The Kingdom of Gods

by N. K. Jemisin

  “Morad has been busy organizing the palace’s operations and preparing sufficient living quarters for the highbloods,” Glee continued. “Ramina has even put the courtiers to work. Remath has begun transferring power to Shahar, which requires endless paperwork and meetings with the military, the nobles, the Order …” She shook her head and sighed. “And since none of those are permitted to come here, the palace’s gates and message spheres have seen heavy use. Only Remath’s orders keep Shahar here, and no doubt if Deka were not First Scrivener and essential to making the palace ready, she would have him visiting fifty thousand kingdoms as her proxy.”

  I frowned, going to the mirror to see if anything could be done about my hair. It was far too long, nearly to my knees. Someone had cut it already, I suspected, because given my usual pattern it should have been long enough to fill the room by this point. I willed scissors to appear on a nearby dresser, and they did. Almost like being a god again.

  “Why the urgency?” I asked. “Has something happened?” I hacked clumsily at my hair, which of course offended Glee. She made a sound of irritation, coming over to me and taking the scissors from my hand.

  “The urgency is all Remath’s.” She worked quickly, at least. I saw hanks of hair fall to the floor around my feet. She was leaving it too long, brushing my collar, but at least I wouldn’t trip on it now. “She seems convinced that the transition must be completed sooner rather than later. Perhaps she has told Shahar the reason for her haste; if so, Shahar has not shared this knowledge with the rest of us.” Glee shrugged.

  I turned to her, hearing the unspoken. “How has Shahar been, then, as queen of her own little kingdom?”

  “Sufficiently Arameri.”

  Which was both reassuring and troubling.

  Finishing, Glee brushed off my back and set the scissors down. I looked at myself in the mirror and nodded thanks, then immediately ran fingers through my hair to make it look messier. This annoyed Glee further; she turned away, her lips pursed in disapproval. “Shahar wanted to be informed when you were up and about, so I let a servant know when you began to stir. Expect a summons shortly.”

  “Fine. I’ll be ready.”

  I followed Glee out of the bedchamber and into a wide, nicely apportioned room of couches and sidebars that smelled of Deka, though it did not at all feel like him. No books. One whole wall of this room was a window, overlooking the bridge-linked tiers of the palace and the placid ocean beyond. The sky was blue and cloudless, noonday bright.

  “So what now?” I asked, going to stand at the window. “For you and Itempas? I assume Naha and Yeine are searching for Kahl.”

  “As are Ahad and his fellow godlings. But the fact that they have not yet found him — and did not, prior to his attack — suggests he has always had some means of hiding from us. Perhaps he simply retreats to wherever Enefa kept him hidden before now. That worked well enough for millennia.”

  “Darr,” I said. “The mask was there.”

  “Not anymore. Immediately after leaving here, Kahl went to Darr and took the mask. To be precise, he forced a young Darren man to pick up the mask, and took him. The Darre are furious; when Yeine arrived, searching for Kahl, they told her everything.” Glee folded her arms, the expression on her face very familiar. “Apparently Kahl approached Usein Darr’s grandmother, more than fifty years ago. He showed them how to combine the art of mask making with scrivening techniques and godsblood, and they took it further still. In exchange, he claimed the best of their mask makers and had them work on a special project for him. He killed them, Sieh, when they’d done whatever work he needed. The Darre say the mask grew more powerful — and Kahl grew less able to approach it himself — with every life he gave it.”

  I knew what Kahl was doing now. That sickening churn of wild, raw power I’d felt near the mask, like a storm — the Three had been born from something like that. A new god could be made from something similar.

  But he’d killed mortals to give it power? That I didn’t understand. Mortals were children of the Maelstrom, it was true; we all were, however distant. But the power of the Three was as a volcano to mortals’ candleflames. Mortal strength was so much lesser than ours as to be, well, nothing. If Kahl wanted to create himself anew as a god, he would need far more power than that.

  I sighed, rubbing my eyes. Didn’t I have enough to worry about? Why did I have to deal with all these mortal issues, too?

  Because I am mortal.

  Ah, yes. I kept forgetting.

  Glee said nothing more, so I experimented with wishing for food, and the precise meal I wanted — a bowl of soup and cookies shaped like cute prey animals — appeared on a nearby table. No need for servants indeed, I mused as I ate. That would serve the family’s security interests well, as they would have no need to hire non-Arameri. There would always be a need for certain tasks to be done, though, like running errands, and the Arameri were the Arameri. Those with power would always find some way to exert it over those who didn’t. Yeine was naïve to hope that such a simple change might free the family of its historic obsession with status.

  Still … I was glad for her naïveté. That was always the nicest thing about having a newborn god around. They were willing to try things the rest of us were too jaded even to consider.

  The knock at the door came just as I finished eating. “Come.”

  A servant stepped inside, bowing to both of us. “Lord Sieh. Lady Shahar requests your presence, if you are feeling better.”

  I looked at Glee, who inclined her head to me. This could have meant anything from hurry up to hope she doesn’t kill you. With a sigh, I rose and followed the servant out.

  Shahar had not chosen the Temple as her seat of power. (Already it had acquired capital-letter status in my heart, because what I had done with Deka there was holy.) The servant led us instead to a chamber deep within the palace’s heart, directly below the central high platform that had already come to be called the Whorl. Deka and his crew had been busy, I saw as we walked. Transport-sigils had been painted at intervals throughout the palace’s corridors and painted over with resin in order to protect them from scuffing or wear. They did not work quite like the lifts in Sky — standing on one sent a person anywhere they willed themselves to go within the palace, not merely up and down. This was awkward if one had never been to a particular location. When I asked the servant about this, he smiled and said, “The first time we go anywhere, we go on foot. Steward Morad’s orders.” Just the kind of eminently sensible thing I expected of her, especially given that with servants so sparse, she could not afford to lose even one to oblivion.

  Since the servant had been to the audience chamber before, I allowed him to control the magic, and we appeared in a space of cool, flickering light. Echo was more translucent than Sky, reflecting more of whatever colors surrounded it. By this I guessed immediately that we were somewhere beneath the waterline of the palace — which was confirmed as we passed a row of windows. I saw a great expanse of glimmering, shadow-flickering blueness and a passing curious fish. I grinned in delight at Shahar’s cleverness. Not only would her audience chamber be safer underwater than the rest of the palace, but also any visitors — the few who would be permitted to see her in person — would instantly be awed by the alien beauty of the fishes’-eye view. There was a certain symbolism to the choice as well, as the Arameri now served the Lady of Balance. Shahar’s safety would depend on the strength of the walls and windows and the equilibrium they could maintain against the weight of the water. It was perfect.

  And even though I am a god, it was I who stopped when we entered the audience chamber, staring about in awe.

  The chamber was small, as befit a space that would never be used by many people. Echo would have little need of the tricks that Sky had employed to intimidate and impress visitors, like vaulted ceilings and proportions meant to make supplicants feel unimportant before the great stone throne. This room was shaped like Echo itself: a descending spiral, though with small alco
ves surrounding the depressed central space. In the alcoves, I glimpsed some of the soldiers who had come with us, at guard. Then I noticed more shadowy figures interspersing them, these crouched and oddly still. The ever-elusive Arameri assassins.

  A poor choice, I decided. They made it too obvious that Shahar felt the need to guard herself from her own family.

  When I finally stopped boggling, I noticed that Deka had preceded me. He knelt before the chamber’s depression, not looking up, though he’d probably heard me. I stopped beside him, emphatically not kneeling. The seat we faced was almost humble: just a wide, curving stool lined with a cushion, low-backed. Yet the room was structured so that every eye was drawn to it, and all of the flickering oceanlight coming through the chamber’s windows met in overlapping waves there. Had Shahar been sitting on the stool, she would have seemed unworldly, especially if she sat still. Like a goddess herself.

  Instead, she stood near one of the room’s windows, her hands behind her back. In the cool light she was almost unnoticeable, the folds of her pale gown lost amid flickering blueness. Her stillness troubled me — but then, what about this little scene didn’t? I had spent centuries in chambers like this, facing Arameri leaders. I knew danger when I sensed it.

  When the servant knelt to murmur to Shahar, she nodded and then raised her voice. “Guards. Leave.”

  They exited with no hesitation. The assassins did so by slipping out through small doors in each alcove, which the servant also used to leave at Shahar’s quiet command. Presently, she and I and Dekarta were alone. Deka rose to his feet then, glancing once at me; his face was unreadable. I nodded to him, then slipped my hands into my pockets and waited. We had not seen Shahar since that moment in the Temple, when she had witnessed our claiming of each other.

  “Mother has accelerated the schedule again,” Shahar said, not turning to us. “I asked her to reconsider, or at least send more help. She has agreed to do the latter; you will receive ten scriveners from the Sky complement by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That will do more harm than good,” Deka said, scowling. “New people need to be trained, shown around, supervised. Until they’re ready, that will slow down my teams, not speed up the work.”

  Shahar sighed. I could hear the weariness in her voice, though I also heard her struggle to contain it. “It was the only concession I could gain, Deka. She’s like a heretic these days, filled with a fervor no rational person can comprehend.”

  In this I also heard a hint of sourness that I was certain she only revealed because we would have detected it anyway. Was she upset about Remath’s decision to turn from the Itempan faith? A pointless concern, given all our other troubles.

  “Why?”

  “Who can say? If I had the time to conspire against her, I might accuse her of madness and seek backers within the family for a coup. Though perhaps that’s why she’s sent me here, where I’m less of a danger.” She laughed once, then turned — and paused, staring at me. I sighed while she took in my new, middle-aged shape.

  It surprised me that she smiled. There was nothing malicious in it, just compassion and a hint of pity. “You should look like my father,” she said, “but with that look of disgust on your face, it’s clear you’re still the same bratty little boy we met all those years ago.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “I don’t mind so much,” I said. “At least I’m done with adolescence. Never could stand it; if I don’t want to kill someone, I want to have sex with them.”

  Her smile faded, and I remembered: I had lain with her while we were both adolescents. Perhaps she had fond memories of what I now joked about. A mistake on my part.

  She sighed, turning to pace. “I will have to rely on you, both of you, more than ever. What is happening now is unprecedented. I’ve checked the family archives. I truly don’t know what Mother is thinking.” She stopped at last, pressing fingers against her forehead as if she had a terrible headache. “She’s making me the family head.”

  There was a moment of silence as we both processed her words. Deka reacted before I did, stricken. “How can you be head if she still lives?”

  “Precisely. It’s never been done.” She turned to us suddenly, and we both flinched at the raw misery in her face. “Deka … I think she’s preparing to die.”

  Deka went to her at once, ever the loving brother, taking her elbow. She leaned on him with such utter trust that I felt unexpected guilt. Had she come seeking us for comfort that night, only to find us comforting one another, uninterested in her? What had she felt, watching us make love while she stood alone, friendless, hopeless?

  For just an instant, I saw her again at the window, stock-still, her hands behind her back. I saw Itempas gazing at the horizon, stock-still, too proud to let his loneliness show.

  I went to them and reached for her, hesitating only at the last moment. But I had not stopped loving her, either. So I laid a hand on her shoulder. She started and lifted her head to look at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. They searched mine, seeking — what? Forgiveness? I wasn’t certain I had that in me to give. But regret — yes, that I had.

  Naturally, I could not let such a powerful moment pass without a joke. “And here I thought I had problem parents.” It wasn’t a very good joke.

  She chuckled, blinking quickly against the tears and trying to compose herself. “Sometimes I wish I still wanted to kill her.” It was a better joke, or would have been if there had been a grain of truth in it. I smiled anyway, though uncomfortably. Deka did not smile at either joke — but then Remath had no interest in him, and he probably did want to kill her.

  It seemed Deka was thinking along the same lines. “If she steps down in favor of you,” he said, all seriousness, “you will have to exile her.”

  Shahar flinched, staring at him. “What?”

  He sighed. “No beast can function with two heads. To have two Arameri palaces, two Arameri rulers …” He shook his head. “If you cannot see the potential danger in that, Shahar, you aren’t the sister I remember.”

  She was, and she could. I saw her expression harden as she understood. She turned away from us, going back to the window and folding her arms across her breasts. “I’m surprised you’ve suggested only exile. I would have expected a more permanent solution from you, Brother.”

  He shrugged. “Mother doubtless expects something along those lines herself. She’s not a fool, and she’s trained you well.” He paused. “If you didn’t love her, I would suggest it. But under the circumstances …”

  She laughed once, harshly. “Yes. Love. So inconvenient.”

  She turned then, looking at both of us, and suddenly I tensed again, because I knew that look. I had worn it too many times, in too many shapes, not to recognize it on another being. She was up to no good.

  Yet when she focused on me, the look softened. “Sieh,” she said. “Are we friends again?”

  Lie. The thought came to me so strongly that for an instant I thought it was not my own. Deka, perhaps, sending his words into my mind as gods could. But I knew the flavor of my own thoughts, and this had the particular bitter suspicion that came of years spent with this mad family and aeons of life amid my own madder one. She wanted the truth, and the truth would hurt her. And she was too powerful now, too dangerous, for me to hurt with impunity.

  For the sake of what we’d once had, however, she deserved the truth, painful or not.

  “No,” I said. I spoke softly, as if that would ease the blow. She stiffened, and I sighed. “I can’t trust you, Shahar. I need to trust the people I call friend.” I paused. “But I understand why you betrayed me. Perhaps I would even have made the same choice, in your position; I don’t know. I’m not angry about it anymore. I can’t be, given the result.”

  And then I did something stupid. I looked at Deka and let my love for him show. He blinked, surprised, and I added insult to injury by smiling. It would hurt so much, leaving him, but he did not need an old man for a lover. Such things mattered for mortals.
I would do the mature thing, preserve my dignity, and step aside before our relationship grew too awkward.

  I have always been a selfish fool. I thought only of myself in that moment, when I should have thought of protecting him.

  Shahar’s face went utterly blank. It was as though someone had thrust a knife into her and cut out her soul, leaving only a cold and implacable statue in her place. But it was not empty, this statue. Anger had filled its hollows.

  “I see,” she said. “Very well. If you cannot trust me, then I can hardly allow myself to trust you, can I?” Her eyes flicked over to Deka, still cold. “That puts me in a difficult position, Brother.”

  Deka frowned, puzzled by the change in Shahar’s manner. I, however, was not. It was all too easy to see what she meant to do to her brother, in her rage at me.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  “Dekarta,” she said, ignoring me, “it pains me to say this, but I must ask that you accept a true sigil.”

  When Deka stiffened, she smiled. I hated her for that.

  “I, of course, would never presume to dictate your choice of lover,” she said, “but in light of Sieh’s history, the many Arameri he has slain through his tricks and deceptions —”

  “I don’t believe this.” Deka was trembling, fury clawing through the shock on his face. But beneath that fury was something much worse, and again I knew it by experience. Betrayal. He had trusted her, too, and she had broken his heart as she’d broken mine.

  “Shahar.” I clenched my fists. “Don’t do this. Whatever you feel toward me, Deka is your brother —”

  “And I am being generous even to let him live,” she snapped. She walked away from us, going to sit on the stool. There, she was poised and implacable, her slim form washed in ice-water light. “He just implied that I should kill the head of this family. Clearly he needs the restrictions of a true sigil, lest he plot further treachery.”

  “And this would have nothing to do with me fucking your little brother instead of you —” My fists clenched. I stepped forward, intending … gods, I didn’t know. To grab her arm and make her see reason. To shout into her face. She tensed as I came near, though, and the sigil on her brow turned to white light. I knew what that meant, had felt the whip’s sting too often in the past, but that had been a mortal lifetime ago. I was not prepared when a slash of raw magic threw me across the room.