N. Jemisin - The Awakened Kingdom

“No, it was ages ago; everyone who lived through that time is long dead. And the rebels were fools.” Eino scowled, stepping into his slippers. “They hoped that a few weapons and help from Tokken and Menchey—nations that were our enemies back then—would allow them to overthrow the government and establish a different rule. Male rule, in the foreign fashion of things. But the Darre were warriors then, much more than now, and the rebellion was put down. Harshly.”

Well, that wasn’t a very good story! “What happened to them?”

“Tried as traitors and executed or exiled. And then, even though men had helped to fight back against the rebels, even though a man was ennu, the nation’s leader, at the time… the women took away any rights the men possessed.” Eino shook his head, flicking at wrinkles and making minute adjustments to his robes. “To vote, to hold property, to occupy any positions of worth, even to be counted adults in their own right. It was a reaction against everything seen as a contribution to the rebellion: the weak ennu, a war that had decimated the country a few decades before, foreign influences. But that’s why now, a bunch of boys gathering to have fun brings down fifty hells’ worth of wrath.” He sighed and shook his head. “Or maybe that was me. That scroll I had you deliver—it was a proposal to grant men inheritance rights. It probably had no chance of passing, but I just wanted them to consider it, for gods’ sake. Instead, it just seems to have made them angry. Hells.” He began to take the combs out of his hair, letting it fall back into its usual black river.

I felt really sad and flat then, all the fun of the dance gone. “Why do you do things like this, then? Dance when you’re not supposed to, ask for things that make people mad? Wouldn’t it be easier to just…” I shrugged. I didn’t really know how to say it.

He let out a sharp sort of laugh that didn’t sound like he actually thought anything was funny. “You really are new to this realm, aren’t you? You don’t know mortals very well.”

I nodded, glad to finally have the conversation return to something I understood. “I’m new to everything. You are the first mortal I ever met.”

“The first—” Eino frowned. “You do seem… inexperienced. And, well, young. But one can never tell with godlings; forgive me if you’re actually a billion years old.”

I had to count on my fingers, and multiply by the spins of this galaxy’s wheel, and then by the expansion of the universe, and some other things. Time is annoying. “I’m almost a thousand hours old!”

“A thousand—” He got an odd look on his face. “Hours?”

Oh, wait, he had used years. But I needed the next thing smaller than a year. “Um, a month?”

He stared at me. “You’re one month old ?”

“And, like, ten days.” It wasn’t like I was still a baby .

After a long, silent stretch he burst out laughing, and it was almost a mean laugh but not quite. “Gods, this is my luck! But I suppose I should thank you—er.”

“Shill! My name is Shill!”

He inclined his head in a formal sort of way. “Eino mau Tehno tai wer Tellomi, Shill-medre.” Son of Tehno, of the same clan as Fahno, and he’d given my name a suffix that just meant he wanted to be polite to a strange woman. I beamed, delighted, especially since I was still wearing a boy body. “Lady Shill, rather. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to keep the others hidden, without you.”

“You’re welcome! I would have done it for you, though, if you’d asked, so then you wouldn’t be so tired. That would be my thank-you for the dancing. Or fighting.” I frowned, confused.

Eino smiled. “Both. In the days before the traitors, that was how men fought to hide their strength from—and display their beauty to—women. It was called anatun , the battle-dance.”

“I like anatun! I became more of myself while dancing with you.” Eagerly I grabbed one of the dangly parts of his sleeve; this, finally, was what I needed to talk to him about. “Will you help me?”

His expression grew wary. “Help you do what?”

“I don’t know what I am.” I bit my lip. Mortals had different ways of saying it. How had Ia explained it to Fahno? “I don’t know my… nature. But lots of godlings, they come to this realm and meet mortals who help them figure themselves out. I think you can be that person for me!”

Eino flinched and glared at my hands until I let go of his robes. “No,” he said, in a cold scary way that made me think of Mama Yeine. “ You destroyed the city by accident , Lady Shill. You think I don’t remember, just because Lord Ia cleaned up your mess? I’m grateful for your help, but go find your nature with someone else as your prop. I have my own troubles.”

“But it only happened with you! And I only found a little bit of me!” He set his jaw and turned away, starting toward and down the terrace steps; anxiously I trotted after him, trying desperately to think of how I could convince him. “Maybe—um—maybe I can help you?”

Eino stopped. Fully robed, with his hair perfect, he was so different from the wild master of the dance that he seemed like a whole other person. I didn’t know which was the real him, and which wasn’t. Maybe he was both. In this shape, however, his expression didn’t change; his whole face was like a mask. “What do you mean?”

“I… I don’t know.” I twisted some grass beneath my toe; it didn’t mind. “I could do more god-stuff for you, I guess?” He had so little magic. “Anything you want, if I know how to do it.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’d do my bidding? In exchange for… what, exactly?”

Oh, this! I inhaled. “Let me follow you around and do stuff like you do and talk to you and watch how you do things and maybe be your friend!”

Eino’s expression turned sardonic. “Just that.”

“Well… yes. I need to understand you.” This, I felt sure, was the key to learning my nature. And then I gasped. “Oh! Maybe you could be my enulai, too!”

Something changed minutely in his expression. “No.”

“Why not? You’re a d-demon, aren’t you?” I still shivered when I said it.

“Yes, I am.” He smiled, but it was another not-happy smile. “I am the only child or grandchild of Fahno, greatest enulai of the age, who’s inherited her gift. But I’m told I don’t have the temperament to be an enulai.”

I remembered Eino yelling at me in the market when I’d stood there blubbering. “Uh, I don’t think whoever told you that was right.”

He blinked, then for the first time since the raid, he smiled in a good way.

After a moment he sighed. “Very well, then, Lady Shill.” He extended his hand; not quite sure what else to do, I took it. “I suppose you’ve been helping me all along, lately. We might as well formalize the relationship. Only until Beba assigns you a proper enulai, though. And only if you tell no one; I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

I gasped in delight. An enulai! A secret enulai, all mine! “OK!”

“In the meantime—” He tilted his head with perfect grace. “Home, please?”

“OK!” I was so happy that I took his hand and did exactly what he wanted, right then and there.

OK OK OK OK WAAAAAIT. (This is how Mama Yeine likes to tell stories. I don’t tell Papa Tempa that I like her storying, too, even if it is not the Proper Way.)

Now I will tell you about other stuff that was happening, because mortal stuff is very tiny stuff compared to everything else that’s always going on. And this other stuff is important! You need to know it, too, because you are really new, like me.