glimmering, deadly black flecks did not harm me, though they crunched under my feet.
Nahadoth could stop the magic, I was certain. He could probably even restore the men to wholeness—but Darr’s safety depended on my ability to strike fear into Gemd’s heart.
“Finish it,” I whispered.
The black surged and consumed each of the men in seconds. Chill vapors rose around them as their final screams mingled with the sounds of flesh crackling and bone snapping, then all of it died away. In the men’s place lay two enormous, faceted gems in the rough shape of huddled figures. Beautiful, and quite valuable, I guessed; if nothing else, their families would live well from henceforth. If the families chose to sell their loved ones’ remains.
I passed between the diamonds on my way out. The guards who had come in behind me moved out of my way, some of them stumbling in their haste. The doors swung shut behind me, quietly this time. When they were closed, I stopped.
“Shall I take you home?” asked Nahadoth. Behind me.
“Home?”
“Sky.”
Ah, yes. Home, for Arameri.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Darkness enveloped me. When it cleared, we were in Sky’s forecourt again, though at the Garden of the Hundred Thousand this time rather than the Pier. A path of polished stones wound between neat, orderly flower beds, each overhung with a different type of exotic tree. In the distance, through the leaves, I could see the starry sky and the mountains that met it.
I walked through the garden until I found a spot with an unimpeded view, beneath a miniature satinbell tree. My thoughts turned in slow, lazy spirals. I was growing used to the cool feel of Nahadoth behind me.
“My weapon,” I said to him.
“As you are mine.”
I nodded, sighing into a breeze that lifted my hair and set the leaves of the satinbell a-rustle. As I turned to face Nahadoth, a scud of cloud passed across the moon’s crescent. His cloak seemed to inhale in that dim instant, growing impossibly until it almost eclipsed the palace in rippling waves of black. Then the cloud passed, and it was just a cloak again.
I felt like that cloak all of a sudden—wild, out of control, giddily alive. I lifted my arms and closed my eyes as another breeze gusted. It felt so good.
“I wish I could fly,” I said.
“I can gift you with that magic, for a time.”
I shook my head, closing my eyes to sway with the wind. “Magic is wrong.” I knew that oh, so well now.
He said nothing to that, which surprised me until I thought deeper. After witnessing so many generations of Arameri hypocrisy, perhaps he no longer cared enough to complain.
It was tempting, so tempting, to stop caring myself. My mother, Darr, the succession; what did any of it matter? I could forget all of that so easily, and spend the remainder of my life—all four days of it—indulging any whim or pleasure I wanted.
Any pleasure, except one.
“Last night,” I said, lowering my arms at last. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“You’re more useful alive.”
I laughed. I felt light-headed, reckless. “Does that mean I’m the only person in Sky who has nothing to fear from you?” I knew it was a stupid question before I finished speaking, but I do not think I was entirely sane in that moment.
Fortunately, the Nightlord did not answer my stupid, dangerous question. I glanced back at him to gauge his mood and saw that his nightcloak had changed again. This time the wisps had spun long and thin, drifting through the garden like layers of campfire smoke. The ones nearest me curled inward, surrounding me on all sides. I was reminded of certain plants in my homeland, which grew teeth or sticky tendrils to ensnare insects.
And at the heart of this dark flower, my bait: his glowing face, his lightless eyes. I stepped closer, deeper into his shadow, and he smiled.
“You wouldn’t have had to kill me,” I said softly. I ducked my head and looked up at him through my lashes, curving my body in silent invitation. I had seen prettier women do this all my life, yet never dared myself. I lifted a hand and moved it toward his chest, half-expecting to touch nothing and be snatched forward into darkness. But this time there was a body within the shadows, startling in its solidity. I could not see it, or my own hand where I touched him, but I could feel skin, smooth and cool beneath my fingertips.
Bare skin. Gods.
I licked my lips and met his eyes. “There’s a great deal you could have done without compromising my… usefulness.”
Something in his face changed, like a cloud across the moon: the shadow of the predator. His teeth were sharper when he spoke. “I know.”
Something in me changed, too, as the wild feeling went still. That look in his face. Some part of me had been waiting for it.
“Would you?” I licked my lips again, swallowed around sudden tightness in my throat. “Kill me? If… I asked?”
There was a pause.
When the Lord of Night touched my face, fingertips tracing my jaw, I thought I was imagining things. There was an unmistakable tenderness in the gesture. But then, just as tenderly, the hand slid farther down and curled around my neck. As he leaned close, I closed my eyes.
“
I opened my mouth to speak and could not. All at once I was trembling. Tears welled in my eyes, spilled down my face onto his wrist. I wanted to speak, to ask, so badly. But I just stood there, trembling and crying, while his breath tickled my ear. In and out. Three times.
Then he released my neck, and my knees buckled. I fell forward, and suddenly I was buried in the soft, cool dark of him, pressed against a chest I could not see, and I began sobbing into it. After a moment, the hand that had almost killed me cupped the nape of my neck. I must have bawled for an hour, though maybe it was less. I don’t know. He held me tight the whole time.
20.
All that remains of the time before the Gods’ War is whispered myth and half-forgotten legend. The priests are quick to punish anyone caught telling these tales. There was nothing before Itempas, they say; even in the age of the Three, he was first and greatest. Still, the legends persist.
For example: it is said that once people made sacrifices of flesh to the Three. They would fill a room with volunteers. Young, old, female, male, poor, wealthy, healthy, infirm; all the variety and richness of humanity. On some occasion that was sacred to all Three—this part has been lost with time—they would call out to their gods and beg them to partake of the feast.
Enefa, it is said, would claim the elders and the ill—the epitome of mortality. She would give them a choice: healing or gentle, peaceful death. The tales say more than a few chose the latter, though I cannot imagine why.
Itempas took then what he takes now—the most mature and noble, the brightest, the most talented. These became his priests, setting duty and propriety above all else, loving him and submitting to him in all things.
Nahadoth preferred youths, wild and carefree—though he would claim the odd adult, too. Anyone willing to yield to the moment. He seduced them and was seduced by them; he reveled in their lack of inhibition and gave them everything of himself.
