The final piece of evidence supporting this theory was the “reality static” that appeared directly after the Kaj successfully killed four of the six original Divinities: the world apparently “remembered” that parts of it once existed in different realities, and had trouble reassembling itself. Saypuri soldiers recorded seeing rivers that flowed into the sky, silver that would turn to lead if you carried it through a certain place, trees that would bloom and die several times over in one day, and fertile lands that turned into cracked wastelands if you stood in one exact spot, yet instantly restore themselves once you’d left it. Eventually, however, the world more or less sorted itself out, and instances of reality static all but vanished from the Continent—leaving the world not quite ruined, but not quite whole, either.
Vinya continues: “Efrem believed that the mortal agents and followers of these Divinities had possessed some hand in shaping these realities. He was never sure how, though, because he never had access to the correct historical resources. Dangerous historical resources.”
“Which were all in the Warehouse.”
“Exactly. He actually wrote and submitted a paper about this theory, which promptly got sent to me, as this sort of thing is very much looked down upon. I think they expected I’d imprison him, or exile him, or something.”
“But instead you gave him exactly what he wanted. Why?”
“Well, think about it, Shara,” says Vinya. “Saypur is now the strongest nation in the world. Our might is undeniable. Nothing in the world even feigns to threaten us. Except … we know that Divinities once existed. And though they were killed, we do not understand what they were, or how they did what they did, where they came from, or even how the Kaj killed them.”
“You’re thinking of them as weapons.”
Vinya shrugs. “Maybe so. Imagine it—if a Divinity wished a land to be bathed in fire, it would be bathed in fire. They would be, in a way, a weapon that would end modern warfare as we know it. No more armies. No more navies. No more soldiers of any kind—just casualties.”
Shara feels a cold horror growing in her belly. “And you wished … to produce one of these for Saypur?”
Vinya laughs. “Oh, my goodness, no. No, no, no. I am quite happy where I am. I would be insane to invite in something that would wield—how shall I put this?—a greater authority than my own. What I would wish would be to prevent anyone else from getting one. That … That is something that has kept me and many a Saypuri up at night. If Efrem could answer exactly where the gods came from, and how they worked, then we could actively prevent them from recurring. And if he just happened to find some information about the Kaj’s weaponry—about which we to this day still know absolutely nothing—that would help me sleep a little better, too.”
“Knowing how to kill a god would help you sleep better?”
A flippant shrug. “Such are the burdens of power,” says Vinya. “Efrem was a little less eager to explore this avenue—I think it bored him, to be frank—but anything would be better than what we know now.”
“And we would … Well. We would know why we were denied, too,” says Shara.
Vinya pauses, and slowly nods. “Yes. We would finally know.”
Neither of them says any more on the topic, but they do not need to: while no Saypuri can go a day without thinking of how their ancestors lived in abysmal slavery, neither can they go an hour without wondering why. Why were they denied a god? Why was the Continent blessed with protectors, with power, with tools and privileges that were never extended to Saypur? How could such a tremendous inequality be allowed? And while Saypuris may seem to the world to be a small, curious people of education and wealth, anyone who spends any time in Saypur soon comes to understand that in their hearts lives a cold rage that lends them a cruelty one would never expect. They call us godless, Saypuris occasionally say to one another, as if we had a choice.
“So we dressed it up as an act of diplomacy,” says Vinya. “An effort to heal the gulf between our nation and theirs. We only wanted to peruse the books in the Warehouse. That’s all. I … I honestly never thought Efrem was in any danger. We assumed Bulikov would continue being Bulikov—all squalor and filth—and he could simply go about his business.”
Shara pauses, wondering how to broach the most obvious question. “And … I’m curious,” she says slowly. “Why did you not tell me about this when I first came to Bulikov?”
Vinya sniffs and sits up. But for one second her dark eyes skitter and dance as she considers how to answer.
Shara leans forward slightly and watches her aunt carefully.
“This was a highly, highly restricted project,” pronounces Vinya. Still her eyes search the bottom of the pane before wandering up to find Shara’s face. “If you had caught someone, good on you. If not, we would have pursued the matter through different channels.”
Vinya smiles haughtily.