The Kingdom of Gods

“So you won’t use your ancestors’ methods,” I snapped, “because you still want to be a good Arameri. But you’re not above using their reputation to advance your goals. Do I have that right?”

She stared at me, startled into momentary silence. “What?”

I sat up. “You threaten people with genocide, and then you wonder why they scheme anymry gainst you. Really, Shahar; I thought you wanted to change things.”

Her face darkened at once. “I would never actually do it, Sieh. Gods, that would make me a monster!”

“And what does it make you to threaten all that they know and love?” She fell silent in confusion and growing anger, and I leaned close so that my breath would caress her cheek. “A monster too cowardly to accept her own hideousness.”

Shahar went pale, though two flaring spots of color rose on her cheeks as fury warred with shock in her eyes. To her credit, however, she did not launch an immediate attack, and she did not move away from me. Her nostrils twitched. One of her hands tightened, then relaxed. She lifted her chin.

“Clearly you aren’t suggesting that I actually inflict some calamity on them,” she said. Her voice was soft. “What, then, do you suggest, Trickster? Let them continue with these assassination attempts until every fullblood is dead?” Her expression tightened further. “Never mind. I don’t know why I’m even asking. You don’t care whether any of us live or die.”

“Why should I?” I gestured around us, at Sky. “It’s not as though there aren’t plenty of Arameri —”

“No, there aren’t!” Her temper broke with an almost palpable force. She shifted to her hands and knees, glowering. “You’ve looked around this place, Sieh. They tell me the underpalace was full, back in your day. They tell me there were once as many Arameri living abroad as there were here in Sky, and we could take our pick from among the best of the family to serve us. These days we’ve actually been adopting people into the family who aren’t related at all! Tell me what that means to you, O eldest of godlings!”

I frowned. What she was saying made no sense. Humans bred like rabbits. There had been thousands of Arameri in the days when I’d been a slave … but she was right. The underpalace should never have been empty. No mostly-Maroneh lowblood should have been able to rise to captain of the guard. And Remath had mated with her own brother — that had never happened in the old days. Incest, certainly, constantly, but never for children. Yet if Remath, herself diluted in some hidden way, sought to concentrate the Central Family’s strengths …

The signs had been there since I’d first returned to Sky, but I hadn’t seen them. I was so used to thinking of the Arameri as powerful and numerous, but in fact they were dwindling. Dying. “Explain,” I said, inexplicably troubled.

Shahar’s anger faded; she sat down again, her shoulders slumping. “The targeting of highbloods is a recent thing,” she said, “but the attacks were happening for a long time before that. We just didn’t notice until the problem became acute.” Her expression grew sour.

“Lowbloods,” I guessed. Those Arameri least-closely related to the Central Family, lacking in resources or social status to give them greater value to the family head. The servants, the guards. The expendable ones.

“Yes.” She sighed. “It started long ago. Probably a few decades after you and the other Enefadeh broke free. All the collateral lines of the family, the ones we left free to manage busi bu thanesses or simply bring in new blood — It was subtle at first. Children dying of odd diseases, young wives and husbands turning up infertile, accidents, natural disasters. The lines died out. We apportioned their estates to allies or resumed control of them ourselves.”

I was already shaking my head. “No. Accidents can be arranged, gods know children are easy to kill, but natural disasters, Shahar? That would mean …” Could a scrivener do it? They knew the scripts for wind and rain and sunlight, but storms were demonishly hard to control. Too easy to trigger a tsunami when trying for a flash flood. But the alternative — no. No.

She smiled, following my worst thoughts. “Yes. It could mean that a god has been working to kill us for the past fifty years or more.”

I leapt to my feet, beginning to pace. My mortal skin suddenly felt constricting, choking; I wanted to shed it. “If I wanted to kill the Arameri, I would do it,” I snapped. “I would fill this place with soap bubbles and bury you in bath toys. I would put spiked holes in all the floors and cover them with rugs. I would will every Arameri under twelve to just fall down and die — I can do it, too!” I rounded on her, daring her to challenge me.