Seduced by the Shedu

CHAPTER ONE

Alad

Unbelievable. The big, oafish son-of-a-kunga is taking credit for my kill. And the way he’s waving the lion’s corpse around like it’s a slingshot he intends to shoot into the heavens makes me almost as angry as the way he’s portraying himself as the hero.

I ripped out the wildcat’s throat. I felt its heart die on my teeth.

I bathed the fur of my Third Form in its blood, even though it felt an awful lot like fratricide.

Bad enough I did it to save him from a month-long recovery.

To listen to him use the death as fodder for the unquenchable appetite of the fools who worship him is… unacceptable.

But when I glance at my mother, she rolls her eyes before giving me a pointed look that makes all other pointed looks appear as docile as a sheep’s vacant gaze by comparison.

Fine. I snap my jaws shut until my head starts to hurt from the pressure.

Mothers and their non-verbal orders. Don’t slurp your soup. Don’t run with blades. Don’t speak against your king, even if he is a gigantic kunga. Hard to believe I’ve lived nearly fifty-two years and my mother still holds my tongue for me like I’m a baby.

A growl rises in my throat, but another glance at her, and I bite it back. She’s only doing her job: keeping the peace, calming troubled waters, and promoting well-being throughout the city, especially within the palace. Any mess I make, she’ll have to clean it up.

Too small. The palace is too fucking small. It’s so hard to breathe.

Her clawed foot extends to tap against mine. “Unity, Alad. Please.” But her eyes pull down with sympathy. She knows me well enough to know my thoughts.

“I prefer truth,” I retort under my breath.

“You weren’t born for truth, Alad.”

“I wasn’t born to suffer this… farce.” I wave my paw toward the low stage upon which Gilgamesh reenacts the lion hunt as he wishes it to have occurred.

“Tch.” She clicks her tongue. “Ever your father’s son, may Hyram’s name be forever blessed.”

“May Hyram’s name be forever blessed.” I dutifully repeat the words, though I barely knew the human who helped give me life.

“The need for veracity is a human failing. You’re not human, my son, and you have a greater purpose.”

“I’m half-human, and what do you know of my purpose?” Though she’s right. I’m too old for the bonds to chafe so hard, but does it matter when I’m bleeding? “It’s Gilgamesh. He’s changed for the worse since his father’s death.”

“Perhaps, though all that he does is in pursuit of his destiny. And yours…” Her bull’s leg twists around my lion one. “Yours requires a little more time before it makes itself known, but I promise you, your future will make me proud.”

“Because I’ll be able to spend eternity guarding that kunga and his throne? Wonderful.”

She glances away from me. “Your path won’t be what you expect, Alad. Enjoy what you have while you have it.”

The sadness in her tone undoes some of my rage. In addition to being in charge of Unity, Harmony, and Mediation, she’s the Goddess of the Celestial Zodiac. She won’t tell me my fate, but she knows it.

“Can’t have mediation without truth.”

She rolls her eyes once more before leaning in and kissing my cheek, thereby stalling further argument.

An outburst sounds from within the group of gathered nobles who scent the air with heavy perfumes. “By what right do you deplete the world of its beasts, Your Majesty?”

Fendu. He sits on Gilgamesh’s council and has oversight of the zoo in which two of every species are kept in readiness against the next flood to wipe the earth clean. He’s Gil’s biggest fan. His interruption is less about argument and more about catching his king’s attention.

Gilgamesh ignores the zoo master. He lifts his hands in imitation of a roaring lion, acting out a scene of attack.

Fendu raises his voice. “I’ll tell you by what right. You. Have. None.” His fist pumps in measure with his last three words.

Fuck. Gil is going to make a necklace of the man’s intestines. Beside me, my mother tenses, her bull’s knees bent, ready to spring into action.

“By what right?” Gilgamesh straightens. His voice goes very soft, a sure sign he’s livid.

When he rants, he’s a pussy cat pretending at claws.

When he stills, he’s peril. “By my own right, Fendu.” His gaze roves over the crowd of nobles, skirting mine.

He raises his open palms to the sky before snatching them closed.

“He who possesses the ability has the right to all he can acquire.” He pauses before he smirks.

“So long as my laws aren’t broken, of course. ”

A round of appreciative laughter settles the air. Fendu smiles as he shakes his head. Gil has a way with people. They hate him. They love him. Like me.

As the gathering begins clapping for the king’s show of power, I turn.

The king is long-winded in his own praise.

He should be discussing the locusts that are destroying the wheat crops or apologizing for the string of prospective brides he deflowered before their bridegrooms had a chance.

Or the recent taxes and how they’re beginning to break the populace.

Or the enforced entry into the military—his insistence that all men learn to fight on behalf of the nation is a problem for those who aren’t bloodthirsty.

But if I tell him again the problems I see brewing, he’ll slap me on the back and suggest I need a good fucking, even though I enjoy a good fucking every single night.

Since no one is keeping me in the room with the kunga, I nod at my mother before exiting the doorway to seek fresher air.

“Lord Alad.” Servants bow to me as I pass, giving way so I might walk without interference.

Another tries to stop me. “Lord Alad, if you could spare a moment?”

I pause before the balding priest from Inanna’s temple. “What do you need, Ru-an?”

“A congregation from Ur has come to seek advice on irrigation systems and the parts allocated to a god’s use. It would appear that Lord Enlil insists…”

I hold up my paw, cutting him off. “The Goddess Lama is in the receiving room watching the king entertain. She’ll be happy to help you.

” I pause, seeing the panic flare in his eyes at the idea of approaching my mother.

He’s unused to talking to the gods directly, even Inanna, whom he serves.

I smile to ease his concern. “Tell her I directed you to her.”

As he bows even lower, I pad off down the stone corridor. Hunting and battle scenes are portrayed from floor to ceiling. I study them as I stride, ignoring the servants who skitter away from me after bowing almost as low as they bow for the king.

I used to join Gil in every battle, bathing my teeth and claws in the ichor of the weak.

I’m slightly nauseated now by the excess of death I’ve dealt.

I’ve collected his taxes on the point of my sword, defended his city and our people, and debauched right beside him.

But if I’ve changed, he's changed even more.

Lugalbanda, his human father, was a good and conscientious king who cared a great deal for those he was sworn to lead.

But since the old king’s death, Ninsun, Gil’s mother, the Goddess of Wild Cows and the daughter of the chief god, Anu, has counseled her son in the wrong direction.

She believes humanity should serve, not be served.

Under her direction, Gil has become as careless as the gods.

How long can I support him against my conscience just because it’s what my mother wants? Or because I love him like a brother?

The questions are boulders around my neck as I plow through the enormous rectangular doorway built tall enough for demigods to pass.

Even wearing my First Form, with its giant lion body and human head, or my Second Form, where I stand nearly as tall as Gil in the semblance of a giant, I don’t need to duck.

The sun assaults me the moment I leave the portal’s shadows and enter the open courtyard in the center of the palace. Striding along the hall and past a waterfall that cools the day, I pass through more state rooms until I finally find the garden.

If the palace, aqueducts, canals, and walls enclosing the city are a testament to technology and man’s ingenuity, the garden is a place of studied peace where the earth itself is given worship in tamed splendor.

Shrubbery is arranged in a series of elongated squares that spread from the palace for blocks.

Flowers in every color bloom to the horizon.

Additional blooms are planted in pots and arranged over trellises, dangling down to meet paths of bleached stones.

Hedges provide privacy from those in rooms circling the garden.

The ornate design has at its center a bubbling fountain.

The water is fresh, made potable by constant influx from the Id-Ugina through a system of piping and screens.

The marvel of engineering shoots sprays towards the sky and spreads a cooling mist along the hot day.

In the blazing sunlight, the multi-colored haze merely adds to the garden’s beauty by blanketing everything with rainbow drops.

Strange. As the condensation falls upon my overheated hide, it turns from multi-colored to clear, even though the source water is clearly blue. What leeches the color when it’s torn apart?

Mysteries like these, the gods don’t answer. I hope they don’t know. I’d be grateful to learn that some things remain forever beyond their fallible understanding, because that would point to something greater still than them.

Larger than me. Larger than Gilgamesh. Larger than the gods. I find the idea soothing as I lift my face to the cooling mist.