The Nightlord cannot be controlled, child. He can only be unleashed. And you asked him not to kill.
I could not show weakness.
So while the two men flailed and screamed, I stepped around them and walked up to the table. Gemd looked at me, his mouth distorted with disgust and disbelief.
I said, “Take all the time you like to discuss my order.” Then I turned to leave.
“W-wait.” Gemd. I paused, not allowing my eyes to linger on the two men. Rish was almost half diamond now, the stone creeping over his arm and chest, down one leg and up the side of his neck. He lay on the floor, no longer screaming, though he still keened in a low, agonized voice. Perhaps his throat had turned to diamond already. The other man was reaching toward his comrades, begging for a sword so he could cut off his arm. A young fellow—one of Gemd’s heirs, to judge by his features—drew his blade and edged close, but then another man grabbed him and hauled him back. Another wise decision; flecks of black no larger than a grain of sand sparkled on the floor around the two men. Bits of Rish’s flesh, transformed and cast about by his flailing. As I watched, the Tok fell onto his good hand, and his thumb touched one of the flecks. It, too, began to change.
“Stop this,” Gemd murmured.
“I did not start it.”
He cursed swiftly in his language. “Stop it, gods damn you! What kind of monster are you?”
I could not help laughing. That there was no humor in it, only bitter self-loathing, would be lost on them.
“I’m an Arameri,” I said.
One of the men behind us abruptly fell silent, and I turned. Not the Tok; he was still shrieking while blackness ate its way down his spine. The diamond had spread to encompass Rish’s mouth and was consuming the whole lower half of his face. It seemed to have stopped on his torso, though it was working its way down his remaining leg. I suspected it would stop altogether once it had consumed the nonvital parts of his body, leaving him mutilated and perhaps mad, but alive. I had, after all, asked Nahadoth not to kill.
I averted my eyes, lest I give myself away by throwing up.
“Understand this,” I said. The horror in my heart had crept into my voice; it lent me a deeper timbre, and a hint of resonance, that I had not possessed before. “If letting these men die will save my people, then they will die.” I leaned forward, putting my hands on the table. “If killing everyone in this room, everyone in this palace, will save my people, then know, Gemd: I will do it. You would, too, if you were me.”
He had been staring at Rish. Now his eyes jerked toward me, and I saw realization and loathing flicker through them. Was there a hint of self-loathing amid that hatred? Had he believed me when I’d said you would, too? Because he would. Anyone would, I understood now. There was nothing we mortals would not do when it came to protecting our loved ones.
I would tell myself that for the rest of my life.
“Enough.” I barely heard Gemd over the screams, but I saw his mouth move. “Enough. I’ll call off the attack.”
“And disband the alliance?”
“I can speak only for Menchey.” There was something broken in his tone. He did not meet my eyes. “The others may choose to continue.”
“Then warn them, Minister Gemd. The next time I’m forced to do this, two hundred will suffer instead of two. If they press the issue, two thousand. You chose this war, not I. I will not fight fairly.”
Gemd looked at me in mute hatred. I held his eyes awhile longer, then turned to the two men, one of whom still shuddered and whimpered on the floor. The other, Rish, seemed catatonic. I walked over to them. The glimmering, deadly black flecks did not harm me, though they crunched under my feet.
Nahadoth could stop the magic, I was certain. He could probably even restore the men to wholeness—but Darr’s safety depended on my ability to strike fear into Gemd’s heart.
“Finish it,” I whispered.
The black surged and consumed each of the men in seconds. Chill vapors rose around them as their final screams mingled with the sounds of flesh crackling and bone snapping, then all of it died away. In the men’s place lay two enormous, faceted gems in the rough shape of huddled figures. Beautiful, and quite valuable, I guessed; if nothing else, their families would live well from henceforth. If the families chose to sell their loved ones’ remains.
I passed between the diamonds on my way out. The guards who had come in behind me moved out of my way, some of them stumbling in their haste. The doors swung shut behind me, quietly this time. When they were closed, I stopped.
“Shall I take you home?” asked Nahadoth. Behind me.
“Home?”
“Sky.”
Ah, yes. Home, for Arameri.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Darkness enveloped me. When it cleared, we were in Sky’s forecourt again, though at the Garden of the Hundred Thousand this time rather than the Pier. A path of polished stones wound between neat, orderly flower beds, each overhung with a different type of exotic tree. In the distance, through the leaves, I could see the starry sky and the mountains that met it.
I walked through the garden until I found a spot with an unimpeded view, beneath a miniature satinbell tree. My thoughts turned in slow, lazy spirals. I was growing used to the cool feel of Nahadoth behind me.
“My weapon,” I said to him.
“As you are mine.”
I nodded, sighing into a breeze that lifted my hair and set the leaves of the satinbell a-rustle. As I turned to face Nahadoth, a scud of cloud passed across the moon’s crescent. His cloak seemed to inhale in that dim instant, growing impossibly until it almost eclipsed the palace in rippling waves of black. Then the cloud passed, and it was just a cloak again.
I felt like that cloak all of a sudden—wild, out of control, giddily alive. I lifted my arms and closed my eyes as another breeze gusted. It felt so good.
“I wish I could fly,” I said.
“I can gift you with that magic, for a time.”
I shook my head, closing my eyes to sway with the wind. “Magic is wrong.” I knew that oh, so well now.
He said nothing to that, which surprised me until I thought deeper. After witnessing so many generations of Arameri hypocrisy, perhaps he no longer cared enough to complain.
It was tempting, so tempting, to stop caring myself. My mother, Darr, the succession; what did any of it matter? I could forget all of that so easily, and spend the remainder of my life—all four days of it—indulging any whim or pleasure I wanted.
Any pleasure, except one.
“Last night,” I said, lowering my arms at last. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“You’re more useful alive.”
I laughed. I felt light-headed, reckless. “Does that mean I’m the only person in Sky who has nothing to fear from you?” I knew it was a stupid question before I finished speaking, but I do not think I was entirely sane in that moment.
Fortunately, the Nightlord did not answer my stupid, dangerous question. I glanced back at him to gauge his mood and saw that his nightcloak had changed again. This time the wisps had spun long and thin, drifting through the garden like layers of campfire smoke. The ones nearest me curled inward, surrounding me on all sides. I was reminded of certain plants in my homeland, which grew teeth or sticky tendrils to ensnare insects.
And at the heart of this dark flower, my bait: his glowing face, his lightless eyes. I stepped closer, deeper into his shadow, and he smiled.
“You wouldn’t have had to kill me,” I said softly. I ducked my head and looked up at him through my lashes, curving my body in silent invitation. I had seen prettier women do this all my life, yet never dared myself. I lifted a hand and moved it toward his chest, half-expecting to touch nothing and be snatched forward into darkness. But this time there was a body within the shadows, startling in its solidity. I could not see it, or my own hand where I touched him, but I could feel skin, smooth and cool beneath my fingertips.