The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(432)
Wrath Arameri: Captain of the White Guard in Sky.
Yeine: One of the Three. The current Goddess of Earth, Mistress of Twilight and Dawn.
Acknowledgments
Going to keep it short this time. This is the longest novel I’ve ever written, after all, and I’m plum tuckered out.
I need to thank you.
Seriously. That’s not just pretentious “I’d like to thank all the little people” bullshit. A writer is a writer whether she’s read or not, but no writer can have a career in this business unless she satisfies her readers. And really, even that’s not enough, not in these days of the long tail and a quarter-million new titles published per year in the United States alone. A writer needs readers who will find other readers, and grab them by the arm, and say to them, Read this book right now. She needs readers who will post reviews on retailer sites and argue with other readers over their ratings; readers who will select her work for their monthly book club meetings and discuss it over tea and cake; readers who will tweet about the book’s surprises; readers who’ll put the book on a literature syllabus. She even needs people who’ll rant that they hate the book—because those kinds of strong reactions make people curious.
The opposite of liking is not disliking, after all. The opposite of liking is apathy.
All new writers have Something to Prove—me more than most, maybe. But because so many of you have been anything but apathetic, I know I’ve done a good job. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
THE
AWAKENED
KINGDOM
A SEQUEL NOVELLA TO THE
INHERITANCE TRILOGY
I am born! Hello!
Many things happen.
The end!
Hello again! How are you? I am fine. I have learned more about Proper Ways from Papa Tempa. Papa said that what I did before was not the Proper Way to tell a story, so I will do it over. I do not like the way he says I should tell it, though. That is BORING. I want to make you feel like I feel! So I will talk like I thinked when stuff was happening, and I will start from the very beginning, when my thinking was not so good because I was extra new.
I am glad you are with me. You are new, too, and now we can be new together! We have much to learn, everyone says, but I have learned a great deal already! I will share it with you. See, here is what I learned today: how to speak to others without making them angry and how to run if I do make them angry and how not to blur myself into another so that both of us are lost and how to come close to MAELSTROM without dissolution and how to name all the names of all the pieces of EXISTENCE. I learned that besides Maelstrom and existence there is also NOTHINGNESS and it goes on for a long long way. Forever! It is not safe to go there, says Naha. She took me to the edge of the gods’ realm and showed me. It is very scary, but then so is Naha.
Do you know Naha? And Papa Tempa and Mama Yeine? You should know them! They encompass all the fullness of existence that the soul can grasp. I will take you to meet them. They will like you, you’ll see!
Hello! Mama Yeine says I do not have to say hello every time I see someone I already know.
Also, Papa Tempa tells me I am doing a wrong thing again. I am supposed to respect TIME, because that is a thing he has made for the place where mortals live, and you come from there. You might forget this if I tell it to you now, so I will tell it to you later and you will remember it when you reach now. That will happen in the gods’ realm, when you go there, which is where you are now, so don’t forget!
I do not know why you are confused. I explained it fine. OK! Now I will tell my story.
Imagine that you have just been born.
It is very confusing. (Not like time. Time is easy.) There is a lot of pain and messiness and then suddenly everything is new and different and cold and bright! And then something says Be and there you are. And while you lie there screaming there are hands that touch you, and warmth that folds around you, and there are voices, and they are familiar because you have heard them since long before your birth. So you are comforted.
But you scream again because the world blurs and that is when suddenly you discover words like agoraphobia and vertigo and you and other. You do not want to learn these words, but you have no choice! You know world, too, which you sort of knew before, except it once meant something entirely different. Once world was warm and dark and close. Now world is different, and you must start all over again learning how it works. This is not fair, but world—the world—is often unfair.
And then a really bad thing happens.
You were wanted! Mama and Papa and Naha wanted you lots. You know this, and you know there is a space carved into existence which is shaped like a godling, and that godling is supposed to be you! The hole was left when Biggest Sibling went away. By that I mean, he died. His name was Sieh. Now imagine you are supposed to be Sieh! Well, not really. Sieh is dead. But you were made to fill the hole he left behind—to be the Trickster and the wind, mischief and cruelty, the cat and the boy and the cranky old man. Imagine the Three have shaped you so, so carefully to match the hole. You will be different from Sieh-that-was, but you will be important in the same way. You will be powerful in the same way. The planets will follow you and the mortals will tell tales of you and you will steal all the suns, but only keep the ones that want to be your friend. Without a Trickster the universe will not end, but it will be a much duller place.