The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(97)

The iron chain had been connected to a nearby wall. It fell away with Scimina’s words. Naha picked up the loose end, then stood watching me, his expression unreadable.

I inclined my head to Scimina. She ignored me, returning her attention to the tailors’ work with a snarl of irritation; one of them had pinned the hem badly. I left, not caring whether Nahadoth followed now or later.


What would I want, if I could be free?

Safety for Darr.

My mother’s death given meaning.

Change, for the world.

And for myself…

I understand now. I have chosen who will shape me.


“She’s right,” Naha said, when we stood together in my apartment. “I’m not much use at the moment.” He said it blandly, with no emotional inflection, but I guessed his bitterness.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m not interested anyhow.” I went to stand at the window.

Silence behind me for a long moment, and then he came over. “Something’s changed.” The light was wrong to see his reflection, but I could imagine his suspicious expression. “You’re different.”

“A lot has happened since you and I last met.”

He touched my shoulder. When I did not throw off his hand, he took hold of the other, then turned me gently to face him. I let him. He stared at me, trying to read my eyes, perhaps trying to intimidate me.

Except, up close, he was anything but intimidating. Deep lines of weariness marked paths from his sunken eyes; the eyes themselves were bloodshot, even more ordinary looking than before. His posture was slouched and strange. Belatedly I understood: he could barely stand. Nahadoth’s torture had taken its toll on him as well.

My face must have shown my pity, because abruptly he scowled and straightened. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Sit down,” I said, gesturing to the bed. I tried to turn back to the window, but his fingers tightened on my shoulders. If he had been at his best, he would have hurt me. I understood that now. He was a slave, a whore, not even allowed part-time control of his own body. The only power he had was what little he could exert over his lovers, his users. That wasn’t much.

“Are you waiting for him?” he asked. The way he said “him” held a treasure’s worth of resentment. “Is that it?”

I reached up and detached his hands from my shoulders, pushing them away firmly. “Sit down. Now.”

The “now” forced him to let go of me, walk the few steps to the bed, and sit down. He did it glaring the whole way. I turned back to the window and let his hate splash uselessly against my back.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m waiting for him.”

A stunned pause. “You’re in love with him. You weren’t before, but you are now. Aren’t you?”


You resist the truth.


I considered the question.

“In love with him?” I said it slowly. The phrase felt strange when I thought about it, like a poem that has been read too often. “In love with him.”


Another memory preoccupies you.


I was surprised to hear real fear in Naha’s voice. “Don’t be a fool. You don’t know how often I’ve woken up beside a corpse. If you’re strong, you can resist him.”

“I know. I’ve said no to him before.”

“Then…” Confusion.

I had a sudden epiphany as to what his life had been like: this other, unwanted Nahadoth. Every day a plaything of the Arameri. Every night—not sleep but oblivion, as close to death as any mortal can come short of the event itself. No peace, no true rest. Every morning a chilling surprise: mysterious injuries. Dead lovers. And the soul-grinding knowledge that it would never, ever end.

“Do you dream?” I asked.

“What?”

“Dream. At night, while you’re… within him. Do you?”

Naha frowned for a long moment, as if he was trying to figure out the trick in my question. Finally he said, “No.”

“Not at all?”

“I have… flashes, sometimes.” He gestured vaguely, looking away from me. “Memories, maybe. I don’t know what they are.”

I smiled, feeling sudden warmth toward him. He was like me. Two souls, or at least two selves, in a single body. Perhaps that was where the Enefadeh had gotten the idea.

“You look tired,” I said. “You should get some sleep.”

He frowned. “No. I sleep enough at night—”

“Sleep now,” I said, and he crumpled onto his side so swiftly that I might have laughed under other circumstances. I walked over to the bed, lifted his legs onto it and arranged him for comfort, then knelt beside it, putting my mouth near his ear.