And then the torchlight went out and the air creaked and I turned to see that Nahadoth had changed as well. Night’s darkness now filled that end of Sar-enna-nem, but it was not like my first night in Sky. Here, fueled by the residue of ancient devotion, he showed me all he had once been: first among gods, sweet dream and nightmare incarnate, all things beautiful and terrible. Through a hurricane swirl of blue-black unlight I caught a glimpse of moon-white skin and eyes like distant stars; then they warped into something so unexpected that my brain refused to interpret it for an instant. But the library embossing had warned me, hadn’t it? A woman’s face shone at me from the darkness, proud and powerful and so breathtaking that I yearned for her as much as I had for him, and it did not seem strange at all that I did so. And then the face shifted again into something that in no way resembled human, something tentacled and toothed and hideous, and I screamed. Then there was only darkness where his face should have been, and that was most frightening of all.
He stepped forward again. I felt it: an impossible, invisible vastness moved with him. I heard the walls of Sar-enna-nem groan, too flimsy to contain such power. The whole world could not contain this. I heard the sky above Darr rumble with thunder; the ground beneath my feet trembled. White teeth gleamed amid the darkness, sharp like wolves’. That was when I knew I had to act, or the Nightlord would kill my grandmother right before my eyes.
Right before my—
Right before my eyes she lies, sprawled and naked and bloody
this is not flesh this is all you can comprehend
but it means the same thing as flesh, she is dead and violated, her perfect form torn in ways that should not be possible, should not be and who has done this? Who could have
what did it mean that he made love to me before driving the knife home?
and then it hits: betrayal. I had known of his anger, but never once did I imagine… never once had I dreamt… I had dismissed her fears. I thought I knew him. I gather her body to mine and will all of creation to make her live again. We are not built for death. But nothing changes, nothing changes, there was a hell that I built long ago and it was a place where everything remained the same forever because I could imagine nothing more horrific, and now I am there.
Then others come, our children, and all react with equal horror
in a child’s eyes, a mother is god
but I can see nothing of their grief through the black mist of my own. I lay her body down but my hands are covered in her blood, our blood, sister lover pupil teacher friend otherself, and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.
I blinked.
Sar-enna-nem was as it had been, shadowed and quiet, its splendor hidden again beneath bricks and dusty wood and old rugs. I stood in front of my grandmother, though I did not remember getting up or moving. Nahadoth’s human mask was back in place, his aura diminished to its usual quiet drift, and once again he was staring at me.
I covered my eyes with one hand. “I can’t take much more of this.”
“Y-Yeine?” My grandmother. She put a hand on my shoulder. I barely noticed.
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” I looked up at Nahadoth. “What you expected. Her soul is devouring my own.”
“No,” said Nahadoth very softly. “I don’t know what this is.”
I stared at him and could not help myself. All the shock and fear and anger of the past few days bubbled up, and I burst out laughing. I laughed so loudly that it echoed from Sar-enna-nem’s distant ceiling; so long that my grandmother peered at me in concern, no doubt wondering if I had gone mad. I probably had, because suddenly my laughter turned to screaming and my mirth ignited as white-hot rage.
“How can you not know?” I shrieked at Nahadoth. I had lapsed into Senmite again. “You’re a god! How can you not know?”
His calm stoked my fury higher. “I built uncertainty into this universe, and Enefa wove that into every living being. There will always be mysteries beyond even us gods’ understanding—”
I launched myself at him. In the interminable second that my mad rage lasted, I saw that his eyes flicked to my approaching fist and widened in something very like amazement. He had plenty of time to block or evade the blow. That he did not was a complete surprise.
The smack of it echoed as loud as my grandmother’s gasp.
In the ensuing silence, I felt empty. The rage was gone. Horror had not yet arrived. I lowered my hand to my side. My knuckles stung.
Nahadoth’s head had turned with the blow. He lifted a hand to his lip, which was bleeding, and sighed.
“I must work harder to keep my temper around you,” he said. “You have a memorable way of chastising me.”