Chapter 3
Kiev’s sword—and she was trying very hard to stop thinking of it as Kiev’s—hung on the wall opposite her bed.
It held half of the soul of her father’s—of her—planet, Lethe-Alihana.
The other half was sequestered in Jevryn’s sword.
Both soul halves considered the other to no longer be a part of them, and if left to their own devices, each would try to destroy the other.
Since they viewed themselves as separate entities, Nyx had chosen to split their name between them for the sake of clarity of reference.
She called her father’s soul half Lethe, and the one before her now Alihana.
Alihana was more ambivalent toward Nyx than Lethe had been.
Lethe had held some disdain for her, almost as if they were disappointed by her—they had certainly lacked patience with her—and yet they had wanted to be carried with her everywhere while in her possession, in touch with her so they could see the world through her eyes.
Alihana, on the other hand, preferred to be left alone.
Or, rather, left alone from Nyx. They’d chosen their place hanging on the wall because it put them in contact with Kaliaris, whom they preferred to spend the majority of their time with.
On the one hand, Nyx supposed that made sense—Alihana and Kaliaris were both the souls of now-dead planets, so it stood to reason the two of them had a lot in common.
On the other hand, Calista had said that Lethe-Alihana was a planet that other planets had considered mad even before it had been harvested and then sundered from itself.
So either Kaliaris was keeping that opinion to themselves and being polite, or Alihana preferred the company of any planet over the company of her.
She was trying not to take it personally.
It wasn’t that she wanted to be joined at the hip to a talking sword that could skim her active thoughts and have opinions on them, but she didn’t like being rejected by them either.
They were the soul of the planet that had given life to her ancestors.
That planet was gone now. She could never see it as it had been.
Could never step on its soil and experience how her father had once lived or the way she might have grown up if the universe had been a very different place.
She could never know anything about her own cultural heritage aside from what Jevryn told her.
And Jevryn A-Morridahn was not the type to wax sentimental about his upbringing and tell her the tales of his people.
Alihana could show her all of it, if they wanted to.
But they had spent the last nine centuries with Kiev, and either his cruelty had rubbed off on Alihana, or Kiev himself had only been a manifestation of the cruelty that lurked within Alihana, because the only memories they had ever cared to show her were Kiev’s.
And Nyx had no desire to see any of them.
She hated the thought that some part of Kiev lived on simply because Alihana retained those memories.
But her conflicting feelings about Alihana aside, she wouldn’t have known how to free Griff without them, and to acquire that information, she’d made a deal.
That deal included never leaving the Station without them.
They didn’t entirely trust her, and since they’d given her the secret of how the Avatars had been bonded to the Stations, they intended to make sure she upheld her promise to free all of those Stations—all of those souls—from their current bondage.
Nyx studied the sword on the wall, having no problem admitting to herself that she was delaying actually talking to Alihana.
The sword they inhabited was slender and elegant, with a curve similar to a katana.
Jevryn’s sword had once been very like this one in shape and size, before he’d changed it for the purposes of sparring with her, to more closely match the longsword that was her preferred choice when it came to bladed weapons.
Jevryn’s version had been too large for her significantly shorter frame to carry around strapped to her hip, but this sword, light and slender and slightly curved, posed no such problem.
Which was a good thing, since Alihana did not have the ability to shift their form.
As Lethe had informed her, planets were not like people.
When Lethe-Alihana’s soul had sundered, their abilities had split as well.
Lethe had retained their creative powers, which was why they could shift the form of the vessel they had been placed into, and why Jevryn’s home could behave like a Station whenever Lethe was within it.
Alihana could do none of those things, but they had retained all of the portaling abilities, and the endless supply of portal magic that came with it.
Which was one of the reasons Nyx did not at all mind her promise to take them with her whenever she left the Station.
Their presence meant she never risked being unable to return to Earth due to an insufficient supply of portal magic. She could never again be lost.
She should, she reflected, be more grateful for that. Sighing, she reached out and placed her fingertips against the sword hilt, trying not to think of the countless times Kiev’s own fingers would have brushed the same wrappings. She wished she had not had to keep any part of him.
It would be more accurate to say that Kiev A-Morridahn was a part of me, than that I was a part of him, Alihana said pragmatically, voice slithering into her mind.
“You know what I meant,” Nyx said.
You refer to the vessel I reside in. Does a thing then become tainted, simply because of the person it once belonged to?
And if so, what is a thing? Merely pieces forged together that were once a part of something else, and could be broken down again.
If the metal of this sword were melted down and poured into a new mold, is that new thing also tainted, because it is not, in actuality, anything new at all?
So Alihana was a philosopher. Great. “Of course the thing isn’t ‘tainted’,” she replied. “It just reminds me of him and I don’t like to think that I’m doing anything remotely similar to something he did, even if that something is only holding a sword.”
Kiev A-Morridahn also ate and drank and slept and bathed. Will you be reminded of him every time you have a meal or go to sleep? This reaction of yours is an illogical one.
“It’s a human one,” she snapped back. “People aren’t always rational.”
It would be more accurate to say that people are rarely rational. Alihana’s voice held a healthy measure of annoyance.
It annoyed her, in turn. “Didn’t you make us that way?”
Amusement rippled through her mind. You think of planets like Earthlings think of the myths of their creator gods.
But planets are not gods, and to the extent that we create, it is not in the way that you imagine.
Here, Kaliaris can manufacture whatever they wish, because the energy that was required to fuel a planet has been condensed into a small area and left without purpose.
They have an agency they did not have before, though of course that agency is chained to the will of the Guardian.
But Kaliaris as they once were? As any of us once were? The life we sustained was not specifically chosen. We did not decide “Here I will make a race of people, and here is how these people will look and think and behave.”
“Lethe sounded pretty damn proud of Salyrians.” They’d certainly spoken of their people as if they’d crafted them from the damn clay.
I did not say that the life that exists on a planet’s soil is not unique to them. What arises from us is what is possible within the available conditions we provide—I believe you refer to it as evolution, on your planet—and so of course every planet is proud of its own life.
Nyx knew she was getting sidetracked from the intention she’d had when she’d come to talk to Alihana, but her curiosity got the better of her. And honestly, following that curiosity was a relief—a small sign that she was taking interest in things again. “Then why don’t all planets sustain life?”
Because not all planets have souls. And before you ask why they do not, know that I will not answer. Not every piece of knowledge ought to be divulged, no matter how curious the mind that desires it.
“Fine. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about anyway. We’re leaving to find the Shaman in a few days.”
There was a pause before Alihana answered, in which she could feel them checking in with Kaliaris. Your father has not returned.
“No. Something held him up, and we’ll be going on our own.”
There is not much that could delay Jevryn A-Morridahn if he does not wish to be delayed.
Something about the tone made her bristle. “I know you’re not suggesting he doesn’t want to be here.” Alihana could doubt that Jevryn cared for her—stars knew Nyx still found it difficult to believe some days—but she could never doubt how he felt about Griff. He would not delay this by choice.
No. That is not what I am suggesting.
Worry was a sudden knot in her stomach. “Then what are you suggesting?”
The death of one councilor might be allowed to remain unsolved, but two?
Two, when one of those deaths was Kiev A-Morridahn?
Councilors may not be invulnerable, but they are, for all intents and purposes, immortal.
Until recently, not a single one has died since the formation of the Council in its current state.
Now, two have died within the span of a year.
Koral could be explained away, but Kiev?
A Salyrian is a difficult mage to destroy.
“That doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t do it,” Nyx argued.
“They’re all powerful. They all come from planets that don’t exist anymore, which means they all have magic that is more powerful than most simply by virtue of its uniqueness.
Any one of them could have killed Kiev. They don’t have any reason to look at Jevryn for this. ”