Deka frowned, concern overwhelming shock. “And what we did… you think the Three would see that as the culmination of their fears?”
“But it’s not as though we did anything harmful—” Shahar began.
“Changing reality is harmful! If you tried it again, even to help me—Deka, you understand how magic works. What happens if you misdraw a sigil or misspeak a godword? If the two of you try to use this power to remake me…” I sighed, and faced the truth I hadn’t wanted to admit. “Well, think of what happened last time. You wanted me to be your friend, a true friend—something that I could never have been as a god. You would have grown up and understood how different I was. You would have become proper Arameri and wondered how you could use me.” Now I looked at Shahar, whose lips tightened ever so slightly. “If I had stayed a god, our friendship would never have survived this long. So you, some part of you, made me into something that could be your friend.”
Deka took another step back, horror filling his face. “You’re saying we did this? The collapse of the Nowhere Stair, your mortality…?”
At this I sighed and went back to the wall, sliding down to sit against it. “I don’t know. This is all guesses and conjecture. Your will, if it had this strange magic behind it, may have focused the magic just enough to cause a change, but then it backlashed… or something. None of that answers the fundamental question of why you have this power.”
“It isn’t just us, Sieh.” Shahar again, quiet again. “Deka and I have touched many times, and nothing came of it. It’s only when we touch you that there’s any change.”
I nodded bleakly. I had figured that out as well.
Silence fell as they digested everything I’d said. It was broken by the loud grumbling of my empty belly and my louder yawn. At this, Dekarta shifted uncomfortably. “Why did you come here, Sieh? There are no servants this far down, and this room is… foul.” He looked around, his lip curling at the pile of ancient rags.
A foul place for a fouled god, I thought. “I like it here,” I said. “And I’m too tired to go anywhere else. Go away now, both of you. I need to rest.”
Shahar turned toward the hole in the floor, but Deka lingered. “Come with us,” he said. “Have something to eat, take a bath. There’s a couch in my new quarters.”
I looked up at him and saw the bravery of his effort. I had jarred his fantasies badly, but he would try, even now, to be the friend he’d promised to be.
You are the one who did this to me, beautiful Deka.
I smiled thinly, and he frowned at the sight.
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “Go on. Let’s all be ready to face your mother in the morning.”
So they left.
As the daystone of the floor resealed itself, I lay down and curled up to sleep, resigning myself to stiffness by morning. But as soon as I closed my eyes, I realized I was no longer alone.
“Are you really afraid of me?” asked Yeine.
I opened my eyes and sat up. She sat cross-legged in my old nest, dainty as always, beautiful even amid rags. The rags were no longer dry-rotted, however. I could see color and definition returning to what had been a gray mass and could hear the faint tightening of the thread fibers as they regained cohesion and strength. Along one of Yeine’s thighs, a line of barely visible mites had begun to crawl, vanishing over the rise of her flesh. Sent packing, I imagined, or she might be killing them. One never knew with her.
I said nothing in response to her question, and she sighed.
“I don’t care if mortals grow powerful, Sieh. If they do, and they threaten us, I’ll deal with that then. For now”—she shrugged—“maybe it’s a good thing that some of them have magic like this. Maybe that’s what they really need, power of their own, so they can stop being jealous of ours.”
“Don’t tell Naha,” I whispered. At this she sobered and grew silent.
After a moment, she said, “You used to come to me whenever we were alone.”
I looked away. I wanted to. But I knew better.
“Sieh,” she said. Hurt.
And because I loved her too much to let her think the problem was her, I sighed and got up and went over to the nest. Climbing into it brought back memories, and I paused for an instant, overwhelmed by them. Holding Naha on a moonless night—the one time he was safe from both Itempas and the Arameri—as he wept for the Three that had been. Endless hours I’d spent weaving new orbits for my orrery and polishing my Arameri bones. Grinding my teeth as another guard-captain, this one a fullblood and cruel, ordered me to turn over for him. (I had gotten his bones, too, in the end. But they had not made as good toys as I’d hoped, and eventually I’d tossed them off the Pier.)
And now Yeine, whose presence burned away the bad and burnished the good. I wanted to hold her so much, but I knew what would happen. It amazed me that she didn’t. She was so very young.
She frowned at me in puzzlement, reaching out to cup my cheek. My self-control broke, and I flung myself against her as I had done so many times, burying my face in her breast, gripping the cloth at the back of her vest. It felt so good, too, at first. I felt warm and safe and young. Her arms came around me, and her face pressed into my hair. I was her baby, her son in all but flesh, and the flesh didn’t matter.
But there is always a moment when the familiar becomes strange. It is always there, just a little, between any two beings who love one another as much as she and I. The line is so fine. In one moment I was her child, my head pillowed on her breast in all innocence. In the next I was a man, lonely and hungry, and her breasts were small but full. Female. Inviting.
Yeine tensed. It was barely perceptible, but I had been expecting it. With a long sigh I sat up, letting her go. When her eyes—troubled, uncertain—met mine, I turned away. I am not a complete bastard. For her, I would stay the boy that she needed and not the man I had become.
To my surprise, however, she caught my chin and made me look at her again.
“There is more to this than you being mortal,” she said. “More than you wanting to protect those two children.”
“I want to protect mortalkind,” I said. “If Naha finds out what those two can do…”
Yeine shook her head, and shook mine a little, refusing to be distracted. Then she searched my face so intently that I began to be afraid again. She was not Enefa, but…
“You’ve been with Nahadoth and many of your siblings,” she said. Her revulsion crawled along my skin like the evacuating mites. She was trying to resist it, and failing. “I know… things are different, for godkind.”
If she had only been older. Just a few centuries might have been enough to reduce the memory of her mortal life and her mortal inhibitions. I mourned that I would not have time to see her become a true god.
“I was Enefa’s lover, too,” I said softly. I did not look at her at first. “Not… not often. When Itempas and Nahadoth were off together, mostly. When she needed me.”
And because there would be no other time, I looked up at her and let her see the truth. You might have needed me, too, in time. You’re stronger than Naha and Tempa, but you’re not immune to loneliness. And I have always loved you.
To her very great credit, she did not recoil. I loved her more than ever for that. But she did sigh.
“I’ve felt no urge to have children,” she said, grazing her knuckles along my cheek. I leaned into her touch, closing my eyes. “With so many angry, damaged stepchildren already, it seems foolish to complicate matters further. But also…” I felt her smile, like starlight on my skin. “You are my son, Sieh. It makes no sense. I should be your daughter. But… that’s how I feel.”