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 how 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.”