The Broken Kingdoms it-2

by N. K. Jemisin

  THIS PART IS HARD FOR ME, harder than all the rest. But I will tell it, because you need to know.

  ***

  When I awoke, it was early evening. I'd slept all day, but as I sat up, kicking my way free of the entangling sheets, I gave serious thought to lying back down. I could have slept a week more, so tired was I. Still, I was hungry, thirsty, and in sore need of a toilet, so I got up.

  Shiny, asleep beside me, didn't stir, even when I tripped over my discarded robe and cursed loudly. I supposed the magic had worn him out even more than it had me.

  In the bathroom, I took stock, having reached the conclusion that I was alive and had not been burned to a crisp. I felt fine, in fact, other than the tiredness and a bit of soreness here and there. More than fine. It struck me as I stood there rubbing my face: I was happy again, perhaps for the first time since I'd left Shadow. Truly, completely, happy.

  So when the first tickle of cold air brushed my ankles, I barely noticed. Not until I left the bathroom, and walked into a space of coldness so sharp and alien that it made me stop short, did I realize Shiny and I were not alone.

  There was only silence, at first. Only a growing feeling of presence and immensity. It filled the bedroom, oppressive, making the walls creak faintly. Whatever had come to visit us, it was not human.

  And it did not like me. Not one whit.

  I stood very still, listening. I heard nothing-and then something inhaled, very near the back of my neck.

  "You still smell of him."

  Every nerve in my body screamed. I stayed silent only because fear had robbed me of breath. I knew who this was. I had not heard his approach, didn't dare speak his name, but I knew who he was.

  The voice behind me-soft, deep, malevolent-chuckled. "Prettier than I expected. Sieh was right; you were a lucky find for him." A hand stroked my hair, which was a mess, the braid half undone. The finger that snaked out to graze the back of my neck was ice cold. I could not help jumping. "But so delicate. So soft a hand to hold his leash."

  I was not surprised, not at all, when those long fingers suddenly gripped my hair, pulling my head back. I barely registered the pain. The voice, which now spoke into my ear, was of far greater concern.

  "Does he love you yet?"

  I could not process the words. "Wh-what?"

  "Does he." The voice moved closer. "Love you." I should have felt his body by now, leaning against my shoulder, but there was only a feeling of stillness and cool, like midnight air. "Yet."

  The last word was so close to my ear that I felt the caress of his breath. I expected to feel his lips in the next instant. When I did, I would start screaming. I knew this as surely as I knew he would kill me when I did it.

  Before I could doom myself, however, another voice spoke from across the room.

  "That's not a fair question. How could she know?" This one was a woman, a cultured contralto, and I recognized her voice. I'd heard it a year before, in an alley, with the scents of piss and burned flesh and fear heavy in the air. The goddess Sieh had called Mother. I knew, now, who she really was.

  "It's the only question that matters," said the man. He released my hair, and I stumbled forward to a trembling halt, wanting to run and knowing there was no point.

  Shiny was not awake. I could hear him in the bed, still breathing slow and even. Something was very wrong with that.

  I swallowed. "Do you prefer Y-Yeine, Lady? Or, ah-"

  "Yeine will do." She paused, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Aren't you going to ask my companion's name?"

  "I think I know it already," I whispered.

  I felt her smile. "Still, we should at least observe the formalities. You are Oree Shoth, of course. Oree, this is Nahadoth."

  I made myself nod, jerkily. "Very nice to meet you both."

  "Much better," said the woman. "Don't you think?"

  I didn't realize this wasn't directed at me until the man-not a man, not a man at all-replied. And I jumped again, because suddenly his voice was farther away, over near the bed. "I don't care."

  "Oh, be nice." The woman sighed. "I appreciate your asking, Oree. I suppose someday my own name will be better known, but until then, I find it irritating when others treat me and my predecessor as interchangeable."

  I could guess her location now: over by the windows, in the big chair where I sometimes sat to listen to the town. I imagined her sitting daintily, one leg crossed over the other, her expression wry. Her feet would still be bare, I felt certain.

  I tried not to imagine the other one at all.

  "Come with me," said the woman, rising. She came closer, and I felt a cool hand take my own. Though I had gotten a taste of her power on that long-ago day in the alley, I felt nothing of her right then, even this close. It was all the Nightlord's cold that filled the room.

  "Wh-wha-" I turned to go with her out of sheer unthinking self-preservation. But as she tugged my hand, my feet stopped moving. She stopped as well, turning to me. I tried to speak and could not muster words. Instead I turned, not wanting to but needing to. I faced the Nightlord, who stood near the bed, looming over Shiny.

  There was a hint of kindness in the Lady's voice. "We will do him no harm. Not even Naha."

  Naha, I thought dizzily. The Nightlord has a pet name. I licked my lips. "I don't… he's." I swallowed again. "Usually a light sleeper."

  She nodded. I couldn't see her, but I knew it. I didn't need to see her to know anything she did.

  "The sun has just set, though it still lights the sky," she said, taking my hand again. "This is my time. He'll wake when I let him-though I don't intend to let him until we're gone. It's better that way."

  She led me downstairs. In the kitchen, she sat with me at the table, taking the other chair. Here, away from Nahadoth, I could feel something of her, but it was restrained somehow, nothing like that moment in the alley. She had an air of stillness and balance.

  I debated whether I should offer her tea.

  "Why is it better that Shiny stay asleep?" I asked at last.

  She laughed softly. "I like that name, Shiny. I like you, Oree Shoth, which is why I wanted to talk to you alone." I started as her fingers, gentle-and strangely, callused-tilted my face down so she could see me more clearly. I remembered she was much shorter than me. "Naha was right. You really are lovely. Your eyes accentuate it, I think."

  I said nothing, worried that she hadn't answered my question.

  After a moment, she let me go. "Do you know why I prohibit the godlings from leaving Shadow?"

  I blinked in confusion. "Um… no."

  "I think you do know-better than any other, perhaps. Look what happens when even one mortal gets too closely involved with our kind. Destruction, murder… Shall I let the whole world suffer the same?"

  I frowned, opened my mouth, hesitated, then finally decided to say what was on my mind.

  "I think," I said slowly, "that it doesn't matter whether you restrict the godlings or not."

  "Oh?"

  I wondered if she was genuinely interested, or whether this was some sort of test.

  "Well… I wasn't born in Shadow. I went there because I had heard about the magic. Because…" I would be able to see there, I had intended to say, but that wasn't true. In Shadow I had seen wonders on a daily basis, but in practical terms, I hadn't been much better off than I was in Strafe; I'd still needed a stick to get around. I hadn't cared about being able to see, anyway. I had come because of the Tree and the godlings, and the rumors of still greater strangeness. I had yearned to find a place where my father could have felt at home. And I had not been the only one. All my friends, most of whom were not demons or godlings or magic-touched in any way, had come to Shadow for the same reason: because it had been a place like no other. Because…

  "Because the magic called to me," I said at last. "That will happen wherever magic is. It's part of us now, and some of us will always be drawn to it. So unless you take it away completely, which even the Interdiction never managed to do"-I
spread my hands-"bad things will happen. And good."

  "Good?" The Lady sounded thoughtful.

  "Well… yes." I swallowed again. "I regret some of what's happened to me. But not all of it."

  "I see," she said.

  Another silence fell, almost companionable.

  "Why is it better that Shiny stay asleep?" I asked, very softly this time.

  "Because we've come to kill you."

  My innards turned to water. Yet strangely, I found it easier to talk now. It was as if my anxiety had passed some threshold, beyond which it became pointless.

  "You know what I am," I guessed.

  "Yes," she replied. "You bent the chains we placed on Itempas and released his true power, even if only for a moment. That got our attention. We've been watching you ever since. But"-she shrugged-"I was a mortal for longer than I've been a god. The possibility of death is nothing new or especially frightening to me. So I don't care that you're a demon."

  I frowned. "Then what…?"

  But I remembered the Nightlord's question. Does he love you yet?

  "Shiny," I whispered.

  "He was sent here to suffer, Oree. To grow, to heal, to hopefully rejoin us someday. But make no mistake-this was also a punishment." She sighed, and for an instant I heard the sound of distant rain. "It's unfortunate that he met you so soon. In a thousand years, perhaps, I could have persuaded Nahadoth to let this go. Not now."

  I stared at her with my sightless eyes, stunned by the monstrosity of what she was saying. They had made Shiny nearly human, the better to experience the pain and hardship of mortal life. They had bound him to protect mortals, live among them, understand them. Like them, even. But he could not love them.

  Love me, I realized, and ached with both the sweetness of the knowledge and the bitterness that followed.

  "That isn't fair," I said. I wasn't angry. I wasn't that stupid. Still, if they were going to kill me, anyway, I was damn well going to speak my mind. "Mortals love. You can't make him one of us and keep him from doing that. It's a contradiction."

  "Remember why he was sent here. He loved Enefa-and murdered her. He loved Nahadoth and his own children, yet tormented them for centuries." She shook her head. "His love is dangerous."

  "It wasn't-" His fault, I almost said, but that was wrong. Many mortals went mad; not all of them attacked their loved ones. Shiny had accepted responsibility for what he'd done, and I had no right to deny that.

  So I tried again. "Have you considered that having mortal lovers may be what he needs? Maybe-" And again I cut myself off, because I had almost said, Maybe I can heal him for you. That was too presumptuous, no matter how kind the Lady seemed.

  "It may be what he needs," said the Lady, evenly. "It isn't what Nahadoth needs."

  I flinched and fell silent then, lost. It was as Serymn had guessed: the Lady knew what another Gods' War would cost humanity, and she had done what she could to prevent it. That meant balancing the needs of one damaged brother against the other-and for the time being, at least, she had decided that the Nightlord's rage deserved more satisfaction than Shiny's sorrow. I didn't blame her, really. I had felt that rage upstairs, that hunger for vengeance, so strong that it ground against my senses like a pestle. What amazed me was that she actually thought there was some hope of reconciling the three of them. Maybe she was as crazy as Shiny.

  Or maybe she was just willing to do whatever it took to fill the chasm between them. What was a little demon blood, a little cruelty, compared to another war? What were a few ruined mortal lives, so long as the majority survived? And if all went well, then in a thousand years or ten thousand, the Nightlord's wrath might be appeased. That was how gods thought, wasn't it?

  At least Shiny will have forgotten me by then.

  "Fine," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "Get it over with. Or do you mean to kill me slowly? Give Shiny's knife an extra turn?"

  "He'll suffer enough knowing why you died; how makes little difference." She paused. "Unless."

  I frowned. Her tone had changed. "What?"

  She reached across the table and cupped my cheek, her thumb brushing my lips. I nearly flinched but managed to master the reflex in time. That seemed to please her; I felt her smile.

  "Such a lovely girl," she said again, and sighed with what might have been regret. "I might be able to persuade Nahadoth to let you live, provided Itempas still suffers."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If, perhaps, you were to leave him…" She trailed off, letting her fingers trail away from my face. I stiffened, sick with understanding.

  When I finally managed to speak, I was shaking inside. I was angry at last, though; that steadied my voice. "I see. It's not enough for you to hurt him; you want me to hurt him, too."

  "Pain is pain," said the Nightlord, and all the small hairs on my skin prickled, because I had not heard him come into the room. He was somewhere behind the Lady, and already the room was turning cold. "Sorrow is sorrow. I don't care where it comes from, as long as it is all he feels."

  Despite my fear, his careless, empty tone infuriated me. My free hand tightened into a fist. "So I'm to choose between letting you kill me and stabbing him in the back myself?" I snapped. "Fine, then-kill me. At least he'll know I didn't abandon him."

  Yeine's hand brushed mine, which I suspected was meant to be a warning. The Nightlord went silent, but I felt his rigid fury. I didn't care. It made me feel better to hurt him. He had taken my people's happiness and now he wanted mine.

  "He still loves you, you know," I blurted. "More than me. More than anything, really."

  He hissed at me. It was not a human sound. In it I heard snakes and ice, and dust settling into a deep, shadowed crevice. Then he started forward-

  Yeine stood, turning to face him. Nahadoth stopped. For a span of time that I could not measure-perhaps a breath, perhaps an hour-they stared at one another, motionless, silent. I knew that gods could speak without words, but I was not certain that was happening here. This felt more like a battle.

  Then the feeling faded and Yeine sighed, stepping closer to him. "Softly," she said, her voice more compassionate than I could have imagined. "Slowly. You're free now. Be what you choose to be, not what they made you."

  He let out a long, slow sigh, and I felt the cold pressure of him fade just a little. When he spoke, however, his voice was just as hard as before. "I am of my choosing. But that is angry, Yeine. They burn in me, the memories… They hurt. The things he did to me."

  The room reverberated with betrayals unspoken, horrors and loss. In that silence, my anger crumbled. I had never been able to truly hate anyone who'd suffered, no matter what evils they'd done in the aftermath.

  "He has not earned such happiness, Yeine," the Nightlord said. "Not yet."

  The Lady sighed. "I know."

  I heard him touch her, perhaps a kiss, perhaps just taking her hand. It reminded me at once of Shiny and the way he often touched me, wordlessly, needing the reassurance of my nearness. Had he done that with Nahadoth, once upon a time? Perhaps Nahadoth-underneath the anger-missed those days, too. He had the Lady to comfort him, however. Shiny would soon have no one.

  Silently, the Nightlord vanished. Yeine stayed where she was for a moment, then turned back to me.

  "That was foolish of you," she said. I realized she was angry, too, with me.

  I nodded, weary. "I know. Sorry."

  To my surprise, that actually seemed to mollify her. She returned to the table, though she didn't sit. "Not wholly your fault. He's still… fragile, in some ways. The scars of the War, and his imprisonment, run deep. Some of them are still raw."

  And I remembered, with some guilt, that this was Shiny's fault.

  "I've made my decision," I said, very softly.

  She saw what was in my heart-or perhaps it was just obvious. "If what you said was true," she said, "if you do care about him, then ask yourself what's best for him."

  I did. And in that moment I imagined Shin
y, what he might become, long after I died and had turned to dust. A wanderer, a warrior, a guardian. A man of soft words and swift decisions and little in the way of kindness-yet he would have some, I understood. Some warmth. Some ability to touch, and be touched by, others. I could leave him that much, if I did it right.

  But if I died, if his love killed me, there would be nothing in him. He would distance himself from mortalkind, knowing the consequences of caring too deeply for us. He would snuff that small ember of warmth in himself, fearful of the pain it brought. He would live among humanity yet be wholly alone. And he would never, ever heal.

  I said nothing.

  "You have one day," Yeine said, and vanished.

  I sat at the table for a long while.

  Whatever the Lady had done to still time, it faded once she was gone. Through the kitchen windows, I felt night fall, the air turning cool and dry. I could hear people walking outside, cicadas in the distant fields, and a carriage rattling along a cobbled street. There was the scent of flowers on the wind… though not the flowers of the World Tree.

  In time, I heard movement upstairs. Shiny. The pipes rattled as he ran a bath. Strafe was not Shadow, but it had better plumbing, and I shamelessly wasted wood and coal to give us hot water whenever we wanted it. After a time, I heard him let the water out, moving around some more; then he came downstairs. As before, he stopped in the doorway of the room, reading something in my stillness. Then he came over to the table and sat down-where the Lady had sat, though that meant nothing. I didn't have many chairs.

  I had to hold very still as I spoke. Otherwise, I would break, and it would all be for nothing.

  "You have to leave," I said.

  Silence from Shiny.

  "I can't be with you. It never works between gods and mortals; you were right about that. Even to try is foolish."

  As I spoke, I realized with a shock that I believed some of what I was saying. I had always known, in part of my heart, that Shiny could not stay with me forever. I would grow old, die, while he stayed young. Or would he grow old, too, die of old age, and then be reborn young and handsome again? Not good for me, either way. I wouldn't be able to help resenting him, feeling guilty for burdening him. I would cause him unimaginable pain as he watched me fail, and in the end we would be separated forever, anyway.