinning, and stood to face her. “I want to get that big.” Her eyebrows lifted a little, I think in amusement.

  “A monster even among our kind, like all the elontid,” she continued. “Nahadoth, for all her chaos, is something. Ia alone among us is the abyss: no god can stare into him long without losing themselves, in terror. So he lives here in the mortal realm, among beings who cannot grasp the horror of him. He never comes to our realm, where the facade would not last. He needs no enulai to keep him in check, for who would foul his only home?”

  Ia, face so composed that I thought at once it was another kind of lie, finally stood and turned to her. “Zhakkarn,” he said, calmly. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  She turned aside to reveal Mikna, walking up behind her. “I asked Lady Zhakkarn to come,” Mikna said. I bristled at once, but she held up a hand. “Please, Lady Shill. We’ve begun on the wrong foot, and for that I apologize. I ask, however, that you hear me out.”

  I folded my arms. “I don’t want to. I don’t like you.”

  “She didn’t ask you to like her,” Ia snapped. “I don’t like you, but I listen to you, don’t I?”

  Because grown-up godlings listened, even if they did not always agree. I sighed very hard but unfolded my arms. I did not try to smile, though, because I was so mad that my bottom lip poked out instead.

  “Stop sulking,” Ia said.

  I stamped my foot at him. “Stop yelling at me!”

  “I didn’t—” Ia’s teeth clamped shut with an audible click, and he looked away.

  “You should have spent more time around Sieh, Sibling,” Zhakkarn said to him. Her voice was big, too, though most of it did not show its bigness. You could feel it, though, underneath the softness of her words. Inside her was a great big bloodthirsty roar.

  “Thank you, Zhakkarn, but I didn’t because I have little interest in children. Or rather, not any interest.” He pushed his glasses up and put his hands behind his back.

  Mikna grimaced. “I too have little experience with children, I’m afraid. But Shill—I do work with godlings, which is why I asked Lady Zhakkarn to join me in greeting you. She has…rather more experience of mortals than I do of godlings.” An odd, uncomfortable look passed over her face; beside her, Zhakkarn was still and calm as the cloudless sky, though of course we could all hear that huge awful roar. Ia sighed faintly. “I hoped that she might help to bridge the gap between us, if she was willing—and fortunately she is.”

  “I told you I didn’t want you,” I said, getting a little mad again. I didn’t like that she sounded all reasonable. I didn’t feel like being polite. “Tell me what you want or go away.”

  Nobody said anything, though Mikna raised an eyebrow—and Zhakkarn looked at me. Just that. But all at once I changed my mind about being rude to Mikna.

  “What I want,” Mikna said after a moment, “is to show you something. Will you come with us?”

  I was more polite this time, because Zhakkarn. “Um, where?”

  “To the Proving Ground,” said Zhakkarn.

  I frowned. “What’s that? Why?”

  Mikna said, “Because, as I realized after you left, you are a girl of proving age—or you would be, if you were human and actually the age that you resemble.” She paused. “You’ve been trying to understand Eino, haven’t you? Eino is Darre. If you want to understand him better, you need to understand his people.”

  I blinked. Oh. Ohhhh. “Um.” But she was right. I’d only met a handful of mortals so far, and I could see already that all their little strangenesses—what language they spoke and how they dressed and what they looked like and what they called themselves—were important to them. To Eino. So…“OK.”

  With that, Zhakkarn took us somewhere else. I thought at first she would take Ia and me and Mikna, but when we appeared in a big dusty courtyard surrounded by high walls and a circle of wooden railings, Ia was nowhere to be seen. “Ia is male,” Mikna said, when she saw me looking around. “This place isn’t for them.”

  “He’s not really a boy,” I said, folding my arms.

  “He is as much male as you are female,” said Mikna. Which made me bristle, until…oh. Well, OK. “And there is…history, between him and Lady Zhakkarn, as you probably gathered. It’s probably for the best.”

  Something to do with the Gods’ War, probably, I decided. Lots of my older siblings were still mad about that. “OK.”

  She nodded and backed up, spreading her arms so I would look around, which I did. “In Darr, a girl’s ninth year is considered sacred. Three times three, you see, and we have always honored the Three and all their children, not merely Itempas or any single one. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a special, hmm, affinity for any godling.” She glanced at Zhakkarn, who had pulled off her kerchief to reveal close-cropped curls of bright blue-white hair. Zhakkarn regarded her in stoic silence, which would have scared me, but Mikna just smiled again.

  “Well, I’m not nine,” I said, folding my arms. Honestly, though, I was curious.

  “I know. And by the time you are nine in truth you will understand more of c
reation than any mortal child—but for convenience’s sake, let’s treat you as nine years old now. At nine, a Darren girl—at least in the old days—” At this she faltered a little, her expression turning grim; I wondered why. Then she recovered. “A Darren girl would face her first foe in battle. Come.”

  She beckoned, and I came forward to where she pointed: a square of black bricks set into the dusty ground, near the wooden railing. There was another black square across the circle from it. When I was standing on the square, Mikna nodded. “Good. Let’s get started.”

  And then Zhakkarn got up and moved to stand on the black square opposite me.

  My mouth fell open. “But I can’t beat you!” I could feel it: her very nature was fighting, blood, pain. I glared at Mikna. “I thought you wanted me to fight you.”

  Mikna looked amused. “You’re still a god, Lady Shill, and one who as yet lacks a great deal of self-control. I have no wish to die. But more importantly, a nine-year-old Darren girl’s first foe would generally be an adult woman of the same clan. The goal of this contest is not to win; it is to learn how to face a foe who is larger, stronger, and more experienced.”

  “And lose!”

  “That is possible,” said Zhakkarn. She had taken a stance with her fists upraised and ready; suddenly I did not like that her fists were so great big. I was not really afraid of her body; that was just mortal stuff, like mine. What made me swallow and sweat was that—oh, no—I could feel how the great big roar inside her was quiet again. Focused. On me.

  I swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. OK. This was scary, but maybe it would be like when I had gone to talk to Ral the Dragon, who never did anything except roar so I’d had to roar with it. Zhakkarn was full of battle, so I would have to battle with her. And then maybe we could be friends! This made me be not scared anymore. And anyway, I had battled before with Eino, right? The dance had been a kind of fight. The moment I thought of that, I got excited. Maybe I would like this, too!

  Zhakkarn lowered her chin, her eyes suddenly sharp. “There seems to be a bit of the warrior in you already, Sibling.”

  Was there? “I was in a fight last night!” I said. “It was fun.”

  Zhakkarn smiled. “Let’s hope this one is, too, little Sibling.”

  Then she came at me. It was so fast I didn’t have time to be scared, except it was also so fast I couldn’t think, so I sort of squeaked and scrambled backward and hit the wooden railing. But she was still coming! So I folded myself over to the other side of the ring, where she had been.

  And SHE DID IT, TOO.

  So then her fist was up and she punched like WHAM and it hurt lots, like A WHOLE LOT, like OH HELLS I DIDN’T KNOW MORTAL STUFF COULD HURT LIKE THAT. I tried to will it not to hurt and it kept hurting, even! The mortal realm is not nice at all. Before I could get up she KICKED me. That wasn’t fair! It hurt lots more. I yelled, because I couldn’t help it. Stuff was broken inside me. Then I tried to crawl and she grabbed me by the ankle and THREW ME ACROSS THE RING! I went into the wall some, because the bricks were not very sturdy. And she was STILL COMING.

  “HEY!” I yelled, as she walked toward me. It took me a minute to push myself even partially out of the wall, and then I had to spit out some teeth along with rocks. I clung to the edges of the hole I was in, panting. “That is not fair! How am I supposed to fight when you don’t wait?”

  “Do you think a real enemy will politely wait for you to recover?” Zhakkarn was still coming, and oh, was her face scary. Eyes like hard steel and jaw tight like, like, like I dunno SCARY TIGHT THINGS what did it even matter she was gonna KILL me. “Do you think battle is fair?”

  I blinked, because well, I had. The dance with Eino…but now I knew that hadn’t really been battle. It had just been play. Eino dreamt of fighting the way the men of long ago had fought, but if that had been how they’d really fought, no wonder they’d lost.

  But—

  (I had to stop thinking for a bit, because Zhakkarn grabbed me out of the wall and a lot of bad things happened for a while. I do not want to talk about them.)

  OK, so. But.

  I lay on the ground where Zhakkarn had thrown me the last time, trying to understand something that had occurred to me earlier. My eyes were swollen shut, but I could feel Zhakkarn coming again—and also, I could feel that she was disappointed in me, because I hadn’t managed to put up much of a fight. That was worse than the pain, actually, because the pain would go away, but a sibling’s disappointment would not.

  But. This was important!

  But it bugged me that Eino’s kind of fighting wasn’t real fighting. It should have been. It could have been, maybe, if Eino knew more about how to do it than what he’d learned in musty old spheres and scrolls. Or if Eino had been taught the Proper Way to fight, by someone who had worked with him and sparred with him from when he was small! There was no reason for men’s fighting to be any worse than women’s fighting. Women were not magic or anything; they just knew something the men didn’t.

  Zhakkarn picked me up by the neck and held me up in the air with one hand. Also, she was choking me. “Do you yield, Sibling?”

  I felt like I was on the edge of something—something besides passing out. Oh, right! Darren women knew other women had learned to fight, so they tried. They got good at it because they believed they could. But the men did not try. They did not believe.

  (Something cracked in my neck. Ow.)

  And no one else believed in them, either. That was why Fahno wanted Eino to be married, was making him be married, when he didn’t want to be. It was because Fahno didn’t think boys could be strong. But boys could be strong! And girls could be strong! Everybody could be strong, if they all got the same knowledge, and if they tried. If they all believed!

  I gasped, which was really saying something because my throat was all closed up. And I opened my eyes some, because all of a sudden they were not so bruised and hurt. I stared at Zhakkarn, who blinked.

  I get it now! I said into her head, since I couldn’t talk. And then I grabbed her arm to brace myself, and curled up, and kicked her in the chest with both feet as hard as I could!

  We both went down, because she still had hold of me, and because Papa Tempa had filled the mortal realm with MOMENTUM which was annoying. She did stagger, though, and let me back down to the ground by accident. That was good, because suddenly I was strong again, or at least not weak! And even if I didn’t know how to fight well, I believed that I could fight, and really that is what matters. And! I did kind of know how to fight because of Eino’s dance, which was too fair and pretty to be proper fighting but only because nobody had used it for proper fighting in godsknewhowlong, and nobody ever would if I didn’t try, so I spun and whirled my arms like I would have in the dance and that made Zhakkarn let go and I was free!

  …To fall down, because lots of stuff was broken in me. Mortal realm, mortal rules. I said some bad words.

  Zhakkarn straightened, looking down at me, and all of a sudden she didn’t look disappointed anymore.

  “More than a bit of the warrior,” she said. “That you scored even one blow is excellent, Sibling. I look forward to our next battle, if you fight like this from the outset.”

  “I ab nebba fahdig you agan,” I said through messed-up teeth, glaring at her.

  “Never say never,” said Mikna, coming into the narrow range of my sight. She crouched, smiling. “I get the feeling you’re stubborn, Lady Shill. You should probably yield, though, unless you want this battle to contin—”

  “YIELD.” I did not yell it loud enough to hurt anybody, but it was pretty loud. Mikna grimaced, but laughed. And—oh, thank our parents—Zhakkarn folded her arms to wait for me to heal.

  It took a few minutes. Once my stomach-muscles could work again I sat up and glared at them some more. “Not fun.”

  “Battles rarely are,” said Zhakkarn, shrugging.

  “Well now I know that!” I had just grown some new teeth, so I could talk better now. I was
so mad at Mikna! “That didn’t have any point!”

  “Didn’t it?” Mikna raised her eyebrows. “But you’ve learned so much, Lady Shill.”

  “Like what?”

  “Enough that you seem to have grown. Fahno said that might happen, particularly when you got closer to discovering your nature.” At this I blinked, and looked down, but it was true! Now I was long and leggy, and there were little bumps on my chest where my body was thinking about growing breasts.

  “I don’t get it,” I said, staring down at all that leg. “I only took this shape so I could be around you mortals. I turned into a lizard already, and some other stuff. Why is it only this shape that changes without me meaning it to?”

  Zhakkarn crouched, not that that helped much; she still loomed over us both. But now her expression was a little sad, though she was smiling. “This happened to Sieh in his last few years,” she said. “Not quite in the same way, or for similar reasons—but Sibling, we are living creatures, immortal or not. Life…grows.”

  Didn’t it! I got to my feet and stood wobbling for a moment. “I’m so tall!” I grinned at Mikna, who stood, too; she was the same height.

  “Perhaps you’ll match Lady Zhakkarn someday after all.” She shrugged. “But if you’ll think about it, Lady Shill, you’ve grown in other ways, too. A girl’s first battle teaches her that the world is not fair.” I blinked and sobered; she nodded, seeing that I understood. “It teaches her to fight despite this, because a true enemy will not relent, and because it is a simple matter of survival. Claim what ground you can and hold it. Get back up if you’re knocked down. A woman’s strength has always lain in not giving up.”