I had already gained that clue during our brief metaphysical struggle. That fierce, devouring need of his. For what? I looked into his strangely mortalish eyes—strange because he had never really been mortal, yet mortality was all he knew—and tried to understand him. Which I should have been able to do because I had been there at the moment of his birth. I had seen his first steps and heard his first words. I had loved him, even if—
The nausea struck faster than ever before, because the alcohol had already made me ill. I barely managed to whirl away and collapse onto the floor before I was retching, screaming through the heaves, wobbling because my legs were trying to jerk and my spine was trying to bow backward even as my stomach sought to cast out the poison I had taken in. But this poison was not physical.
“Still a child after all.” Ahad sighed into my ear, his voice a low murmur that easily got through my strangled cries. “Shall I call you big brother or little brother? I suppose it doesn’t matter. You will never grow up fully, no matter how old you look. Brother.”
Brother. Brother. Not child, not
forget
Ahad was not my son, not even figuratively, because
forget
Because a god of childhood could not be a father, not if he wanted to be at all, and
forgetforgetforget
Brother. Ahad was my brother. My new little brother, Yeine’s first child. Nahadoth would be… well, not proud, probably. But amused.
My body unknotted. The agony receded enough that I stopped screaming, stopped spasming. There was nothing in my stomach anyhow. I lay there, returning gradually to myself as the horror faded, then drew one cautious breath. Then another.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Ahad, crouching over me, sighed. He did not say you’re welcome, because I was not welcome and we both knew it. But he had done me a kindness when he hadn’t had to, and that deserved acknowledgment.
“You smell,” he said, “and you’re filthy, and you look like horseshit. Since you’re too useless to take yourself out of here as you should, I have no choice but to put you up for the night. But don’t get used to it; I want you living somewhere else after this.” He got up and went away, I assume to find a servant and make arrangements for my stay.
When he came back, I had managed—barely—to sit on my knees. I was still shaky. Insanely, my stomach now insisted that it needed to be filled again. In or out, I told it, but it did not listen.
Ahad crouched in front of me again. “Interesting.”
I managed to lift my eyes to him. His expression betrayed nothing, but he lifted a hand and conjured a small hand mirror. I was too tired even for envy. He lifted the mirror to show me my face.
I had grown older. The face that gazed back at me was longer, leaner, with a stronger jawline. The hair on my chin was no longer downy and barely visible; it had grown darker, longer, the wispy precursors of a beard. Late adolescence, rather than the middling stage of it I’d been in. Two years of my life gone? Three? Gone, regardless.
“I should be flattered, perhaps,” Ahad said. “That you remember the old days with such fondness.” His words skirted the edge of danger, but I was too tired for true fear. He could kill me anytime he wanted, and would’ve done it by now if he’d really meant to. He just liked flaunting his power.
Suddenly this seemed monumentally unfair. “I hate this,” I whispered, not caring if he heard me. “I hate that I’m nothing now.”
Ahad shook his head, less annoyed than unsurprised. His hand seized the back of my shirt and pulled me to my feet. “You’re not ‘nothing.’ You’re mortal, which is far from nothing. The sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.” He took one of my arms, holding it up, and made a sound of disgust. “You need to eat. Start taking care of your body if you want it to last for the few years you have left. Or would you rather die now?”
I closed my eyes, letting myself dangle from his grasp. “I don’t want to be mortal.” I was whining. It felt good to realize I still could, however much I’d grown up. “Mortals lie when they say they love you. They wait until you trust them, then shove the knife in, and then they work it around to make sure it kills you.”
There was a moment of silence, during which I closed my eyes and honestly contemplated having a good cry. It ended when the office door opened and two servants came in, and when Ahad gave me a slap on the cheek that was not quite gently chiding.
“Gods do that, too,” he snapped, “so you’re damned whichever way you turn. Shut up and deal with it.”
Then he shoved me into the servants’ waiting arms and they hauled me away.