The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(323)

Ahad laughed, in the humorless way he had done for the last dozen centuries. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt true amusement from him. “Isn’t that just like him?” He smiled down at me, then lifted a hand. A purse appeared in it; I heard heavy coins jingle within. Without looking at Hymn, he tossed it. Without blinking she caught it.

“That enough?” he asked when she tugged open the pouch’s string to look inside. Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “Good. You can go now.”

She swallowed. “Am I in trouble for this?” She glanced at me as I struggled to breathe around Ahad’s tightening hand.

“No, of course not. How could you have known I knew him?” He threw her a significant look. “Though you still don’t know anything, you understand. About me being what I am, him being what he is. You never met him, and you never came here. Spend your money slowly if you want to keep it.”

“I know that.” Scowling, Hymn made the pouch disappear. Then to my surprise, she glanced at me again. “What are you going to do with him?”

I had begun to wonder that myself. His hand was tight enough to feel the pounding of my pulse. I reached up and scrabbled at his wrist, trying to loosen it, but it was like trying to loosen the roots of the Tree.

Ahad watched my efforts with lazy cruelty. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “Does it matter?”

Hymn licked her lips. “I don’t do blood money.”

He looked up at her and let the silence grow long and still before he finally spoke. His words were kinder than his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This one is a favorite of two of the Three. I’m not stupid enough to kill him.”

Hymn took a quick, deep breath—for strength, I thought. “Look, I don’t know what’s happened between you two, and I don’t care. I never would have… I didn’t mean to—” She stopped, took a deep breath. “I’ll give you back the money. Just let him come with me.”

Ahad’s hand tightened until I saw stars at the edges of my vision. “Don’t,” he said, sounding far too much like my father in that instant, “ever command me.”

Hymn looked confused, but of course mortals do not realize how often they speak in imperatives—that is, ordinary mortals do not. Arameri long ago learned that lesson when we killed them for forgetting.

I fought back fear so that I could concentrate. Leave her alone, damn you! Play your games with me, not her!

Ahad actually started, throwing a sharp glance at me. I had no idea why—until I remembered just how young he was, in our terms. And that reminded me of my one advantage over him.

Closing my eyes, I fixed my thoughts on Hymn. She was a hot bright point on the darkening map of my awareness. I had found the power to protect her when the muckrakers came. Could I now protect her from one of my own?

Wind shot through the hollows of my soul, cold and electric. Not much; not nearly as much as there should have been. But enough. I smiled.

And reached up to grip Ahad’s hand. “Brother,” I murmured in our tongue, and he blinked, surprised that I could talk. “Share yourself with me.”

Then I took him into my self. We blazed, white green gold, through a firmament of purest ebony, down, down, down. This was not the core of me, for I would never trust him in that sweet, sharp place, but it was close enough. I felt him struggle, frightened, as all that I was—a torrent, a current—threatened to devour him. But that was not my intention. As we swirled downward, I dragged him closer to me. Here without flesh, I was the elder and the stronger. He did not know himself and I overpowered him easily. Gripping the front of his shirt, I grinned into his wide, panicked eyes.

“Let’s see you now,” I said, and thrust my hand into his mouth.

He screamed—a stupid thing to do under the circumstances. That just made it easier. I compacted myself into a single curved claw and plunged into the core of him. There was an instant of resistance, and pain for both of us, because he was not me and all gods are antithetical to each other on some level. Then there was the briefest plume of strangeness as I tasted his nature, dark but not, rich in memory yet raw with his newness, craving, desperate for something that he did not want and did not know that he needed—but it latched on to me with a ferocity I had not expected. Young gods are not usually so savage. Then I was the one being devoured—

I came out of him with a cry and twisted away, curling in on myself in agony while Ahad stumbled and fell across the empty chair. I heard him utter a sound like a sob, once. Then he drew deep breaths, controlling himself.