The obelisk loomed over the square, an ethereal presence I felt more than saw through the snow. It sent a shiver over my shoulders, or rather, the cold did. Only the cold. I glanced at it. Not even the snowflakes dared to get close, dancing on the breeze but giving it the same wide berth as the snow demons.
A god that terrified even snowflakes.
The square was empty, no one to disapprove as I spat in the direction of the obelisk. If only it was a statue, so I might spit in the Dark God’s face. Instead, I turned towards the building the peasants had lined up in front of earlier, the one that Jem had called the storehouse. Lumi’s only storehouse, because Lumians were so complacent, so stupid as to keep their most precious resource in one place.
Even in Nuriya, where food and spice were as plentiful as the stars, we weren’t so foolish.
The falling snow had filled in the crowd’s footprints. I trudged up to the door. The building itself was windowless and why not? What was there to look at? But perhaps I needn’t try so hard as to climb through a window to break in.
I tried the door, and it slid open, because Lumians were so foolish they had never imagined that starving hordes might actually steal.
The front hall was empty, just light and shadows dancing over black walls as I held up my lamp. The next door had been left open, and I almost laughed, thinking thieves really had gotten there first.
I checked the oil level in my lamp. I should have brought more to douse the foodstuffs with, but this would be enough to get the flames started.
And then Jem would have no choice. Lumi would fall before the Dark God came, but I would magnanimously offer Jem the choice to leave behind his failure of a prince to stay at my side, my tawam rohi, as I retook the Nuriyite court.
I sniffed. Unlikely. He’d still try to sacrifice me, never mind that he was not and never would be a tawam rohi. Never. But perhaps I’d abduct him and train him until he acted a fair likeness. Make him forget Lumi and Prince Haori forever.
But first, I had to focus on the storehouse. I trudged into the next room, my boots echoing as if the whole building was empty.
The corridor opened into a cavernous room lined with stone and iron. If the stones had been painted and rugs covered the floors, it could have been a Nuriyite warehouse. The lamplight bounced along the flagstone.
The empty flagstone.
In the empty room.
The storehouse was empty. Not a sack, or a pail, or a box, or even crumbs on the floor.
I gritted my teeth, lifting the lamp again to see the back wall. There had to be another door. A hidden door to protect their stores from thieves and beggars.
“Burn the place.”
My fingers tightened around the lamp handle, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming. I whirled back to the door, where Jem waited, his bare hands folded in front of him. He’d wrapped a white scarf around his head and neck, like a Nuriyite woman on her way to the marketplace.
He said, “Go ahead, burn it. If it will make you feel better.”
Burning their precious last food would make me feel better. Destroying their town would make me feel better. Burning an empty storehouse would not. “Why bother? You’re already going to starve. Gave away all your rations, did you?”
“I had the little still left moved.”
I tilted my head, not believing him.
He smirked, but not with any kind of victory. The smirk of a corpse, muscles taut with rigor mortis. “Why do you think I showed you this place?”
No. No, this hadn’t been Jem’s idea. It hadn’t been his distraction, to make me focus on destroying an empty building instead of escaping. No, this had been my idea. It had been an unexpected move.
I felt suddenly like one of those white game pieces, surrounded by Jem’s black. The Dark God’s black.
Jem continued, “I had also hoped you would understand how significant your death will be. How much your life is worth.”
“My life—” Was worth so much more. More than if I were dead. I couldn’t achieve anything while writhing under the Dark God’s torture implements.
“There wasn’t much to move.” My hands itched to strangle him. To stop him from calmly explaining his plan, so cunningly wrought but giving him no pleasure. “It took less than an hour. Lumi’s coffers are almost empty. Sentei refuses to trade more.”
“So?” I demanded. “I’m supposed to be grateful that I get to be sacrificed for this?”
Jem looked down, as if ashamed. But he wasn’t. He was managing me, just like he’d managed me this entire time. The things I’d done to defy him only amounted to almost dying under the ice and upending a game board.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. If he were a tawam rohi, he was supposed to be placid. Staring up at me with adoring eyes. Picking me, not some erstwhile brat.
“Just stop lying!” If he lied to me, I couldn’t trust him. If he lied, he wasn’t mine. “Stop hiding!”
He looked up at me. “My people — Prince Haori’s people are about to starve to death. They already are, but soon, in a day, in maybe two, it will change. We have nothing to give them. Nothing to stave off their hunger. They’ll try to find something to eat, mould or wood shavings or dirt. But nothing grows here. The katara are all gone, and so is every other beast.”
“If only you could summon something useful, then,” I said. “They can’t eat your snow demons.”
He shook his head, unmoved. “No, they can’t. They’ll try to fill their bellies with water, to pretend they aren’t starving, but then… Maybe it will be a few days. Maybe a week. Maybe a little longer than that. People will start dying, and it will feel like the Dark God’s miracle. Horror and hope wrapped up together, as finally, there will be something to eat. But it won’t last long. People will stop dying. They’ll live off the meat of the dead, until that disappears. But they’ll die slower. We start back at the beginning. So…”
“They start to kill each other,” I finished.
Jem nodded. “Some might kill themselves so their children will eat. Some might rip apart each other, or eat their own children. If the Dark God doesn’t come.”
“Why should I care about your little barbarians?”
[Why are their lives worth so much more than mine?
“Could you really watch all that?” he asked. “This is the truth I’ve lived with for years. This is the truth Prince Hemi died for.”
“It’s too bad they can’t eat Hemi, then.”
Jem’s next words were almost too soft for me to hear. “There’s a greater purpose for this body.”
A greater purpose that should have been to serve me. No, he wasn’t my tawam rohi. “Why do you even care?”
He blinked.
“Why do you even care about all those barbarians when they won’t even look at you?”
He winced, but did not answer. He didn’t need to. I already knew why. Because of the feckless Prince Haori. Because of his affection for someone who didn’t even know enough to recognise what Jem really was.
I raised the lamp, ready to chuck it at the wall, to watch something go up in flames, to make my surroundings match the turmoil inside. Instead, I let my hand fall to my side, the lamp dangling in my loose grip. Not looking at him, not wanting to see his reaction, I asked, “What happens to me when the Dark God comes?”
Dajana had shown me the woodcuttings. Very descriptive woodcuttings. But I needed to hear it from Jem. I needed him to know what was going to happen to me.
I needed him to stop lying.
Instead, I received silence. I supposed I should have found some comfort in that, how even Jem was ashamed of what he was doing to me. What he was handing me over to.
Then he finally said, “You won’t survive.”
That was his answer? I started to laugh. Ah, Jem! So understated.
He let me laugh hysterically, making no noise or words or movement. Just waiting while I collapsed to my knees, the giggles escaping lips I couldn’t control. Not passing judgement, or calling me weak. Not plotting how to use it against me. Perhaps he was just letting me be.
After the giggles tapered off, my chest heaving to regain my breath, Jem still didn’t say anything.
“Are you really fine with that?” I asked him. “We have an unfinished board game, after all.”
That evoked a reaction, his lips parting. As if he’d never thought about whether he wanted me to live or die, or the fate of the unfinished game I’d scattered over the floor. Like I’d scatter his people, if I had the chance. He didn’t really care.
I shook my head, the giggles threatening to return.
“Your life is precious,” Jem said.
“My death is apparently worth more.”
“I…”
He still seemed so confused. Was it an act? Was he trying to steer me towards another futile course of action?
I stood, exhaling. “Are you marching me back to your tower room?”
“You may go wherever you like,” Jem said.
“Even though I tried to set your storehouse on fire? Or do you want me to stop the Dark God?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re powerless to stop what’s coming.”
I froze, except for my fingernails pressing into my palm like tiny sabres. I didn’t even know how the Dark God would come. I wrenched myself away, and laughed. “Of course you don’t care. You’re already dead.”
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