The Broken Kingdoms

It should have been a sanctuary for me, but I did not feel safe.

“What happened?” I asked the godling beside me. “Please tell me. Something… I did something, didn’t I?”

“You don’t know?” Madding’s other lieutenant, the female one, on my other side. She sounded incredulous.

“No.” I did not want to know. I licked my lips. “Please tell me.”

“I don’t know how you did it,” she said, speaking slowly. There was something in her tone that was almost… awed. That made no sense; she was a god. “I’ve never seen a mortal do anything like that. But your drawing…” She trailed off.

“It became enarmhukdatalwasl, though not quite shuwao,” said the male godling, his godwords briefly stinging my eyes. I shut them in reflex. Why did my eyes hurt? It felt like I’d been punched in the back of each. “It carved a path across half a billion stars and connected one world with another, just for a moment. Damnedest thing.”

I rubbed at my eyes in frustration, though this did no good; the pain was inside me. “I don’t understand, damn you! Speak mortal!” I did not want to know.

“You made a door,” he said. “You sent the Order-Keepers through it. Not all the way, though. The magic wasn’t stable. It burned out before they passed through completely. Do you understand?”

“I…” No. “It was just a chalk drawing,” I whispered.

“You dropped them partway into another world,” snapped the female godling. “And then you closed the door. You cut them in half. Do you understand now?”

I did.

I began to scream, and kept screaming until one of the godlings did something, and then I passed out.

“Family” (charcoal study)

I HAVE A FAVORITE MEMORY of my father that I sometimes recall as a dream.

In the dream, I am small. I have only recently learned to climb the ladder. The rungs are very far apart and I cannot see them, so for a long time I was afraid I would miss a rung and fall. I had to learn not to be afraid, which is much harder than it sounds. I am very proud of having accomplished this.

“Papa,” I say, running across the small attic room. This is, by my parents’ mutual agreement, his room. My mother does not come here, not even to clean. It is neat anyhow—my father is a neat man—yet it is permeated all over with that indefinable feeling that is him. Some of it is scent, but there is something more to his presence, too. Something that I understand instinctively, even if I lack the vocabulary to describe it.

My father is not like most people in our village. He goes to White Hall services only often enough to keep the priest from sanctioning him. He makes no offerings at the household altar. He does not pray. I have asked him whether he believes in the gods, and he says that of course he does; are we not Maroneh? But that is not the same thing as honoring them, he sometimes adds. Then he cautions me not to mention this to anyone else. Not the priests, not my friends, not even Mama. One day, he says, I will understand.

Today he is in a rare mood—and for a rare once, I can see him: a smaller-than-average man with cool black eyes and large, elegant hands. His face is lineless, almost youthful, though his hair is salt-and-pepper and there is something in his gaze, something heavy and tired, that shows his long life more clearly than wrinkles ever could. He was old when he married Mama. He never wanted a child, yet he loves me with all his heart.

I grin and lean on his knees. He’s sitting down, which puts his face in reach of my searching fingers. Eyes can be fooled, I have learned already, but touch is always sure.

“You’ve been singing,” I say.

He smiled. “Can you see me again? I thought it would have worn off by now.”

“Sing for me, Papa,” I plead. I love the colors his voice weaves in the air.

“No, Ree-child. Your mother’s home.”

“She never hears it! Please?”

“I promised,” he says softly, and I hang my head. He promised my mother, long before I was born, never to expose her or me to the danger that comes of his strangeness. I am too young to understand where the danger comes from, but the fear in his eyes is enough to keep me silent.

But he has broken his promise before. He did it to teach me, because otherwise I might have betrayed my own strangeness out of ignorance. And because, I later realize, it kills him a little to stifle that part of himself. He was meant to be glorious. With me, in these small private moments, he can be.

So when he sees my disappointment, he sighs and lifts me into his lap. Very softly, just for me, he sings.