The Broken Kingdoms

by N. K. Jemisin

I didn’t know the latter name, but I was relieved—more than I’d ever expected to be—to hear that Kitr was alive. I licked my lips. “What about… the others?”

  “Lil is fine. The demon couldn’t take her.” With the clarity of intuition, I realized Dateh had become “the demon” for Nemmer. I was something else. “She almost killed him, in fact; he fled from their battle. She’s taken over the Shustocks junkyard—Dump’s old place?—and Ancestors’ Village.” At my look of alarm, she added, “She doesn’t eat anyone who doesn’t want to be eaten. In fact, she’s rather protective of the children; their hunger for love seems to fascinate her. And for some reason, she’s gained a taste for being worshipped lately.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at that. “What about—”

  “None of the others survived,” she said. My laughter died.

  After a moment of silence, Nemmer added, “Your friends from Art Row are all fine, though.”

  That was very good, but it hurt me most of all to think about that part of my old life, so I said, “Did you have a chance to check on my mother?”

  “No, sorry. Getting out of the city is difficult enough. I could make only one trip.”

  I nodded slowly and resumed picking up onions. “Thank you for doing it. Really.”

  Nemmer hopped down and helped me. “You seem to have a good life here, at least. How is, ah…” I smelled her discomfort, like a toe of garlic amid the onions.

  “He’s better,” I said. “Do you want to talk to him? He went to the market. Should be back soon.”

  “Went to the market.” Nemmer weakly let out a little laugh. “Will wonders never cease.”

  We got the onions into a basket. I sat back, mopping my now-sweaty brow with a dirty hand. She sat there beside me on her knees, thinking a daughter’s thoughts. “I think he’d be happy if you stayed,” I said softly. “Or came back at some point in the future. I think he misses all of you.”

  “I’m not sure I miss him,” she said, though her tone said something entirely different. Abruptly she got to her feet, brushing off her knees unnecessarily. “I’ll think about it.”

  I rose as well. “All right.” I considered whether to invite her to stay for dinner, then decided against it. Despite what it might have meant to Shiny, I didn’t really want her to stay. She didn’t really want to, either. An awkward silence descended between us.

  “I’m glad you’re well, Oree Shoth,” she said finally.

  I extended my hand to her, not worrying about the dirt. She was a god. If dirt bothered her, she could will it away. “It was good seeing you, Lady Nemmer.”

  She laughed, easing the awkwardness. “I told you not to call me ‘Lady.’ You mortals all make me feel so old, I swear.” But she took my hand and squeezed it before vanishing.

  I puttered about in the shed awhile, then went into the house and upstairs to bathe. After that, I put my hair back in a braid, donned a thick, warm robe, and curled up in my favorite chair, thinking.

  Evening fell. I heard Shiny come in downstairs, wipe his feet, and begin putting away the supplies he’d bought. Eventually he came upstairs and stopped, standing in the doorway, looking at me. Then he came over to the bed and sat down, waiting for me to tell him what was wrong. He talked more these days, but only when the mood took him, and that was rare. For the most part, he was just a very quiet man. I liked that about him, especially now. His silent presence soothed my loneliness in a way that talking would only have irritated.

  So I got up and went over to the bed. I found his face with my hands, traced its stern lines. He shaved his head bald every morning. That kept people from realizing it was completely white, which was too striking for the low profile we were trying to keep. He was handsome enough without it, but I missed pushing my fingers into his hair. I ran my fingers across his smooth scalp instead, wistful.

  Shiny regarded me for a moment, thoughtful. Then he reached up and untied the sash of my robe, tugging it open. I froze, startled, as he gazed at me—nothing more than that. But as he had somehow done long ago, on a rooftop in another life, just that look made me incredibly aware of my body, and his nearness, and all the potential that lay therein. When he took hold of my hips, there was absolutely no doubt as to what he intended. Then he pulled me closer.

  I pulled back instead, too stunned to react otherwise. If my skin hadn’t still tingled where he’d touched me, I would have thought I’d imagined the whole thing. But that, and the roaring-awake of certain parts of me that had been mostly asleep for a long while, told me it was very real.

  Shiny lowered his hands when I stepped back. He didn’t seem upset, or concerned. He just waited.

  I laughed weakly, suddenly nervous. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

  He said nothing, of course, because it was obvious that had changed.

  I fidgeted, pushing up my sleeves (they fell back down immediately), tucking back a stray curl of hair, shifting from foot to foot. I didn’t close the open robe, though.

  “I don’t know—” I began.

  “I have decided to live,” he said quietly.

  That, too, was obvious from the way he’d changed in the past year. I felt his gaze as he spoke, heavier than usual along my skin. He had been my friend, and now offered more. Was willing to try more. But I knew: he was not the sort of man who loved easily, or casually. If I wanted him, I would have all of him, and he wanted all of me. All or nothing; that was as fundamental to his nature as light itself.

  I tried to joke. “It took you a year to decide that?”

  “Ten, yes,” Shiny replied. “This last year was for you to decide.”

  I blinked in surprise, but then I realized he was right. Such a strange thing, I thought, and smiled.

  Then I stepped forward again, found his face, and kissed him.

  It was much better than that long-ago night on Madding’s roof, probably because he wasn’t trying to hurt me this time. The same incredible gentleness without malice—nice. He tasted of apples, which he must’ve eaten on his way back from town, and radishes, which were not so pleasant. I didn’t mind. I felt his eyes on me the whole time. He would be the type, I thought, but then I hadn’t closed mine, either.

  It did feel strange, though, and until he’d taken hold of my waist again, pulling me where he wanted so he could do all the things his gaze had implied, I didn’t realize what it was that had me confused. Then he did something that made me gasp, and I realized Shiny’s kiss had been just a kiss. Just one mouth on another, with no impression of colors or music or soaring on unseen winds. It had been so long since I’d kissed a mortal that I’d forgotten we couldn’t do that.

  That was all right, though. There were other things we could do just fine.

  * * *

  I slept well into the small hours, until a dream made me start awake. I kicked Shiny in the shin inadvertently, but he did not react. I touched his face and realized he was awake, untroubled by my thrashing.

  “Did you sleep at all?” I yawned.

  “No.”

  I couldn’t remember the dream, but the feeling of unease it had given me lingered. I pushed myself up from his chest and rubbed my face, bleary and painfully aware of the unlovely taste of my mouth. Outside I could hear a few determined birds beginning their morning song, though the chill in the air told me it wasn’t yet dawn. Otherwise it was quiet—that eerie, not-quite-comforting quiet one finds in small towns before dawn. Not even the fishermen were up. In Shadow, I thought with fleeting sadness, the birds would not have been so alone.

  “Everything all right?” I asked. “I can make some tea.”

  “No.” He reached up then to touch my face, as I so often did with him. Since his eyes worked just fine, I wondered if I dared take it as a gesture of affection. Maybe the room was just dark. He was always a hard man to read, and now I had to learn a whole new set of interpretations for the things he did.

  “I want you,” he said.

  Or he could just tell me. I couldn’t help
laughing, though I nuzzled his hand to let him know his advance wasn’t unwelcome. “We’re going to have to work on your bedroom talk, I think.”

  He sat up, shifting me easily to his lap, and pulled me into a kiss before I could warn him about my breath. His was no better. But it was my turn to be surprised, because as he deepened the kiss and smoothed his hands down my arms, gently pulling them behind me, I felt something. A flicker. A trickle of heat—real heat. Not passion, but fire.

  I gasped, my eyes widening as he pulled back.

  “I want to be inside you,” he said, his voice low, implacable. One of his hands pinned my wrists behind my back; the other massaged elsewhere, just right. I think I made a sound. I’m not sure. “I want to watch the dawnlight break across your skin. I want you to scream as the sun rises. I don’t care what name you call.”

  That has to be the most unromantic thing I’ve ever heard, I thought giddily. He touched me more then, kissing, tasting, caressing. He had learned much about me in our previous session, which this time he used to ruthless effect. When his teeth grazed my throat, I cried out and arched backward, not quite voluntarily. The way he was holding my wrists meant that I bent how he wanted me to bend. He wasn’t hurting me—I could feel the care he took to avoid that—but I couldn’t break his grip. I trembled, my eyelids fluttering shut, fear and arousal making me light-headed as I finally understood.

  Sunrise was coming. I had made love to a godling, but this was different. I could no longer see the glow rise in Shiny’s body, but I had tasted the first stirrings of magic in his kiss. He was not quite my Shiny, not anymore, and he would be nothing like my cool, carefree Madding. He would be a thing of heat and intensity and absolute power.

  Could I lie down with something like that and get up whole?

  “I want to be myself for you, Oree,” he whispered against my skin. “Just once.” Not a plea—never that. An explanation.

  I closed my eyes and made myself relax. I couldn’t bring myself to speak, but I didn’t have to. My trust was enough.

  So he lifted us, turning to put me under him on the bed, this time pinioning my arms above my head. I lay passive, knowing that he needed this. The control. He had so little power these days; what he could claim was precious to him. For some moments, he simply looked at me. His gaze was like feathers on my skin, a torment. When he actually touched me, it had the weight of command. I arched and shuddered and opened myself to him. I could not help it. As he pressed against me, into me, I felt the impossible heat of his body rise. He moved slowly at first, concentrating, whispering something. Godwords, like a prayer, almost at the threshold of my ability to hear them. The magic would not work for him, would it?

  but he is different now, this is different—

  and then I felt the words on my skin. I don’t know how I knew they were words. I shouldn’t have. Usually only my fingers were that sensitive, but now my thighs made out the arcs and curves and jagged turns of gods’ language, each character perfectly clear in my mind. It was more than words; there were strange tilted lines, too, and numbers, and other symbols whose purpose I could not decipher. Too complex. He had created language at the beginning of time, and it had always been his most subtle instrument. The words slid along my skin, wending down my legs, circling my breasts—gods. There are no mortal words for how it felt, but I writhed, how I writhed. He watched me, heard me whimper, and was pleased. I felt that, too.

  “Oree,” he said. Only that. I heard whispers behind it, a dozen voices—all his—overlapping. The word took on a dozen different layers of meaning, encompassing lust, fear, dominance, tenderness, reverence.

  Then he kissed me again, fiercely this time, and I would have cried out if I could have because it burned, like lightning arcing down my throat and setting all my nerves afire. It made me writhe anew, which he generously permitted. It made me cry, but the tears dried almost at once.

  My sweat became steam. I felt the heat of the encroaching sun soak in and then gather within me, rising close to the skin, boiling. It would either find an outlet or it would burn me up; it did not care. I did not care. I was shouting wordlessly, straining against him, begging for just that little bit extra, just that final touch, just a taste of the god within the man, because he was both, and I loved them both, and I needed both with all my soul.

  Then came the day, and with it the light, and all my awareness dissolved amid the rush and roar and incomprehensible glory of ten thousand white-hot suns.

  21

  “Still Life” (oil on canvas)

  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.”