A servant came near and began preparing my plate. “Would you like duck, Lady Oree?”
“Yes,” I said politely, and then registered the title. “But it’s just Oree. Not ‘Lady’ anything.”
“You undervalue yourself,” said Serymn. She sat to my right, perpendicular to me. There were at least seven others around the table; I could hear them murmuring to each other. The table was either rectangular or oval-shaped, and Serymn sat at its head. Someone else sat at the other end, across from her.
“It is appropriate for us to call you Lady,” Serymn said. “Please allow us to show you that courtesy.”
“But I’m not,” I said, confused. “There isn’t a drop of noble blood in me. Nimaro doesn’t have a noble family; they were wiped out with the Maroland.”
“I suppose that’s as good an opening as any to explain why we’ve brought you here,” Serymn said. “Since I’m certain you’ve wondered.”
“You might say so,” I said, annoyed. “Hado…” I hesitated. “Master Hado told me a little, but not enough.”
There were a few chuckles from my companions, including two low, male voices from the far end of the table. I recognized one of them and flushed: Hado.
Serymn sounded amused as well. “What we honor is not your wealth or status, Lady Oree, but your lineage.”
“My lineage is like the rest of me—common,” I snapped. “My father was a carpenter; my mother grew and sold medicinal herbs. Their parents were farmers. There’s nobody fancier than a smuggler in my entire family tree.”
“Allow me to explain.” She paused to take a sip of wine, leaning forward, and as she did, I caught a glimmer from her direction. I turned to quickly peer at it, but whatever it was had been obscured somehow.
“How curious,” said another of my table companions. “Most of the time she seems like an ordinary blind woman, not orienting her face toward anything in particular, but just now she seemed to see you, Serymn.”
I kicked myself. It probably would’ve done no good to conceal my ability, but I still hated giving them information inadvertently.
“Yes,” said Serymn. “Dateh did mention that she seems to have some perception where magic is concerned.” She did something, and suddenly I got a clear look at what I’d glimpsed. It was a small, solid circle of golden, glowing magic. No—the circle was not solid at all. In spite of myself, I leaned closer, narrowing my eyes. The circle consisted of dozens upon dozens of tiny, closely written sigils of the gods’ spiky language. Godwords. Sentences of them, a whole treatise’s worth, spiraling and overlapping each other so densely that from a distance the circle looked solid.
Then I understood, and drew back in shock.
Serymn moved again, letting her hair fall back into place, I realized by the way the sigil-circle vanished. Yes, it would be on her forehead.
That can’t be. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe it. But I had seen it with my own two magic eyes.
I licked my suddenly dry lips, folded my shaking hands in my lap, and mustered all my courage to speak. “What is an Arameri fullblood doing with some little heretic cult, Lady Serymn?”
The laughter that broke out around the table was not the reaction I’d been expecting. When it died down—I sat through it, uneasily silent—Serymn said in a voice that still rippled with amusement, “Please, Lady Oree, do eat. There’s no reason we can’t have a good conversation and enjoy a fine meal, is there?”
So I ate a few bites. Then I wiped my mouth using my best manners and sat up, making a point of waiting politely for an answer to my question.
Serymn uttered a soft sigh and wiped her own mouth. “Very well. I’m with this ‘little heretic cult,’ as you put it, because I have a goal to accomplish, and being here aids that purpose. But I should point out that the New Lights are neither little, nor heretical, nor a cult.”
“I was given to understand,” I said slowly, “that any form of worship other than that sanctioned by the Order was heretical.”
“Untrue, Lady Oree. By the law of the Bright—the law as set down by my family—only the worship of gods other than Itempas is heretical. The form in which we choose to worship is irrelevant. It’s true that the Order would prefer that the two concepts—obedience to the Bright Lord, obedience to the Order—be synonymous.” There was another soft roll of chuckles from our table companions. “But to put it bluntly, the Order is a mortal authority, not a godly one. We of the Lights merely recognize the distinction.”
“So you think the form of worship you’ve chosen is better than that of the Order?”
“We do. Our organization’s beliefs are fundamentally similar to those of the Order of Itempas—indeed, many of our members are former Order priests. But there are some significant differences.”
“Such as?”
“Do you really want to get into a doctrinal discussion right now, Lady Oree?” Serymn asked. “You’ll be introduced to our philosophy over the next few days, like any new initiate. I thought your questions would be more basic.”
They were. Still, I felt instinctively that the key to understanding the whole heaping pile of fanatics lay in understanding this woman. This Arameri. The fullbloods were the highest members of a family so devoted to order that they ranked and sorted themselves by how closely they could trace their lineage back to First Priestess Shahar. They were the power brokers, the decision makers—and sometimes, through the might of their god-slaves, the annihilators of nations.
Yet that had been before ten years ago, that strange and terrible day when the World Tree had grown and the godlings returned. There had always been rumors, but I knew the truth now, from Shiny’s own lips. The Arameri’s slaves had broken free; the Nightlord and the Gray Lady had overthrown Bright Itempas. The Arameri, though far from powerless, had lost their greatest weapons and their patron in one stunning blow.
What happened when people who’d once possessed absolute power suddenly lost it?
“All right,” I said carefully. “Basic questions. Why are you here, and why am I?”
“How much do you know of what happened ten years ago, Lady Oree?”
I hesitated, unsure. Was it safer to play the ignorant commoner, or reveal how much I knew? Would this Arameri woman have me killed if I told her family’s secret? Or was it a test to see if I would lie?
I tore off a piece of bread, more out of nervousness than hunger. “I… I know there are three gods again,” I said slowly. “I know Bright Itempas no longer rules alone.”
“Try ‘at all,’ Lady Oree,” Serymn said. “But you’ve guessed that, haven’t you? All true followers of Itempas know He would never permit the changes that have occurred in the past few years.”
I nodded, inadvertently thinking of Madding’s bed, and our lovemaking, and Shiny’s glowering disapproval. “That’s true,” I said, suppressing a bitter smile.
“Then we must consider His siblings, these new gods…”
One of Serymn’s companions let out a bark of laughter. “New? Come, now, Lady Serymn; we are not the gullible masses.” She glanced at me, and I was not fooled by the sweetness in her tone. “Most of us, anyhow.”
I set my jaw, refusing to be baited. Serymn took this with remarkable equanimity, I thought; I wouldn’t have expected an Arameri to brook much in the way of ridicule, even if most of it had been at someone else’s expense.
“Granted, ‘the Lord of Shadows’ was a feeble attempt at diversion,” she replied, then returned her attention to me. “But my family has had its hands full trying to prevent a panic, Lady Oree. After all, we spent centuries filling mortal hearts with terror at the prospect of the Nightlord’s release. Better that we should keep him leashed than he break loose and wreak his vengeance upon the world; that was how it went. Now only a few feeble lies keep the populace from realizing we could all go the way of the Maro.”
She referred to the destruction of my people—her family’s fault—with neither rancor nor shame, and it made me seethe. But that was ho
w Arameri were: they shrugged off their errors, when they could even be persuaded to admit them.
“He’s angry,” I said. Softly, because so was I. “The Nightlord. You know that, don’t you? He has given a deadline for the Arameri and the godlings to find his children’s killers.”
“Yes,” said Serymn. “That message was delivered to the Lord Arameri several days ago, I’m told. One month, from Role’s death. That leaves us approximately three weeks.”
She spoke like it was nothing, a god’s wrath. My hands fisted in my lap. “The Nightlord was bored when he destroyed the Maroland. He didn’t even have his full power at the time. Can you even imagine what he’ll do now?”
“Better than you can, Lady Oree.” Serymn spoke very softly. “I grew up with him, remember.”
The table fell silent. A clock somewhere in the room ticked loudly. All of us could hear the untold tales in her inflectionless tone—and then there was the biggest tale, lurking beneath the surface of the conversation like some leviathan: why had a woman so powerful, so apparently fearless, fled from Sky in the first place? And now, imagining horrors in the ticking stillness, I could not help wondering, What the hells did the Nightlord do to her?
“Fortunately,” said Serymn at last, and I exhaled in relief when the silence broke, “his anger fits well into our plans.”
I must have frowned, because she laughed. It sounded forced, though only a little.
“Consider, Lady Oree, that we have been saved once already by the third member of the Three. Consider what that means—what her presence means. Have you never wondered? Enefa of the Twilight, sister of Bright Itempas, has been dead for two thousand years. Who, then, is this Gray Lady? You’re acquainted with many of the city’s godlings. Did they explain this mystery to you?”
I blinked in surprise as I realized Madding had not. He had spoken of his mother’s death, grief still thick in his voice. But he had also spoken of his parents, plural and present. It was just one of those contradictions that one had to accept when dealing with gods; it hadn’t bothered me because I hadn’t thought it was important. But then, until recently, I thought I’d understood the hierarchy of the gods.
“No,” I said. “He—they never told me.”
“Hmm. Then I will tell you a great secret, Lady Oree. Ten years ago, a mortal woman betrayed her god and her humanity by conspiring to set the Nightlord—her lover—free. She succeeded, and for her efforts was rewarded with the lost power of Enefa. She became, in effect, a new Enefa, a goddess in her own right.”
I caught my breath in inadvertent surprise. I had never realized it was possible for a mortal to become a god. But that explained a great deal. The restrictions on the godlings, confining them within the city of Shadow; why the godlings so carefully policed each other to prevent mass destruction. A goddess who had once been mortal herself might take exception to the callous disregard for mortal life.
“The Gray Lady is irrelevant to us,” Serymn said, “beyond the fact that we have her to thank for the current peace.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “We’re counting on her intervention, in fact. Enefa—of whom this new goddess is essentially a copy—has always fought for the preservation of life. That is her nature; where her brothers are more extreme—quick to judge and quicker to wreak havoc—she maintains. She adapts to change and seeks stability within it. The Gods’ War was not the first time Itempas and Nahadoth had fought, after all. It was simply the first time they’d done it, since the creation of life, without Enefa around to keep the world in balance.”
I was shaking my head. “You mean you’re counting on this new Enefa to keep us safe? Are you kidding? Even if she used to be human, she’s not anymore. Now she thinks like any other god.” I thought of Lil. “And some of them are crazy.”
“If she’d wanted all humanity dead, she could have done it herself, many times over, during the past ten years.” The table shifted slightly as Serymn made some gesture. “She is the goddess of death as well as life. And, please remember, when she was mortal, she was Arameri. We have always been predictable.” I heard her smile. “I believe she will seek to channel the Nightlord’s rage in the most expedient manner. He need not destroy the whole world, after all, to avenge his children. Just a part of it will do. A single city, perhaps.”
I put my hands in my lap, my appetite gone.
Maroneh parents do not tell comforting bedtime tales. Just as we name our children for sorrow and rage, we also tell them stories that will make them cry and awaken in the night, shivering with nightmares. We want our children to be afraid and to never forget, because that way they will be prepared if the Nightlord should ever come again.
As he would soon come to Shadow.
“Why has the Order of Itempas…” I faltered, unsure of how to say it without offending a room full of former Order members. “The Nightlord. Why honor him just because he’s free? He already hates us. Do they actually think an angry god would be deterred by that kind of hypocrisy?”
“The gods aren’t who they’re trying to deter, Lady Oree.” This came from the man at the table’s far end. I stiffened. “It’s us they hope to appease.”
I knew that voice. I had heard it before—three times, now. At the south promenade, just before I’d killed the Order-Keepers. On Madding’s rooftop before all chaos had broken loose. And later, as I’d lain shivering and sick after my release from the Empty.
He sat at the far end of the table, opposite Serymn, radiating the same easy confidence as she. Of course he did; he was their Nypri.
As I sat there, trembling with fear and fury, Serymn chuckled. “Blunt as ever, Dateh.”
“It’s only the truth.” He sounded amused.
“Hmm. What my husband means to say, Lady Oree, is that the Order, and through it the Arameri family, desperately hopes to convince the rest of mortalkind that the world is as it should be. That despite the presence of all our new gods, nothing else should change—politically speaking. That we should feel happy… safe… complacent.”
Husband. An Arameri fullblood married to a heretic cultist?
“You’re not making any sense,” I said. I focused on the fork in my fingers, on the crackle of the dining room’s fireplace in the background. Those helped me stay calm. “You’re talking about the Arameri as if you’re not one of them.”
“Indeed. Let’s just say that my activities aren’t sanctioned by the rest of my family.”
The Nypri sounded amused. “Oh, they might approve—if they knew.”
Serymn laughed at this, as did others around the table. “Do you really think so? You’re far more of an optimist than I, my love.”
They bantered while I sat there, trying to make sense of nobility and conspiracy and a thousand other things that had never been a part of my life. I was just a street artist. Just an ordinary Maroneh, frightened and far from home.
“I don’t understand,” I said finally, interrupting them. “You’ve kidnapped me, brought me here. You’re trying to force me to join you. What does all this—the Nightlord, the Order, the Arameri—have to do with me?”
“More than you realize,” said the Nypri. “The world is in great danger at the moment—not just from the Nightlord’s wrath. Consider: for the first time in centuries, the Arameri are vulnerable. Oh, they still have immense political and financial strength, and they’re building an army that will make any rebel nation think twice. But they can be defeated now. Do you know what that means?”
“That someday we might have a different group of tyrants in charge?” Despite my efforts to be polite, I was growing annoyed. They kept talking in circles, never answering my questions.
Serymn seemed unoffended. “Perhaps—but which group? Every noble clan and ruling council and elected minister will want the chance to rule the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. And if they all strive for it at once, what do you think will happen?”
“More scandals and intrigues and assassinations and whatever else you people do with yo
ur time,” I said. Lady Nemmer would be pleased, at least.
“Yes. And coups, as weak nobles are replaced by stronger or more ambitious ones. And rebellions within those lands, as minority factions jostle for a share. And new alliances as smaller kingdoms band together for strength. And betrayals, because every alliance has a few.” Serymn let out a long, weary sigh. “War, Lady Oree. There will be war.”
Like the good Itempan girl I had never quite been, I nevertheless flinched. War was anathema to Bright Itempas. I had heard tales of the time before the Bright, before the Arameri had made laws to strictly regulate violence and conflict. In the old days, thousands had died in every battle. Cities had been razed to the ground, their inhabitants slaughtered as armies of warriors descended upon helpless civilians to rape and kill.
“Wh-where?” I asked.
“Everywhere.”
I could not imagine it. Not on such a scale. It was madness. Chaos.
Then I remembered. Nahadoth, the Lord of Night, was also the god of chaos. What more fitting vengeance could he wreak upon humanity?
“If the Arameri fall and the Bright ends, war returns,” Serymn said. “The Order of Itempas fears this more than any threat the gods pose, because it is the greater danger—not just to a city, but to our entire civilization. Already there are rumors of unrest in High North and on the islands—those lands that were forcibly converted to the worship of Itempas after the Gods’ War. They have never forgotten, or forgiven, what we did to them.”
“High Northers,” said someone else at the table, in a tone of scorn. “Darkling barbarians! Two thousand years and they’re still angry.”
“Barbarians, yes, and angry,” said Hado, whom I had forgotten was there. “But did we not feel the same anger when we were told to start worshipping the Nightlord?” There were grumbles of assent from around the table.
“Yes,” said the Nypri. “So the Order permits heresy and looks the other way when Itempas’s former faithful scorn their duties. They hope the exploration of new faiths will occupy the people and grant the Arameri time to prepare for the conflagration to come.”