“It had nothing to do with you,” Yeine said softly. I blinked. She looked away, sliding her hands into her pockets — a gesture that tore at my heart, because Sieh had done it so often. He’d even looked like her, a little. By design? Knowing him, yes.
“But what —”
<?ight="0em" width="27">“I lied,” she said, “about us staying wholly out of the mortal realm. There will be times in the future when we’ll have no choice but to return. It will be our task to assist the godlings, you see, when the time of metamorphosis comes upon them. When they become gods in their own right.”
I jerked in surprise. “Become … what? Like Kahl?”
“No. Kahl sought to force nature. He wasn’t ready for it. Sieh was.” She let out a long sigh. “I didn’t begin to understand until Tempa said that whatever Sieh had become, he was meant to become. His bond with you, losing his magic — perhaps these are the signs we’ll know to watch for next time. Or perhaps those were unique to Sieh. He was the oldest of our children, after all, and the first to reach this stage.” She looked at me and shrugged. “I would have liked to see the god he became. Though I still would have lost him then, even if he’d lived.”
I digested this in wonder and felt a little fear at the implications. Godlings could grow into gods? Did that mean gods, then, could grow into things like the Maelstrom? If they could somehow live long enough, would mortals become godlings?
Too many things to think about. “What do you mean, you would have lost him if he’d lived?”
“This realm can abide only three gods. If Sieh had survived and become whatever he was meant to be, his fathers and I would have had to send him away.”
Death or exile. Which would I have preferred? Neither. I want him back, and Deka, too. “But where could he have gone?”
“Elsewhere.” She smiled at my look, with a hint of Sieh’s mischief. “Did you think this universe was all there was? There’s room out there for so much more.” Her smile faded then, just a little. “He would have enjoyed the chance to explore it, too, as long as he didn’t have to do it alone.”
The Goddess of Earth looked at me then, and suddenly I understood. Sieh, Deka, and I; Nahadoth, Yeine, and Itempas. Nature is cycles, patterns, repetition. Whether by chance or some unknowable design, Deka and I had begun Sieh’s transition to adulthood — and perhaps, when the chrysalis of his mortal life had finally split to reveal the new being, he would not have transformed alone.
Would I have wanted to go with him and Deka, to rule some other cosmos?
Just dreams now, like broken stone.
Yeine dusted off her pants, stretched her arms above her head, and sighed. “Time to go.”
I nodded. “We will continue to serve you, Lady, whether you’re here or not. What prayers shall we say for you at the dawn and twilight hour?”
She threw me an odd look, as if checking to see if I was joking. I wasn’t. This seemed to surprise and unnerve her; she laughed, though it sounded a bit forced.
“Say whatever you want,” she said finally. “Someone might be listening, but it won’t be me. I have better things to do.”
She vanished.
Eventually I wandered back into the palace, and to the Temple, where the assembly was breaking up at last. Merchants and nobles and scriveners drifted down the hall in knots, still arguing with each other. They ignored me completely as I came to the Temple entrance.
“Thanks for leaving,” said Lady Nemmer as she emerged looking thoroughly disgruntled. “We got exactly one thing done, aside from setting a date for a future useless meeting.”
I smiled at her annoyance; she scowled back, the room growing oddly shadowed. But she wasn’t really angry, so I asked, “And the thing you got done was?”
“We chose a name.” She waved a hand, irritable. “A pretentious and needlessly poetic one, but the mortals outnumbered Kitr and I, so we couldn’t vote it down. Aeternat. It’s one of our words. It means —”
I cut her off. “I don’t need to know, Lady Nemmer. Please convey to whoever’s speaking for this Aeternat that they should inform me when they’re ready for the transfer of military command and funds.”
She looked at me in real surprise, then finally nodded. We turned at the sound of someone calling my name from down the corridor: Datennay. He’d sat in on the Aeternat’s session. I would have to quickly dissuade him from doing that, now that he was my husband. Beyond him was Ramina, who watched me with a solemn sorrow in his expression that I understood completely. He caught my eye over the heads of a gaggle of shouting priests and smiled, however, inclining his head in approval. It warmed me. I would need to have his true sigil removed sometime soon.