Shades in Shadow by N. K. Jemisin Read Free Book Online Page A

her own right—to the world that Yeine values so much, and for Nahadoth, as a weapon against Itempas. That is a cynical interpretation, perhaps, but it is also true. Still…he starts to ask how much more time they’ve given Glee, then closes his mouth. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Every moment will be a blessing.
    But he licks his lips, unsure of what to say. He has reason to be suspicious of favors.
    Nahadoth looks amused. Yeine looks sour. “It wouldn’t kill you to show gratitude,” she says. “Though I suppose I’ll have to get used to your terrible manners. With Sieh gone…” She falters, just a little, then pushes on. Her smile is genuine, if tinged with sadness. “Well. In most families, it’s the youngest who ends up spoiled.” They vanish then, leaving him alone with his discomfiture.
    He is still uncertain if he likes being a god at all, let alone a god in this pantheon.
    He doesn’t hate it anymore, though, and that is something. He likes being alive, too. That feeling is new and altogether strange, and he knows it won’t last forever. Nothing good ever does. But perhaps…he can learn to like being happy. While it lasts.
    (Though he will never say any of this out loud. He has a reputation to maintain.)
    Conjuring a cheroot, he stands, stretches, and heads home to the life he has made.

THE THIRD WHY
    In her hands was the white-bladed sword that Itempas had used to cleave apart Nahadoth’s chaos and bring design and structure to the earliest iteration of the universe. No one could wield it but him; hells, no one else had ever been able to get near the damned thing, not in all the aeons since he’d created time. But Itempas’s daughter held it before her in a two-handed grip, and there was no doubt in my mind that she knew how to use it.
    “Control,” said Itempas. I was near enough to hear this, though his voice was low and urgent. He had stepped back, quite sensibly, to avoid dying again. But he leaned as close as he could, anxious to advise his daughter. “Remember, Glee, or the power will destroy you.”
    “I will remember,” she said.
    — The Kingdom of Gods , chapter 22
    *  *  *
    On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Glee decides to go and find her father.
    She goes downstairs to inform her mother of this. Her mother is unsurprised. “If you were anyone else,” says Mother, “I would accuse you of being impulsive.” There is a hint of irony in her voice as she says this, but Glee ignores it. She is aware that her mother does not laugh out of cruelty. It’s simply her way of appreciating that which makes Glee different.
    Because Glee does not have impulses. She makes carefully considered decisions, having weighed their benefits and consequences and informed herself as to the alternatives. She often does this with a speed that most mortals would consider unseemly at best, impossible at worst—or impulsive. But there is no impulse involved. She has no intuition, ignores any “gut feelings” she experiences, if she’s ever had one. Certainty, or at least the comfort of high probability, is what she prefers.
    Her mother understands this, and likewise understands that it’s pointless to try and talk Glee out of any decision she’s made. But she does ask one question, and it is the one that Glee has been dreading. “Why?”
    There is an answer to this question, even if it is not the answer: “Because I can.” Oh, but it is a weak answer, unsatisfying even to Glee herself, and she is ashamed of herself for having nothing better.
    Mother shakes her head. Then she offers what aid she can, pressing a pouch of coins into Glee’s hands and sharing any clues and rumors she’s heard. Glee needs neither the money nor the information, but she understands that accepting these gifts will ease her mother’s fears and half-developed desires to come along. It is also a kind of ritual to be performed at the leave-taking of a child, and Glee respects ritual. Rituals give order to life,