“That isn’t possible now,” said Nahadoth.
“What’s to stop her from telling Viraine about this, then?” Sieh put his hands on his hips. Zhakka had stopped, waiting patiently for the dispute to be resolved. I felt forgotten and supremely unimportant—as I probably should, given that I stood in the presence of three gods. The term former gods just didn’t seem to fit.
Nahadoth’s face showed something less than a smile. He glanced at me. “Tell Viraine and we’ll kill you.” His gaze returned to Sieh. “Satisfied?”
I must have been tired. After so many threats that evening, I didn’t even flinch.
Sieh frowned and shook his head, but he stepped out of Zhakka’s path. “This wasn’t what we’d planned,” he said with a hint of petulance.
“Plans change,” said Zhakka. Then she stood before me.
“What are you going to do?” I asked. Somehow, despite her size, she did not frighten me near as much as Nahadoth.
“I will mark your brow with a sigil,” she said. “One that cannot be seen. It will interfere with the sigil Viraine intends to put on you. You will look like one of them, but in truth you’ll be free.”
“Are they…” All the sigil-marked Arameri? Was that who she meant? “… not free?”
“No more than we, for all they think otherwise,” said Nahadoth. There was, for just that moment, a hint of the softness in him that I’d seen before. Then he turned away. “Hurry up.”
Zhakka nodded, and touched my forehead with the tip of a finger. Her fists were the size of dinner plates; her finger seemed to sear like a brand when it touched me. I cried out and tried to slap her finger away, but she lifted her hand before I could. She was done.
Sieh, his sulk forgotten, peered at the spot and nodded sagely. “That will do.”
“Take her to Viraine, then,” said Zhakka. She inclined her head to me in courteous farewell, then turned away to join Nahadoth.
Sieh took my hand. I was so confused and shaken that I did not fight when he led me toward the nearest of the dead space’s walls. But I did glance back over my shoulder once, to watch the Nightlord walk away.
My mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. I say that not because I am her daughter, and not because she was tall and graceful, with hair like clouded sunlight. I say it because she was strong. Perhaps it is my Darre heritage, but strength has always been the marker of beauty in my eyes.
My people were not kind to her. No one said it in front of my father, but I heard the murmurs when we walked through Arrebaia sometimes. Amn whore. Bone-white bitch. They would spit on the ground after she passed, to wash the streets of her Arameri taint. Through all this she maintained her dignity and was never less than polite to people who were anything but. My father, in one of the few clear memories of him that I have, said this made her better than them.
I am not sure why I remember this now, but I am certain it is somehow important.
Sieh made me run after we left the dead space, so that I would be out of breath when we arrived at Viraine’s workshop.
Viraine opened the door after Sieh’s third impatient knock, looking irritated. The white-haired man from Dekarta’s audience, who had judged me “not hopeless.”
“Sieh? What in demons—ah.” He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, I’d rather thought T’vril was taking too long. The sun went down nearly an hour ago.”
“Scimina sicced Naha on her,” said Sieh. Then he looked up at me. “But the game was to end if you made it here, right? You’re safe now.”
This was my explanation, then. “That was what T’vril said.” I glanced back down the hall as if I was still afraid. It was not difficult to pretend.
“Scimina would have given him specific parameters,” Viraine said, which I suppose was meant to reassure me. “She knows what he’s like in that state. Come in, Lady Yeine.”
He stepped aside, and I entered the chamber. Even if I hadn’t been bone tired I would have stopped there, for I stood in a room like nothing I had ever seen. It was long and oval-shaped, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows down both of the longer walls. Twin rows of workbenches had been placed along either side of the room; I saw books, flasks, and incomprehensible contraptions on each. Along the far wall were cages, some containing rabbits and birds. In the center of the chamber was a huge white orb set on a low plinth. It was as tall as me and completely opaque.
“Over here,” Viraine said, heading toward one of the workbenches. Two stools sat in front of it. He chose one of them and patted the other for me. I followed him, but then hesitated.
“I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, sir.”
He looked surprised, then smiled and gave me an informal, not-quite-mocking half bow. “Ah, yes, manners. I am Viraine, the palace scrivener. Also a relative of yours in some way or another—too distant and convoluted to determine, though Lord Dekarta has seen fit to welcome me into the Central Family.” He tapped the black circle on his forehead.
Scriveners: Amn scholars who made a study of the gods’ written language. This scrivener did not look like the cold-eyed ascetics I’d imagined. He was younger, for one—perhaps a few years younger than my mother had been. Certainly not old enough for such stark white hair. Perhaps he was like T’vril and I, part Amn of a more exotic variety.
“A pleasure,” I said. “Though I cannot help but wonder why the palace needs a scrivener. Why study the gods’ power when you have actual gods right here?”
He looked pleased by my question; perhaps few people asked him about his work. “Well, for one thing, they can’t do everything or be everywhere. There are hundreds of people in this palace using small magics on an everyday basis. If we had to stop and call an Enefadeh every time we needed something, very little would get done. The lift, for example, that carried you to this level of the palace. The air—this far above the ground, it would ordinarily be thin and cold, hard to breathe. Magic keeps the palace comfortable.”
I sat down carefully on one of the stools, eyeing the bench beside me. The items there were laid out neatly: various fine paintbrushes, a dish of ink, and a small block of polished stone, incised on its face with a strange, complicated character of spikes and curlicues. The character was so fundamentally alien, so jarring to the eye, that I could not look at it long. The urge to look away was part of what it was, because it was gods’ language; a sigil.
Viraine sat opposite me while Sieh, unbidden, claimed a seat across the bench and rested his chin on his folded arms.
“For another thing,” Viraine continued, “there are certain magics that even the Enefadeh cannot perform. Gods are peculiar beings, incredibly powerful within their sphere of influence, so to speak, but limited beyond that. Nahadoth is powerless by day. Sieh cannot be quiet and well-behaved unless he’s up to something.” He eyed Sieh, who gave us both an innocent smile. “In many ways, we mortals are more… versatile, for lack of a better term. More complete. For example, none of them can create or extend life. The simple act of having children—something any unlucky barmaid or careless soldier can do—is a power that has been lost to the gods for millennia.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sieh’s smile fade.
“Extend life?” I had heard rumors about what some scriveners did with their powers—terrible, foul rumors. It occurred to me suddenly that my grandfather was very, very old.
Viraine nodded, his eyes twinkling at the disapproval in my tone. “It is the great quest of our profession. Someday we might even achieve immortality…” He read the horror in my face and smiled. “Though that goal is not without controversy.”