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“When he was free, he was all things beautiful and terrible.”
Making that first, crucial connection had broken my ability to make others.
“Why would I do that? We’ve invested far too much in creating you.” A hand fell on my shoulder; I twitched. “But you’re no good to us insane.”
Once upon a time there was a Once upon a time there was a Once upon a time there was a Stop this. It’s undignified.
This is an approximation, you realize. This is what your mortal mind can comprehend.
The place in which they lived was called EXISTENCE—as opposed to the place from which they had come, which was a great shrieking mass of nothingness called MAELSTROM.
The toys and foods she conjured were POSSIBILITY, and what a delightful substance that was!
So there was love, once. More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. Gods have no words for such things.
“There is nothing foolish about hope.”
Silence in reply, though this silence feels faintly of shame.
We expected Enefa’s to travel onward after she died, in the usual manner.
Perhaps, amid so much loneliness, tears become ultimately useless.
I had given up on trying to earn her love years before.
And then the face shifted again into something that in no way resembled human, something tentacled and toothed and hideous, and I screamed. Then
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.
“Oh, Yeine. You really don’t understand. If mortals were truly nothing to us, our lives would be so much easier. And so would yours.”
We have enough trouble with one god now; why in the Maelstrom would we want to live again under three?
“No child knows her parents, not truly.”
“You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.”
tears would have made him feel weak. Men have always been fragile that way.
“Love can level the ground between mortals and gods, Yeine. It’s something we’ve learned to respect.”
We’re going to have to talk, though.
And I was the one who was dying, yet I would miss him terribly.
From the instant the sun sinks out of mortal sight until the last light fades: that is twilight. From the instant the sun crests the horizon ’til it no longer touches earth: that is dawn.
Her expression was grim, resolute. I thought I understood why.
I carry the burdens of so many dead women.
His skin is darker, too, matte-smooth and flawless. (This surprises me, though it shouldn’t. How it must gall the Amn.) I can see, in this first glance, why Naha loves him.
My grandfather closes his eyes, perhaps mourning the death of his faith. “Why?”
It will no longer be able to bear two souls within itself; that is an ability only mortals possess. I made your kind that way, gifted in ways that we are not,
Perhaps he retains some smidgeon of faith. Perhaps it is simply that forty years ago, Dekarta killed his wife to prove his commitment. To do otherwise now would mock her death.
“Not every god,” I said. And because I was still me after all, I leaned down to smile in his face. “Just me.”
