The Broken Kingdoms

Shiny wasn’t a godling, though; he was something else. I didn’t know why he’d begun to shine back at the Promenade, but I knew this: it wouldn’t last. It never did. When he became weak again, he would be just a man. Then the priests would tear him apart to learn the secret of his power.

And they would come after me again for harboring him.

I rubbed my face as if I was tired. “I need to lie down,” I said.

“Demonshit,” Vuroy said. “You’re going to pretend to go to bed, then call your old boyfriend. Think we’re stupid?”

I stiffened, and Ru chuckled. “Remember we know you, Oree.”

Damn. “I have to help him,” I said, abandoning the pretense. “Even if I can’t find Madding, I have a little money. The priests take bribes—”

“Not when they’re this angry,” said Ru, very gently. “They’d just take your money and kill him, anyway.”

I clenched my fists. “Madding, then. Help me find Mad. He’ll help me. He owes me.”

I heard chimes on the heels of those words, which made my cheeks heat as I realized just how badly I’d underestimated my friends.

Someone opened the front door. I saw Madding’s familiar shimmer through the walls even before he stepped into the kitchen, with Ohn a taller shadow at his side. “I heard,” Madding said quietly. “Are you calling in a debt, Oree?”

There was a curious shiver in the air, and a delicate tension like something unseen holding its breath. This was Madding’s power beginning to flex.

I stood up from the table, more glad to see him than I’d been in months. Then I noticed the somberness of his expression and recalled myself. “I’m sorry, Mad,” I said. “I forgot… your sister. If there was any other way, I would never ask for your help while you’re in mourning.”

He shook his head. “Nothing to be done for the dead. Ohn tells me you’ve got a friend in trouble.”

Ohn would’ve told him more than that, because Ohn was an inveterate gossipper. But…“Yes. I think the Order-Keepers might have taken him somewhere other than their White Hall, though.” Itempas Skyfather—Dayfather, I kept forgetting—abhorred disorder, and killing a man was rarely neat. They would not profane the White Hall with something like that.

“South Root,” Madding said. “Some of my people saw them headed that way with your friend, after the incident at the Promenade.”

I had an instant to digest that he’d had his people watching me. I decided that it didn’t matter, reached for my stick, and went over to him. “How long ago?”

“An hour.” He took my hand with his own smooth, warm, uncallused one. “I won’t owe you after this, Oree,” he said. “You understand?”

I smiled thinly, because I did. Madding never reneged on an agreement; if he owed you, he would do anything, go through anyone, to repay. If he had to go through the Itempan Order, however, that would make business in Shadow difficult for him for quite some time. There were things he could not do—kill them, for example, or leave the city except to return to the gods’ realm. Even gods had their rules to follow.

I stepped closer and leaned against the comforting strength of his arm. Hard not to feel that arm without remembering other nights and other comforts and other times I’d relied on him to make all my troubles go away.

“I’d say that’s worth the price of breaking my heart,” I said. I spoke lightly, but I meant every syllable. And he sighed, because he knew I was right.

“Hang on, then,” he said, and the whole world went bright as his magic carried us to wherever Shiny was dying.

“Gods and Corpses” (oil on canvas)

THE INSTANT MADDING and I appeared in South Root, a blast of power staggered us both.

I perceived it as a wave of brightness so intense that I cried out as it washed past, dropping my stick to clap both hands over my eyes. Mad gasped as well, as if something had stricken him a blow. He recovered faster than me and took my hands, trying to pull them away from my face. “Oree? Let me see.”

I let him push my hands aside. “I’m fine,” I said. “Fine. Just… too bright. Gods. I didn’t know these things could hurt like that.” I kept blinking and tearing up, which made him peer closely into each eye.

“They’re not ‘things’; they’re eyes. Is the pain fading?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, I told you. What in the infinite hells was that?” Already the brightness had vanished, subsumed into the dark that was all I usually saw. The pain was fading more slowly, but it was fading.