Read Online The Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin - Free Book Online Page A

I said. It was a whisper.
    “Well, tell it to get short again. Or quit flopping about so I can get you loose.” She flipped up the blanket and started gathering my hair, tugging and finger combing. When she turned me onto my side, my head was freed. I’d been lying on the bulk of it.
    My hair should not have grown.
Her
hair should not have grown. “Tell me what’s happened,” I said as she shifted me about like an oversized doll. “How much time has passed since we took the oath?”
    “Took the oath?” She stared down at me, an incredulous look on her face. “Is that all you remember? My gods, Sieh, you broke the oath almost the instant you made it —”
    I cursed in three mortal languages, loudly, to cut her off. “Just tell me how much time has passed!”
    Fury reddened her cheeks, though the pale light around us — Sky’s glowing walls — made this difficult to see. “Eight years.”
    Impossible. “I would have remembered eight years.”
    I should have understood the anger in her voice as she snapped, “Well, that’s how long it’s been. Not my fault if you don’t remember it. I suppose you must have so many important things to do, you gods, that mortal years pass like breaths for you.”
    They did, but we were
aware
of the breaths. I wanted to know more, like why she sounded so angry and hurt. Those things called to me like the sting of broken innocence, and they felt important. But they also felt like the sorts of things that needed to be softened with silence before they were brought forth sharp, so I pushed them aside and asked, “Why am I so weak?”
    “How should I know?”
    “Where was I? While I was gone?”
    “Sieh” — she let out a hard exhalation — “I don’t know. I haven’t seen you once since the day eight years ago when you and I and Deka agreed to become friends. You tried to kill us and disappeared.”
    “Tried — I didn’t try to kill you.” Her face hardened further, full of hate. That meant I
had
tried to kill her, or at least she believed I had. “I didn’t
intend
to. Shahar —” I reached for her again, instinctive this time. I could pull strength from mortal children if I had to, but when I touched her knee again, there was only a trickle of what I needed. Of course; eight years. She would be sixteen now — not yet a woman, but close. I whimpered in frustration and pulled away.
    “I remember nothing from that moment until now,” I said, to take my mind off fear. “I took your hands and then I was here. Something is wrong.”
    “Obviously.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and let out a heavy sigh. “Hopefully your arrival didn’t trip the boundary scripts in the walls, or there will be a dozen guards breaking down the door in a minute. I’m going to have to think of some way to explain your presence.” She paused, frowning at me hopefully. “Or can you leave? That would really be the easiest solution.”
    Yes, good for me and for her. It was obvious she didn’t want me here. I didn’t want to be here, either, weak and heavy and wrong-feeling like this. I wanted to be with, with, wait, was that — Oh, no.
    “No,” I whispered, and when she sighed in exasperation, I realized she thought I’d been responding to her question. I madea heroic effort and grabbed her hand as tight as I could, startling her. “
No.
Shahar, how did you bring me here? Did you use scrivening, or — or did you command it somehow?”
    “I didn’t bring you here. You just showed up.”
    “No, you made me come, I felt it, you pulled me out of him —” And oh demons, oh hells, I could feel him coming. His fury made the whole mortal realm throb like an open wound. How could she not feel it? I shook her hand in lieu of shouting at her. “You pulled me out of him and
he’s going to kill you if you don’t tell me right now what you did
!”
    “Who —” she began. And then she froze, her eyes going wide, because even she could feel it now. Of