He shrugged. “Why would he? You’re useless to him. He has his hands full dealing with Scimina and can’t afford distractions. The time—of the succession, I mean—is too close.”
I had suspected that as well. That was almost surely why they’d brought me here. It was probably why the family kept a scrivener in-house, to ensure that Dekarta didn’t die off schedule. It might even have been the reason for my mother’s murder after twenty years of freedom. Dekarta didn’t have much time left to tie up loose ends.
Abruptly Sieh climbed into the chair with me, straddling my lap, knees on either side of my hips. I flinched in surprise, and again when he flopped against me, resting his head on my shoulder.
“What are you—?”
“Please, Yeine,” he whispered. I felt his hands fist in the cloth of my jacket, at my sides. The gesture was so much that of a child seeking comfort that I could not help it; the stiffness went out of me. He sighed and snuggled closer, reveling in my tacit welcome. “Just let me do this a moment.”
So I sat still, wondering many things.
I thought he had fallen asleep when he finally spoke. “Kurue—my sister, Kurue, our leader inasmuch as we have one—invites you to meet.”
“Why?”
“You seek allies.”
I pushed at him; he sat back on my knees. “What are you saying? Are you offering yourselves?”
“Maybe.” The sly look was back. “You have to meet with us to find out.”
I narrowed my eyes in what I hoped was an intimidating look. “Why? As you said, I’m useless. What would you gain from allying with me?”
“You have something very important,” he said, serious now. “Something we could force you to give us—but we don’t want to do that. We are not Arameri. You have proven yourself worthy of respect, and so we will ask you to give that something to us willingly.”
I did not ask what they wanted. It was their bargaining chip; they would tell me if I met with them. I was rabidly curious, though—and excited, because he was right. The Enefadeh would make powerful, knowledgeable allies, even hobbled as they were. But I dared not reveal my eagerness. Sieh was nowhere near as childish, or as neutral, as he pretended to be.
“I will consider your request for a meeting,” I said in my most dignified voice. “Please convey to the Lady Kurue that I will give you a response in no more than three days.”
Sieh laughed and jumped off me, returning to the bed. He curled up in the middle of it and grinned at me. “Kurue’s going to hate you. She thought you’d jump at the chance, and here you are keeping her waiting!”
“An alliance made in fear or haste will not last,” I said. “I need a better understanding of my position before I do anything that will strengthen or weaken it. The Enefadeh must realize that.”
“I do,” he said, “but Kurue is wise and I’m not. She does what’s smart. I do what’s fun.” He shrugged, then yawned. “Can I sleep here, sometimes, with you?”
I opened my mouth, then caught myself. He played innocent so well that I’d almost said yes automatically.
“I’m not sure that would be proper,” I said at last. “You are very much older than me, and yet clearly underage. It would be a scandal, either way.”
His eyebrows flew up almost into his hairline. Then he burst out laughing, rolling onto his back and holding his middle. He laughed for a long time. Eventually, a bit annoyed, I got up and went to the door to summon a servant and order lunch. I ordered two meals out of politeness, though I had no idea what, or whether, gods ate.
When I turned, Sieh had finally stopped laughing. He sat on the edge of the bed, watching me, thoughtful.
“I could be older,” he said softly. “If you’d rather have me older, I mean. I don’t have to be a child.”
I stared at him and did not know whether to feel pity, nausea, or both at once.
“I want you to be what you are,” I said.
His expression grew solemn. “That isn’t possible. Not while I’m in this prison.” He touched his chest.
“Do—” I did not want to call them my family. “Do others ask you to be older?”
He smiled. It was, most horribly, very much a child’s smile. “Younger, usually.”
Nausea won. I put a hand to my mouth and turned away. Never mind what Ras Onchi thought. I would never call myself Arameri, never.
He sighed and came over, wrapping arms around me from behind and resting his head on my shoulder. I did not understand his constant need to touch me. I didn’t mind, but it made me wonder who he cuddled when I was not around. I wondered what price they demanded of him in exchange.
“I was ancient when your kind first began to speak and use fire, Yeine. These petty torments are nothing to me.”
“That’s beside the point,” I said. “You’re still…” I groped for words. Human might be taken as an insult.
He shook his head. “Only Enefa’s death hurts me, and that was no mortal’s doing.”
In that moment there was a deep, basso shudder throughout the palace. My skin prickled; in the bathroom something rattled for an instant, then went still.
“Sunset,” Sieh said. He sounded pleased as he straightened and went to one of my windows. The western sky was layered clouds, spectrum-painted. “My father returns.”
Where had he gone? I wondered, though I was distracted by another thought. The monster of my nightmares, the beast who had hunted me through walls, was father to Sieh.
“He tried to kill you yesterday,” I said.
Sieh shook his head dismissively, then clapped his hands, making me jump. “En. Naiasouwamehikach.”
It was gibberish, spoken in a singsong lilt, and for an instant while the sound lingered, my perception changed. I became aware of the faint echoes of each syllable from the room’s walls, overlapping and blending. I noticed the way the air felt as the sounds rippled through it. Along my floor into the walls. Through the walls to the support column that held up Sky. Down that column to the earth.
And the sound was carried along as the earth rolled over like a sleepy child, as we hurtled around the sun through the cycle of seasons and the stars around us did a graceful cartwheel turn—
I blinked, momentarily surprised to find myself still in the room. But then I understood. The earliest decades of the scrivening art’s history were littered with its founders’ deaths, until they’d restricted themselves to the written form of the language. It amazed me now that they’d even tried. A tongue whose meaning depended upon not only syntax and pronunciation and tone, but also one’s position in the universe at any given moment—how could they even have imagined mastering that? It was beyond any mortal.
Sieh’s yellow ball appeared out of nowhere and bounced into his hands. “Go and see, then find me,” he commanded, and threw the ball away. It bounced against a nearby wall, then vanished.
“I’ll deliver your message to Kurue,” he said, heading toward the wall beside my bed. “Consider our offer, Yeine, but do it quickly, will you? Time passes so swiftly with your kind. Dekarta will be dead before you know it.”
He spoke to the wall and it opened before him, revealing another narrow dead space. The last thing I saw was his grin as it closed behind him.
7. Love
How strange. I have only now realized that this whole affair was nothing more than one family squabble pitted against another.
From my window in Sky, it seemed as though I could see the whole of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. That was a fallacy, I knew; scriveners have proven that the world is round. Yet it was easy to imagine. So many winking lights, like stars on the ground.
My people were audacious builders once. We carved our cities into mountainsides and positioned our temples to make a calendar of the stars—but we could never have built anything like Sky. Nor could the Amn, of course, not without the aid of their captive gods, but this is not the main reason Sky is deeply, profoundly wrong in Darre eyes. It is blasphemy to separate oneself from the earth and look down on it like a god. It is more than blasphemy; it is dangerous. We can never be gods, after all—but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.
Still… I could not help drinking in the view. It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.
I was very tired. I had been in Sky for little more than a day, and so much of my life had changed. In Darr, I was effectively dead. I had left no heirs, and now the council would appoint some other young woman, of some other lineage, as ennu. My grandmother would be so disappointed—and yet this was nothing more than what she had feared all along. I was not dead, but I had become Arameri, and that was just as bad.
As an Arameri, I was expected to show no favoritism to my birthland and consider the needs of all nations equally. I had not done so, of course. As soon as T’vril and Sieh were gone, I had contacted each of my assigned nations and suggested—knowing full well that a suggestion from an Arameri heir is not a suggestion—that they consider resuming trade with Darr. It had not been an official trade embargo, the lean years since my mother’s defection from the Arameri. We could have protested an embargo to the Consortium, or found ways to circumvent it. Instead, every nation that hoped to curry favor with our rulers simply chose to ignore Darr’s existence. Contracts were broken, financial obligations abandoned, lawsuits dismissed; even smugglers avoided us. We became pariah.
So the least I could do with my newfound, unwanted Arameri power was to accomplish part of my purpose in coming here.
As for the rest of my purpose… well. The walls of Sky were hollow, its corridors a maze. This left many places wherein the secrets of my mother’s death could hide.
I would hunt them down, every one.