The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(464)

They don’t understand, Zhakkarn said to me without words. Their lives are too short to see the wholeness of it.

I scowled. I’m not even two months old and I understand.

You are a god.

And being a god was more than just being immortal. I sighed, suddenly feeling lonely on a planet teeming with living beings. Zhakkarn got to her feet after a moment, then came over and put a big hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t mad at her anymore after that.

Mikna exhaled, oblivious to us.

“You think Fahno cruel to give Eino to me,” she said. I blinked. “You think me cruel to take him, when he doesn’t want me.”

“Well, yes,” I said. Then I sighed. “But Arolu says you can take care of him, if Fahno dies without an heir.”

She smiled in a lopsided way. “Take care of him? I want nothing of the sort. I’d be a fool not to recognize the strength in him, Shill; that’s precisely why I want him. Call me selfish for it, but I want daughters—and sons, too—with his spirit. It’s as simple as that.”

I started to get mad again; Zhakkarn squeezed my shoulder, gently. “Well, maybe you should ask him to give you some spirit and babies, then!”

She blinked, then laughed. “You have such an odd way of phrasing things.” She sighed. “I will be—careful with him. I’m no brute; I want a helpmeet, not just some stud-beast to be chained away between uses. But, Shill… I did ask him to marry me. And Lumyn asked him. He hasn’t answered either of us… which is why Fahno is forcing the issue.”

“Oh!” Why hadn’t Eino answered her? I would have to ask him. I was beginning to think that understanding this whole mess might be the key to understanding him. And myself.

I had grown, though, and I understood now how important good manners were. “Thank you,” I said. “You made me bigger. I’ll, um, I’ll go think about what you said.” Then I shifted from foot to foot, but I was too grown up now not to acknowledge when I’d been wrong. “And I, uh, I’m sorry I was mean to you.”

She smiled cheerfully. “That’s fine. I got to watch Lady Zhakkarn beat you senseless, after all. Let’s call it even.”

I was surprised into a laugh, though it was not a very good laugh. (Suddenly I understood why so many mortals laughed without really meaning it.) “Um, I’m gonna go find Eino and talk to him now. Bye.”

She nodded, as did Zhakkarn. “Until later, Lady Shill.”


I will stop here to tell you another thing you should know. That day with Mikna was when I realized that it is not their poison that makes enulai powerful. Also, I started to know that having power does not make a person—or a god—better, or right. I did not dislike Mikna anymore, and I probably would even like Lumyn if I gave her a chance… but I thought they were both wrong about a lot of things.

Yes yes OK I know you knew that already you do not have to be obnoxious about it OK.


So I went back to Fahno’s house, not bothering with a body as I moved through it. Lumyn was gone. Fahno was in her study, and the whole room felt of weary frustration; I did not invade her privacy. The servants were just going about their business as usual. Arolu was in a pretty room with a glass skylight where there were comfortable seats and flowers and books and lengths of cloth and thread on skeins. At first I thought he was working on a small embroidered blanket with a hood and little feet, which was in his lap. But he just sat there, unmoving, and after a moment I realized he had something else in his lap: a small ceramic circle which bore a portrait of a woman’s face. I could see her resemblance to Eino in the strength of her jaw and the determination in her gaze. Tehno, Eino’s mother, and Arolu’s lost wife.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. I was confused, because he could not see me; how did he know I was there? But then he touched the circle, and I realized he wasn’t talking to me. I wondered what he was sorry about. Whether he’d gone through this at some point, being given to a woman he maybe didn’t love, made to stuff himself into floofy clothes and quiet rooms when maybe he was the kind of man who wanted to run and shout. Somewhere along the way he had grown to love Tehno, obviously, but when? How? Had it been worth it?

I was a big girl now; I didn’t bother him.

Eino was up on the roof, lounging beneath the canopy of the chair I’d first seen Fahno in. A whole day had passed since that moment; it made me feel nostalgic for how young and silly I’d been back then. He didn’t sit like Fahno, though, who liked to be forward-leaning and intent; instead Eino sat sprawled in the chair, his legs crossed, his arms draped over the rests, an expression of distant boredom in his face. But his face was another kind of lie; mortals did that a lot, I was beginning to see. He was not bored, he was brooding. Angry, with perfect grace. I shaped myself out of ether and settled on the ground beside his chair; he did not seem at all surprised when I did.