Ark

by J. J. Wilder

  “He healed quickly, as our people do, and when he had regained his strength, he took his revenge. He found those men, each and every one of them, and he killed them all, brutally, savagely. But he wasn’t satisfied with merely slaying them. Oh no, not Emmen, as you might well imagine. He ripped them asunder, they say, tore them limb from limb with his bare hands and scattered the bloody pieces throughout the city, and ever since then, your father has borne an unreasoning hatred of humans. Although, knowing what those men did, I do not blame him for hating them.”

  I was silent, thinking. I had never heard this story before, but it made sense to me. I wished I could ask him about it, but something told me that he would only fly into a rage if I brought it up.

  “I wish I could say I did not believe it,” I said, finally, “but I know my father all too well. He is absolutely capable of something like that, and it would explain his animosity toward humans.”

  “It is a story I have heard more than once,” Irkalla said, “from many sources, and the details have changed very little in the telling. The lesson you should glean from this story, mistress, is that if your father discovered you consorting with a human male, it would enrage him, and I do not wish to consider what he would do . . . either to you or to your human.”

  “I know, Irkalla. I know. I have had the same thought, believe me.” I ducked my head, and mumbled the next words. “I . . . I love him.”

  “You love him?” The scornful sarcasm of her words angered me, but I kept silent and waited for the rest. “How long have you known him, mistress? A matter of minutes? You know nothing about him whatsoever, and even less of love. You cannot love him, Aresia, if you do not know him. You may want him, and you may find him handsome. He may make your heart flutter and your body ache with lust for him, but love? I think not, lady.”

  I knew she was right, but the bright, brief, hot flare of infatuation was more intoxicating than any wine.

  I truly did try to stay away. I stayed in the palace until I was crazy with boredom and mad with desire for Japheth. His face was ever in my mind; my skin remembered the tingle of his touch. I even went to the temple and offered sacrifices to the gods and prayed to them to remove the desire from me.

  The gods were silent, as they ever were.

  I thought of praying to Elohim, but I did not know how; I knew prayer to The One God was not like prayer to my people’s gods. Would He listen to my prayers? Me, a Nephilim, whose father persecuted His followers, tortured them with fire and knives, killed them with his bare hands? I thought not, and so kept my prayers to myself.

  But I was weak, and I ended up in his arms before the week was out.

  I snuck out of the palace, this time during the day and without Irkalla. I found him loitering outside the palace in the shadow of the ziggurat, sharpening the blade of his sappara absently, the whetstone sliding across the bronze with a rasping metallic ring.

  “I thought you would never come,” he said, rising to his feet as I approached, my hood drawn and my head ducked.

  Before I had time to even respond, his hands were around my waist and his lips on mine, his hand on the back of my neck, drawing me down for a kiss. I tried, even then, to protest, but the words were lost before they were born.

  I should have pulled away, should have run back home, but I didn’t. I kissed him back, and lost myself in the flavor of his lips and the touch of his hands; so lost was I in his kiss that it was he who pulled away first.

  “Come,” he told me, pulling me by the hand. “We can’t stay here. The guards will see us and the game will be up before it’s begun.”

  I let him lead me through a maze of streets and tight alleys, ducking through the narrow spaces between houses, skirting humble temples to minor deities, slipping around clumps of people coming and going and loitering and begging and buying and selling. The scent of roasting meat and grilling vegetables and spices and unwashed bodies assaulted us at every turn. I followed him because I trusted him, which my mind told me was stupid, but upon which my heart was immoveable.

  The hood of my cloak fell back as we hurried, revealing my face to the crowded street. I had come out at midday, because it was then that I could no longer hold myself back. I heard people muttering, “It’s the princess, it’s her . . .” and I knew we were in trouble. I felt eyes on me, hated the feel of them searching, examining, accusing, judging. Hand in hand with a human I fled through the streets, expecting at every turn to be stopped by palace guards. We weren’t being pursued, or watched—that we were aware of—but I think we had a feeling, deep down and unnameable, that we should not be caught or seen, that we should not be together like this in broad daylight, with all the city watching. There was no law against humans and Nephilim being together . . . but me, the only daughter of King Emmen-Utu, and a follower of Elohim? Foolishness.

  I ignored the cautioning of my head, giving over instead to the song of my body, the thunder of my pulse at the feel of his hand in mine, the burning tingle of my lips where he’d kissed me. I let him lead me, watching his back twist, his broad shoulders move. Watching his taut backside shift as he wove a path through the thronging market crowds. Merchants hawked their wares, calling out the prices for dates and figs and pistachios and grapes, gold rings and cheap baubles, hand woven rugs, spices . . . I heard the familiar cacophony of the market, felt the press of bodies around me, but had eyes only for Japheth.

  Eventually, we left behind the bazaar at city-center, and I found myself in a part of the city to which I’d never ventured before: the tight, shadowy, twisting streets where houses were stacked two and three high, accessible only by narrow staircases that were more truly ladders than stairs. Here, the houses were built right up against the city wall itself, stacked like towers of blocks leaning against each other. If I were to stand in the window of a house on one side of the street, I could reach out my arm and touch the windowsill of the house opposite, so narrow were these streets, and yet now and again we had to press ourselves against the wall as flat as we could to make way for a wagon drawn by onagers—a race of donkeys native to this region, used widely among humans and Nephilim alike to draw carts and plow fields and carry burdens, since they are hardy, powerful, intelligent, and loyal, if a bit recalcitrant.

  Japheth made his way unerringly through the maze to where the narrow alley-like streets intersected with the wide thoroughfare of the main road running straight as an arrow shaft from city gate to palace gate, the main road swept clean by the king’s order and the gate within shouting distance of the houses against the wall. I was closer to this part of Bad-Tibira than I’d ever been without Father’s troop of guards and the security of a slave-borne litter.

  He led me to a stack of houses directly against the wall, close enough to the gate that I could hear the bawdy jokes of the guards as they idly scrutinized the foot traffic entering and exiting the city. Up, then, ascending one of those narrow ladder-like staircases to the second level. The home below smelled of animal fat being rendered into candle wax. Japheth’s home was tiny, a single room barely wide enough for a pallet and a few baskets of belongings, the ceiling low enough that the top of my head brushed against it if I stood upright; this was a uniquely human dwelling, and not meant for the height of a Nephilim.

  Here, in his home, I felt our differences keenly. As a Nephilim, I would be alive centuries after he was long in his grave. I stood several inches taller than he, and even as a woman possessed greater total strength. My eyes glowed golden, as all did those of every Nephilim, a gift from the gods who were our ancestors. He was a human, merely a human, and not even a king or a renowned warrior.

  But yet, standing facing him, his eyes blue as the sky, hot as lightning bursting from thunderheads . . . I didn’t care about any of that. Our differences faded to dust under the heat of his gaze.

  “Princess—” he began.

  “Aresia,” I interrupted. “I do not always wish to be a princess. Certainly not now, and certainly not here.”

 
He gestured at the pallet that was his bed, a thin nest of threadbare blankets on the floor. “I have no fine linen sheets to offer, Aresia.”

  We were separated by a handful of feet, me on the far side of the room, he with his back to the door, the rude bed between us.

  “I don’t care,” I said, and took a step closer to him.

  He unbuckled the wide belt around his waist, tossed it aside, and hauled the garment off, standing before me in nothing but a thin cotton undergarment. “I have no money for gifts, either.”

  I tugged a thick, golden, ruby-encrusted cuff off my wrist and tossed it aside carelessly. “Gold and jewels I possess in abundance.”

  He took a step toward me, tugged the strap of my dress aside, so the garment sagged, displaying the upper portion of my breasts. “I am a human, the son of a poor farmer.” The other strap followed suit, and then only the tips of my breasts held up my dress. “My family worships Elohim.”

  I stood still as a statue, barely breathing, as my dress drooped lower and lower. If I took a breath, if I filled my lungs and let my chest swell, the garment would fall . . . I wore no undergarments, so that single breath would leave me naked.

  “I care for none of that,” I whispered.

  “Shouldn’t you?” he asked, tracing a fingertip down between my breasts.

  “Yes,” I answered. “But I do not. Not now, anyway.”

  He hooked a fingertip inside the bodice, his blue eyes on mine. “And you want this?”

  The stories my maids and servants had told me ran through my head, whispered tales of lying with mortal men, the thrill of it, the rush . . . how different human men were from Nephilim. I wanted this; I wanted him. My people placed no special significance upon virginity, and even marriage was only a tool for politics, except perhaps among commoners.

  Thus, I was not a virgin, and this would not be my first time with a man, but it would be my first time with a human man, and I felt the excitement of it burning in my blood, as well as the forbidden nature of this meeting. If I were dawdling with a Nephilim guard, Father would not care. If I was running away with that guard, he would not care, although he would bring me back and remind me of my duty to the kingdom, my destiny to marry a king and rule as queen. But this? Sneaking across the city to dally with a human? This wasn’t just taboo, this wasn’t just foolish, this was . . . dangerous. And that was part of the excitement.

  “Aresia, I need an answer.” He traced the line of my breastbone from my throat to the swell of my cleavage.

  In answer, I took a deep breath, allowing my chest to expand, shifting off the tenuous purchase of the dress on my breasts. The expensive purple linen slid down, billowed off me and pooled on the floor, leaving me naked in front of Japheth. He sucked in a breath, his gaze raking over me appreciatively.

  Touch me, I thought, willing him to hear what I was not speaking.

  He touched a palm to my waist, his hand hard and callused and warm on my flesh. I held my breath, then, as his touched drifted to my backside, he pulled me against him. I felt all of him, and desire boiled inside me. I pushed his undergarment off and grasped him. I lowered my face to his and claimed a kiss, and, after a delirious moment, Japheth took that kiss and made it his, took control of it, guiding me to the pallet of blankets and laid me on them, hovering over me.

  This was the vision I’d first had of him, when I first met him: his arms beside my face, his hair tangled and curly and drifting over his vivid blue eyes. This was real, though, his body warm and hard and heavy on mine as he devoured me with his mouth, his hands. I returned the fervor, seeking his flesh, clasping and caressing his muscles, digging my fingers into his skin, nipping at his lips. He nestled against me, and I lifted my hips and gasped as we joined, and neither of us dared look away.

  It was everything my servants had claimed it would be, and more. Or perhaps it was just Japheth, his intensity, and his fire.

  We moved together with the midday sun streaming through his window, the shouts of guards and merchants outside the window, and my cries of pleasure were lost in the noise of the city and the bustle of the crowds at the gate.

  Every day I snuck out of the palace, Irkalla hiding my absences with excuses and pleas of ignorance—she’s on her courses and won’t leave her rooms; she’s been sick and is still recovering; she does not tell me everywhere she goes, for I am but a humble slave . . .

  If anyone was suspicious, no one said anything to me. Irkalla was disapproving, but more out of fear than true disapproval. If my other servants knew, they said nothing—they knew I’d reassign them to one of my brother’s wives if they did, and those women were far less benevolent than I.

  It began innocuously, as such things do: passionate pleasure, the rush of excitement, the thrill of the danger. But it gradually became something else. As one day became another, and then one week became two, my desire for Japheth’s body became a desire for more of him. A need to be near him. We spoke little enough, preferring to do our communication with our bodies rather than our words, but when we did speak, it was always easy to talk to him. The stories we told were idle banter, the kind of light, easy things couples whisper of in the glowing moments after pleasure is spent.

  He told stories of his battles, and I told stories of the court, and we never spoke of what we were doing, or of deeper things, such as our emotions. And we never spoke of the danger we faced if we were ever caught.

  In truth, I think we both knew it was always destined to end, that our days together were numbered, and thus we never spoke of the future. Except for that one time when we first met, he never spoke of his family, nor did I.

  He was gone for a day or two or three now and then, and once for over a week—working as guard in a merchant’s caravan, he told me. But as weeks turned into a month, I was still sneaking out at dawn or in the small hours of the night to see Japheth. I never stopped to wonder what would happen if I had gotten with child by Japheth, though it was not common for a human male to impregnate a female Nephilim—not impossible, only unlikely.

  Irkalla became ever more restless, began entreating me to stay in the palace more often. The servants began to whisper when they thought I wasn’t looking, and the guards began watching me come and go. They always saw, but I always thought of guards as just part of the palace, as much as if they were doors or vases or tapestries or servants.

  Irkalla, however . . . her worry turned to fear, and her pleas began to filter through to my better sense.

  “You will be caught,” she would plead with me when I returned to my rooms, drifting easily on feet still light from recent pleasure, my skin still flushed. “You will be caught, and it go hard for you and worse for him.”

  She pleaded with me to end my dalliance with Japheth, to find a Nephilim man to distract myself with, or devote myself to Inanna—anything but continue my secret affair with Japheth.

  I knew the dangers, but I didn’t think them worth considering. Not when there was such delirious pleasure in Japheth’s arms.

  I made light of her pleas, and when that did not work, I ignored her.

  But, of course, Irkalla’s fears were realized.

  It was the month of Arah Tisritum, two months after I met him, two months of days and nights spent losing myself in Japheth. Two months of discovering the deepest pleasures of the flesh.

  It was just past sunset, the evening sky red as blood. If I had bothered to look, it was an omen I should have seen.

  Japheth and I had met at the bazaar, as we always did, and were walking to his house by the wall, taking a circuitous route, keeping to side streets, my hood drawn. We rounded a corner, and Japheth skidded to a sudden stop, and I slammed into him from behind. There, standing before us, his eight-foot-tall frame slouched easily against a wall, his burly arms crossed, his face clouded with puzzled anger, was my oldest brother, Kichu. His broad, scarred face and golden eyes seared into me, disapproving.

  “What are you doing, Aresia?” he demanded. He reached for me with a callou
sed paw; I pulled out of reach. “You shouldn’t be here. You belong in the palace. And what are you doing with Japheth?” He obviously knew Japheth personally, but kept his focus on me.

  “I can do what I want, Kichu. I’m not a child.” I cursed silently, because I had sounded exactly like a child.

  “You’re coming with me, Aresia. Father will not be pleased with you.”

  “I will not!”

  Kichu looked from me to Japheth. “Don’t be a fool, Japheth. You know what you risk. If I respect any human, it’s you, but I cannot help you if you continue in this.”

  Kichu was the least vile, the least despicable of my brothers, so if I could worm my way out this with anyone, it would be him.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong, Kichu,” I said, in my most convincing voice. “Just pretend you didn’t see anything. Please?”

  My brother sighed and scratched his beard.

  “Fine,” he growled. “But only this once. And no more of this. You, Aresia—you will stay in the palace. And you, Japheth, will stay away from my sister. She is not for you.” He turned on his heel and stalked off.

  I looked to Japheth, expecting to see resignation on his face.

  “What?” He pulled me up against him, smirking arrogantly. “Do you think I am so easily dissuaded? I told you, your brothers don’t scare me. I know what I want, and I will not be frightened away like some puling servant boy.” He stopped suddenly and leveled an intent, searching gaze at me. “Unless you would rather return to the palace? I will take you back, if you wish . . .”

  He was teasing me. Damn him, he knew he could goad me, prod me, manipulate me. I glared at him, but he just grinned and resumed walking.

  “I didn’t think so.” A tease, those words.