The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(347)

“There’s no evidence that they’re building an army at all,” said Nemmer.

There was, but it was subtle. I thought of Usein Darr’s pregnancy and that of her guardswoman, and the woman in Sar-enna-nem who’d had two babies with her, both too young to be eating solid food yet. I thought of the children I’d seen there—belligerent, xenophobic, barely multilingual, and every one of them four or five years old at the most. Darr was famous for its contraceptive arts. Even before scrivening, the women there had long ago learned to time childbearing to suit their constant raiding and intertribal wars. Their war crop, they called it, making a joke of other lands’ reliance on agriculture. In the years preceding a war, every woman under thirty tried her best to make a child or two. The warriors would nurse the babes for a few days, then hand them over to the nonwarriors in the family—who, having also recently borne children, would simply nurse two or three, until all the children could be weaned and handed over to grandmothers or menfolk. Thus the warriors could go off to fight knowing that their replacements were growing up safe, should they fall in battle.

It was a bad sign to see so many Darre breeding. It was a worse sign that the children hated foreigners and weren’t even trying to ape Senmite customs. They certainly weren’t preparing those children for peace.

“Even if they were building an army,” said Ahad, “there would be no reason for us to interfere. What mortals do to each other is their business. Our concern lies solely with this godling Kahl and the strange mask Sieh saw.”

At this, Glee’s already-grim look grew positively forbidding. “So you will do nothing if war breaks out?”

“Mortals have warred with one another since their creation,” Eyem-sutah said with a soft sigh. “The best we can do is try to prevent it… and protect the ones we love, if we fail. It is their nature.”

“Because it is our nature,” snapped Nemmer. “And because of us, they now have magic as a weapon for their warring. They’ll use soldiers and swords like before the Gods’ War, but also scriveners and these masks, and demons know what else. Do you have any idea how many could die?”

It would be worse than that, I knew. Most of mortalkind had no idea what war really meant anymore. They could not imagine the famine and rapine and disease, not on such a scale. Oh, they feared it of old, and the memory of the ultimate war—our War—had burned itself into the souls of every race. But that would not stop them from unleashing its full fury again and learning too late what they had done.

“This will do more than kill,” I murmured. “These people have forgotten what humanity can be like at its worst. Rediscovering this will shock them; it will wound their souls. I have seen it happen before, here and on other worlds.” I met Ahad’s eyes, and he frowned, just a little, at the look on my face. “They’ll burn their histories and slaughter their artists. They’ll enslave their women and devour their children, and they’ll do it in the gods’ names. Shahar was right; the end of the Arameri means the end of the Bright.”

Ahad spoke with brutal softness. “It will be worse if we get involved.”

He was right. I hated him more than ever for that.

In the silence that fell, Glee sighed. “I’ve stayed too long.” She rose to leave. “Keep me informed of anything else you discover or decide.”

I waited for one of the gods at the table to chastise her for giving them orders. Then I realized none of them were planning to. Lil had begun to lean toward the platter, her eyes gleaming. Kitr had taken the small paring knife and was spinning it on her fingertip, an old habit that meant she was thinking. Nemmer rose to leave as well, nodding casually to Ahad, and suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. I shoved back my chair and marched around the table and got to the door just as Glee started to open it. I slammed it shut.

“Who in the suppurating bright hells are you?” I demanded.

Ahad groaned. “Sieh, gods damn it—”

“No, I need to know this. I swore I’d never take orders from a mortal again.” I glared up at Glee, who didn’t look nearly as alarmed by my tantrum as I wanted her to be. What ignominy; I couldn’t even make mortals fear me anymore. “This doesn’t make sense! Why are all of you listening to her?”

The woman lifted an eyebrow, then let out a long, heavy sigh. “My full name is Glee Shoth. I speak for, and assist, Itempas.”

The words struck me like a slap—as did the name, and the odd familiarity of her manner, and her Maroneh heritage, and the way my siblings all seemed uneasy in her presence. I should have seen it at once. Kitr was right; I really was losing my touch.