The Kingdom of Gods (21 page)

“What you have done is unforgivable,” he said, “and yet I
must
forgive it, because you did not know.”

I frowned, confused. “What does my knowledge have to do with anything? Harm committed unknowingly is still harm.”

“True. But if you had known, Sieh, I’m not certain you would have done it.”

At his use of my name, I grew more confused, because his tone had changed. For an instant, the coldness had broken, and I heard stranger things underneath. Sorrow. Wistfulness? Perhaps a hint of affection. But I did not know this god; I was certain of it.

“Irrelevant,” I said finally, turning my head as much as I could. Beyond a certain point, my neck simply would not bend; it was like trying to turn with two pillows braced on either side of my head. Pillows formed of nothing but solid, unyielding will. I tried to relax. “You can’t base decisions on hypotheticals. It doesn’t matter what I
would have
done. You know only what I
did
.” I paused meaningfully. “Perhaps you could tell me.” For once I wasn’t in the mood for games.

Unfortunately, my companion was. “You chose to serve your nature,” he said, ignoring my hint. “Why?”

I wished I could look at him. Sometimes a look is more eloquent than any words. “
Why?
What the hells — are you kidding?”

“You are the oldest of us and must pretend to be the youngest.”

“I don’t pretend anything. I am what I must be, and I’m damn good at it, thanks.”

“So we are weaker than the mortals, then.” His voice grew soft, almost sad. “Slaves to fate, never to be freed.”

“Shut the hells up,” I snapped. “You don’t know slavery if you think
this
is the same thing.”

“Isn’t it? Having no choice —”

“You have a choice.” I lifted my gaze to the shifting firmament
above. The gradient — night to day, day to night — did not change at a constant rate. Only mortals thought of the sky as a reliable, predictable thing. We gods had to live with Nahadoth and Itempas; we knew better. “You can accept yourself, take control of your nature, make it what you
want
it to be. Just because you’re the god of vengeance doesn’t mean you have to be some brooding cliché, forever cackling to yourself and totting up what you owe to whom. Choose how your nature shapes you. Embrace it. Find the strength in it. Or fight yourself and remain forever incomplete.”

My companion fell silent, perhaps digesting my advice. That was good, because it was clear that I’d done him a disservice, besides whatever wrong he felt I’d committed. I did not remember him; that meant I hadn’t bothered to find him, guide him, after his birth. And he’d needed such guidance, because it was painfully clear that he did not like the hand fate, or the Maelstrom, had dealt him. I didn’t blame him for that; I wouldn’t have wanted to be god of vengeance, either. But he was, and he was going to have to find a way to live with that.

In the mirror, I saw the man behind me step closer, raising a hand. I braced myself to fight — purely on principle, since I already knew there was nothing I could do. It was clear his power superseded what little god-magic I had left, or I would have been able to break his compulsion and turn around.

But his hand touched my hair, to my utter shock. Lingered there a moment, as if memorizing the texture. Then fingers grazed the back of my neck, and I jumped. Was this some kind of threat? But he made no attempt to harm me. His finger traced
the knots of spine along the back of my neck, stopping only when my clothing interfered. Then — reluctantly, I thought — his hand pulled away.

“Thank you,” he said at last. “That was something I needed to hear.”

“Sorry I didn’t say it sooner.” I paused. “So are you going to kill me now?”

“Soon.”

“Ah. Good vengeance takes time?”

“Yes.” The coldness had returned to his voice, and this time I recognized it for what it was. Not anger. Resolve.

I sighed. “Sorry, too, to hear that. I think I might’ve liked you.”

“Yes. And I you.”

There was that, at least. “Well, don’t dither too long about it. I’ve only got a few decades left.”

I thought he smiled, which I counted as a victory. “I have already begun.”

“Good for you.” I hoped he didn’t think I was mocking him. It always made me feel good to see the young ones do well, even if that meant they would inevitably threaten me. That was the way of things, after all. Children had to grow up. They did not always become what others wanted. “Do me a favor, though?”

He said nothing, in keeping with his newfound resolve. That was all right. I could be his enemy, if that was what he needed from me. I just didn’t see any point in being an ass about it.

“I don’t belong here anymore.” I gestured around us at the mirrored plain, the palaces, the sky. “Not even in this watered-down dream of reality. Wake me up, will you?”

“All right.”

And suddenly a hand ripped through me from behind. I cried out in surprise and agony, looking down to see my mortal heart clenched in a sharp-nailed hand —

I jerked awake to the sound of my own cry, echoing from the vaulted ceiling.

Glowing
vaulted ceiling. It was night. Above me loomed Shahar, who had a hand on my chest and a worried look on her face. I was still sleepy, disoriented. A quick check of my chest verified that my heart was still there. Inadvertently, I looked at Shahar’s chest, thinking muzzily that my dream-enemy might have tried to harm her, too. Her dress lay in cut strips down to her waist, half undone, and she held a loose sleep shift over her breasts with her free arm, which she must have grabbed to cover herself when she’d come into my room. This did nothing to hide the other beautiful parts of her: the gentle sweep of neck into shoulder, the slight curve of her waist. Of her breasts, I could still see one rounded shadow near her elbow.

I reached up to pull her arm out of the way and stopped with my fingers two inches from her arm. It took her a moment to realize. She stared at my reaching hand uncomprehendingly; then her eyes widened and she jerked away.

I lowered my hand. “Sorry,” I muttered.

She glared at me. “You started screaming so loud I could hear you through the adjoining door. I thought something was
wrong
with you.”

“A dream.”

“Not a pleasant one, obviously.”

“Actually, it wasn’t so bad, ’til the end.” The fear was fading
quickly. My dream-companion hadn’t been gentle about it, but he’d chosen an excellent way to send me back to the mortal realm. I felt none of the heartrending sorrow that I might have on realizing that the gods’ realm was now forbidden to me. Instead I was just annoyed. “Little mortalfucking bastard. If I ever get my magic back, I’m going to break every bone in whatever body he manifests. Let him avenge
that
.”

I paused then, because Shahar was looking at me oddly. “What in every god’s name are you talking about?”

“Nothing. I’m babbling.” I yawned, my jaw cracking with the effort. “Sleep makes me stupid. Never liked it.”

“Mortalfuck,” she said, looking thoughtful. “Is that —” She paused, grimacing, too refined to say the word beyond repeating my term. “
Being with
a mortal. Is it such an anathema among gods that you use it as a curse?”

I blushed, though it bothered me that I did. I had nothing to be ashamed of. Pushing myself up on my elbows, I said, “No, it’s not anathema at all. Far from it.”

“What, then?”

I tried to seem nonchalant. “It’s just that mortals are dangerous to love. They break easily. In time, they die. It hurts.” I shrugged. “It’s easier, safer, to just use them for pleasure. But that’s hard, too, because it’s impossible for us to take pleasure without giving back something of ourselves. We are not …” I groped for the words in Senmite. “We do not … It isn’t our way. No, it isn’t
natural
to do things that way, to be nothing but body, contained only within ourselves, so when we are with another, we reach out and the mortal gets inside us — we can
not help it — and then it hurts to push them out, too …” I trailed off, because Shahar was staring at me. I’d been talking faster and faster, the words tumbling together in my effort to convey how it felt. I sighed and forced myself back to human speed. “
Being with
mortals isn’t anathema, but it’s not good, either. It never ends well. Any god with sense avoids it.”

“I see.” I wasn’t sure I believed that, but she sighed. “Well. Give me a moment.” She stepped back into her room, not shutting the door, and I heard her wrestle with the cloth of her dress for a few moments. Then she returned, wearing the sleep shift instead of holding it in front of herself this time. By this point I had sat up, rubbing my face to try and banish the dregs of sleep and the memory of my bloody, torn-out heart. When Shahar sat down on the bed, she did so gingerly, at its edge, out of my arms’ reach. I didn’t blame her for that or the fact that she seemed more relaxed after my speech about avoiding sex.

Still, there was something odd about her manner, something I couldn’t put my finger on. She seemed jittery, tense. I wondered why she hadn’t just stayed in her room and gone to bed, once she’d seen that I wasn’t dying.

“How did your meeting with, ah …” I waved a hand vaguely. Some noble.

She chuckled. “It went well, though that depends on your definition of
well
.” She sobered, her eyes darkening with a hint of her earlier anger. “You’ll be pleased to know that I did not follow through on my plan to challenge the resistance, per your advice. The message I sent instead — I hope, if I’m right about Lady Hynno — was that I would like to negotiate. Find out
more about their demands and determine whether there’s some way that we might meet them. Without throwing the world into chaos, that is.” She glanced at me warily.

“I’m impressed,” I said truthfully. “And surprised. Negotiation — compromise — is usually anathema to Itempans. And you changed your mind because of me?” I laughed a little. There were some good things about being older. People listened to me more.

Shahar sighed, looking away. “We’ll see what happens when my mother hears of it. She already thinks I’m weak; after this, I may not be heir for much longer.” With a heavy sigh, she lay back on the bed, stretching out her arms over her head. I could not help myself; my eyes settled on the very noticeable contrast of her areolae under the sheer shift. They were surprisingly dark, given her pale coloring. Perfect brown circles, with soft little cylinders at their centers —

Useless stupid animal mortaling body. My penis had reacted before I could stop it, jabbing me in the belly and forcing me to sit up from my usual slouch. It hurt, and I felt hot all over, as if I’d come down sick. (I had. It was called
adolescence
, an evil, evil disease.) But it was not just her flesh that drew me. I could barely see it with my withering senses, but her soul gleamed and whispered like rubbed silk. We have always been vulnerable to true beauty.

I dragged my eyes away from her breasts to find her watching me — watching me watch her? I did not know, but the hunger in me sharpened at the unalarmed, contemplative look in her eyes. I fought the reaction back, but it was difficult. Another symptom of the disease.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said, focusing on mundanities. “It takes great strength to compromise, Shahar. More than it does to threaten and destroy, since you must fight your own pride as well as the enemy. You Arameri have never understood this — and you didn’t have to, when you had us at your beck and call. Now, perhaps, you can learn to be true rulers and not merely bullies.”

She rolled onto her belly, which brought her to lie between my legs, propped on her elbows. At this I frowned, growing suspicious, and then wondering at my own unease. She was just a girl testing the waters of womanhood. An older version of
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours
. She wanted to know if I found her desirable. Did I not owe her the courtesy of an honest response? I lowered my knees and sat back on my elbows so that she could see the evidence of my admiration in the tented sheet and the heat of my gaze. She immediately blushed, averting her eyes. Then she looked at me again, and away again, and eventually looked down at her folded arms, which were fidgeting on the covers.

“I think Mother wants me to marry Canru,” she said. Her words had an air of effort. “The Teman heir I told you about. I think that’s why she’s let me be friends with him. She’s never let anyone else close to me.”