“Where is Deka?” I asked.
“He left this morning. Shahar has kept him busy since Kahl’s attack. He and the scriveners have been setting up all manner of defensive magics, internal gates, and even scripts that can move the palace, though not with any great speed. When he hasn’t been here, tending you, he’s been working.”
I paused in the middle of pulling on pants. “How long have I been, er, incapacitated?”
“Almost two weeks.”
More of my life slept away. I sighed and resumed dressing.
“Morad has been busy organizing the palace’s operations and preparing sufficient living quarters for the highbloods,” Glee continued. “Ramina has even put the courtiers to work. Remath has begun transferring power to Shahar, which requires endless paperwork and meetings with the military, the nobles, the Order…” She shook her head and sighed. “And since none of those are permitted to come here, the palace’s gates and message spheres have seen heavy use. Only Remath’s orders keep Shahar here, and no doubt if Deka were not First Scrivener and essential to making the palace ready, she would have him visiting fifty thousand kingdoms as her proxy.”
I frowned, going to the mirror to see if anything could be done about my hair. It was far too long, nearly to my knees. Someone had cut it already, I suspected, because given my usual pattern it should have been long enough to fill the room by this point. I willed scissors to appear on a nearby dresser, and they did. Almost like being a god again.
“Why the urgency?” I asked. “Has something happened?” I hacked clumsily at my hair, which of course offended Glee. She made a sound of irritation, coming over to me and taking the scissors from my hand.
“The urgency is all Remath’s.” She worked quickly, at least. I saw hanks of hair fall to the floor around my feet. She was leaving it too long, brushing my collar, but at least I wouldn’t trip on it now. “She seems convinced that the transition must be completed sooner rather than later. Perhaps she has told Shahar the reason for her haste; if so, Shahar has not shared this knowledge with the rest of us.” Glee shrugged.
I turned to her, hearing the unspoken. “How has Shahar been, then, as queen of her own little kingdom?”
“Sufficiently Arameri.”
Which was both reassuring and troubling.
Finishing, Glee brushed off my back and set the scissors down. I looked at myself in the mirror and nodded thanks, then immediately ran fingers through my hair to make it look messier. This annoyed Glee further; she turned away, her lips pursed in disapproval. “Shahar wanted to be informed when you were up and about, so I let a servant know when you began to stir. Expect a summons shortly.”
“Fine. I’ll be ready.”
I followed Glee out of the bedchamber and into a wide, nicely apportioned room of couches and sidebars that smelled of Deka, though it did not at all feel like him. No books. One whole wall of this room was a window, overlooking the bridge-linked tiers of the palace and the placid ocean beyond. The sky was blue and cloudless, noonday bright.
“So what now?” I asked, going to stand at the window. “For you and Itempas? I assume Naha and Yeine are searching for Kahl.”
“As are Ahad and his fellow godlings. But the fact that they have not yet found him—and did not, prior to his attack—suggests he has always had some means of hiding from us. Perhaps he simply retreats to wherever Enefa kept him hidden before now. That worked well enough for millennia.”
“Darr,” I said. “The mask was there.”
“Not anymore. Immediately after leaving here, Kahl went to Darr and took the mask. To be precise, he forced a young Darren man to pick up the mask, and took him. The Darre are furious; when Yeine arrived, searching for Kahl, they told her everything.” Glee folded her arms, the expression on her face very familiar. “Apparently Kahl approached Usein Darr’s grandmother, more than fifty years ago. He showed them how to combine the art of mask making with scrivening techniques and godsblood, and they took it further still. In exchange, he claimed the best of their mask makers and had them work on a special project for him. He killed them, Sieh, when they’d done whatever work he needed. The Darre say the mask grew more powerful—and Kahl grew less able to approach it himself—with every life he gave it.”
I knew what Kahl was doing now. That sickening churn of wild, raw power I’d felt near the mask, like a storm—the Three had been born from something like that. A new god could be made from something similar.
But he’d killed mortals to give it power? That I didn’t understand. Mortals were children of the Maelstrom, it was true; we all were, however distant. But the power of the Three was as a volcano to mortals’ candleflames. Mortal strength was so much lesser than ours as to be, well, nothing. If Kahl wanted to create himself anew as a god, he would need far more power than that.
I sighed, rubbing my eyes. Didn’t I have enough to worry about? Why did I have to deal with all these mortal issues, too?
Because I am mortal.
Ah, yes. I kept forgetting.
Glee said nothing more, so I experimented with wishing for food, and the precise meal I wanted—a bowl of soup and cookies shaped like cute prey animals—appeared on a nearby table. No need for servants indeed, I mused as I ate. That would serve the family’s security interests well, as they would have no need to hire non-Arameri. There would always be a need for certain tasks to be done, though, like running errands, and the Arameri were the Arameri. Those with power would always find some way to exert it over those who didn’t. Yeine was naïve to hope that such a simple change might free the family of its historic obsession with status.
Still… I was glad for her naïveté. That was always the nicest thing about having a newborn god around. They were willing to try things the rest of us were too jaded even to consider.
The knock at the door came just as I finished eating. “Come.”
A servant stepped inside, bowing to both of us. “Lord Sieh. Lady Shahar requests your presence, if you are feeling better.”
I looked at Glee, who inclined her head to me. This could have meant anything from hurry up to hope she doesn’t kill you. With a sigh, I rose and followed the servant out.
Shahar had not chosen the Temple as her seat of power. (Already it had acquired capital-letter status in my heart, because what I had done with Deka there was holy.) The servant led us instead to a chamber deep within the palace’s heart, directly below the central high platform that had already come to be called the Whorl. Deka and his crew had been busy, I saw as we walked. Transport-sigils had been painted at intervals throughout the palace’s corridors and painted over with resin in order to protect them from scuffing or wear. They did not work quite like the lifts in Sky—standing on one sent a person anywhere they willed themselves to go within the palace, not merely up and down. This was awkward if one had never been to a particular location. When I asked the servant about this, he smiled and said, “The first time we go anywhere, we go on foot. Steward Morad’s orders.” Just the kind of eminently sensible thing I expected of her, especially given that with servants so sparse, she could not afford to lose even one to oblivion.
Since the servant had been to the audience chamber before, I allowed him to control the magic, and we appeared in a space of cool, flickering light. Echo was more translucent than Sky, reflecting more of whatever colors surrounded it. By this I guessed immediately that we were somewhere beneath the waterline of the palace—which was confirmed as we passed a row of windows. I saw a great expanse of glimmering, shadow-flickering blueness and a passing curious fish. I grinned in delight at Shahar’s cleverness. Not only would her audience chamber be safer underwater than the rest of the palace, but also any visitors—the few who would be permitted to see her in person—would instantly be awed by the alien beauty of the fishes’-eye view. There was a certain symbolism to the choice as well, as the Arameri now served the Lady of Balance. Shahar’s safety would depend on the strength of the walls and windows and the equilibrium they could maintain against the weight of the water. It was perfect.