The Kingdom of Gods

“No mortal tongue has words for it,” I said softly. I would have to speak diplomatically, and that was never easy for me. “In our realm there is no need for words. Naturally you will have picked up some of our tongue over the centuries. …” I let the question ask itself, and he grimaced.

“Not much of it. I couldn’t hear … feel …” He struggled to say it in Senmite, probably out of stubbornness. “I was like any other mortal before Yeine did this to me. I tried speaking your words a few times, died a few times, and stopped trying.”

“Your words now.” I watched Ahad absorb this, his expression going unreadably blank. “I can teach you the language, if you want.”

“There are several dozen godlings living in Shadow,” he replied stiffly. “If and when I deem it valuable, I can learn from them.”

Idiot, I thought, but kept it behind my teeth, nodding as if I thought deliberate ignorance was a good idea. “You have a bigger problem, anyway.”

He said nothing, watching me. He could do that for hours, I knew; something he’d learned during his years in Sky. I had no idea whether he knew what I was about to say.

“You don’t know your nature.” That was how I’d known I could best him, or at least get him off me, in the contest of our wills. His reaction to the touch of my thoughts had given it away: I had seen mortal newbornlikof it.s do the same at the brush of a fingertip. A quick, startled jerk, a flailing look to determine what and how and why, and will it hurt me? Only learning oneself better, and understanding one’s place in the world, made the touch of another mundane.

After a moment, Ahad nodded. This, too, was a gesture of trust between us. In the old days he would never have revealed so much weakness to me.

I sighed and got up, swaying only a little as I gained my feet, and went over to his chair. He did not rise this time, but he grew palpably less relaxed as I got closer, until I stopped.

“I will do you no harm,” I said, scowling at his skittishness. Why couldn’t he just be a coldhearted bastard all the time? I could never truly hate him, for pity. “The Arameri hurt you worse than I ever did.”

Very, very quietly he replied, “You let them.”

There was nothing I could say to that, because it was true. So I just stood there. This would never work if we began to rehash old hurts. He knew it, too. Finally he relaxed, and I stepped closer.

“All gods must learn who and what they are for themselves,” I said. As gently as I could — my hands were rough and dirty from my days in the alley — I cupped his face and held it. “Only you can define the meaning and limit of your existence. But sometimes, those of us who have already found ourselves can give the new ones a clue.”

I had already gained that clue during our brief metaphysical struggle. That fierce, devouring need of his. For what? I looked into his strangely mortalish eyes — strange because he had never really been mortal, yet mortality was all he knew — and tried to understand him. Which I should have been able to do because I had been there at the moment of his birth. I had seen his first steps and heard his first words. I had loved him, even if —

The nausea struck faster than ever before, because the alcohol had already made me ill. I barely managed to whirl away and collapse onto the floor before I was retching, screaming through the heaves, wobbling because my legs were trying to jerk and my spine was trying to bow backward even as my stomach sought to cast out the poison I had taken in. But this poison was not physical.

“Still a child after all.” Ahad sighed into my ear, his voice a low murmur that easily got through my strangled cries. “Shall I call you big brother or little brother? I suppose it doesn’t matter. You will never grow up fully, no matter how old you look. Brother.”

Brother. Brother. Not child, not

forget

Ahad was not my son, not even figuratively, because

forget

Because a god of childhood could not be a father, not if he wanted to be at all, and

forgetforgetforget

Brother. Ahad was my brother. My new little brother, Yeine’s first chto herild. Nahadoth would be … well, not proud, probably. But amused.

My body unknotted. The agony receded enough that I stopped screaming, stopped spasming. There was nothing in my stomach anyhow. I lay there, returning gradually to myself as the horror faded, then drew one cautious breath. Then another.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Ahad, crouching over me, sighed. He did not say you’re welcome, because I was not welcome and we both knew it. But he had done me a kindness when he hadn’t had to, and that deserved acknowledgment.