The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (26 page)

All the men in the room reacted to Rish’s cry. One stumbled back from the table and nearly fell over a chair. Two others ran over to Rish to try and help him. Gemd moved to help as well, but some powerful preservative instinct must have risen in the well-dressed man beside him; he grabbed Gemd by the shoulder to halt him. That turned out to be wise, because the first of the men who reached Rish—one of the Toks—grabbed Rish’s wrist to see what was the matter.

The black was spreading swiftly; nearly the whole hand was now a glittering lump of black crystal in the rough shape of a fist. Only the tips of Rish’s fingers remained flesh, and they transformed even as I watched. Rish fought the Tok, maddened with agony, and the Tok grabbed Rish’s fist in an effort to hold him still. Almost immediately he jerked away, as if the stone had been too cold to touch—and then the Tok, too, stared at his palm, and the black blotch that was now spreading there.

Not merely crystal, I realized, in the part of my mind that was not frozen in horror. The black substance was too pretty to be quartz, too flawless and clear in its faceting. The stone caught the light like diamond, because that was what their flesh had become. Black diamond, the rarest and most valuable of all.

The Tok began to scream. So did several others of the men in the room.

Through it all I remained still and kept my face impassive.

He shouldn’t have tried to hit me. He deserved what he got. He shouldn’t have tried to hit me.

And the man who tried to help him? What did that one deserve?

They are all my enemies, my people’s enemies. They should not have… they should not… Oh, gods. Gods.

The Nightlord cannot be controlled, child. He can only be unleashed. And you asked him not to kill.

I could not show weakness.

So while the two men flailed and screamed, I stepped around them and walked up to the table. Gemd looked at me, his mouth distorted with disgust and disbelief.

I said, “Take all the time you like to discuss my order.” Then I turned to leave.

“W-wait.” Gemd. I paused, not allowing my eyes to linger on the two men. Rish was almost half diamond now, the stone creeping over his arm and chest, down one leg and up the side of his neck. He lay on the floor, no longer screaming, though he still keened in a low, agonized voice. Perhaps his throat had turned to diamond already. The other man was reaching toward his comrades, begging for a sword so he could cut off his arm. A young fellow—one of Gemd’s heirs, to judge by his features—drew his blade and edged close, but then another man grabbed him and hauled him back. Another wise decision; flecks of black no larger than a grain of sand sparkled on the floor around the two men. Bits of Rish’s flesh, transformed and cast about by his flailing. As I watched, the Tok fell onto his good hand, and his thumb touched one of the flecks. It, too, began to change.

“Stop this,” Gemd murmured.

“I did not start it.”

He cursed swiftly in his language. “Stop it, gods damn you! What kind of monster are you?”

I could not help laughing. That there was no humor in it, only bitter self-loathing, would be lost on them.

“I’m an Arameri,” I said.

One of the men behind us abruptly fell silent, and I turned. Not the Tok; he was still shrieking while blackness ate its way down his spine. The diamond had spread to encompass Rish’s mouth and was consuming the whole lower half of his face. It seemed to have stopped on his torso, though it was working its way down his remaining leg. I suspected it would stop altogether once it had consumed the nonvital parts of his body, leaving him mutilated and perhaps mad, but alive. I had, after all, asked Nahadoth not to kill.

I averted my eyes, lest I give myself away by throwing up.

“Understand this,” I said. The horror in my heart had crept into my voice; it lent me a deeper timbre, and a hint of resonance, that I had not possessed before. “If letting these men die will save my people, then they will die.” I leaned forward, putting my hands on the table. “If killing everyone in this room, everyone in this palace, will save my people, then know, Gemd: I will do it. You would, too, if you were me.”

He had been staring at Rish. Now his eyes jerked toward me, and I saw realization and loathing flicker through them. Was there a hint of self-loathing amid that hatred? Had he believed me when I’d said you would, too? Because he would. Anyone would, I understood now. There was nothing we mortals would not do when it came to protecting our loved ones.

I would tell myself that for the rest of my life.

“Enough.” I barely heard Gemd over the screams, but I saw his mouth move. “Enough. I’ll call off the attack.”

“And disband the alliance?”

“I can speak only for Menchey.” There was something broken in his tone. He did not meet my eyes. “The others may choose to continue.”

“Then warn them, Minister Gemd. The next time I’m forced to do this, two hundred will suffer instead of two. If they press the issue, two thousand. You chose this war, not I. I will not fight fairly.”

Gemd looked at me in mute hatred. I held his eyes awhile longer, then turned to the two men, one of whom still shuddered and whimpered on the floor. The other, Rish, seemed catatonic. I walked over to them. The glimmering, deadly black flecks did not harm me, though they crunched under my feet.

Nahadoth could stop the magic, I was certain. He could probably even restore the men to wholeness—but Darr’s safety depended on my ability to strike fear into Gemd’s heart.

“Finish it,” I whispered.

The black surged and consumed each of the men in seconds. Chill vapors rose around them as their final screams mingled with the sounds of flesh crackling and bone snapping, then all of it died away. In the men’s place lay two enormous, faceted gems in the rough shape of huddled figures. Beautiful, and quite valuable, I guessed; if nothing else, their families would live well from henceforth. If the families chose to sell their loved ones’ remains.

I passed between the diamonds on my way out. The guards who had come in behind me moved out of my way, some of them stumbling in their haste. The doors swung shut behind me, quietly this time. When they were closed, I stopped.

“Shall I take you home?” asked Nahadoth. Behind me.

“Home?”

“Sky.”

Ah, yes. Home, for Arameri.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Darkness enveloped me. When it cleared, we were in Sky’s forecourt again, though at the Garden of the Hundred Thousand this time rather than the Pier. A path of polished stones wound between neat, orderly flower beds, each overhung with a different type of exotic tree. In the distance, through the leaves, I could see the starry sky and the mountains that met it.

I walked through the garden until I found a spot with an unimpeded view, beneath a miniature satinbell tree. My thoughts turned in slow, lazy spirals. I was growing used to the cool feel of Nahadoth behind me.

“My weapon,” I said to him.

“As you are mine.”

I nodded, sighing into a breeze that lifted my hair and set the leaves of the satinbell a-rustle. As I turned to face Nahadoth, a scud of cloud passed across the moon’s crescent. His cloak seemed to inhale in that dim instant, growing impossibly until it almost eclipsed the palace in rippling waves of black. Then the cloud passed, and it was just a cloak again.

I felt like that cloak all of a sudden—wild, out of control, giddily alive. I lifted my arms and closed my eyes as another breeze gusted. It felt so good.

“I wish I could fly,” I said.

“I can gift you with that magic, for a time.”

I shook my head, closing my eyes to sway with the wind. “Magic is wrong.” I knew that oh, so well now.

He said nothing to that, which surprised me until I thought deeper. After witnessing so many generations of Arameri hypocrisy, perhaps he no longer cared enough to complain.

It was tempting, so tempting, to stop caring myself. My mother, Darr, the succession; what did any of it matter? I could forget all of that so easily, and spend the remainder of my life—all four days of it—indulging any whim or pleasure I wanted.

Any pleasure, except one.

“Last night,” I said, lowering my arms at last. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“You’re more useful alive.”

I laughed. I felt light-headed, reckless. “Does that mean I’m the only person in Sky who has nothing to fear from you?” I knew it was a stupid question before I finished speaking, but I do not think I was entirely sane in that moment.

Fortunately, the Nightlord did not answer my stupid, dangerous question. I glanced back at him to gauge his mood and saw that his nightcloak had changed again. This time the wisps had spun long and thin, drifting through the garden like layers of campfire smoke. The ones nearest me curled inward, surrounding me on all sides. I was reminded of certain plants in my homeland, which grew teeth or sticky tendrils to ensnare insects.

And at the heart of this dark flower, my bait: his glowing face, his lightless eyes. I stepped closer, deeper into his shadow, and he smiled.

“You wouldn’t have had to kill me,” I said softly. I ducked my head and looked up at him through my lashes, curving my body in silent invitation. I had seen prettier women do this all my life, yet never dared myself. I lifted a hand and moved it toward his chest, half-expecting to touch nothing and be snatched forward into darkness. But this time there was a body within the shadows, startling in its solidity. I could not see it, or my own hand where I touched him, but I could feel skin, smooth and cool beneath my fingertips.

Bare skin. Gods.

I licked my lips and met his eyes. “There’s a great deal you could have done without compromising my… usefulness.”

Something in his face changed, like a cloud across the moon: the shadow of the predator. His teeth were sharper when he spoke. “I know.”

Something in me changed, too, as the wild feeling went still. That look in his face. Some part of me had been waiting for it.

“Would you?” I licked my lips again, swallowed around sudden tightness in my throat. “Kill me? If… I asked?”

There was a pause.

When the Lord of Night touched my face, fingertips tracing my jaw, I thought I was imagining things. There was an unmistakable tenderness in the gesture. But then, just as tenderly, the hand slid farther down and curled around my neck. As he leaned close, I closed my eyes.

“Are you asking?” His lips brushed my ear as he whispered.

I opened my mouth to speak and could not. All at once I was trembling. Tears welled in my eyes, spilled down my face onto his wrist. I wanted to speak, to ask, so badly. But I just stood there, trembling and crying, while his breath tickled my ear. In and out. Three times.

Then he released my neck, and my knees buckled. I fell forward, and suddenly I was buried in the soft, cool dark of him, pressed against a chest I could not see, and I began sobbing into it. After a moment, the hand that had almost killed me cupped the nape of my neck. I must have bawled for an hour, though maybe it was less. I don’t know. He held me tight the whole time.

ALL THAT REMAINS OF THE TIME before the Gods’ War is whispered myth and half-forgotten legend. The priests are quick to punish anyone caught telling these tales. There was nothing before Itempas, they say; even in the age of the Three, he was first and greatest. Still, the legends persist.

For example: it is said that once people made sacrifices of flesh to the Three. They would fill a room with volunteers. Young, old, female, male, poor, wealthy, healthy, infirm; all the variety and richness of humanity. On some occasion that was sacred to all Three—this part has been lost with time—they would call out to their gods and beg them to partake of the feast.

Enefa, it is said, would claim the elders and the ill—the epitome of mortality. She would give them a choice: healing or gentle, peaceful death. The tales say more than a few chose the latter, though I cannot imagine why.

Itempas took then what he takes now—the most mature and noble, the brightest, the most talented. These became his priests, setting duty and propriety above all else, loving him and submitting to him in all things.

Nahadoth preferred youths, wild and carefree—though he would claim the odd adult, too. Anyone willing to yield to the moment. He seduced them and was seduced by them; he reveled in their lack of inhibition and gave them everything of himself.

The Itempans fear talk of that age will lead people to yearn for it anew and turn to heresy. I think perhaps they overestimate the danger. Try as I might, I cannot imagine what it was like to live in a world like that, and I have no desire to return to it. We have enough trouble with one god now; why in the Maelstrom would we want to live again under three?

I wasted the next day, a quarter of my remaining life. I had not meant to. But I had not returned to my rooms until nearly dawn, my second night of little sleep, and my body demanded recompense by sleeping past noon. I had dreams of a thousand faces, representing millions, all distorted with agony or terror or despair. I smelled blood and burned flesh. I saw a desert littered with fallen trees because it had once been a forest. I woke up weeping; such was my guilt.

Late that afternoon there was a knock at the door. Feeling lonely and neglected—not even Sieh had come to visit—I went to answer, hoping it was a friend.

It was Relad.

“What in the names of every useless god have you done?” he demanded.

The arena, Relad had told me. Where the highbloods played at war.

That was where I would find Scimina, who had somehow found out about my efforts to counter her meddling. He had said it between curses and profanities and much maligning of my inferior halfbreed bloodlines, but that much I understood. What Scimina had found out Relad did not seem to know, which gave me some hope… but not much.

I was shaking with tension when I emerged from the lift amid a crowd of backs. Those nearest the lift had made some space, perhaps after being jostled from behind by new arrivals too many times, but beyond that was a solid wall of people. Most were white-clad servants; a few were better dressed, bearing the marks of quarter- or eighthbloods. Here and there I rubbed against brocade or silk as I gave up politeness and just started pushing my way through. It was slow going because most of them towered over me, and because they were wholly riveted on whatever was happening at the center of the room.