N. Jemisin - The Broken Kingdoms

Harsh questioning. Noble language for what I’d just witnessed.

“And unfortunately, the matter is out of my hands,” he continued. I caught a hint of a gesture. The main doors opened and another servant entered, carrying something that caught my eye at once because it glowed as brightly as the rest of this so-magical palace. And unlike the walls and floor, the object that the servant carried was a bright, cheerful rose color. A small rubber ball, like something a child might play with.

T’vril took this ball from the servant and continued. “Not only has my cousin forgotten that Bright Itempas no longer rules the gods, but she has also forgotten that we Arameri now answer to several masters rather than one. The world changes; we must change with it or die. Perhaps, after hearing of Serymn’s fate, more of my fullblood cousins will remember this.”

He turned his hand and let the pink ball fall. It bounced against the floor beside his chair and he caught it, then bounced it twice more.

A boy appeared before him. I recognized him at once and gasped. Sieh, the child-godling who had once tried to kick Shiny to death. The Trickster, who had once been an Arameri slave.

“What?” he asked, sounding annoyed. He glanced toward my gasp once, then looked away with no change in his expression. I prayed to no god in particular that he had not recognized me—though with Shiny standing beside me, that was a thin hope.

T’vril inclined his head respectfully. “Here is one of the killers of your siblings, Lord Sieh,” he said, gesturing at Serymn.

Sieh raised his eyebrows, turning to her. “I remember her. Dekarta’s third-removed niece or something, left years ago.” A wry, unchildlike smile crossed his face. “Really, T’vril, the tongue?”

T’vril handed the pink ball back to the servant, who bowed and took it away. “There are those in the family who believe I am… too gentle.” He shrugged, glancing at the guards. “An example was necessary.”

“So I see.” Sieh trotted down the steps until he stood before Serymn, though I saw him fastidiously step around the blood that darkened the floor. “Having her will help, but I don’t think Naha will restore the sun until you have the demon. Do you?”

“No,” said T’vril. “We’re still looking for him.”

Serymn made a sound then, and the little hairs on my skin prickled. I could feel her attention, could see her straining toward me as she made the sound again. There was no way to make out words, or even be certain she had tried to speak, but somehow I knew: she was trying to tell Sieh about me. She was trying to say, There is a demon.

But T’vril had seen to it she would never tell my secret, not even to the gods.

Sieh sighed at Serymn’s struggles to speak. “I don’t care what you have to say,” he said. Serymn went still, watching him in fresh apprehension. “Neither will my father. If I were you, I’d save my strength to pray he’s not in a creative mood.”

He waved a hand, lazy, careless, and perhaps only I saw the flood of black, flamelike raw power that lashed out from that hand, coiling for a moment like a snake before it lunged forward and swallowed Serymn whole. Then it vanished, and Serymn went with it.

And then Sieh turned to us.

“So you’re still with him,” he said to me.

I was very aware of my hand, holding Shiny’s. “Yes,” I replied. I lifted my chin. “I know who he is now.”

“Do you really?” Sieh’s eyes flicked to Shiny, stayed there. “Somehow I doubt that, mortal girl. Not even his children know him anymore.”

“I said I know him now ,” I said, annoyed. I had never liked being patronized, regardless of who was doing it—and I had been through enough in recent weeks to no longer fear a godling’s temper. “I don’t know what he was like before. That person is gone, anyway; he died the day he killed the Lady. This is just what’s left.” I jerked my head toward Shiny. His hand had gone slack, I think with shock. “It’s not much, I’ll grant you. Sometimes I want to kick him senseless myself. But the more I get to know him, the more I realize he’s not as much of a lost cause as all of you seem to think.”

Sieh stared at me for a moment, though he recovered quickly. “You don’t know anything about it.” He clenched his fists. I half expected him to stamp his feet. “He killed my mother. All of us died that day, and he’s the one who killed us! Should we forget that?”

“No,” I said. I could not help it; I pitied him. I knew how it felt to lose a parent in a way that defied all sense. “Of course you can’t forget. But”—I lifted Shiny’s hand—“ look at him. Does it look like he spent the centuries gloating?”

Sieh’s lip curled. “So he regrets what he did. Now, after we’ve freed ourselves, and after he’s been sentenced to humanity for his crimes. So very remorseful.”

“How do you know he didn’t regret it before?”

“Because he didn’t set us free!” Sieh thumped a hand against his chest. “He left us here, let humans do as they pleased with us! He tried to force us to love him again!”

“Maybe he couldn’t think of another way,” I said.

“What?”

“Maybe that was the only thing that made sense, mad as it was, after the mad thing he’d already done. Maybe he wanted time to fix things, even though it was impossible. Even though he was making things worse.” My anger had already faded. I remembered Shiny the night before, on his knees before me, empty of hope. “Maybe he thought it was better to keep you prisoner and be hated than lose you entirely.”

I knew it was a pointless argument. Some acts were beyond forgiveness; murder, unjust imprisonment, and torture were probably among them.

And yet.

Sieh closed his mouth. He looked at Shiny. His jaw tightened, eyes narrowing. “Well? Does this mortal speak for you, Father?”

Shiny said nothing. His whole body radiated tension, but none of that found its way into words. I wasn’t surprised. I loosened my hand from his to make it easier for him to let me go when he walked away.

His hand snapped closed on mine, suddenly, tightly. I couldn’t have pulled away if I’d wanted to.

While I blinked and wondered at this, Sieh sighed in disgust. “I don’t understand you,” he said to me. “You don’t seem stupid. He’s a waste of your energy. Are you the sort of woman who tortures herself to feel better or who takes only lovers who beat her?”

“Madding was my lover,” I said quietly.

At that, Sieh actually looked chagrined. “I forgot. Sorry.”

“So am I.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes, which were aching again. Too much magic in Sky; I wasn’t used to being able to see like this. I missed the familiar magic-flecked darkness of Shadow.

“It’s just that… all of you will live forever.” Then I remembered and amended myself, smiling bleakly. “Barring murder, I mean. You’ll have forever with one another.” As Madding and I could never have had, even if he hadn’t been killed. Oh, I was tired; it was harder to keep the sorrow at bay. “I just don’t see the point of spending all that time full of hate. That’s all.”

Sieh gazed at me, thoughtful. His pupils changed again, becoming catlike and sharp, but this time there was no sense of threat accompanying the transformation. Perhaps, like me, he needed strange eyes to see what others couldn’t. He turned those eyes on Shiny then, for a long, silent perusal. Whatever he saw didn’t make his anger fade, but he didn’t attack again, either. I counted that as a victory.

“Sieh,” Shiny said suddenly. His hand tightened more on mine, on the threshold of pain. I set my teeth and bore it, afraid to interrupt. I felt him draw in a breath.