So be it
, I decided, and hitched up my gown to sit against the wall.
It was Lady Yeine who found me next.
She appeared quietly, seated on the railing I had just leaned against. Though she looked the same as always — relentlessly Darren — her clothing had changed. Instead of pale gray, the tunic and calf-pants she usually wore were darker in color. Still gray, but a color that matched the lowering stormclouds above. She did not smile, her eyes olive with sorrow.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
If one more person, mortal or god, asked me that question, I was going to scream.
“What are
you
doing here?” I asked in return. An impertinent question, I knew, for the god to whom my family now owed its allegiance. I would never have dared it with Lord Itempas. Yeine was less intimidating, however, so she would have to deal with the consequences of that.
“An experiment,” she said. (I was privately relieved that my rudeness did not seem to bother her.) “I am leaving Nahadoth and Itempas alone together for a while. If the universe comes apart again, I’ll know I made a mistake.”
If my brother had not been dead, I would have laughed. If her son had not been dead, I think she would have, too.
“Will you release him?” I asked. “Itempas?”
“It has already been done.” She sighed, drawing up one knee and resting her chin on it. “The Three are whole again, if not wholly united, and not exactly rejoicing at our reconciliation. Perhaps because there
is
no reconciliation; that will take an age of the world, I imagine. But who knows? It has already gone faster than I expected.” She shrugged. “Perhaps I’m wrong about the rest, too.”
I considered the histories I had read. “He was to be punished for as long as the Enefadeh. Two thousand years and some.”
“Or until he learned to love truly.” She said nothing more. I had seen Itempas weep beside the body of his son, silent tear tracks cleansing the blood and dirt from his face. This had been nothing meant for a mortal’s eyes, but he had permitted me to see it, and I was keenly conscious of the honor. At the time, I’d had no tears of my own.
And I had seen Lord Itempas put a hand on the shoulder of Lord Nahadoth, who knelt beside Sieh’s corpse without moving. Nahadoth had not shaken that hand off. By such small gestures are wars ended.
“We will withdraw,” Lady Yeine said, after a time of silence. “Naha and Tempa and I, completely this time. There is much work to be done, repairing the damage that the Maelstrom did. It takes all our strength to hold the realms together, even now. The scar of Its passage will never fade completely.” She sighed. “And it has finally become clear to me that our presence in the mortal realm does too much harm, even when we try not to interfere. So we will leave this world to our children — the godlings, if they wish to stay, and you mortals, too. And the demons, if there are any left or any more born.” She shrugged.
“If the godlings get out of hand, ask the demons to keep them in line. Or do it yourselves. None of you are powerless anymore.”
I nodded slowly. She must have guessed my thoughts, or read them in my face. I was slipping.
“He loved you,” she said softly. “I could tell. You drove him half mad.”
At that, I did smile. “The feeling was mutual.”
We sat then, gazing at the clouds and the lake and the broken land, both of us thinking unimaginable thoughts. I was glad for her presence. Datennay tried, and I was growing to care for him, but it was hard to keep the pain at bay some days. The Mistress of Life and Death, I feel certain, understood that.
When she got to her feet, I did, too, and we faced each other. Her tiny size always surprised me. I thought she should have been like her brothers, tall and terrible, showing some hint of her magnificence in her shape. But that was what I got for thinking like an Amn.
“Why did it begin?” I asked. And because I was used to how gods thought and that question could have triggered a conversation about anything from the universe to the Gods’ War and everything in between, I added, “Sieh. How did we make him mortal? Why did we have such power over him, with him? Was it because …” It was difficult for me to admit, but I’d had the scriveners test me, and they had confirmed my suspicions. I was a demon, though the god-killing potency of my blood was negligible, and I had no magic, no specialness. Mother would have been so disappointed.
“It had nothing to do with you,” Yeine said softly. I blinked. She looked away, sliding her hands into her pockets — a gesture
that tore at my heart, because Sieh had done it so often. He’d even looked like her, a little. By design? Knowing him, yes.
“But what —”
“I lied,” she said, “about us staying wholly out of the mortal realm. There will be times in the future when we’ll have no choice but to return. It will be our task to assist the godlings, you see, when the time of metamorphosis comes upon them. When they become gods in their own right.”
I jerked in surprise. “Become … what? Like Kahl?”
“No. Kahl sought to force nature. He wasn’t ready for it. Sieh was.” She let out a long sigh. “I didn’t begin to understand until Tempa said that whatever Sieh had become, he was
meant
to become. His bond with you, losing his magic — perhaps these are the signs we’ll know to watch for next time. Or perhaps those were unique to Sieh. He was the oldest of our children, after all, and the first to reach this stage.” She looked at me and shrugged. “I would have liked to see the god he became. Though I still would have lost him then, even if he’d lived.”
I digested this in wonder and felt a little fear at the implications. Godlings could grow into gods? Did that mean gods, then, could grow into things like the Maelstrom? If they could somehow live long enough, would mortals become godlings?
Too many things to think about. “What do you mean, you would have lost him if he’d lived?”
“This realm can abide only three gods. If Sieh had survived and become whatever he was meant to be, his fathers and I would have had to send him away.”
Death or exile. Which would I have preferred?
Neither. I want him back, and Deka, too.
“But where could he have gone?”
“Elsewhere.” She smiled at my look, with a hint of Sieh’s mischief. “Did you think this universe was all there was? There’s room out there for so much more.” Her smile faded then, just a little. “He would have enjoyed the chance to explore it, too, as long as he didn’t have to do it alone.”
The Goddess of Earth looked at me then, and suddenly I understood. Sieh, Deka, and I; Nahadoth, Yeine, and Itempas. Nature is cycles, patterns, repetition. Whether by chance or some unknowable design, Deka and I had begun Sieh’s transition to adulthood — and perhaps, when the chrysalis of his mortal life had finally split to reveal the new being, he would not have transformed alone.
Would I have wanted to go with him and Deka, to rule some other cosmos?
Just dreams now, like broken stone.
Yeine dusted off her pants, stretched her arms above her head, and sighed. “Time to go.”
I nodded. “We will continue to serve you, Lady, whether you’re here or not. What prayers shall we say for you at the dawn and twilight hour?”
She threw me an odd look, as if checking to see if I was joking. I wasn’t. This seemed to surprise and unnerve her; she laughed, though it sounded a bit forced.
“Say whatever you want,” she said finally. “Someone might be listening, but it won’t be me. I have better things to do.”
She vanished.
Eventually I wandered back into the palace, and to the Temple, where the assembly was breaking up at last. Merchants and nobles and scriveners drifted down the hall in knots, still
arguing with each other. They ignored me completely as I came to the Temple entrance.
“Thanks for leaving,” said Lady Nemmer as she emerged looking thoroughly disgruntled. “We got exactly one thing done, aside from setting a date for a future useless meeting.”
I smiled at her annoyance; she scowled back, the room growing oddly shadowed. But she wasn’t really angry, so I asked, “And the thing you got done was?”
“We chose a name.” She waved a hand, irritable. “A pretentious and needlessly poetic one, but the mortals outnumbered Kitr and I, so we couldn’t vote it down.
Aeternat.
It’s one of our words. It means —”
I cut her off. “I don’t need to know, Lady Nemmer. Please convey to whoever’s speaking for this Aeternat that they should inform me when they’re ready for the transfer of military command and funds.”
She looked at me in real surprise, then finally nodded. We turned at the sound of someone calling my name from down the corridor: Datennay. He’d sat in on the Aeternat’s session. I would have to quickly dissuade him from doing that, now that he was my husband. Beyond him was Ramina, who watched me with a solemn sorrow in his expression that I understood completely. He caught my eye over the heads of a gaggle of shouting priests and smiled, however, inclining his head in approval. It warmed me. I would need to have his true sigil removed sometime soon.
And I would need to send a note to Morad, I reminded myself. She’d quit her position and gone home to southern Senm, to no one’s surprise. I still hoped to entice her back eventually;
competent stewards were hard to find. I would not press Morad, however. She deserved the time and space to mourn in her own way.
While Datennay approached, I inclined my head to Nemmer in farewell. “Welcome to ruling the world, Lady Nemmer. I wish you enjoyment of it.”
She spoke a godword so foul that one of the nearby lanterns turned to melted metal-and-oil sludge and crashed to the floor. As I walked away, I heard her cursing again — in some mortal tongue this time, more softly, as she bent to clean up the mess.
Datennay met me halfway down the hall. He hesitated before offering me his hand. Once, I had discouraged him from displaying affection in public. Now, however, I took his hand firmly, and he blinked in surprise, flashing a smile.
“These people are all mad,” I said. “Take me away from here.”
As we walked away, something pulsed hot between my breasts, and I remembered I had forgotten to tell Lady Yeine about the necklace we’d found on Sieh’s body. The cord had been broken, half the smaller beads lost to whatever had snapped it, but the central bead — the peculiar yellow one — was fine. It was surprisingly heavy, and sometimes, if I was not imagining things, it became oddly warm to the touch. I had put the thing on a chain around my own neck, because I felt better wearing it. Less alone.
Lady Yeine would not mind if I kept it, I decided. Then I stroked the little sphere as if to comfort it, and walked on.
S
HAHAR
A
RAMERI DIED
in bed at the age of seventy, leaving two daughters and a son — half-Teman fullbloods unmarked by any sigil — to carry on the family. The Arameri still owned many businesses and properties, and they remained one of the most powerful clans on the Senm continent. They just had less. Shahar’s children immediately began scheming to get more upon her death, but that is a matter for other tales.
The godling Ahad, called Beloved by his fellow godlings, watched over Glee Shoth for the entire year that she slept after her legendary battle with Kahl. When she finally awoke, he took her away from Echo and the new city developing around its lake. They settled in a small northwestern Senm town, where they spent some years looking after an elderly, blind Maro woman until her death. There they remained for another hundred years or so, never marrying, raising no children, but always together. She lived a long time for a mortal, and gave him a proper name of his own before she died. He tells no one that name, it is said, guarding it like something precious and rare.
Those mortals who worshipped the Goddess of Earth claimed ownership of the corpse of the World Tree. By the time of
Shahar’s death, they had excavated and preserved enough of its trunk to house a small city, which began to call itself World. They lived in the Tree and on it, said their prayers at the skeleton of its roots, dedicated their sons and daughters to its broken branches. Fires, and fire-godlings, were not allowed in this city. They lit their chambers at night with pieces of Sky.
The Aeternat … well. It was not eternal. But that, too, is a matter for other tales.
So many tales, really. They are sure to be exciting. A shame that I will get to hear none of them.
I? Oh, yes.
When Shahar exhaled her last breath I awakened, midwifed into existence by her mortality. My first act was to turn in space and time and kiss Deka awake, beside me. Then I called to my En, and it shot across realities and blazed into joyous, welcoming life somewhere far, far beyond the realms of the Three. It would be the seed-star of a new realm.
Our
realm. It sent out great arcing plumes of fire, silly little ball of gas, and I petted it silent and promised it worlds to warm just as soon as I’d taken care of other business.
Then we found Shahar, and gathered her up, and took her with us. She was, to say the least, surprised. But not displeased. We are together now, the three of us, for the rest of forever. I will never be alone again.
My name is not Sieh, and I am no longer a trickster. I will think of a new name and calling, eventually — or some one of you, my children, will name me. Make of me, of us, whatever you wish. We are yours until time ends, and perhaps a little beyond.