I blinked.
Sar-enna-nem was as it had been, shadowed and quiet, its splendor hidden again beneath bricks and dusty wood and old rugs. I stood in front of my grandmother, though I did not remember getting up or moving. Nahadoth’s human mask was back in place, his aura diminished to its usual quiet drift, and once again he was staring at me.
I covered my eyes with one hand. “I can’t take much more of this.”
“Y-Yeine?” My grandmother. She put a hand on my shoulder. I barely noticed.
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” I looked up at Nahadoth. “What you expected. Her soul is devouring my own.”
“No,” said Nahadoth very softly. “I don’t know what this is.”
I stared at him and could not help myself. All the shock and fear and anger of the past few days bubbled up, and I burst out laughing. I laughed so loudly that it echoed from Sar-enna-nem’s distant ceiling; so long that my grandmother peered at me in concern, no doubt wondering if I had gone mad. I probably had, because suddenly my laughter turned to screaming and my mirth ignited as white-hot rage.
His calm stoked my fury higher. “I built uncertainty into this universe, and Enefa wove that into every living being. There will always be mysteries beyond even we gods’ understanding—”
I launched myself at him. In the interminable second that my mad rage lasted, I saw that his eyes flicked to my approaching fist and widened in something very like amazement. He had plenty of time to block or evade the blow. That he did not was a complete surprise.
The smack of it echoed as loud as my grandmother’s gasp.
In the ensuing silence, I felt empty. The rage was gone. Horror had not yet arrived. I lowered my hand to my side. My knuckles stung.
Nahadoth’s head had turned with the blow. He lifted a hand to his lip, which was bleeding, and sighed.
“I must work harder to keep my temper around you,” he said. “You have a memorable way of chastising me.”
He lifted his eyes, and suddenly I knew he was remembering the time I had stabbed him.
He smiled, his expression almost fond. “Do you like the taste?”
Not of your blood, no.
But your finger was another matter.
“Yeine,” said my grandmother again, breaking the tableau. I took a deep breath, marshaled my wits, and turned back to her.
“Are the neighboring kingdoms allying?” I asked. “Are they arming for war?”
She swallowed before nodding. “We received formal notice this week, but there had been earlier signs. Our merchants and diplomats were expelled from Menchey almost two months ago. They say old Gemd has passed a conscription law to boost the ranks of his army, and he’s accelerated training for the rest. The council believes he’ll march in a week, maybe less.”
Two months ago. I had been summoned to Sky only a short while before that. Scimina had guessed my purpose the instant Dekarta summoned me.
And it made sense she had chosen to act through Menchey. Menchey was Darr’s largest and most powerful neighbor, once our greatest enemy. We had been at peace with the Mencheyev since the Gods’ War, but only because the Arameri had been unwilling to grant either land permission to annihilate the other. But as Ras Onchi had warned me, things had changed.
Of course they had submitted a formal war petition. They would want the right to shed our blood.
“I would hope we had begun to muster forces as well, in the time since,” I said. It was no longer my place to give orders; I could only suggest.
My grandmother sighed. “As best we could. Our treasury is so depleted we can barely afford to feed them, much less train and equip. No one will lend us funds. We’ve resorted to asking for volunteers—any woman with a horse and her own weapons. Men as well, if they’re not yet fathers.”
It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defense, their physical strength bent toward the single and most important task of protecting our homes and children. This meant the council had decided that our only defense was to defeat the enemy, period. Anything else meant the end of the Darre.
“I’ll give you what I can,” I said. “Dekarta watches everything I do, but I have wealth now, and—”
“No.” Beba touched my shoulder again. I could not remember the last time she had touched me without reason. But then, I had never seen her leap to protect me from danger, either. It pained me that I would die young and never truly know her.
“Look to yourself,” she said. “Darr is not your concern, not any longer.”
I scowled. “It will always be—”
“You said yourself they would use us to hurt you. Look what’s happened just from your effort to restore trade.”
I opened my mouth to protest that this was merely their excuse, but before I could, Nahadoth’s head turned sharply east.
“The sun comes,” he said. Beyond Sar-enna-nem’s entry arch, the sky was pale; night had faded quickly.
I cursed under my breath. “I
“So much like your father,” she whispered. Then she pushed me away gently.
Nahadoth’s arm folded around me, surprisingly gentle, and I found my back pressed against the human solidity of the body within his shadows. Then the body was gone and so was Sar-enna-nem, and all was cold and darkness again.
I reappeared in my room in Sky, facing the windows. The sky here was still mostly dark, though there was a hint of pale against the distant horizon. I was alone, to my surprise, but also to my relief. It had been a very long, very difficult day. Without undressing I lay down—but sleep did not come immediately. I lay where I was awhile, reveling in the silence, letting my mind rest. Like bubbles in still water, two things rose to the surface of my thoughts.
My mother had regretted her bargain with the Enefadeh. She had sold me to them, but not without qualm. I found it perversely comforting that she had tried to kill me at birth. That seemed like her, choosing to destroy her own flesh and blood rather than let it be corrupted. Perhaps she had only decided to accept me on
The other thought was simpler, yet far less comforting.
Had my father known?
17.
