N. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods

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.”