The Kingdom of Gods

“My apologies.” He didn’t look apologetic at all. “I merely came to mention a detail about the meeting Sister asked that you attend tomorrow. She’s ordered full privacy — no guards, no courtiers beyond the ones invited. Not even servants will be present.”

At this, Shahar and Dekarta both looked at each other, and I wondered what in the infinite hells was going on. Remath should never have declared her intention for a private meeting in advance; too easy for other Arameri or interested parties to slip in a listening sphere. Or an assassin. But Ramina was marked with a full sigil; he could not act against his sister even if he wanted to. Which meant that he was speaking on Remath’s behalf. But why?

Then I realized Ramina was still looking at me. So it was something Remath wanted me to know, i’n particular. To make sure I’d be there.

“Damned twisty-headed Arameri,” I said, scowling at him. “I’ve had a horrid day. Say what you mean.”

He blinked at me with such blatant surprise that he fooled no one. “I should think it would be obvious, Trickster. The Arameri are about to implement a trick that should impress even you. Naturally we would welcome your blessing for such an endeavor.” With that, he smiled and strode after his sister.

I stared after him in confusion, as if that would help. It didn’t. And now I spied Morad approaching at the head of a phalanx of servants, all of them pausing to bow as Ramina walked past in the palace archway.

Shahar turned to me and Deka, speaking low and quickly. “I must attend to Canru and the Teman party down at the Salon; they’ll be very put out about this. Both of you, request quarters that can be reached through the dead spaces. Sieh knows what I mean.” With that, she, too, left us, heading over to join her fiancé.

“Are you all right?” I heard Canru ask her. I tightened my jaw against inadvertent approval and turned to Deka.

“I suppose you’ll want to settle in, too,” I said. “Order the scrivener corps about and start dissecting your new prize, or whatever it is you people do.” I looked over at the trussed-up masker.

“I’d much rather go somewhere and have a long talk with you about what just happened,” he said, and there was something in his voice, a smoothness, that made me blush inadvertently. He smiled, missing nothing. “But I suppose that will have to wait. I’ll be taking one of the spire rooms — Spire Seven, most likely, if it’s still available. Where will you be?”

I considered. “The underpalace.” There was no place more private in all of Sky. “Deka, the dead spaces —”

“I know what they are,” he said, surprising me, “and I can guess which room you’ll be in. We’ll come around midnight.”

Flustered, I watched Deka as he turned to greet Morad. I heard him issue orders as easily as if he had not just returned from a ten-year exile, and I heard Morad answer with, “At once, my lord,” as if she had never missed him.

All around the courtyard, everyone spoke with someone else. I stood alone.

Obscurely troubled, I went over to the masker and prodded him with a toe, sighing. He grunted and struggled toward me in response. “Why must all you mortals be so difficult?” I asked. The dead man, predictably, did not answer.

My old room.

I stood in the open doorway, unsurprised to see that it had not been touched in the century since I’d left. Why would any servant, or steward for that matter, have bothered? No one would ever want to dwell in a chamber that had housed a god. What if he’d left traps behind or woven curses into the walls? Worse, what if he came back?

The reality was that I had never intended to come back, and it had never occurred to me to weave curses into anything. If I had, I would never have burdened the walls with anything so trivial as a curse. I would have created a masterwork of pain and humiliation and despair from my own heart, and I would have forced any mortal who invaded the space to share those horrors. Just for a moment or two, rather than the centuries I endured, but none of it blunted.

An old wooden table stood on one side of the room. On its surface were the small treasures I had always loved to gather, even when they had no life or magic of their own. A perfect dried leaf, now probably too fragile to touch. A key; I did not remember what it opened or if its lock still existed. I just liked keys. A perfectly round pebble that I had always meant to turn into a planet and add to my orrery. I had forgotten about it after I’d gotten free, and now I had no power to correct the error.

Beyond the table was my nest — or so I had styled it, though it had none of the comfort or beauty of my true nest in the gods’ realm. This was just a pile of rags, gray and dry-rotted and dusty now, and probably infested with vermin to boot. Some of the rags were things I had stolen from the fullbloods: a favorite scarf, a baby’s blanket, a treasured tapestry. I’d always tried to take things they cared about, though they’d punished me for it whenever they’d caught me. Every blow had been worth it — not because the thefts caused them any great hardship, but because I was not a mortal, not just a slave. I was still Sieh, the mischievous wind, the playful hunter, and no punishment could ever break me. To remind myself of that, I had been willing to endure anything.