Eino laughed, pacing again. “No, she isn’t. I’d probably fall in love with either of them if I had half a moment to think about it. But no one will give me that moment, and all I can think about is how unfair all this is. If I’d just been born with the right stuff between my legs…” He shook his head.
I knew how that felt, kind of. “I was supposed to be different, too,” I said, shifting to sit cross-legged. “Everybody thought I would be the new Trickster when I was born. But I’m not. I even thought I could make myself be the Trickster, but none of that has worked. I’m still just me.”
Eino stopped again, his back to me this time. It was sunset now, and he stood stock-still in the slanting red light; it made me think of Papa Tempa. “What do you intend to do about that?”
“Do?” I considered, then finally shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t be what everyone wanted me to be. I can’t even be what I want to be. I’m going to have to find a way to live with what I am, I guess.” As soon as I figured that out.
“And if you can’t? Live with it, I mean.”
I had never thought of that. “I don’t know. I guess… if I really want to, I can always go to Mama—um, Yeine, that is. Or, or find a demon. When gods want to die, that’s what they have to do.”
“Poor creatures.” It sounded like a joke, the way Eino said it, but it didn’t seem very funny. “That you must rely on someone else for the privilege of taking your own life.”
I shrugged a little, not really liking the conversation anymore. “Yeine calls mortality a gift. I think it’s scary, but when you put it that way, maybe it is.”
“Yes.” Eino fell silent. I watched him, and worried. He was so still, just like Papa. But mortals are not meant to be like Itempas. They’re supposed to bend; if they get too much like him, they break.
I could hear some noise downstairs in the house, but I’d sort of pushed it away as unimportant. A moment later, though, I heard footsteps on the stairs that led up to the roof, and then Arolu opened the door. He was breathing hard, his handsome face stark with worry. “Eino,” he said, then seemed to run out of things to say. A moment later, however, he was pushed forward and out of the doorway, and three women in black uniforms stepped out onto the rooftop with Fahno in tow looking worried.
“Eino mau Tehno?” This was one of the uniformed women. As weapons went she had only a knife strapped across the small of her back, but her hand was on the hilt of this. “You are summoned. The Council would like a word with you.”
“Would they?” asked Eino, as I got to my feet. He didn’t sound alarmed, and suddenly he was smiling. It was a strange smile. “Good. I’d like to talk to them, too.”
I did not know this at the time, but later I showed my older siblings a memory of this smile, and they said it was a lot like Sieh’s had been, when he was up to something scary.
The women in the uniforms took Eino back to the place I’d visited on my first day in the mortal realm: the Raringa, a great domed building where the Warriors’ Council held court and decided the fate of the Darre.
I tried to stay with Eino, because I did not know what was going on but it seemed to be bad. Fahno made me walk with her and Arolu instead, though, because—she said—it would make the Council more prejudiced against Eino if I misbehaved. I wasn’t sure if I believed her, but I stayed quiet and near her anyway, just in case. Mikna and Lumyn were there at the Raringa, too, arriving when we did; Lumyn glanced at us but moved to the other side of a gathering knot of women moving into the chamber, while Mikna came over and nodded briskly to Fahno, her jaw set and tight. She saw me and nodded again. Even Ia was there, appearing quietly beside us as we claimed a spot amid the gathering crowd of onlookers.
“What’s happening?” I whispered to him. A lot of people looked at us; I’d been too loud again.
“I don’t know,” he said, frowning slightly. That made me worry more, and I was already worried lots. I didn’t like the look on Ia’s face. I didn’t like that Eino had said And if you can’t? Live with it.
I especially didn’t like that I knew Eino still had Lumyn’s knife, hidden somewhere in his robes.
At the door of the Council chamber the uniformed women tried to put shackles on Eino. I bared my teeth and made them go away. They looked at him like he had done it. He smiled and said, “There’s no need for that, is there?” And they did not try to put shackles on him again.
Fahno looked at me very hard and suspiciously! But she did not know for sure, and that was what mattered. I had learned a lot from Eino.