Scimina made a sound of savage frustration. “Does it look as though I care?”
There was a pent moment, the two of them facing each other, during which I honestly thought Viraine had a chance. They were both fullbloods. But Viraine was not in line for the succession, and Scimina was—and in the end, Scimina was right. It was no longer Dekarta’s will that mattered.
I looked at Sieh, who was staring at Nahadoth with an unreadable expression on his too-old face. Both were gods more ancient than life on earth. I could not imagine such a length of existence. A day of pain was probably nothing to them… but not to me.
“Enough,” I said softly. The word carried in the vaulted space of the arena. Viraine and Scimina both looked at me in surprise. Sieh, too, swung around to stare at me, puzzled. And Nahadoth—no. I could not look at him. He would think me weak for this.
Not weak, I reminded myself. Human. I am still that, at least.
“Enough,” I said again, lifting my head with what remained of my pride. “Stop this. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Yeine,” said Sieh, sounding shocked.
Scimina smirked. “Even if you weren’t the sacrifice, Cousin, you could never have been Grandfather’s heir.”
I glared at her. “I will take that as a compliment, Cousin, if you are the example I should follow.”
Scimina’s face tightened, and for a moment I thought she would spit at me. Instead she turned away and resumed circling Nahadoth, though slower now. “Which member of the alliance did you approach?”
“Minister Gemd, of Menchey.”
“Gemd?” Scimina frowned at this. “How did you persuade him? He was more eager for the chance than all the others.”
I took a deep breath. “I brought Nahadoth with me. His persuasive powers are… formidable, as I’m sure you know.”
Scimina barked a laugh—but her gaze was thoughtful as she glanced at me, then at him. Nahadoth gazed into the middle distance, as he had since kneeling. He might have been contemplating matters beyond human reckoning, or the dyes in T’vril’s pants.
“Interesting,” Scimina said. “Since I’m certain Grandfather would not have commanded the Enefadeh to do this for you, that means our Nightlord decided to help you on his own. How on earth did you manage that?”
I shrugged, though abruptly I felt anything but relaxed. Stupid, stupid. I should have realized the danger in this line of questioning. “He seemed to find it amusing. There were… several deaths.” I tried to look uneasy and found that it was not difficult. “I had not intended those, but they were effective.”
“I see.” Scimina stopped, folding her arms and tapping her fingers. I did not like the look in her eyes, even though it was directed at Nahadoth. “And what else did you do?”
I frowned. “Else?”
“We keep a tight leash on the Enefadeh, Cousin, and Nahadoth’s is tightest of all. When he leaves the palace, Viraine knows of it. And Viraine tells me he left twice, on two separate nights.”
Demons. Why in the Father’s name hadn’t the Enefadeh told me? Damned secret keeping—“I went to Darr, to see my grandmother.”
“For what purpose?”
To understand why my mother sold me to the Enefadeh—
I jerked my thoughts off that path and folded my arms. “Because I missed her. Not that you would understand something like that.”
She turned to gaze at me, a slow, lazy smile playing about her lips, and I suddenly realized I had made a mistake. But what? Had my insult bothered her that much? No, it was something else.
“You did not risk your sanity traveling with the Nightlord just to exchange pleasantries with some old hag,” Scimina said. “Tell me why you really went there.”
“To confirm the war petition and the alliance against Darr.”
“And? That’s all?”
I thought fast, but not fast enough. Or perhaps it was my unnerved expression that alerted her, because she tsked at me. “You’re keeping secrets, Cousin. And I mean to have them. Viraine!”
Viraine sighed and faced Nahadoth. An odd look, almost pensive, passed over his face. “This would not have been my choice,” he said softly.
Nahadoth’s eyes flicked to him and lingered for a moment; there was a hint of surprise in his expression. “You must do as your lord requires.” Not Dekarta. Itempas.
“This is not his doing,” Viraine said, scowling. Then he seemed to recall himself, throwing Scimina one last glare and shaking his head. “Fine, then.”
He reached into a pocket of his cloak and went to crouch beside Nahadoth, setting on his thigh a small square of paper on which had been drawn a spidery, liquid gods’ sigil. Somehow—I refused to think deeply about how—I knew a line was missing from it. Then Viraine took out a brush with a capped tip.
I felt queasy. I stepped forward, lifting a bloodied hand to protest—and then stopped as my eyes met Nahadoth’s. His face was impassive, the glance lazy and disinterested, but my mouth went dry anyhow. He knew what was coming better than I did. He knew I could stop it. But the only way I could do that was to risk revealing the secret of Enefa’s soul.
Yet the alternative…
Scimina, observing this exchange, laughed—and then, to my revulsion, she came over to take me by the shoulder. “I commend you on your taste, Cousin. He is magnificent, isn’t he? I have often wondered if there was some way… but, of course, there isn’t.”
She watched as Viraine set the square of paper on the floor beside Nahadoth, in one of the few spots unmarred by Sieh’s blood. Viraine then uncapped the brush, hunched over the square, and very carefully drew a single line.
Light blazed down from the ceiling, as if someone had opened a colossal window at high noon. There was no opening in the ceiling, though; this was the power of the gods, who could defy the physical laws of the human realm and create something out of nothing. After the relative dimness of Sky’s soft pale walls, this was too bright. I raised a hand in front of my watering eyes, hearing murmurs of discomfort from our remaining audience.
Nahadoth knelt at the light’s center, his shadow stark amid the chains and blood. I had never seen his shadow before. At first the light seemed to do him no harm—but that was when I realized what had changed. I hadn’t seen his shadow before. The living nimbus that surrounded him ordinarily did not allow it, constantly twisting and lashing and overlapping itself. It was not his nature to contrast his surroundings; he blended in. But now the nimbus had become just long black hair, draping over his back. Just a voluminous cloak cascading over his shoulders. His whole body was still.
And then Nahadoth uttered a soft sound, not quite a groan, and the hair and cloak began to boil.
“Watch closely,” murmured Scimina in my ear. She had moved behind me, leaning against my shoulder like a dear companion. I could hear the relish in her voice. “See what your gods are made of.”
Knowing she was there kept my face still. I did not react as the surface of Nahadoth’s back bubbled and ran like hot tar, wisps of black curling into the air around him and evaporating with a rattling hiss. Nahadoth slowly slumped forward, pressed down as if the light crushed him beneath unseen weight. His hands landed in Sieh’s blood and I saw that they, too, boiled, the unnaturally white skin rippling and spinning away in pale, fungoid tendrils. (Distantly, I heard one of the onlookers retch.) I could not see his face beneath the curtain of sagging, melting hair—but did I want to? He had no true form. I knew that everything I had seen of him was just a shell. But dearest Father, I had liked that shell and thought it beautiful. I could not bear to see the ruin of it now.