The Broken Kingdoms

by N. K. Jemisin

  No one knew what to make of that. So there were other quiet rebellions, these more challenging to the Bright. Everywhere, heretics started worshipping their gods openly. Some nation up in High North—I can’t recall which one—declared that it would teach children its own language first, then Senmite, instead of the other way around. There were even people who chose to worship no god at all, despite new ones appearing in Shadow every day.

  And the Arameri have done nothing.

  For centuries, millennia, the world has danced to a single flute. In some ways, this has been our most sacred and inviolable law: thou shalt do whatever the hells the Arameri say. For this to change… well, that’s more frightening to most of us than any shenanigans the gods might pull. It means the end of the Bright. And none of us knows what will come after.

  So perhaps my confusion on a few points of metaphysical cosmology is understandable.

  I figured things out pretty quickly after that, thank goodness. When I turned back to the alley—

  * * *

  —the blonde godling was licking something on the ground.

  I thought at first it was Shiny. As I came closer, though, I realized the positioning was wrong. Shiny was on that side of the alley. The only things on the side where she crouched were—

  My gorge rose. The dead Order-Keepers.

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were the same as her hair: gold mottled with irregular spots of darker color. I stared at her and suffered a pang of epiphany. When people looked at my eyes, was this what they saw? Ugliness that should have been beauty?

  “Flesh freely given,” the godling said, and flashed me a hungry smile.

  I skirted wide around her and moved back to Shiny’s side.

  “You try me, Oree,” Madding said, shaking his head as I passed him. “You really do.”

  “All I did was ask a question,” I snapped, and crouched to examine Shiny. Gods knew what the Order-Keepers had done to him, even before Sieh’s attack. I didn’t let myself think about the bodies behind me, and who had done that.

  “He was trying to keep you alive,” replied Madding’s lieutenant, the female one.

  I ignored her, though she was probably right. I just didn’t feel like admitting it. When I explored Shiny’s face with my fingers, I discovered his mouth was cut, and someone had blacked his eye; it was swollen almost shut. Those wounds did not concern me. I felt my way to his ribs, trying to find the break—

  Something planted itself on my chest and shoved. Hard. Startled, I cried out, flying backward with such force that my back struck the far alley wall, knocking the sense out of me.

  “Oree! Oree!”

  Hands pulled at me. I blinked away stars and saw Madding crouched before me. I didn’t realize at first what had happened. Then I saw Madding swing around, his face contorting with fury—at Shiny.

  “I’m all right,” I said vaguely, though I was not at all sure of this. Shiny had not been gentle. My head rang dully where the back of my skull had impacted stone. I let Madding help me to my feet, grateful for his support when the shining forms of him and the blonde woman blurred unpleasantly. “I’m all right!”

  Madding snarled something in the gods’ singsong, guttural language. I saw the words spill from his mouth as glittering arrows that darted away to strike Shiny. Most of the words were harmless, I gathered by the way they shattered into nothing, but a few of them seemed to land and sink in.

  The blonde godling’s rusty laugh interrupted this tirade. “Such disrespect, little brother,” she said, licking charcoal and grease from her lips. No blood; she hadn’t nibbled. Yet.

  “Respect is earned, Lil.” Madding spat off to the side. “Did he ever try to earn ours, instead of demanding it?”

  Lil shrugged, bowing her head until ragged hair obscured her face. “What does it matter? We did what we had to do. The world changes. As long as there is life to be lived and food to be savored, I am content.”

  With that, she abandoned her human guise. Her mouth opened wide, wider, stretching impossibly as she bent over the Order-Keepers’ huddled forms.

  I covered my mouth, and Madding looked disgusted. “Flesh freely given, Lil. I thought that was your creed?”

  She paused. “This was given.” Her mouth did not move as she spoke. It could not possibly have formed words in the human fashion, as it was.

  “By whom? I doubt those men volunteered to be roasted for your pleasure.”

  She lifted an arm, pointing one skeletal finger at the place where Shiny huddled. “His kill. His flesh to give.”

  I shuddered as she confirmed my fears. Madding noticed this and leaned close to examine me, touching my shoulders and head gingerly. The soreness where he touched warned me there would be bruises come morning.

  “I’m all right,” I said again. My head was clearing, so I let Madding help me to my feet. “I’m fine. Let me see him.”

  Madding scowled. “He really tried to hurt you, Oree.”

  “I know.” I stepped around Madding. Beyond him, I heard the unmistakable, hideous sounds of flesh being torn and bone crunching. I made certain not to move far from Madding, whose broad body blocked my view.

  Instead I focused on Shiny, or where I guessed he was. Whatever magic he’d used to kill the Order-Keepers was long gone. He was weak now, wounded, lashing out in his pain like a beast—

  No. I had spent my life knowing the hearts of others through the press of skin to skin. I had felt the petulant anger in that shove. Perhaps it was only to be expected: the quiet goddess had told him to be grateful for having me as a friend. I might never know Shiny well, but I could tell he was too proud to take that as anything but an insult.

  He was panting again. Shoving me had spent what little strength he’d regained. But I felt it when he managed to lift his head and glare at me.

  “My home is still open to you, Shiny,” I said, speaking very softly. “I’ve always helped people who needed me, and I don’t intend to stop now. You do need me, whether you like it or not.” Then I turned away, extending my hand. Madding put my stick into it. I took a deep breath, tapping the ground twice to hear the comforting clack of wood on stone.

  “Find your own way back,” I told Shiny, and left him there.

  * * *

  Madding did not delegate the task of caring for me to someone else. That was what I’d expected, since things had been awkward between us since the breakup. Yet he stayed, bathing me as I knelt shivering in the cold water. (Madding could have heated the water for me—gods were handy that way—but the cold was better for my back.) When that was done, he bundled me into a soft, fluffy robe that he had conjured, tucked me into bed on my belly, and settled in beside me.

  I didn’t protest, though I gave him an amused look. “I suppose this is just to keep me warm?”

  “Well, not just,” he said, snuggling closer and resting a hand on the small of my back. That part was unbruised. “How’s your head?”

  “Better. I think the cold helped.” It felt nice, having him there against me. Like old times. I told myself not to get used to it, but that was like telling a child not to want candy. “There isn’t even a lump.”

  “Mmm.” He brushed aside a few coils of hair and sat up to kiss the nape of my neck. “Might be one come morning. You should rest.”

  I sighed. “It’s hard to rest if you keep doing things like that.”

  Madding paused, then sighed, his breath tickling my skin. “Sorry.” He lingered there for a moment with his face pressed against my neck, breathing my scent, and finally he sat up, shifting to put a few inches between us. I missed him immediately and turned my face away so that he would not see.

  “I’ll have someone bring… Shiny… back, if he hasn’t made it on his own by morning,” he said finally, after a long, uncomfortable silence. “That was what you asked me to do.”

  “Mmm.” There was no point in thanking him. He was the god of obligation; he kept his promises.

  “Be careful of him, Oree,” h
e said quietly. “Yeine was right. He doesn’t think much of mortals, and you saw what his temper’s like. I have no idea why you took him in—I have no idea why you do half the things you do—but just be careful. That’s all I ask.”

  “I’m not sure I should let you ask anything of me, Mad.”

  I knew I’d pissed him off when the room lit up in bright, rippling blue-green. “It doesn’t all go one way between us, Oree,” he snapped. His voice was softer in this form, cool and echoing. “You know that.”

  I sighed, started to turn over, and thought better of it when my bruises throbbed. Instead I turned just my face to him. Madding had become a shimmering, humanoid shape that was only vaguely male, but the look that boiled in his face was wholly that of an injured lover. He thought I was being unfair. He might even have been right.

  “You say you still love me,” I said. “But you don’t want to be with me anymore. You won’t share anything. You drop these vague warnings about Shiny rather than telling me anything useful. How do you expect me to feel?”

  “I can’t tell you anything more about him.” The liquid of his form abruptly became hard crystal, delicately faceted aquamarine and peridot. I loved it when he went solid, though it usually meant stubbornness on his part. “You heard Sieh. He must wander this world, nameless and unknown—”

  “Tell me about Sieh, then, and that woman. Yeine, you called her? You were afraid of them.”

  Madding groaned, setting all his facets ashiver. “You’re like a magpie, dropping one subject to jump after a prettier one.”

  I shrugged. “I’m mortal. I don’t have all the time in the world. Tell me.” I wasn’t angry anymore. Neither was he, really. I knew he still loved me, and he knew that I knew. We were just taking a hard day out on each other. It was easy to fall into old habits.

  Madding sighed and leaned back against the bed’s headboard, resuming his human form. “It wasn’t fear.”

  “Looked like fear to me. All of you were afraid, except that one with the mouth. Lil.”

  He made a face. “Lil isn’t capable of fear. And it wasn’t fear. It was just…” He shrugged, frowning. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Everything is with you.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeine is… Well, she’s very young, as our kind goes. I don’t know what to think of her yet. And Sieh, despite how he looks, is the oldest of us.”

  “Ah,” I said, though I didn’t really understand. That child had been older than Madding? And why had Sieh called the woman his mother if she was younger? “The respect due a big brother—”

  “No, no, that doesn’t matter to us.”

  I frowned in confusion. “What, then? Is he stronger than you?”

  “Yes.” Madding grimaced in consternation. I had a momentary impression of aquamarine shading to sapphire, though he did not change; just my imagination.

  “Because he’s older?”

  “Partly, yes. But also…” He trailed off.

  I groaned in frustration. “I want to sleep tonight, Mad.”

  “I’m trying to say it.” Madding sighed. “Mortal languages don’t have words for this. He… lives true. He is what he is. You’ve heard that saying, haven’t you? It’s more than just words for us.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. He saw that in my face and tried again. “Imagine you’re older than this planet, yet you have to act like a child. Could you do it?”

  Impossible to even imagine. “I… don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Madding nodded. “Sieh does it. He does it every day, all day; he never stops. That makes him strong.”

  I was beginning to understand, a little. “Is that why you’re a usurer?”

  Madding chuckled. “I prefer the term investor. And my rates are perfectly fair, thank you.”

  “Drug dealer, then.”

  “I prefer the term independent apothecary—”

  “Hush.” I reached out, wistful, to touch the back of his hand where it rested on the sheets. “It must have been hard for you during the Interdiction.” That was what he and the other godlings called the time before their coming—the time when they hadn’t been permitted to visit our world or interact with mortals. Why they’d been forbidden to come, or who had forbidden them, they would not say. “I can’t see gods having many obligations.”

  “Not true,” he said. He watched me for a moment, then turned his hand over to grasp mine. “The most powerful obligations aren’t material, Oree.”

  I looked at his hand clasped around the nothingness of my own, understanding and wishing that I didn’t. I wished he had just fallen out of love with me. It would have made things easier.

  His grip loosened; I had let him see more in my expression than I’d meant to. He sighed and lifted my hand, kissing the back of it. “I should go,” he said. “If you need anything—”

  On impulse, I sat up, though it made my back ache something awful. “Stay,” I said.

  He looked away, uneasy. “I shouldn’t.”

  “No obligation, Mad. Just friendship. Stay.”

  He reached up to brush my hair back from my cheek. His expression, in that one unguarded moment, was the softest I ever saw it outside of his liquid form.

  “I wish you were a goddess,” he said. “Sometimes it feels as if you are one. But then something like this happens…” He brushed my robe back and grazed a bruise with his fingertip. “And I remember how fragile you are. I remember that I’ll lose you one day.” His jaw flexed. “I can’t bear it, Oree.”

  “Goddesses can die, too.” I realized my error belatedly. I’d been thinking of the Gods’ War, millennia before. I had forgotten Madding’s sister.

  But Madding smiled sadly. “That’s different. We can die. You mortals, though… Nothing can stop you from dying. All we can do is stand by and watch.”

  And die a little with you. That was what he’d said before, on the night he’d left me. I understood his reasoning, even agreed with it. That didn’t mean I’d ever like it.

  I put my hand on his face and leaned in to kiss him. He did it readily, but I felt how he held himself back. I tasted nothing of him in that kiss, even though I pressed close, practically begging for more. When we parted, I sighed and he looked away.

  “I should go,” he said again.

  This time I let him. He rose from the bed and went to the door, pausing in the frame for a moment.

  “You can’t go back to Art Row,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? You shouldn’t even stay in town. Leave, at least for a few weeks.”

  “And go where?” I lay back down, turning my face away from him.

  “Maybe visit your hometown.”

  I shook my head. I hated Nimaro.

  “Travel, then. There must be somewhere else you want to visit.”

  “I need to eat,” I said. “Rent would be nice, too, unless you intend for me to carry all my household possessions when I go.”

  He sighed in faint exasperation. “Then at least set up your table at one of the other promenades. The Easha Order-Keepers don’t bother with those parts of the city as much. You’ll still get a few customers there.”

  Not enough. But he was right; it would be better than nothing. I sighed and nodded.

  “I can have one of my people—”

  “I don’t want to owe you anything.”

  “A gift,” he said softly. There was a faint, unpleasant shiver of the air, like chimes gone sour. Generosity was not easy for him. On another day, under other circumstances, I would’ve been honored that he made the effort, but I was not feeling particularly generous in that moment.

  “I don’t want anything from you, Mad.”

  Another silence, this one reverberating with hurt. That was like old times, too.

  “Good night, Oree,” he said, and left.

  Eventually, after a good cry, I slept.

  * * *

  Let me tell you how Madding and I met.

  I came to Shadow—though I still thought of it
as Sky then—when I was seventeen. Very quickly I fell in with others like me—newcomers, dreamers, young people drawn to the city in spite of its dangers because sometimes, for some of us, tedium and familiarity feel worse than risking your life. With their help, I learned to make a living off my knack for crafts and to protect myself from those who would have exploited me. I slept in a tenement with six others at first, then got an apartment of my own. After a year’s time, I sent a letter to my mother letting her know I was alive, and received in return a ten-page missive demanding that I come home. I was doing well.

  I remember it was the end of a day, and wintertime. Snow is rare and light in the city—the Tree protects us from the worst of it—but there had been some, and it was cold enough for the cobbled paths to become icy death traps. Two days before, Vuroy had fractured his arm falling, much to the dismay of Ru and Ohn, who had to put up with his incessant complaining at home. I had no one at home to take care of me if I fell, and I couldn’t afford a bonebender, so I went even more slowly than usual on the sidewalks. (Ice sounds much like stone when tapped with a walking stick, but there is a subtle difference to the air above a patch; it is not only colder but also palpably heavier.)

  I was safe enough. Just slow. But because I was so intent on not breaking a limb, I paid less attention to my route than I should have, and given that I was still relatively new to the city, I got lost.

  Shadow is not a good city to get lost in. The city had grown haphazardly over the centuries, springing up at the foot of Sky-the-palace, and its layout made little sense despite the constant efforts of the nobles to impose order on the mess. Long-time denizens tell me it’s even worse since the growth of the Tree, which bifurcated the city into Wesha and Easha and caused other, more magical changes. The Lady had been kind enough to keep the Tree from destroying anything when it grew, but entire neighborhoods had been shifted out of place, old streets erased and new ones created, landmarks moved. Get lost and one could wander in circles for hours.

  That was not the real danger, however. I noticed it quickly that chilly afternoon: someone was following me.

  The steps trailed twenty feet or so behind, keeping pace. I turned a corner and hoped, to no avail; the feet moved with me. I turned again. The same.