The Kingdom of Gods

“Yes.” He fell silent again, thinking his unfathomable thoughts. He didn’t look well, I decided, though this had nothing to do with his actual appearance, which was magnificent. But that was just his usual mask. Beneath that mask, which I could just barely perceive, he felt … strange. Off. A storm whose winds had faltered at the touch of colder, quelling air. He was unhappy — very much so.

“When you see Itempas,” he said at last, “ask him to help you.”

At this I swung around on the windowsill, frowning. “You’re not serious.”

“Yeine can do nothing to erase your mortality. I can neither cure nor preserve you. I meant it, Sieh, when I said I would not lose you.”

“There’s nothing he can do, Naha. He’s got less magic than me!”

“Yeine and I have discussed the matter. We will grant him a single day’s parole if he will agree to help you.”

My mouth fell open. It took me several tries to speak. “He’s endured barely a century of mortality. Do you really think we can trust him?”

“If he attempts to escape or attack us, I will kill his demon.”

I flinched. “Glee?” I glanced at her. She had fallen asleep in the chair, her head slumped to one side. Either she was a heavy sleeper, an excellent faker, or Naha was keeping her asleep. Most likely the latter, given the subject of our conversation.

She had tried to help me.

“Are we Arameri now?” I asked. My voice was harsher than usual in the dimness, deep and rough. I kept forgetting that it was not a child’s voice. “Are we willing to pervert love itself to get what we want?”

“Yes.” I knew he meant it by the fact that the room’s temperature suddenly dropped ten degrees. “The Arameri are wise in one respect, Sieh: they show no mercy to their enemies. I will not risk unleashing Itempas’s madness again. He lives only because the mortal realm cannot exist without him and because Yeine has pleaded for his life. I permitted him to keep his daughter only for this purpose. Demon, beloved … she is a weapon, and I mean to use her.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “You regretted what you did to the demons, Naha. Have you forgotten that? They are our children, too, you said —”

He stepped closer, reaching for my face. “You are the only child who matters to me now.”

I recoiled and struck his hand away. His eyes widened in surprise. “What the hells kind of father are you? You always say things like that, treat some of us better than others. Gods, Naha! How twisted is that?”

Silence fell, and in it my soul shriveled. Not in fear. It was simply that I knew, or had known, precisely why he did not love all his children equally. Differentiation, variation, appreciation of the unique: this was part of what he was. His children were not the same, so his feelings toward each were not the same. He loved us all, but differently. And because he did this, because he did not pretend that love was fair or equal, mortals could mate for an afternoon or for the rest of their lives. Mothers could tell their twins or triplets apart. Children could have crushes and outgrow them; elders could remain devoted to their spouses long after beauty had gone. The mortal heart was fickle. Naha made it so. And because of this, they were free to love as they wished, and not solely by the dictates of instinct or power or tradition.

I had understood this once. All gods did.

My hand dropped into my lap. It was shaking. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He lowered his hand, too, saying nothing for a long, bruised moment.

“You cannot remain in mortal flesh much longer,” he said at last. “It’s changing you.”

I lowered my head and nodded once. He was my father, and he knew best. I had been wrong not to listen.

With a night-breeze sigh, Nahadoth turned away, his substance beginning to blend into the room’s shadows. Sudden, irrational panic seized me. I sprang to my feet, my throat knotting in fear and anguish. “Naha — please. Will you …” Mortal, mortal, I was truly mortal now. I was his favorite, he was my dark father, his love was fickle, and I had changed almost beyond recognition. “Please don’t leave yet.”

He turned back and swept forward all in one motion, and all at once I was adrift and cradled in the soft dark of his innermost self, with hands I could not see stroking my hair.

“You will always be mine, Sieh.” His voice was everywhere. He had never let anyone but me and his siblings into this part of himself. It was the core of him, vulnerable, pure. “Even if you love him again. Even if you grow old. I am not wholly dark, Itempas is not wholly light, and there are some things about me that will never change, not even if the walls of the Maelstrom should fall.”