The Broken Kingdoms

“Because the magic called to me,” I said at last. “That will happen wherever magic is. It’s part of us now, and some of us will always be drawn to it. So unless you take it away completely, which even the Interdiction never managed to do”—I spread my hands—“bad things will happen. And good.”

“Good?” The Lady sounded thoughtful.

“Well… yes.” I swallowed again. “I regret some of what’s happened to me. But not all of it.”

“I see,” she said.

Another silence fell, almost companionable.

“Why is it better that Shiny stay asleep?” I asked, very softly this time.

“Because we’ve come to kill you.”

My innards turned to water. Yet strangely, I found it easier to talk now. It was as if my anxiety had passed some threshold, beyond which it became pointless.

“You know what I am,” I guessed.

“Yes,” she replied. “You bent the chains we placed on Itempas and released his true power, even if only for a moment. That got our attention. We’ve been watching you ever since. But”—she shrugged—“I was a mortal for longer than I’ve been a god. The possibility of death is nothing new or especially frightening to me. So I don’t care that you’re a demon.”

I frowned. “Then what…?”

But I remembered the Nightlord’s question. Does he love you yet?

“Shiny,” I whispered.

“He was sent here to suffer, Oree. To grow, to heal, to hopefully rejoin us someday. But make no mistake—this was also a punishment.” She sighed, and for an instant I heard the sound of distant rain. “It’s unfortunate that he met you so soon. In a thousand years, perhaps, I could have persuaded Nahadoth to let this go. Not now.”

I stared at her with my sightless eyes, stunned by the monstrosity of what she was saying. They had made Shiny nearly human, the better to experience the pain and hardship of mortal life. They had bound him to protect mortals, live among them, understand them. Like them, even. But he could not love them.

Love me, I realized, and ached with both the sweetness of the knowledge and the bitterness that followed.

“That isn’t fair,” I said. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t that stupid. Still, if they were going to kill me, anyway, I was damn well going to speak my mind. “Mortals love. You can’t make him one of us and keep him from doing that. It’s a contradiction.”

“Remember why he was sent here. He loved Enefa—and murdered her. He loved Nahadoth and his own children, yet tormented them for centuries.” She shook her head. “His love is dangerous.”

“It wasn’t—” His fault, I almost said, but that was wrong. Many mortals went mad; not all of them attacked their loved ones. Shiny had accepted responsibility for what he’d done, and I had no right to deny that.

So I tried again. “Have you considered that having mortal lovers may be what he needs? Maybe—” And again I cut myself off, because I had almost said, Maybe I can heal him for you. That was too presumptuous, no matter how kind the Lady seemed.

“It may be what he needs,” said the Lady, evenly. “It isn’t what Nahadoth needs.”

I flinched and fell silent then, lost. It was as Serymn had guessed: the Lady knew what another Gods’ War would cost humanity, and she had done what she could to prevent it. That meant balancing the needs of one damaged brother against the other—and for the time being, at least, she had decided that the Nightlord’s rage deserved more satisfaction than Shiny’s sorrow. I didn’t blame her, really. I had felt that rage upstairs, that hunger for vengeance, so strong that it ground against my senses like a pestle. What amazed me was that she actually thought there was some hope of reconciling the three of them. Maybe she was as crazy as Shiny.

Or maybe she was just willing to do whatever it took to fill the chasm between them. What was a little demon blood, a little cruelty, compared to another war? What were a few ruined mortal lives, so long as the majority survived? And if all went well, then in a thousand years or ten thousand, the Nightlord’s wrath might be appeased. That was how gods thought, wasn’t it?

At least Shiny will have forgotten me by then.

“Fine,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Get it over with. Or do you mean to kill me slowly? Give Shiny’s knife an extra turn?”

“He’ll suffer enough knowing why you died; how makes little difference.” She paused. “Unless.”