N. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods

“No,” I whispered, clutching the hemisphere to myself and rocking over it. I couldn’t even weep. I felt as dead as Vaz inside. Nahadoth’s words had not driven home the horror of my condition, but this? This I could not deny.

A hand touched my shoulder, and so great was my misery that I did not care who it was.

“I’m sorry, Sieh.” Yeine. Her voice, a soft contralto, had deepened further with grief. I felt her kneel beside me, her warmth radiant against my skin. For once, I took no comfort in her presence.

“My fault,” I whispered. I had always meant to disperse the orrery, returning its worlds to their homes when I’d tired of them. Only I never had, because I was a selfish brat. And when I’d been incarcerated in mortal form, desperate to feel like a god because my Arameri masters treated me like a thing, I had brought the orrery here despite the danger that they might be discovered. I had spent strength I didn’t have, killing my mortal body more than once, to keep the orrery alive. And now, after all that, I hadn’t even noticed that I’d failed them.

Yeine sighed and looped her arms around my shoulders, pressing her face to my hair for a moment. “Death comes to all, in time.”

But this had been too soon. My orrery should have lasted a sun’s lifetime. I drew a deep breath and set the hemisphere down, turning to look up at her. Her face did not show the shock that I knew she felt at the sight of my older shape. I was grateful for that, because she could have flinched at my withered beauty, but of course that was not her way. She still loved me, would always love me, even if I could no longer be her little boy. I lowered my eyes, ashamed that I had ever begrudged Itempas her affection.

“There are some survivors,” I said softly. “They…” I drew a deep breath. What would I do without them? I would truly be alone then… but I would do what was right. They deserved that, these truest friends of mine. “Will you help them, Yeine? Please?”

“Of course.” She closed her eyes. One by one, the planets that still floated about the sun sphere, and a couple of the ones on the floor, vanished. I followed with her as best I could, watching her carefully deposit each where I had found it: this one spinning around a bright golden sun, which was delighted to have it back; that one near twin suns that sang in harmony; that one in the heart of a stellar nursery, surrounded by howling infant planets and hissing, cranky magnetars, where it sighed and resigned itself to the noise.

But when Yeine reached for the sun sphere, En, it fought her. Surprised, we both opened our eyes back in the orrery to find that En had shed its ordinary yellow kickball disguise. It had begun to spin and burn, expending itself in a dangerous way given that I could not replenish it. At this rate, it would fail and die like the rest in minutes.

“What the hells are you doing?” I demanded of it. “Quit that; you’re being rude.”

It responded by darting out of its place and whisking over to boot me in the stomach. I oof ed in surprise, wrapping my arms around it inadvertently, and felt its outrage. How dare I try to send it away? It was older than many of my siblings. Had it not always been there when I needed it? It would not be sent away like some disgraced servant.

I touched its hot, pale-yellow surface, trying not to cry. “I can’t take care of you anymore,” I said. “Don’t you understand? If you stay with me, you’ll die.”

It would die, then. Did not care it would die did not care.

“Stubborn ball of hot air!” I shouted, but then Yeine touched my hand where it rested on En’s curve. When she did, En glowed brighter; she was feeding it as I could not.

“A true friend,” she said gently, with only a hint of censure, “is something to be treasured.”

“Not to death,” I said, looking up at her for support. “Yeine, please; it’s crazy. Send it away.”

“Shall I deny its wishes, Sieh? Force it to do what you want? Am I Itempas now?”

And at that I faltered, silent, because of course she knew of my earlier anger. Perhaps she had even known I was there, spying on her with Itempas until I’d flounced off. I hunched, ashamed of myself and then ashamed that I felt ashamed.

“You use force when it suits you,” I muttered, trying to cover the shame with sullenness.

“And when I must, yes. But it doesn’t suit me now.”

“I don’t want more death on my conscience,” I said, both to her and to En. “Please, En. I couldn’t bear to lose you. Please!”

En—the demonshitting, lightfarting gasbag—responded by turning red and bloating with each passing second. Gathering itself to explode, as if that was somehow better than starving to death! I groaned.

Yeine rolled her eyes. “A tantrum. I suppose that’s to be expected, given your influence, but really…” She shook her head and sat back on her knees, looking around thoughtfully. For an instant her eyes darkened, from their usual faded green to something deep and shadowed, like a thick, wet forest, and then suddenly the orrery chamber was empty. All my dead toys vanished. En, too, for which I felt sudden regret.

“I’ll keep the rest safe for you,” she said, reaching up to smooth a hand over my hair as she had always done. I closed my eyes and relaxed into the comfort of familiarity, pretending for a moment that I was still small and all was well. “Until the day you can reclaim them and send them home yourself.”

I exhaled, grateful despite the bitterness her words triggered in me. It hurt her to make dead things live again; it went against her nature, a perversion of the cycle Enefa had designed at the beginning of life. She did not do it often, and we never asked it of her. But… I licked my lips. “Yeine… this thing that’s happening to me…”

She sighed, looking troubled, and belatedly I realized there was no need to ask. If she’d had the power to reverse my transformation into a mortal, she would have used it, no matter what harm it did her. But what did it mean, then, that the goddess who had supreme power over mortality could not erase mine?

“If I were older,” she said, and I felt guilty for making her doubt herself. She lowered her eyes, looking small and vulnerable, like the mortal girl she resembled. “If I knew myself better, perhaps I would be able to find some solution.”

I sighed and shifted to lie on my side, putting my head in her lap after awkwardly pushing my hair out of the way. “This may be beyond all of us. Nothing like it has ever happened before. It’s pointless to rail against what you can’t stop.” I scowled. “ That would make you Itempas.”

“Nahadoth is unhappy,” she said.

I suspected she wanted to change the subject. I sighed. “Nahadoth is overprotective.”

She stroked my hair again, then lifted the tangled mass and began to finger comb it. I closed my eyes, soothed by the rhythmic movements.

“Nahadoth loves you,” she said. “When we first found you in this… condition… he tried so hard to restore you that it damaged him. And yet…” She paused, her tension suddenly prickling the air between us.

I frowned, both at her description of Nahadoth’s behavior and at her hesitation. “What?”

She sighed. “I’m not certain you can be any more reasonable about this than Naha.”

“ What , Yeine?” But then I understood, and as she had predicted, I grew unreasonably angry. “Oh gods and demons, no, no you don’t. You want to talk to Itempas.”

“Resisting change is his nature, Sieh. He may be able to do what Nahadoth could not: stabilize you until I find a cure. Or if we joined again, as Three—”

“No! You’d have to set him free for that!”

“Yes. For your sake.”