Hado, who had gone to stand at the window, nodded. “I’ll see if I can find him.”
“What, you aren’t keeping him locked up someplace?”
“No. He has the run of Sky if he wants it, by the Lord Arameri’s own decree. That has been so since he was first made mortal here ten years ago.”
I was sitting at the room’s table. A meal had been laid out, but it sat untouched before me. “He became mortal… here?”
“Oh, yes. All of it happened here—the Gray Lady’s birth, the Nightlord’s release, and Itempas’s defeat, all in a single morning.”
My father’s death, my mind added.
“Then the Lady and the Nightlord left him here.” He shrugged. “Afterward, T’vril extended every courtesy to him. I think some of the Arameri hoped he would take over the family and lead it on to some new glory. Instead he did nothing, said nothing. Just sat in a room for six months. Died of thirst once or twice, I heard, before he realized he no longer had a choice about eating and drinking.” Hado sighed. “Then one day he simply got up and walked out, without warning or farewell. T’vril ordered a search, but no one could find him.”
Because he had gone to the Ancestors’ Village, I realized. Of course the Arameri would never have thought to look for their god there.
“How do you know all this?” I frowned. “You don’t have an Arameri mark.”
“Not yet.” Hado turned to me, and I thought that he smiled. “Soon, though. That was the bargain I struck with T’vril: if I proved myself, I could be adopted into the family as a fullblood. I think bringing down a threat to the gods should qualify.”
“Adopted…” I’d had no idea such a thing was even possible. “But… well… You don’t seem to like these people very much.”
He did chuckle this time, and again I had an odd sense about him, of someone wise beyond his years. Of something dark and strange.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a god imprisoned here. He was a terrible, beautiful, angry god, and by night when he roamed these white halls, everyone feared him. But by day, the god slept. And the body, the living mortal flesh that was his ball and chain, got to have a life of its own.”
I inhaled, understanding, just not believing. He was speaking of the Nightlord, of course—but the body that lived by day was…?
Near the window, Hado folded his arms. I saw this easily, despite the window’s darkness, because he was darker still.
“It wasn’t much of a life, mind you,” he said. “All the people who feared the god did not fear the man. They quickly learned they could do things to the man that the god would not tolerate. So the man lived his life in increments, born with every dawn, dying with every sunset. Hating every moment of it. For two. Thousand. Years.”
He glanced back at me. I gaped at him.
“Until suddenly, one day, the man became free.” Hado spread his arms. “He spent the first night of his existence gazing at the stars and weeping. But the next morning, he realized something. Though he could finally die, as he had dreamt of doing for centuries, he did not want to. He had been given a life at last, a whole life all his own. Dreams of his own. It would have been… wrong… to waste that.”
I licked my lips and swallowed. “I…” I stopped. I had been about to say I understand, but that wasn’t true. No mortal, and probably no god, could comprehend Hado’s life. Children of Nahadoth, Shiny had called Lil and Dateh. Here was another of the Nightlord’s children, stranger than all the rest.
“I can see that,” I said. “But”—I gestured around at the walls of Sky—“ is this life? Wouldn’t something more normal—”
“I’ve spent my whole life serving power. And I’ve suffered for it—more than you can possibly imagine. Now I’m free. Should I go build a house in the country and grow vegetables? Find a lover I can endure, raise a litter of brats? Become a commoner like you, penniless and helpless?” I forgot myself and scowled. He chuckled. “Power is what I know. I would make a good family head, don’t you think? Once I’m a fullblood.”
He sounded sincere; that was the truly frightening thing.
“I think Lord Arameri would be a fool to let you anywhere near him,” I said slowly.
Hado shook his head in amusement. “I’ll go find Lord Itempas for you.”
How jarring, to hear Shiny called that. I nodded absently as Hado headed for the door. Then, when he was at the door, a thought occurred to me. “What would you do?” I asked. “If you were me. What would you choose? Life in chains or death?”