The Kingdom of Gods

I whistled with a lightheartedness that I didn’t feel. “Every highblood in Sky will have seen it, then.” I frowned. “These mask-wielding assassins, though … And gods, Deka, if any of your relatives want you dead, you’ve given them a map for the best places to ambush you!”

“And if Mother stints me on an appropriate guard compliment, that’s precisely what will happen.” He shrugged. “As head, she must be seen to at least try to protect the Central Family, the Matriarch’s bloodline. To do any less would make her unfit to lead. So she’ll likely send a whole legion to escort me — thus the two months of travel.”

“Caught in your own trap. Poor Deka.” He smiled, and I grinned back. Yet I found myself sobering. “What if there is an attack, though? Assassins, regardless who sends them? A legion of enemy soldiers?”

“I’ll be fine.”

There was arrogance, and there was stupidity. “You should be afraid, Deka, no matter how powerful you’ve become. I’ve seen this mask magic. It’s like nothing the Litaria has prepared you for.”

“I’ve seen Shevir’s notes, and the Litaria has been closely involved in the investigation into this new magical form. The masks are like scrivening, like the gods’ language: merely a symbolic representation of a concept. Once one understands this, it is possible to develop a countermeasure.” He shrugged. “And these mask makers don’t know anything about my new magical form. No one does but me. And now you.”

“Um. Oh.” I fell silent again, awkwardly.

Abruptly, Deka smiled. “I like this,” he said, nodding toward me. “You’re different now, not just physically. Not so much the brat. Now you’re more …” He thought a moment.

“Heartless bastard?” I smiled. “Obnoxious ass?”

“Tired,” he said, and I sobered. “Unsure of yourself. The old you is still there, but it’s almost buried under other things. Fear, most noticeably.”

Inexplicably, the words stung. I stared back at him, wondering why.

His expression softened, a tacit apology. “It must be hard for you. Facing death, when you’re a creature of so much life.”

I looked away. “If mortals can do it, I can.”

“Not all mortals do, Sieh. You haven’t drunk yourself to death yet, or flung yourself into dangerous situations, or killed yourself in any of a hundred other ways. Considering that death is a new reality for you, you’re handling it remarkably well.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes boring into my own. “But the biggest change is that you’re not happy anymore. You were always lonely; I saw that even as a child. But the loneliness wasn’t destroying you back then. It is now.”

I flinched back from him, my thoughts moving from stunned toward affronted, but they lacked the strength to go all the way there, instead flopping somewhere in between. A lie came to my lips, and died. All that remained was silence.

A hint of the old self-deprecation crossed Deka’s face; he smiled ruefully. “I still want to help you, but I’m not sure if I can. You aren’t sure you like me anymore, for one thing.”

“I —” I blurted. Then I got up and walked away from him, over to one of the windows. I had to. I didn’t know what to say or how to act, and I didn’t want him to say anything else. If I’d still had my power, I would have simply left the Litaria. Maybe the mortal realm entirely. As it was, the best I could do was flee across the room.

His sigh followed me, but he said nothing for a long while. In that silence, I began to calm down. Why was I so agitated? I felt like a child again, one with jittery buttons dancing on his skin, like in an old Teman tale I’d heard. By the time Deka spoke, I was almost myself again. Well, not myself. But human, at least. in?ile. In th/font>

“You came to us all those years ago because you needed something, Sieh.”

“Not two little mortal brats,” I snapped.

“Maybe not. But we gave you something that you needed, and you came back for it twice more. And in the end, I was right. You did want our friendship. I’ve never forgotten what you said that day: ‘Friendships can transcend childhood, if the friends continue to trust each other as they grow older and change.’” I heard him shift in his chair, facing my back. “It was a warning.”

I sighed, rubbing my eyes. The meat and bread sat uneasily in my belly. “It was sentimental rambling.”

“Sieh.” How could he know so much, so young? “You were planning to kill us. If we became the kind of Arameri who once made your life hell — if we betrayed your trust — you knew you would have to kill us. The oath, and your nature, would have required it. You told us that because you didn’t want to. You wanted real friends. Friends who would last.”