“Of course it is,” he said. “Yeine is the proof of that.”
I shook my head. “She was special. Unique. Her soul—”
“Yes, I know.” His gaze was glacially cold, and I remembered the moment he’d committed himself to being my enemy. Had the same expression been on his face then? If so, I would have tried harder to earn his forgiveness. “The conjunction of many elements, all in just the right proportion and strength, all at just the right time. Of such a recipe is divinity made.” He gestured toward the mask; his hand shook and grew blurry before he lowered it. “Godsblood and mortal life, magic and art and the vagaries of chance. And more, all bound into that mask, all to impress upon those who view it, an idea.”
Usein set the thing down on the carved wooden face that served as its stand. “Yes. And the first mortal who put it on burned to death from the inside out. It took three days; she screamed the whole time. The fire was so hot that we couldn’t get near enough to end her misery.” She turned a hard look on Kahl. “That thing is evil.”
“Merely incomplete. The raw energy of creation is neither good nor evil. But when that mask is ready, it will churn forth something new… and wondrous.” He paused, his expression turning inward for a moment; he spoke softer, as if to himself, but I realized that his words were actually aimed at me. “I will not be a slave to fate. I will embrace it, control it. I will be what I wish to be.”
“You’re mad.” Usein shook her head. “You expect us to put this kind of power into your hands, for demons know what purpose? No. Leave this place, Kahl. We’ve had enough of your kind of help.”
I hurt. The incomplete mask. It was like the Maelstrom: potential gone mad, creation feeding upon itself. I was not mortal enough to be immune to it. Yet that was not the sole source of my discomfort; something else beat against me like an oncoming tide, trying to drive me to my knees. The mask had heightened my god-senses, allowing me to feel it, but my flesh was only mortal, too weak to endure so much power in one place.
“What are you?” I asked Kahl in our words, between gasps. “Elontid? Imbalance…” That was the only explanation for the seesaw flux I felt from him. Resolve and sorrow, hatred and longing, ambition and loneliness. But how could there be another elontid in the world? He could not have been born during the time of my incarceration, not with Enefa dead and all gods rendered sterile for that time. And who were his parents? Itempas was the only one of the Three who could have made him, but Itempas did not mate with godlings.
Kahl smiled. To my surprise, there was no hint of cruelty in it—only that curious, resolute sorrow I’d heard in my dream.
“Enefa is dead, Sieh.” His voice was soft now. “Not all her works vanished with her, but some did. I remembered. You will, too, eventually.”
Remember what?
forget
Forget what?
Kahl staggered suddenly, bracing himself against the door and sighing. “Enough. We’ll finish this later. In the meantime, a word of advice, Sieh: find Itempas. Only his power can save you; you know this. Find him, and live for as long as you can.” When he pushed himself upright, his teeth were a carnivore’s, needle-sharp. “Then if you must die, die like a god. At my hands, in battle.”
Then he vanished. And I was alone, helpless, being churned to pieces by the mask’s power. My flesh tried, again, to fragment; it hurt, the way disintegration should. I screamed, reaching out for someone, anyone, to save me. Nahadoth—No, I didn’t want him or Yeine anywhere near that mask, no telling what it would do to them. But I was so afraid. I did not want to die, not yet.
The world twisted around me. I slid through it, gasping—
Rough hands grasped me, hauled me over onto my back. Above me, Ahad’s face. Not Nahadoth but close enough. He was frowning, examining me with hands and other senses, actually looking concerned.
“You care,” I said dizzily, and stopped thinking for a while.
12
WHEN I WOKE, I told Ahad what I had seen in Darr, and he got a very odd look on his face. “That was not at all what we suspected,” he muttered to himself. He looked over at Glee, who stood by the window, her hands clasped behind her back, as she gazed out over the quiet streets. It was nearly dawn in this part of the world. The end of the working day for the Arms of Night.
“Call the others,” she said. “We’ll meet tomorrow night.”
So Ahad dismissed me for the day, ordering the servants to give me food and money and new clothing, because the old set no longer fit well. I had aged again, you see—perhaps five years this time, passing through my final growth spurt in the process. I was two inches taller and even thinner than before, unpleasantly close to skeletal. My body had reconfigured its existing substance to forge my new shape, and I hadn’t had much substance to go around. I was well into my twenties now, with no hint of childhood remaining. Nothing but human left.