N. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms

“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.