The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Sieh, and she dares to command us? She has no right to carry my sister’s soul.” His hand curled into a claw, and suddenly I realized it was not my flesh that he meant to damage.

Your body has grown used to containing two souls, Zhakkarn had said. It might not survive having only one again.

But at that realization, completely to my own surprise, I burst into laughter.

“Do it,” I said. I could hardly breathe for laughing, though that might’ve been some effect of Nahadoth’s hand. “I never wanted this thing in me in the first place. If you want it, take it!”

“Yeine!” Sieh clutched my arm. “That could kill you!”

“What difference does it make? You want to kill me anyway. So does Dekarta—he’s got it all planned, seven days from now. My only real choice lies in how I die. This is as good as any other method, isn’t it?”

“Let’s find out,” Nahadoth said.

Kurue sat forward. “Wait, what did she—”

Nahadoth drew his hand back. It seemed to take effort; the arm moved through my flesh slowly, as if through clay. I could not be more certain because I was shrieking at the top of my lungs. Instinctively I lunged forward, trying to escape the pain, and in retrospect this made things worse. But I could not think, all my reason having been subsumed by agony. It felt as though I was being torn apart—as, of course, I was.

But then something happened.

* * *

Above, a sky out of nightmare. I could not say if it was day or night. Both sun and moon were visible, but it was hard to say which was which. The moon was huge and cancerously yellow. The sun was a bloody distortion, nowhere near round. There was a single cloud in the sky and it was black—not dark gray with rain but black, like a drifting hole in the sky. And then I realized it was a hole, because something fell through—

Tiny figures, struggling. One of them was white and blazing, the other black and smoking; as they tumbled, I could see fire and hear cracks like thunder all around them. They fell and fell and smashed into the earth nearby. The ground shook, a great cloud of dust and debris kicked up from the impact; nothing human could have survived such a fall, but I knew they were not—

I ran. All around me were bodies—not dead, I understood with the certainty of a dream, but dying. The grass was dry and dessicated, crackling beneath my bare feet. Enefa was dead. Everything was dying. Leaves fell around me like heavy snow. Ahead, just through the trees—

“Is this what you want? Is it?” Inhuman fury in that voice, echoing through the forest shadows. Following it came a scream of such agony as I have never imagined—

I ran through the trees and stopped at the edge of a crater and saw—

O Goddess, I saw—

* * *

“Yeine.” A hand slapped my face lightly. “Yeine!”

My eyes were open. I blinked because they were dry. I was on my knees on the floor. Sieh crouched before me, his eyes wide with concern. Kurue and Zhakkarn were watching, too, Kurue looking worried and Zhakkarn soldier-still.

I did not think. I swung around and looked at Nahadoth, who stood with one hand—the one that had been in my body—still raised. He stared down at me, and I realized he somehow knew what I had seen.

“I don’t understand.” Kurue rose from the desk chair. Her hand, on the chair’s back, tightened. “It’s been twenty years. The soul should be able to survive extraction by now.”

“No one has ever put a god’s soul into a mortal,” said Zhakkarn. “We knew there was a risk.”

“Not of this!” Kurue pointed at me almost accusingly. “Will the soul even be usable now, contaminated with this mortal filth?”

“Be silent!” Sieh snapped, whipping around to glare at her. His voice dropped suddenly, a young man’s again; instant puberty. “How dare you? I have told you time and again—mortals are as much Enefa’s creations as we ourselves.”

“Leftovers,” Kurue retorted. “Weak and cowardly and too stupid to look beyond themselves for more than five minutes. Yet you and Naha will insist on putting your trust in them—”

Sieh rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Tell me, Kurue, which of your proud, god-only plans has gotten us free?”

Kurue turned away in resentful silence.

I barely saw all this. Nahadoth and I were still staring at each other.

“Yeine.” Sieh’s small, soft hand touched my cheek, coaxing my head around to face him. His voice had returned to a childish treble. “Are you all right?”

“What happened?” I asked.

“We’re not certain.”

I sighed and pulled away from him, trying to get to my feet. My body felt hollowed out, stuffed with cotton. I slipped and settled onto my knees again, and cursed.

“Yeine—”

“If you’re going to lie to me again, don’t bother.”

A muscle worked in Sieh’s jaw; he glanced at his siblings. “It’s true, Yeine. We aren’t certain. But… for some reason… Enefa’s soul has not healed as much as we hoped it would in the time since we put it in you. It’s whole,” and here he glanced at Kurue significantly. “Enough to serve its purpose. But it’s very fragile—too fragile to be drawn out safely.”

Safely for the soul, he meant, not for me. I shook my head, too tired to laugh.

“No telling how much damage has been done,” Kurue muttered, turning away to pace the room’s small confines.

“An unused limb withers,” Zhakkarn said softly. “She had her own soul, and no need for another.”

Which I would happily have told you, I thought sourly, if I’d been able to protest at the time.

But what in the Maelstrom did all this mean for me? That the Enefadeh would make no further attempt to draw the soul from my body? Good, since I had no desire to experience that pain ever again. But it also meant that they were committed to their plan now, because they couldn’t get the thing out of me otherwise.

Was that, then, why I had all these strange dreams and visions? Because a goddess’s soul had begun to rot inside me?

Demons and darkness. Like a compass needle seeking north, I swung back around to look at Nahadoth. He turned away.

“What did you say earlier?” Kurue suddenly demanded. “About Dekarta.”

That particular concern seemed a million miles away. I pulled myself back to it, the here and now, and tried to push from my mind that terrible sky and the image of shining hands gripping and twisting flesh.

“Dekarta is throwing a ball in my honor,” I replied, “in one week. To celebrate my designation as one of the possible heirs.” I shook my head. “Who knows? Maybe it’s just a ball.”

The Enefadeh looked at each other.

“So soon,” murmured Sieh, frowning. “I had no idea he would do it this soon.”

Kurue nodded to herself. “Canny old bastard. He’ll probably have the ceremony at dawn the morning after.”

“Could this mean he’s discovered what we’ve done?” asked Zhakkarn.

“No,” Kurue said, looking at me, “or she’d be dead and the soul would already be in Itempas’s hands.”

I shuddered at the thought and finally pushed myself to my feet. I did not turn to Nahadoth again.

“Are you done being angry with me?” I asked, brushing wrinkles out of my skirt. “I think we have unfinished business.”