The Kingdom of Gods

I pulled En loose from its cord. “Kill for me, beloved,” I murmured, and dropped it to the floor. It bounced, then shot around the room, ricocheting off walls and windows and the stone of Remath’s chair. It did not bounce off mortal flesh. When En had punched holes in enough of them and the screaming stopped, it came back to me, flaring hot to cook off the blood and then dropping cool and satisfied into my hand. I slipped it into my pocket.

Remath had not been touched; En knew my heart well. She had not moved throughout the slaughter and showed no hint of concern that I had just killed thirty or so of her relatives.

“I take it you’re unhappy about something,” she said.

I smiled and saw her eyes flicker for an instant as she registered my sharp teeth. “Yes,” I said, raising my hand. In it, conjured out of possibility, lay ten thick, silver knitting needles. Each was longer than my hand. “But I will feel better in a moment. Cross your heart and hope to die, Remath. Here are my needles for your eyes.”

To her credit, she kept her voice even. “I kept my promise. I’ve done you no harm.” I shook my head. “Shahar was my friend, and you have taken her from me.”

“A minor harm,” she said, and then she surprised me with a small smile. “But you are a trickster, and I know better than to try and argue with you.”

“Yes,” I agreed. And then I stepped forward, plucking the first of the needles from my palm and rolling it between my fingers in anticipation, because I am a bully, too, when all is said and done.

I heard Shahar’s cry before she ran in, though I ignored it. She gasped as she reached the chamber and saw blood and bodies everywhere, but then she ran forward — slipping once in someone’s viscera — and grabbed my arm. This did nothing to slow my advance, since for the moment I was much stronger than any mortal, and after being dragged forward a step or two, she abandoned that effort. But then she ran around me and put herself in my path, just as I put my foot on the first step of the dais that held Remath’s throne. “Sieh, don’t do this.”

I sighed and pushed her aside as gently as I could. This made her stumble off the steps, and she fell into the blood of some cousin or another of hers. I could smell the Arameri in him. Or not in him, not anymore; I laughed at my own joke.

As I stopped in front of Remath — who remained where she was, calm as death loomed — Shahar appeared again, this time flinging herself directly in front of her mother’s throne. Her gold satin robe was drenched with blood down one side of her body, and somehow she’d gotten it on the side of her face as well. Half her hair hung limp and dripping with it. I laughed again and tried to think up a rhyme that would properly make fun of her. But what rhymed with horror? I would ponder it later.

I stopped, however, because Shahar was in the way. “Move,” I said.

“No.”

“You wanted her dead, anyway.”

“Not like this, damn you!”

“Poor Shahar.” I made a singsong of it. “Poor little princess, how is she to see? With her fingers and her toes, once her eyes are with me.” I held the needle forward so that she could see it. “You have betrayed me, sweet Shahar. It is nothing to me to kill you, too.”

Her jaw tightened. “I thought you loved me.”

“I thought you loved me.”

“You swore not to harm me!”

She was right. Her failure to keep her word did not mean I should stoop to the same level. “Very well. I won’t kill you — just her.”

“She’s my mother,” she snapped. “How much do you think it will harm me if you kill her right before my eyes?”

As much as she’d harmed me by betraying my trust. Maybe a bit more. “I’m not interested in bargains right now, Shahar. Move, or I’ll move you. I won’t be gentle this time.”

“Please,” she said, which ordinarily would only have goaded me further — bully — hou“but this time it did not. This time, to my own great surprise, the churning vortex of my rage slowed, then went still. In the sudden storm-calm, I gazed at her and realized another truth that she had hidden from me all this time. And perhaps not just from me. I glanced at Remath, who was staring at Shahar, surprised into an expression of astonishment at last. Yes.

“You love her,” I said.

And because Shahar was Arameri, she flinched as if struck and looked away in shame. But she did not move out of my way.

I let out a long, heavy sigh, and with it my power began to fade. I couldn’t have kept it up much longer anyhow; I was too old for tantrums.