The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(288)

“If you were here back then, you—or your predecessor—would have conducted an investigation.”

“Yes.” He straightened as if giving a report. “The incident occurred in early afternoon. There was a tremor throughout the palace, and all of the boundary scripts sounded an alarm, indicating unauthorized active magic within the palace’s walls. Guards and service staff arrived to find this.” He gestured at the atrium. The debris had been removed, but that changed nothing; it was painfully clear to anyone who had seen it before that the atrium was really just an enormous sunken pit. “No one knew what had happened until three days later, when first Dekarta, then Shahar awakened.”

More than enough time for rumors to gain traction and ruin Deka’s life. Poor boy, and his sister, too.

“What sort of magic was it?” I asked. Scriveners loved to classify and categorize magic, which somehow helped them grasp it with their unmagical mortal minds. There might be something in their convoluted logic that would help me understand.

“Unknown, Lord—” He caught himself. “Unknown.”

“Unknown?”

“Nothing like it has been observed in the mortal realm, at least not within recorded history. The Litaria’s best scholars have confirmed this. We even consulted several of the friendlier godlings of the city; they weren’t able to explain it, either. If you don’t know—” He shut his mouth with an audible snap, in palpable frustration. He had plainly hoped I would have more answers.

I understood entirely. Sighing, I straightened. “I didn’t intend to hurt them. Nothing that happened makes any sense.”

“The children’s hands were bloody,” Shevir said, his tone neutral. “Both hands, cut in the same way, inflicted on each other to judge by the angles and depth. Some of my colleagues believed they may have attempted some sort of ritual….”

I scowled. “The only ritual involved was one that children the world over have enacted to seal promises.” I lifted my hand, gazing at my own smooth, unscarred palms. “If that could cause what happened, there would be a great many dead children lying about.”

He spread his hands in that apologetic gesture again. “You must understand, we were desperate to come up with some explanation.”

I considered this and hoisted myself up onto the railing, reveling in the ability to kick my feet at last. This seemed to make Shevir very uncomfortable, probably because the drop into the atrium was far enough to kill a mortal. Then I remembered that I was becoming mortal, and with a heavy sigh, I dropped back to the floor.

“So you decided one of the children—Deka—had summoned me, annoyed me, and I blew them to the hells in retaliation.”

“I didn’t believe that.” Shevir grew sober. “But certain parties would not be put off, and ultimately Dekarta was sent to the Litaria. To learn better control of his innate talents, his mother announced.”

“Exile,” I said softly. “A punishment for getting Shahar hurt.”

“Yes.”

“What’s he like now? Deka.”

Shevir shook his head. “No one here has seen him since he left, Lord Sieh. He doesn’t come home at holidays or vacation breaks. I’m told he’s doing well at the Litaria; ironically, he turned out to have a genuine talent for the art. But… well… rumor has it that he and Lady Shahar hate each other now.” I frowned, and Shevir shrugged. “I can’t say I blame him, really. Children don’t see things the way we do.”

I glanced at Shevir; he was lost in thought and hadn’t noticed the irony of talking about childhood to me. He was right, though. The gentle Deka I’d known would not have understood that he was being sent away for reasons that had very little to do with Shahar being injured. He would have drawn his own conclusions about why the friendship oath had gone wrong and why he’d been separated from his beloved sister. Self-blame would have been only the beginning.

But why had Remath even bothered exiling him? In the old days, the family had been quick to kill any member who’d transgressed in some way or another. They should have been even quicker with Deka, who broke the Arameri mold in so many ways.

Sighing heavily, I straightened and turned away from the atrium railing. “Nothing in Sky has ever made sense. I don’t know why I keep coming here, really. You’d think being trapped in this hell for centuries would’ve been enough for me.”

Shevir shrugged. “I can’t speak for gods, but any mortal who spends enough time in a place grows… acclimated. One’s sense of what is normal shifts, even if that place is filled with unpleasantness, until separation feels wrong.”