The Kingdom of Gods

Before I could close the door, however, two people came up the steps, giggling together with the careless intimacy of old friends or new lovers. One of them turned her hea I ight=side em">

“Sieh.” She looked me up and down and smirked. “So the rumors are true; you’re back. Two thousand years wasn’t enough mortal flesh to satisfy you?”

Once upon a time, Egan had been worshipped by a desert tribe in eastern Senm. She had taught them to play music that could bring rain, and they had sculpted a mountain face to make a statue of her in return. Those people were gone now, absorbed into the Amn during one of that tribe’s endless campaigns of conquest before the War. After the War, I had destroyed Egan’s statue myself, under orders from the Arameri to eliminate anything that blasphemed against Itempas, no matter how beautiful. And here stood the original in mortal flesh, with an Amn man’s hand on her breast.

“I’m here by accident,” I said. “What’s your excuse?”

She lifted a graceful eyebrow, set into a beautiful Amn face. It was a new face, of course. Before the War, she had looked more like the people of the desert tribe. Both of us ignored the mortal, who had by now begun trying to nibble at her neck.

“Boredom,” she said. “Experience. The usual. During the War, it was the ones who’d spent the most time among mortalkind, defining their natures, who survived best.” Her eyes narrowed. “Not that you helped.”

“I fought the madman who destroyed our family,” I said wearily. “And yes, I fought anyone who helped him. I don’t understand why everyone acts like I did a horrible thing.”

“Because you — all of you who fought for Naha — lost yourselves in it,” Egan snapped, her body tensing so with fury that her paramour lifted his head to blink at her in surprise. “He infected you with his fury. You didn’t just kill those who fought; you killed anyone who tried to stop you. Anyone who pleaded for calm, if you thought they should’ve been fighting. Mortals, if they had the temerity to ask you for help. In the Maelstrom’s name, you act like Tempa was the only one who went mad that day!”

I stared at her, fury ratcheting higher in me, and then, suddenly, it died. I couldn’t sustain it. Not while I stood there with my head still aching from alcohol and Ahad’s beating the day before, and my skin crawling as infinitesimal flecks of it died — some renewed, some lost forever, all of it slowly becoming dryer and less elastic until one day it would be nothing but wrinkles and liver spots. Egan’s lover touched her shoulder to try and soothe her, a pathetic gesture, but it seemed to have some effect, because she relaxed just a little and smiled ruefully at him, as if to apologize for destroying the mood. That made me think of Shahar, and how lonely I was, and how lonely I would be for the rest of my mercilessly brief life. It is very, very hard to sustain a two-thousand-year-old grudge amid all that.

I shook my head and turned to go back into my room. But just before I could close the door, I heard Egan. “Sieh. Wait.”

Warily I opened the door again. She was frowning at me. “Something’s different about you. What is it?”

I shook my head again. “Nothing that should matter to you. Look …” It occurred to me suddenly that I would never have a chance to say this to her or to any of my siblings. I would die with so much unfinished business. It wasn’t fair. “I’m sorry, Egan. I know that means nothing after everything that’s happened. I wish …” So many wishes. I laughed a little. “Never mind.”

“Are you going to be working here?” She smoothed a hand over her mortal man’s back; he sighed and leaned against her, happy again.

“No.” Then I remembered Ahad’s plans. “Not … like this.” I gestured toward her with my chin. “No offense, but I’m not overly fond of mortals right now.”

“Understandable, after all you’ve been through.” I blinked in surprise, and she smiled thinly. “None of us liked what Itempas did, Sieh. But by then, imprisoning you seemed the only sane choice he’d made, after so much insanity.” She sighed. “We all had a long time to think about how wrong that decision was. And then … well, you know how he is about changing his mind.”

By which she meant he didn’t. “I know.”

Egan glanced at her mortal, thoughtful, and then at me. Then at the mortal again. “What do you think?”

The man looked surprised but pleased. He looked at me, and abruptly I realized what they were considering. I couldn’t help blushing, which made the man smile. “I think it would be nice,” he said.