“But listen.” Sieh leaned forward. “The Stone is what’s left of Enefa’s body. Because you possess Enefa’s soul, you can wield the Stone’s power in ways that no one but Enefa herself could do. If you held the Stone, Yeine, you could change the shape of the universe. You could set us free like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“Then die.”
Sieh lowered his eyes, his enthusiasm fading. “That wasn’t the original plan,” he said, “but yes.”
I finished the leafroll and looked at the rest of the plate without enthusiasm. My appetite had vanished. But anger—slow-building and fierce, almost as hot as my anger over my mother’s murder—was beginning to take its place.
“You mean for me to lose the contest, too,” I said softly.
“Well… yes.”
“What will you offer me? If I accept this alliance?”
He grew very still. “Protection for your land through the war that would follow our release. And favor forever after our victory. We keep our vows, Yeine, believe me.”
I believed him. And the eternal blessing of four gods was indeed a powerful temptation. That would guarantee safety and prosperity for Darr, if we could get through this time of trial. The Enefadeh knew my heart well.
But then, they thought they already knew my soul.
“I want that and one thing more,” I said. “I’ll do as you wish, Sieh, even if it costs me my life. Revenge against my mother’s killer is worth that. I’ll take up the Stone and use it to set you free, and die. But not as some humbled, beaten sacrifice.” I glared at him. “I want to win this contest.”
His lovely green eyes went wide.
“Yeine,” he began, “that’s impossible. Dekarta and Relad and Scimina… they’re all against you. You haven’t got a chance.”
“You’re the instigator of this whole plot, aren’t you? Surely the god of mischief can think of a way.”
“Mischief, not politics!”
“You should go and tell the others my terms.” I made myself pick up the fork and eat some relish.
Sieh stared at me, then finally let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t believe this. You’re crazier than Naha.” He got to his feet and rubbed a hand over his hair. “You—gods.” He seemed not to notice the strangeness of his oath. “I’ll talk to them.”
I inclined my head formally. “I shall await your answer.”
Muttering in his strange language, Sieh summoned his yellow ball and left through the bedroom wall.
They would accept, of course. Whether I won or lost, they would get the freedom they wanted—unless, of course, I chose not to give it to them. So they would do whatever it took to keep me agreeable.
Reaching for another leafroll, I concentrated on chewing slowly so that my ill-used stomach would not rebel. It was important that I recover quickly. I would need my strength in the time to come.
15. Hatred
I see my land below me. It passes underneath, as if I am flying. High ridges and misty, tangled valleys. Occasional fields, even rarer towns and cities. Darr is so green. I saw many lands as I traveled across High North and Senm on the way to Sky, and none of them seemed half as green as my beautiful Darr. Now I know why.
I slept again. When I woke, Sieh still had not returned, and it was night. I did not expect an answer from the Enefadeh anytime soon. I had probably annoyed them by my refusal to trudge obediently to death. If I were them, I would keep me waiting awhile.
Almost as soon as I woke, there was a knock at the door. When I went to answer, a bony-faced servant boy stood very straight and said, with painful formality, “Lady Yeine. I bear a message.”
Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I nodded permission for him to continue, and he said, “Your grandsire requests your presence.”
And suddenly I was very, very awake.
The audience chamber was empty this time. Just me and Dekarta. I knelt as I had that first afternoon, and laid my knife on the floor as was customary. I did not, to my own surprise, contemplate using it to kill him. Much as I hated him, his blood was not what I wanted.
“Well,” he said from his throne. His voice sounded softer than before, though that may have been a trick of perception on my part. “Have you enjoyed your week as an Arameri, Granddaughter?”
Had it been only a week?
“No, Grandfather,” I said. “I have not.”
He uttered a single laugh. “But now, perhaps, you understand us better. What do you think?”
This I had not expected. I looked at him from where I knelt, and wondered what he was up to.
“I think,” I said slowly, “the same thing that I thought before I came here: that the Arameri are evil. All that has changed is that now I believe most of you are mad as well.”
He grinned, wide and partially toothless. “Kinneth said much the same thing to me once. She included herself, however.”
I resisted the immediate urge to deny this. “Maybe that’s why she left. Maybe, if I stay long enough, I’ll become as evil and mad as the rest of you.”
“Maybe.” There was a curious gentleness in the way he said this that threw me. I could never read his face. Too many lines.
Silence rose between us for the next several breaths. It plateaued; stalled; broke.
“Tell me why you killed my mother,” I said.
His smile faded. “I am not one of the Enefadeh, Granddaughter. You cannot command answers from me.”
Heat washed through me, followed by cold. I rose slowly to my feet. “You loved her. If you had hated her, feared her, that I could have understood. But you loved her.”
He nodded. “I loved her.”
“She was crying when she died. We had to wet her eyelids to get them open—”
“You will be silent.”
In the empty chamber, his voice echoed. The edge of it sawed against my temper like a dull knife.
“And you love her still, you hateful old bastard.” I stepped forward, leaving my knife on the floor. I did not trust myself with it anymore. I moved toward my grandfather’s highbacked not-throne, and he drew himself up, perhaps in anger, perhaps in fear. “You love her and mourn her; it’s your own fault and you mourn her, and you want her back. Don’t you? But if Itempas is listening, if he cares at all about order and righteousness or any of the things the priests say, then I pray to him now that you keep loving her. That way you’ll feel her loss the way I do. You’ll feel that agony until you die, and I pray that’s a long, long time from now!”
By this point I stood before Dekarta, bent down, my hands on the armrests of his chair. I was close enough to see the color of his eyes at last—a blue so pale that it was barely a color at all. He was a small, frail man now, whatever he’d been in his prime. If I blew hard, I might break his bones.
But I did not touch him. Dekarta did not deserve mere physical pain any more than he deserved a swift death.
“Such hate,” he whispered. Then, to my shock, he smiled. It looked like a death rictus. “Perhaps you are more like her than I thought.”
I stood up straight and told myself that I was not drawing back.
“Very well,” said Dekarta, as if we’d just exchanged pleasant small talk. “We should get down to business, Granddaughter. In seven days’ time, on the night of the fourteenth, there will be a ball here in Sky. It will be in your honor, to celebrate your elevation to heir, and some of the most noteworthy citizens of the world will join us as guests. Is there anyone in particular you’d like invited?”