The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - By N. K. Jemisin Page 0,111

afire. Loose goosedown and charred fabric scraps littered the room.

It was more than the bed. One of the rooms huge glass windows had spiderwebbed; only luck that it hadnt shattered. The vanity mirror had. One of my bookcases lay on the floor, its contents scattered but intact. (I saw my fathers book there, with great relief.) The other bookcase had been shattered into kindling, along with most of the books on it.

Naha took the empty teacup from my hand before I could drop it. Youll need to get one of your Enefadeh friends to fix this. I kept the servants out this morning, but that wont work for long.

I I dont I shook my head. So much of what had happened was dreamlike in my memory, more metaphysical than actual. I remembered falling. There was no hole in the ceiling. Yet, the bed.

Naha said nothing as I moved about the room, my slippered feet crunching on glass and splinters. When I picked up a shard of the mirror, staring at my own face, he said, You dont look as much like the library mural as Id first thought.

That turned me around to face him. He smiled at me. I had thought him human, but no. He had lived too long and too strangely, knew too much. Perhaps he was more like the demons of old, half mortal and half something else.

How long have you known? I asked.

Since we met. His lips quirked. Though that cant properly be called a meeting, granted.

He had stopped and stared at me, that first evening in Sky. Id forgotten in the rush of terror afterward. Then later in Sciminas quartersYoure a good actor.

I have to be. His smile was gone now. Even then, I wasnt sure. Not until I woke up and saw this. He gestured around the devastated room. And you there beside me, alive.

I didnt expect to be. But I was, and now I would have to deal with the consequences.

Im not her, I said.

No. But Ill wager youre a part of her, or shes a part of you. I know a little about these things. He ran a hand through his unruly black locks. Just hair, and not the smokelike curls of his godly self, but his meaning was plain.

Why havent you told anyone?

You think I would do that?

Yes.

He laughed, though there was a hard edge to the sound. And you know me so well.

You would do anything to make your life easier.

Ah. Then you do know me. He flopped down in the chairthe only intact piece of furniture in the roomone leg tossed over one arm. But if you know that much, Lady, then you should be able to guess why I would never tell the Arameri of your uniqueness.

I put down the shard of mirror and went to him. Explain, I commanded, because I might pity him, but I would never like him.

He shook his head, as if chiding me for my impatience. I, too, want to be free.

I frowned. But if the Nightlord is ever freed What did happen to a mortal soul buried within a gods body? Would he sleep and never awaken? Would some part of him continue, trapped and aware inside an alien mind? Or would he simply cease to exist?

He nodded, and I realized all of those thoughts and more must have occurred to him over the centuries. He has promised to destroy me, should the day ever come.

And this Naha would rejoice on that day, I realized with a chill. Perhaps he had tried to kill himself before, only to be resurrected the next morning, trapped by magic meant to torment a god.

Well, if all went as planned, he would be free soon.

I rose and went to the remaining undamaged window. The sun was high in the sky, past noon. My last day of life was half over. I was trying to think of how to spend my remaining time when I felt a new presence in the room, and turned. Sieh stood there, looking from the bed to me to Naha, and back again.

You seem well, I said, pleased. He was properly young again, and there was a grass stain on one of his knees. The look in his eyes, though, was far from childish as he focused on Naha. When his pupils turned to ferocious slitsI saw the change this timeI knew Id have to intervene. I went to Sieh, deliberately stepping into his line of sight, and opened my arms to