I grew annoyed. “You have the masks, however damaged. Have the scriveners forgotten how to craft tracking scripts?”
“This is not the same,” said Shahar. She sat forward, her eyes intent. “This isn’t scrivening. The scriveners have no idea how this, this… false magic works, and…” She hesitated, glancing at Ramina, and sighed. “They can’t stop it. We are helpless against these attacks.”
I yawned. I didn’t time it that way, didn’t do it deliberately to suggest that I didn’t care about their plight, but I saw them both scowl at me, anyway. When I closed my mouth, I glowered back. “What do you want me to say? ‘I’m sorry’? I’m not, and you know it. The rest of the world has had to live with this kind of terror—murders without rhyme or reason, magic that strikes without warning—for centuries. Thanks to you Arameri.” I shrugged. “If some mortal has figured out a way to make you know the same fear, I’m not going to condemn them for it. Hells, you should be glad I’m not cheering them on.”
Ramina’s expression went blank, in that way Arameri think is so inscrutable when it really just means they’re pissed and trying not to show it. Shahar, at least, was honest enough to give me the full force of her anger. “If you hate us so much, you know what to do,” she snapped. “It should be simple enough for you to kill us all. Or”—her lip curled, her tone turning nasty—“ask Nahadoth or Yeine to do it, if you don’t have the strength.”
“Say that again!” I shot to my feet, feeling quite strong enough to slaughter the whole Arameri family because she was being a brat. If she’d been a boy, I would have slugged her one. Boys could beat each other and remain friends, however; between boys and girls the matter was murkier.
“Children,” said Ramina. He spoke in a mild tone, but he was looking at me, palpably tense despite that oh-so-calm face. I appreciated his acknowledgment of my nature. It did help to calm me, which was probably what he’d hoped for.
Shahar looked sulky, but she subsided, and after a moment I, too, sat down, though I was still furious.
“For your information,” I spat, crossing my legs and not sulking, thank you, “what you’re describing isn’t false magic. It’s just better magic.”
“Only the gods’ magic is better than scrivener magic,” Shahar said. I could hear her trying for calm dignity, which immediately made me want to torment her in some way.
“No,” I said. To alleviate the urge to annoy her, I shifted to lie down on the bench, putting my feet up on one of the delicate-looking columns that supported the roof. I wished my feet had been dirty, though I supposed that would only have inconvenienced the servants. “Scrivening is only the best thing you mortals—pardon me, you Amn—have come up with thus far. But just because you haven’t thought of anything better doesn’t mean there can’t be anything better.”
“Yes,” said Ramina with a heavy sigh, “Shevir has already explained this. Scrivening merely approximates the gods’ power, and poorly. It can only capture concepts that are communicated via simple written words. Spoken magic works better, when it works.”
“The only reason it doesn’t work is because mortals don’t say it right.” The bench was surprisingly comfortable. I would try sleeping up here some night, in the open air, beneath the waning moon. It would feel like resting in Nahadoth’s arms. “You get the pronunciation right, and the syntax, but you never master the context. You say the words at night when you should only say them by day. You speak them when we’re on this side of the sun, not that side—all you have to do is consider the seasons, for gods’ sake! But you don’t. You say gevvirh when you really mean das-ankalae, and you take the breviranaenoket out of the…” I glanced at them and realized they weren’t following me at all. “… You say it wrong.”
“There’s no way to say it better,” said Shahar. “There’s no way for a mortal to understand all that… context. You know there isn’t.”
“There’s no way for you to speak as we do, no. But there are other ways to convey information besides speech and writing. Hand signs, body language”—they glanced at each other and I pointed at them—“meaningful looks! What do you think magic is? Communication. We gods call to reality, and reality responds. Some of that is because we made it and it is like limbs, the outflow of our souls, we and existence are one and the same, but the rest…”
I was losing them again. Stupid, padlock-brained creatures. They were smart enough to understand; Enefa had made certain of that. They were just being stubborn. I gave up and sighed, tired of trying to talk to them. If only some of my siblings would come to visit me… but I dared not risk word getting out about my condition. As Nahadoth had said, I had enemies.
“Would you consent to work with Shevir, Lord Sieh?” asked Ramina. “To help him figure out this new magic?”
“No.”
Shahar made a harsh, irritated sound. “Oh, of course not. We’re only giving you a roof over your head and food and—”
“You have given me nothing,” I snapped, turning my head to glare at her. “In case you’ve forgotten, I built the roof. If we’re going to get particular about obligations, Lady Shahar, how about you tell your mother I want two thousand years of back wages? Or offerings, if she prefers; either will keep me in food for the rest of my mortal life.” Her mouth fell open in pure affront. “No? Then shut the hells up!”
Shahar stood so fast that on another world she would have shot into the sky. “I don’t have to take this.” In a flurry of fur and smolder, she went down the steps. I heard the click of her shoes along the library’s floors, and then she was gone.
Feeling rather pleased with myself, I folded my arms beneath my head.
“You enjoyed that,” said Ramina.
“Whatever gave you that impression?” I laughed.
He sighed, sounding bored rather than frustrated. “It might amuse you to bicker with her—in fact, I’m sure it does amuse you—but you have no idea of the pressure she’s under, Lord Sieh. My sister has not been kind to her in the years since you almost killed her and caused her brother to be sent away.”
I flinched, reminded of the debt I owed to Shahar—a reminder that Ramina had no doubt meant to deliver. Uncomfortable now, I took my feet off the column and turned onto my belly, propping myself up on my elbows to face him.
“I understand why Remath sent the boy away,” I said, “though I’m still surprised that she did it. Usually, when there’s more than one prospective heir, the family head pits them against each other.”
“That wasn’t possible in this case,” Ramina said. He had turned his gaze away again, this time toward the vast open landscape on the palace’s other side. I followed his eyes, though I had seen the view a million times myself: patchwork farmland and the sparkling blot of the Eyeglass, a local lake. “Dekarta has no chance of inheriting. He’s safer away from Sky, quite frankly.”
“Because he’s not fully Amn?” I gave him a hard look. “And how, exactly, did that happen, Uncle Ramina?”
He turned back to me, his eyes narrowing, and then he sighed. “Demonshit.”
I grinned. “Did you really lie with your own sister, or did a scrivener handle the fine details with vials and squeeze bulbs?”
Ramina glared at me. “Is tact simply not in your nature, or are you this offensive on purpose?”
“On purpose. But remember that incest isn’t exactly unknown to gods.”