“What if there was?” challenged Minya, cool. “What if there was another way, but you were too pathetic to do it?”
Sarai bristled at the insult, and shrank from it, too. Too pathetic to do what? She didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. “What are you talking about?”
Minya considered her, then shook her head. “No, I’m sure of it. You are too pathetic. You’d let us die first.”
“What, Minya?” Sarai demanded.
“Well, you’re the only one of us who can reach the city,” said the little girl. She really was a pretty child, but it was hard to see it—not so much because she was unkempt, but because of the queer, cold lack in her eyes. Had she always been like that? Sarai remembered laughing with her, long ago, when they had all properly been children, and she didn’t think she had been. When had she changed and become… this? “You couldn’t manage to drive the Godslayer mad,” she was saying.
“He’s too strong,” Sarai protested. Even now she couldn’t bring herself to suggest—even to herself, really—that perhaps he didn’t deserve madness.
“Oh, he’s strong,” agreed Minya, “but I daresay even the great Godslayer couldn’t manage to breathe if a hundred moths flew down his throat.”
If a hundred moths flew down his…
Sarai could only stare at her. Minya laughed at her blank shock. Did she understand what she was saying? Of course she did. She just didn’t care. The moths weren’t… they weren’t scraps of rag. They weren’t even trained insects. They were Sarai. They were her own consciousness spun out from her on long, invisible strings. What they experienced, she experienced, be it the heat of a sleeper’s brow or the red wet clog of a choking man’s throat. “And in the morning,” Minya went on, “when he’s found dead in his bed, the moths will have turned to smoke, and no one will even know what killed him.”
She was triumphant—a child pleased with a clever plan. “You could only kill one person a night, I suppose. Maybe two. I wonder how many moths it would take to suffocate someone.” She shrugged. “Anyway, once a few faranji die without explanation, I think the others will lose heart.” She smiled, cocked her head. “Well, was I right? Are you too pathetic? Or can you endure a few minutes of disgust to save us all?”
Sarai opened her mouth and closed it. A few minutes of disgust? How trivial she made it sound. “It’s not about disgust,” she said. “God forbid a strong stomach should be all that stands between killing and not. There’s decency, Minya. Mercy.”
“Decency,” spat the girl. “Mercy.”
The way she said it. The word had no place in the citadel of the Mesarthim. Her eyes darkened as though her pupils had engulfed her irises, and Sarai felt it coming, the response that brooked no comeback: Tell that to the other babies.
But that wasn’t what she said. “You make me sick, Sarai. You’re so soft.” And then she spoke words that she never had, not in all these fifteen years. In a low and deadly hiss, she said, “I should have saved a different baby.” And then she spun on her heel and stalked out behind her terrible, heartbreaking army.
Sarai felt slapped. Ruby, Sparrow, and Feral surrounded her. “I’m glad she saved you,” said Sparrow, stroking her arms and hair.
“Me too,” echoed Ruby.
But Sarai was imagining a nursery full of godspawn—kindred little girls and boys with blue skin and magic yet unguessed—and humans in their midst with kitchen knives. Somehow, Minya had hidden the four of them away. Sarai had always felt the narrow stroke of luck—like an ax blow passing close enough to shave the tips from the down of her cheek—that Minya had saved her. That she had survived instead of one of the others.
And once upon a time, survival had seemed like an end unto itself. But now… it began to feel like an expedient with no object.
Survive for what?
30
STOLEN NAME, STOLEN SKY
Lazlo didn’t stay at Suheyla’s house for breakfast. He thought that mother and son might like some time alone after two years’ separation. He waited to greet Eril-Fane—and tried hard to keep his new knowledge quiet in his eyes when he did. It was hard; his horror seemed to shout inside of him. Everything about the hero looked different now that he knew even this small sliver of what he had endured.
He saddled Lixxa and rode through Weep, getting quite agreeably lost. “You look well rested,” he told Calixte, who was eating in the dining room of the guildhall when he finally found it.
“You don’t,” she returned. “Did you forget to sleep?”
“How dare you,” he said mildly, taking a seat at her table. “Are you suggesting that I look less than perfectly fresh?”
“I would never be so uncivil as to suggest imperfect freshness.” She took a large bite of pastry. “However,” she said with her mouth full, “you’re cultivating patches of blue under your eyes. So unless you got yourself punched very symmetrically, my guess is not enough sleep. Besides, with the state of ecstatic dazzlement you were in yesterday, I didn’t expect you’d be able to sit still, let alone sleep.”
“First of all: Who would want to punch me? Second of all: ecstatic dazzlement. Nicely put.”
“First of all: Thank you. Second of all: Thyon Nero would love to punch you.”
“Oh, him,” said Lazlo. It might have been meant as a joke, but the golden godson’s animosity was palpable. The others felt it, even if they had no clue as to what was behind it. “I think he’s the only one, though.”
Calixte sighed. “So na?ve, Strange. If they didn’t before, they all want to punch you over the theory purse. Drave especially. You should hear him rant. He put way too much into it, the fool. I think he thought it was a lottery, and if he made more guesses he’d be likelier to win. Whereas you make one—a ridiculous one—and win. I’m amazed he hasn’t punched you already.”
“Thakra save me from the theory purse,” said Lazlo, blithely invoking the local deity, Thakra. She had been commander of the six seraphim, according to legend—and holy book—and her temple stood just across a broad boulevard from the guildhall.
“Save you from five hundred silver?” queried Calixte. “I think I could help you out there.”
“Thanks, I think I’ll manage,” said Lazlo, who in truth had no idea where to begin with so much money. “More like save me from bitter explosionists and grudging alchemists.”
“I will. Don’t worry. It’s my fault, and I take full responsibility for you.”
Lazlo laughed. Calixte was as slim as a hreshtek, but far less dangerous-looking than one. Still, he didn’t mistake her for harmless, whereas he knew he was, Ruza’s spear-throwing lessons notwithstanding. “Thank you. If I’m attacked, I’ll scream hysterically and you can come save me.”
“I’ll send Tzara,” said Calixte. “She’s magnificent when she fights.” She added, with a secret smile, “Though she’s even more magnificent doing other things.”