I caught her hand and pulled it against my chest so she could feel my mortal heartbeat. I was dying; it made me bold. “If I can be nothing else to you, I am glad to be your son. Truly.”
Her smile turned sad. “But you want more.”
“I always want more. From Naha, from Enefa… even from Itempas.” I sobered at that, shifting to lie against her side. She permitted this, even though it had gone wrong before. A sign of trust. I did not abuse it. “I want things that are impossible. It’s my nature.”
“Never to be satisfied?” Her fingers played with my hair gently.
“I suppose.” I shrugged. “I’ve learned to deal with it. What else can I do?”
She fell silent for so long that I grew sleepy, warm and comfortable with her in the softness of the nest. I thought she might sleep with me—just sleep, nothing more—which I wanted desperately and no longer knew how to ask for. But she, goddess that she was, had other things in mind.
“Those children,” she said at last. “The mortal twins. They make you happy.”
I shook my head. “I barely know them. I befriended them on a whim and fell in love with them by mistake. Those are things children do, but for once I should have thought like a god, not a child.”
She kissed my forehead, and I rejoiced that there was no reticence in the gesture. “Your willingness to take risks is one of the most wonderful things about you, Sieh. Where would you and I be, if not for that?”
I smiled in spite of my mood, which I think was what she’d wanted. She stroked my cheek and I felt happier. Such was her power over me, which I had willingly given.
“They are not such terrible people to love,” Yeine said, her tone thoughtful.
“Shahar is.”
She pulled back a little to look at me. “Hmm. She must have done something terrible to make you so angry.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She nodded, allowing me to sulk for a moment. “Not the boy, though?”
“Dekarta.” She groaned, and I chuckled. “I did the same thing! He’s nothing like his namesake, though.” Then I paused as I considered Deka’s body-markings, his determination to be Shahar’s weapon, and his relentless pursuit of me. “He’s Arameri, though. I can’t trust him.”
“I’m Arameri.”
“Not the same. It isn’t an inborn thing. You weren’t raised in this den of weasels.”
“No, I was raised in a different den of weasels.” She shrugged, jostling my head a little. “Mortals are the sum of many things, Sieh. They are what circumstance has made them and what they wish to be. If you must hate them, hate them for the latter, not the former. At least they have some say over that part.”
I sighed. Of course she was right, and it was nothing more than I had argued with my own siblings over the aeons, as we debated—sometimes more than philosophically—whether mortals deserved to exist.
“They are such fools, Yeine,” I whispered. “They squander every gift we give them. I…” I trailed off, trembling inexplicably. My chest ached, as though I might cry. I was a man, and men did not cry—or at least Teman men did not—but I was also a god, and gods cried whenever they felt like it. I wavered on the brink of tears, torn.
“You gave this Shahar your love.” Yeine kept stroking my hair with one hand, absently, which did not help matters. “Was she worthy of it?”
I remembered her, young and fierce, kicking me down the stairs because I’d dared to suggest that she could not determine her own fate. I remembered her later, making love to me on her mother’s orders—but how hungry she’d looked as she held me down and took pleasure from my body! I had not abandoned myself so completely with a mortal for two thousand years.
And as I remembered these things, I felt the knot of anger in me begin to loosen at last.
With a soft, amused chuckle, Yeine disentangled herself from me and sat up. I watched her do this wistfully. “Be a good boy and rest now. And don’t stay up all night thinking. Tomorrow will be interesting. I don’t want you to miss any of it.”
At this I frowned, pushing myself up on one elbow. She ran fingers through her short hair as if to brush it back into place. A hundred years and still so much the mortaclass="underline" a proper god would simply have willed her hair perfect. And she did not bother to hide the smug look on her face as I peered at her now.
“You’re up to some mischief,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
“Indeed I am. Will you bless me?” She got to her feet and stood smirking with one hand on her hip. “Remath Arameri is as interesting as her children, is all I’ll say for now.”
“Remath Arameri is evil, and I would kill her if Shahar did not love her so.” As soon as I said this, however, Yeine raised an eyebrow, and I grimaced as I realized how much I had revealed—not just to her, but also to myself. For if I loved Shahar enough to tolerate her horror of a mother, then I loved Shahar enough to forgive her.
“Silly boy,” Yeine said with a sigh. “You never do things the easy way, do you?”
I tried to make a joke of it, though the smile was hard to muster. “Not if the hard way is more fun.”
She shook her head. “You almost died today.”
“Not really.” I flinched as she leveled A Look at me. “Everything turned out all right!”
“No, it didn’t. Or rather, it shouldn’t have. But you still have a god’s luck, however much the rest of you has changed.” She sobered suddenly. “A good mother desires not only her children’s safety, but also their happiness, Sieh.”
“Er…” I could not help tensing a little, wondering what she was going on about. She was not as strange as Naha, but she thought in spirals, and sometimes—locked in a mortal’s linear mind as I was—I could not follow her. “That’s good, I suppose….”
Yeine nodded, her face still as unfathomable thoughts churned behind it. Then she gave me another Look, and I blinked in surprise, for this one held a ferocity that I hadn’t seen from her in a mortal lifetime.
“I will see to it that you know happiness, Sieh,” she said. “We will do this.”
Not she and Naha. I knew what she meant the way I knew the Three merited capital-letter status. And though the Three had never joined in the time since her ascension, she was still one of them. Part of a greater whole—and when all three of them wanted the same thing, each member spoke with the whole’s voice.
I bowed my head, honored. But then I frowned as I realized what else she was saying. “Before I die, you mean.”
She shook her head, just herself again, then leaned over to put a hand on my chest. I felt the minute vibration of her flesh for just an instant before my dulled senses lost the full awareness of her, but I was glad for that taste. She had no heart, my beautiful Yeine, but she didn’t need one. The pulse and breath and life and death of the whole universe was a more than sufficient substitute.
“We all die,” she said softly. “Sooner or later, all of us. Even gods.” And then, before her words could bring back the melancholy that I’d almost shed, she winked. “But being my son should get you some privileges.”
With that she vanished, leaving behind only the cooling tingle of warmth where her fingers had rested on my chest and the renewed, clean rags of my nest. When I lay down, I was glad to find she’d left her scent, too, all mist and hidden colors and a mother’s love. And a whiff—no more than that—of a woman’s passion.
It was enough. I slept well that night, comforted.
But not before I’d disobediently lain awake for an hour or so, wondering what Yeine was up to. I could not help feeling excited. Every child loves a surprise.