The Hollow Heart by Marie Rutkoski
NIRRIM
THE COUNCILMAN WHO HID HIMSELFaway with the godling children during the revolution has confessed the location of the Half-Kith genealogy in exchange for his freedom. I do not mind granting it so long as he swears a public oath to me in the agora. “It is not to me only that you must swear,” I tell him as I stand outside his prison cell, my gold silks glowing in the lamp-lit darkness. “You must swear to serve New Herrath, our gods, and our dream of equality. No longer will any class rule over another.”
“Of course, my queen,” he says hastily.
Later, as Mere accompanies me on my walk from the prison to my palace, a set of guards in a phalanx before and behind us, my handmaiden says, “True equality, Queen Nirrim?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose Aden didn’t have a mind as noble as yours,” Mere says, and while I wonder why she speaks so dryly, I am pleased that she has understood why his death was necessary. “Exactly,” I say. “He sought to seize a position of power. This will no longer be tolerated in Herrath.” Her mouth twitches in what could be humor or dislike. “You think my actions were not justified.”
“You had no choice. Aden would have killed you.”
My pace quickens with irritation, which I try to control. Mere is my loyal friend, after all, and as a mortal she perhaps cannot expect to understand what I have done, and why I had to do it, beyond the simple fact of self-defense. “He did not share my vision, and could not learn to do so. You, on the other hand, are apt. You see, don’t you, that Old Herrath was corrupt, that thousands of people fed upon the lives of others? New Herrath must wash away the sins of the past.”
“I am confused, my queen, about one thing.”
“Simply tell me, and I will make it clear.” If only Morah had been so willing, so open-minded!
“If you seek true equality, how can Herrath have a queen to rule over all?”
I halt, loose sand grinding beneath my sandal. Mere stops, too, and my soldiers. In the quiet, my Elysium chirrups on my shoulder. I don’t like the storm of unease that brews inside me at Mere’s words. How dare she question my rule? My methods? My right? Maybe she is not so loyal after all. Maybe she, like Morah, will betray me, and treat me as though I were a villain, when all I want is what I always wanted, what Other Nirrim wanted: a better world, a pure one.
Mere lays a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I allow it, because I see that her face is full of worry, even fear. She must have misspoken, and is afraid that she has offended me—which she has, yet a good ruler will overlook the clumsiness of a well-intentioned servant. A friend will not let a friend agonize over careless words. “We need you,” she says, “to show us the way. We will never achieve true equality unless our queen teaches us, and we cannot bring our message to the rest of the world without your power.”
“And love,” I add. A queen should love her subjects. Even Other Nirrim would say so. Although the word love stirs no feeling within me, I remember its shapeshifting sensation: its ache, its weight, the gliding silk of it. How tremulous it could be, floating in my chest like a restless dragonfly near the rim of a deep well.
“Thank you,” Mere says, “for explaining to me.”
Mollified, I resume my pace, but I cannot rest entirely easy. I never will, until Morah is found, and I discover what her power is. How could it counter mine? “Any news,” I ask, though I have already asked several times today, “on the whereabouts of my sister?”
“None.” Mere pauses, and then adds, reluctantly, a new opinion. “We must assume she has left the city, and is somewhere in the countryside of our island.”
“Impossible. My soldiers stood watch at every gate.” How could Morah have slipped the grasp of the palace guards and snuck out of the city?
And yet, no one can find her.
“When we return to the palace,” I say, “bring the genealogy to me, and have Annin fetched from the tavern. Tell her she may pack whatever she wishes, but that I will see to it that she has all the finery she needs. One sister yet remains true to her. Unlike Morah, I will never abandon Annin. I will be her sister forever.”
Everyone is ordered out of the library. The tome rests before me on the table, as heavy as a large child, its pages brittle. It smells of age. Alone, by lamplight, I open the genealogy and page through it slowly enough that the pages do not crumble at my touch, but swiftly enough that I can commit each page to memory without wasting time. I do not need to read each page. The book’s contents will all remain perfectly in my mind for me to consult at my leisure. The first pages take my breath away, to see the names of the first gods and their demigod children: the most powerful Half Kith, the ones whose blood was not diluted by time, after the gods left and Half Kith bore the children of other Half Kith, and grew further away from the grace of the immortals. As I trace their children through generations all the way to our present, I learn the origins of some of our powers. Sithin, the boy who can riddle someone’s body with holes, is the descendent of Death. This is not surprising, but other revelations are: for example, that the painfully plain girl who can bestow beauty on others is the many-great-grandchild of the god of treachery. Aden, I see, was related to the god of love … for the all the good that heritage gave him. The blood that watered the fortune-telling tree was drained from a Half-Kith child descended from the god of foresight. She died a century ago. I feel helpless reading the bare notes of her story. I wish she had been born in my time. If only she had someone like me to fight for her. I wish my power could unfold into the past and save every Half Kith like her. The pages turn in my hands. So many lives.
But where is Morah?
Where am I?
It seems we are not listed in the genealogy, as is true of many other god-bloods that I know, and as I page to the end of the book, I must resign myself to the possibility that the Council did not discover all of us.
Then, finally, I find my name in fresh ink, a notation beside it with the dates of my imprisonment and my gift, which is no news to me. To be collected, the page says, upon the departure of Princess Sidarine of Herran, who requested the Half Kith’s release from prison, invoking the name of Prince Roshar of Dacra.
So, the Council knew Sid’s rank, and as for collected, this note can mean nothing other than that the Council planned to arrest me the moment Sid left Ethin and sap me of my blood at their leisure. Likely the only thing that kept me safe during Sid’s time on the island was the Council’s desire to keep the source of their magic a secret from the rest of the world. Had I not taken matters into my own hands, and first sought answers from the Lord Protector, I could have been captured the moment Sid left. This interests me less, however, than what is written about my parents. Mother: Irenah (Middling, deceased), sister to Ravenah, called Raven (Middling, resident of the Ward). The genealogy lists their parents, and their parents’ parents, and more, all going back to the beginning of the book, but none with any known powers. On the line, however, where the genealogy would list the other side of my family, it says only, Father: Unknown. I travel to the end of the book, committing each written page to memory, until I find only blank pages meant for a future that will never come, at least not in the way the Council intended.
That future is mine.
“Nirrim?” Annin stands at the library’s door, hands bound, palace guards behind her.
“Why did you bind her?” I demand.
“She didn’t wish to come,” says a guard.
“Nonsense,” I say, and tell him to leave us alone. Her soft, round face looks hesitantly into mine, her blue eyes anxious as I jerk at the tight knots around her wrists and her body sways in response, like a tree in the wind. When the rope falls to the floor I see that her wrists have been grazed raw. “That guard will be punished,” I promise.
“Don’t blame him, please.”
“You have always been too nice for your own good.”
“May I go home now?”
“Annin, you are home. I accepted, earlier, that you and Morah wanted your independence. You felt too humble to be associated with a queen. Isn’t that right?”
“We were useless to you. That’s why you left us alone.”
It is true, but her accuracy hurts, and I am angry that she wouldn’t see my behavior in the most generous light, that she wouldn’t invent a lie that protects her image of me, and therefore, her love of me. Didn’t I do that with Raven?
Yes, Other Nirrim whispers. You have become like Raven.
Liar! Raven only ever acted in her self-interest.
“I am trying to end suffering.” I hear my voice tremble with fervency. Annin must believe me. She must see that everything I do, even what she would consider bad, is for the good. It is for her. It is for everyone. “All over this world are countries where the rich live at the expense of the poor, just as the High Kith used us. Yes, I need help. But you are not useless, Annin. I am sure Morah has made you feel that way, since she so easily abandoned you.” Annin’s blue eyes blink back tears. “You are my little sister. Join me. Maybe the god of thieves will return, and he will make you as strong as I am. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“He took away my heart.” I hasten to explain that I meant that the god took an emotion from me. “It is so freeing. Remember how Raven used to strike me?” I trace the burn on my cheek, left from when Raven smashed an oil lamp against my face. “And then she would apologize and act so sorry that I felt that I was to blame for being hurt? I would never react like that now. I am better. Stronger. I made sure that Raven would never hurt me again, or you, or anyone. And now Morah has treated me—and you—like we don’t matter to her anymore. I know it must make you sad, but you don’t have to feel sad. You could decide to free yourself, even without the god’s help. Annin, just decide you don’t care about Morah. And why should you? What has she done for you but abandon you?”
She shrinks from me. “I don’t know where Morah is.”
Maybe later Annin will see the purity of my vision, and understand that no beautiful thing is crafted without labor. Some of us must work, must dirty our hands for that beauty. Yet she sees me as a mere murderer. She sees my power as not possibility, but danger. I have no time to persuade her. Cleverly, putting magic into my words, I say, “Annin, you already told me where she is. And since you have already told me, you should repeat it, because you were anxious that I might not have heard every detail.”
“I don’t know,” she says again, like she is made of wood, and I want to shake her. Even though I have used my power on her, I don’t fully believe her. Her eyes have a skittish look about them. Is it possible that Morah did something to Annin to make her impervious to my will?
Whether Annin truly doesn’t know or is somehow able to hide the knowledge from me, my usual trick does not work.
Still … maybe Morah will return for Annin. Perhaps all I need is to keep my little sister by my side. And why wouldn’t Annin want to remain with me? I am all the family she has left. “You can help Herrath, too, just by being loyal to me. I have missed you, Annin. I want to take care of you, to make certain that you are surrounded by comfort and beauty. I know how you like pretty things.”
Annin withdraws a red feather from her pocket. “Like this?” It is the Elysium feather I gave her in what seems like another lifetime ago. “I don’t want it anymore.”
My heart beats painfully, rapping at the great, empty feeling inside me, as though somewhere in my chest is a glass vessel with nothing inside, and Annin’s words ring against it. How can she hurt me, if I have no heart? Who am I, to be wounded because a lowly mortal flings my gift back in my face? Who is she, to affect me in any way?
What did I give to the god of thieves, if I can feel this pain?
This shame?
“You will tell me,” I say between my teeth, “where Morah has gone, or you will find that my kindness has its limits.”
“I don’t know,” she says yet again, and in that moment I truly understand how Raven lost her temper with me. Violence thickens my blood. “Shall I drag the memory from your mind?” I say, though I have never done this, and am not sure I could.
A knock comes at the library door. It is Mere.
“Go away,” I say.
Mere glances at Annin and says, “It’s important.”
“As important as betrayal? As the sin of one sister turning her back on another?”
“I am not betraying you,” Annin says.
“My queen,” Mere says smoothly, “why don’t you let me take Annin to her new rooms, and explain how she can best serve you? She is young, and I’m sure that once she fully comprehends her current situation, her gratitude to you will know no bounds. She will do anything for you, as I would.”
“I am asking for the simplest thing! Where is Morah? You must know. She wouldn’t run away without telling you somehow. Don’t look at me like that, Annin! Don’t shy away from me! You act as though I am threatening you, as though I would torture the answer from you. If you love me, you will tell me.”
“May I suggest,” Mere says, “that you set aside the question of Morah’s whereabouts? There is something more pressing.”
“Nothing is more pressing!”
“A ship has arrived in the harbor,” Mere says. “A ship with green flags. It docked, and the crew remained on board, but their captain disembarked, rowing a launch to the pier. Lady Sidarine has returned to Ethin. She wants to see you.”