I lightly touched his cheek and let my power shudder into his skin, giving him a memory as fresh as though it were present, not past. I made him remember when I rejected him, and said I would never marry him. He flinched away. Do not make me repeat myself, I said.
Fatigue drifts up my body. I do not know when last I slept. I remember how Sid, when I first met her, and I huddled in the prison cell opposite hers, had fought sleep. She held it off as though it were no burden to do so, as though it were an entertaining game, and she enjoyed wakefulness. She claimed her people had trained to get by on little sleep. That could very well have been true, yet Sid was skilled at using the truth to hide the truth. Now I know that she stayed awake to protect me. She kept a watchful eye while I slept.
My breath is shallow, my ribs tight. I am not inexhaustible, it seems. The power I have used comes at a price, though I was able to affect greater numbers in the attacking army with my power than Aden could with his. Rinah tore down the wall with her magic, but she collapsed soon afterward, and is still sleeping. Aden looked terrible after the battle, his skin dull, eyes stamped with dark circles, and it is possible he didn’t resist my orders because he lacked the energy to do so. I am not exhausted, yet my feet feel as though they are made of stone, and I lug them up the hill toward the High quarter, toward the house I shared with Sid.
The keys rest in the pocket of my frayed and dirty dress, which I have worn since the night Sid left me. The silk is the color of the sky just before it deepens to true night. The keys tap against my thigh, light as Sid’s fingers.
The High quarter screams. Terrified cries ring out into the streets as my soldiers haul High-Kith lords and ladies from their homes. It is as if the buildings themselves are shrieking. I survey the scene with pride, catching the eyes of my loyal people, their expressions aglow. The god of vengeance must smile down upon us, to see what I see.
Flames blaze against the horizon. Half Kith have set a palatial home on fire, and while I make a note to forbid this sort of thing—it is a waste of resources, of luxuries we now claim as ours—I decide to allow my people’s entertainment for now. They had nothing for so long. What could be wrong with a little fun for them, this one night? Their loyalty to me will only grow with it, for it was I who gave them this pleasure.
And yet—a feeling like panic pinches my lungs—Sid’s house must not be touched. I hasten to it, worried about both the house and my need to preserve it, but I decide the need is because the house belongs to me, not to Sid, at least not any longer. I beckon one of the Half-Kith men I recognize from the Ward and order him to spread the word that the narrow house on the steep hill with the view of the sea, which Sid chose because she cared more for the extravagance of the view than the extravagance of the accommodations, is to be spared. “There is no one there,” I tell him. “Not anymore.”
And yet there is. When I enter the home, I smell her perfume. It lingers, smoky and sweet, in her favorite chair. Sid’s ghost walks beside me, her hand staying my course, light on my hip, sliding up my ribs. She presses me down into the chair, the brocade unusually dark, as black as her eyes, the wood slippery and scented with orange oil. She presses her mouth against my neck, and my head tips back.
Do you miss me? she asks.
You know I do.
Show me how you miss me.
I sit up straight in the chair, shaking away my vision of her. The chaos in the streets echoes through the windows. I light a lantern, and the oily flame gives a wavering dimension to the room. On the table beside the chair rests a glass with a remainder of green liquor at its bottom—what she was drinking when the monstrous-looking man, the one with no nose and no ears, came, and she chose her old life over the one she was making with me.
I no longer pretend she is there, but I cannot will away the perfect memory of her, and although I feel a blankness when I think of love, a feeling as thin and empty as a glass bubble in my chest, I resent her for leaving.
And I still want her. I want the feel of her mouth on me.
What is this? How can she affect me still?
It is your memory, Other Nirrim whispers. Your memory of her haunts you. Your memory of me haunts you.
I bat away her voice as though it is a fly. I am tired. That is all. I ignore the twinge of worry that maybe my mind is shivering into pieces.
Nirrim, Other Nirrim says.
Go away.
I cannot go away. I am you.
You are who I used to be.
Tell me, Other Nirrim says, what will you do with the Middlings? Outside, the sound of shattering glass cracks the night. What will you do with the High-Kith children?
THE GOD
ONCE THERE WAS A GOD who wearied of the pantheon. One hundred gods. That was all, for eternity? Little wonder we connived against one another, fell in and out of love, and nursed resentments that could last a human century or more. Yes, there were gods who somehow did not fall prey to inevitable boredom, who cherished certain fellow gods. The Seamstress and Death remained true to each other, and rose above the pettiness of others. This only intensified the restlessness of the rest of the pantheon. We are gods, they said. We are eternal. It is tiresome. We crave newness. An escape from ourselves.
When we walked in Herrath, our island of jungle and pink sand, with its stone city of Ethin reared by mortals in our honor, what we sought was easy to find. Mortals touched us with their dragonfly lives, with their courage in the face of inevitable death. By living alongside us they changed us. They gave us children. They surprised us with their own gifts. Their rage, their hope.
But you know as well as I that it did not last. Our demigod children, with the aid of the god of thieves, murdered Thievery’s brother Discovery. The pantheon erupted in fear and fury. One of the hundred was dead. An immortal could die. The rest of us—save the spurned god of thieves—fled to our realm. We pulled our opaque cloak of divinity around us. Mortals forgot us, almost, and we were left with one another.
What was there to do but quarrel? I taunted another god. Had it been any other god, I might have emerged unscathed, but this was the red-haired god of games, as bright as the edge of a knife. You seem very sure of yourself, she said. Would you care to make a wager?
Though reckless, I am no fool. I knew that she had tempted me to taunt her, so that she could offer her challenge and make it seem as though I alone had provoked it. It is her nature not only to game, but also to make a game of games. Mortal, never play against a god, let alone this god. Yet she had pricked my honor, and I was bored. What are the stakes? I demanded.
She ignored my question. She said, You have been talking with the god of foresight.
No, I lied.
Yes. You have been meddling in human affairs. You have been watching the lands beyond Herrath, and the great war that consumes them. You have a mortal favorite: Arin of the Herrani.
I denied it. Death loves him, I said. One did not stray into Death’s territory—at least, no one wise.
Wisdom, however, has never been my strength.
Lucky mortal—the red-haired god smiled—to have been blessed with the love of not one, but two gods. Arin seeks his revenge, and he will face General Trajan in the field.
So the god of foresight had told me, but I kept silent about that.
The god of games continued, One of them will fall. Trajan, however, will escape Arin’s sword. Trajan will live.
That is not true.