“He humiliated the forces you sent to take the city, you mean.” Of course she’d told Koios about Kip, a long time ago. Including that the love had been one way, and the other way. None of which mattered now. What mattered was letting Koios know she had her own means of knowing things.
But he didn’t look surprised she knew. “I’d have preferred to crush young Guile, but entangling him will serve almost as well. If my generals fail in the task I leave them, I can return when my reign is secure with ten times the forces and all the gods. His time is almost finished.”
He was studying her as if this were a test. “Do you think I care?” she asked.
“Don’t you?” he asked.
She thought about it, really thought about it. “I . . . liked Kip,” she said finally. “Really liked him, actually. Not in the puppy-panting-after-my-heels way that he liked me, naturally. But he was a good kid. Too damaged, though. Too self-loathing for one to ever really take him seriously. Who needs all that? But I . . . admired that he was loyal. He tried to do what was right, no matter the cost. I see now that that was a weakness. He took loyalty to illogical extremes. You can’t help others when you’re dead yourself. It’s a miracle he’s not dead already, come to think of it. Kip . . . Kip has always been doomed, hasn’t he? I shall miss him, but mortals die. It is our burden to watch their lights bloom in the darkness and then fade back into it after a few short years, isn’t it? I shall mourn his passing—no, no, that’s not exactly true, and will be less true as time goes on. I shall note his death when I learn of it, perhaps even regretfully, so whether I do that now or in some years, what’s the difference?”
“Here I thought you came to threaten me,” the White King said.
“Threaten?” she asked, surprised.
“You’ve refused to bend the knee to me. Your message spoke of a partnership instead, so surely you have some ‘or else,’ ” Koios said. He sat down now on his ivory throne as if she were merely another petitioner come to beg some favor of him. It was a power display, to sit when the other must stand. He even pretended nonchalance, but his muscles, though bent into a slouch, were taut for action.
She noticed such things. She had quite the eye for detail now.
“Oh, I see,” she said. “That helps immensely. You’re taking me being enslaved to you as the default, so my defiance of that order irks you, and you assume I must have some force backing me up, some power that allows me to insult you to your face by not groveling. That is quite illuminating. Instead, the true default is that we each reign over separate realms, and we can either join together—if such is mutually profitable—or we can go to war, which most certainly would not be. Comprehending easily this truth, which seems to have eluded you, I spoke of partnership.”
“That is not the way of things.”
“Aha,” she said. “So. You’re not quite the ideologue you pretend to be, bringing a new order of justice and freedom to the realms; you’re simply a maniac. Well, then, I can deal with that, too.”
His eyes flashed and he sat up. His bodyguards rippled as if they were directly connected to his will—which, she thought, perhaps they were. She would have to study that. His lungs filled. At his neck, his pulse throbbed faster.
“In that case,” she said before he could go on, “you want threats of me. Yes, I will join with Kip. If it’s necessary.”
He scoffed. “Are you naïve, or are you stupid, coming here with talk like that?”
She didn’t like false dichotomies. They itched like a spot on her back she couldn’t reach. They made her eyelid twitch. “Perhaps you require a display of power? Really? The king of the djinn needs that?”
Suddenly, he grinned despite himself. Then he laughed. “I think I missed you, Liv.”
She didn’t like being called Liv anymore. But she held her tongue.
“No one speaks to me that way. Not anymore. Not that I like it, mind you,” he said. “But it seems that when one bans certain kinds of talk, it doesn’t just stop that one thing; it radiates out and silences so much. I hold a humorless court, I’m afraid, and I’m probably somewhat to blame for that.”
Probably? Somewhat?
But again, she held her tongue.
“We can skip the displays of power,” he said, “but . . . it’s the ‘God of Gods,’ if you will.”
“ ‘Gods’ plural? You got two of them to worship you? Which ones?” she asked.
His bodyguards went wide-eyed. That was helpful to her new study. It told her they still had some will of their own.
“All of them,” the White King said flatly.
“Surely not dry old Samila Sayeh.”
“They all worship me,” the White King said.
“If you define ‘worship’ as bowing at the right times, lighting incense, and mumbling prayers, I’m sure that’s true.”
“I am their god,” the White King said.
“That, however, I’m certain is not true. What’s the point in being a god if you have to worship another god? No. They don’t really worship you; they fear you. Which is excellent, as far as it goes. Fear is a powerful motivator, though one that may fade in time. They remember what you were, and they do or will hope to transform themselves as you have transformed yourself. You are not categorically other to them. One can revere what one wishes to emulate. One can’t revere what one wishes to replace. I’m sure each one will serve you for a time, and then you can kill them and replace them. The replacements will serve much longer, never having known you as merely a man. The new gods, if not corrupted by the old ones, may then revere you indeed, and then your reign will be secure. Or more secure. But it will take a few purges.”
The pique faded, and she watched his mouth quirk backward momentarily as his lower eyelids tensed.
“You’re asking yourself,” she said, “ ‘Is she the first to guess my plan, or only the first to do so to my face?’ ”
“You don’t fear me,” he said. “That makes you more dangerous than any of them.”
“Not true on the first part, and for the second, it really depends what you mean by dangerous,” she said. “I do fear you, still. My mortal nature hasn’t faded so much yet. But fear has lost much of its motivating power. I don’t wear your chain, and I tell the truth. That may make me dangerous. It also can make me helpful, especially when one is surrounded by those who constantly lie.”
“Then tell me about Kip . . . truthfully,” he said.
“Kip?”
“Your threat.”
“Oh, that. Well. I could work with him. Very easily. He’s never tried to kill me or make me his slave. I can trust him. All things I can’t say of you.”
“And yet here you are,” Koios said. “Ready to make a deal to kill him and all his friends. How terribly ungrateful of you.”
She blinked. She’d not thought of gratitude in a long while. No matter. “I know I could trust Kip forever. But ‘forever’ is such a short span for mortals. Kip will die soon. He’s burning too hot, rising too fast, and loved by too many. He has something of greatness in him, and that makes small, powerful men feel small and powerless, and there’s nothing they hate more.”