Ark(16)

Kichu had cursed in a whisper, striking the old woman with a fist and then dragging me back to the palace where he threw me into Irkalla’s arms. When I had seen him next, his eyes were haunted, and I knew then that the woman’s words had driven a dagger of doubt into his heart.

Japheth’s words in that moment to my father sounded as that beggar woman’s had, so many years earlier. They were not spoken in his voice, but in the voice of prophecy, the words croaked and guttural and hollow and echoing with deep, thrumming power.

My father was still for a fraught moment, and then he struck Japheth with the flat of his spear-blade, knocking him to the floor. “Your death will be slow,” my father said, just loud enough for me to hear. “I will make your agony last for days. I will rip out your fingernails. I will tear out your tongue with my bare hands. I will rip the skin from your bones and make a bowstring from your sinews. You will beg for death, and I will not give it to you. You will pray to your god for mercy, but he will not hear you.”

Japheth only spat a gobbet of blood into my father’s face in response.

My father placed the point of his spear against Japheth’s throat, drawing a pink spot of blood. I saw my father’s muscles tense, prepare for the push that would rip open Japheth’s neck.

“NO!” I cried out. “Please, Father, no. I’ll do anything you ask, just spare him, please.”

My father glared at me, put the butt of his spear against the ground, and regarded me, thinking.

“Anything?” He smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile.

I knew what he had in mind, and I nearly wept at the thought.

He would marry me to Sin-Iddim, King of Larsa, the most vile man I had ever encountered. Raper of boys and women. Old and saggy of flesh, cunning and vain and cruel . . . and obsessed with me. He had asked my father a dozen times for my hand in marriage, and always I refused. My father had not forced me to marry him up until now, because I was all he has left of my mother, for my brothers all came from different women, and my father loved none of them. He only ever loved my mother—she was most like the human woman Irkalla spoke of, I think, which was why he loved her, why he changed so much after he killed her: it was the only act he had ever regretted.

A marriage between Larsa and Bad-Tibira would bring the two cities a more stable peace, and that was what my father wanted more than anything, as Larsa was the one threat to his reign. The two cities had warred intermittently for centuries, and a peace between them would be a valuable thing, to my father.

Could I marry Sin-Iddim to save Japheth?

Gods save me.

The answer was slow in coming, with my father glaring at me, waiting.

I prayed to The One God in desperation. Elohim, please. Tell me what to do. If you are the God your followers claim, then you can help me.

I didn’t hear an answer in my mind. There was no voice of prophecy or gods whispering in my ear; I felt only a stillness in my heart, a knowing in my soul—Elohim had other plans for me.

I knew what I would endure for the sake of loving Japheth.

I knew, and I wept.





3





Filled With Violence





“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” Genesis 6:11 ESV





Japheth watched as Aresia wept. He didn’t understand completely. All he knew was she was about to do something to save him, which would cost her greatly. No one had said what it was, but King Emmen-Utu and Aresia both seemed to know without having to put it into words.

“So it is settled,” the King said, his voice rumbling like distant thunder.

Aresia didn’t speak, only nodded, face buried in her hands. Japheth forced himself to his feet, desperate to comfort her. She shouldn’t save him; he wasn’t worth it.

He stumbled and lurched to her side. “Don’t, please.” His voice was hoarse and rough. Blood dripped from his face onto the polished floor. “Whatever you’re about to do, don’t do it. I’ll be fine.”

She looked down at him through tear-flooded golden eyes, shaking her head. A strand of auburn hair fell loose from the intricate bundle at the nape of her neck, and he reached up to tuck it behind her ear.

“It is done, Japheth, and it cannot be undone.” Her gaze left his face, flickered to her father, standing behind Japheth like a mountain of anger and hatred, and then back to him.

She kissed him, a slow, passionate farewell, a kiss deeper and more potent than any they had shared until that moment, a kiss tasting of citrus and garlic, sending a pang of realization through him that drowned out even his pain.

Emmen-Utu grabbed him by the hair and ripped him away. “I’ll have his head yet, you stupid girl,” he snarled at Aresia. And then he turned to Japheth and kicked him to the floor. “Get you gone, worm, before I change my mind.”

Japheth was lifted painfully to his feet by his hair and shoved toward the door. He stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself. At the threshold, he stopped, turned to look at Aresia once more; she had fallen to her knees, face to the floor, shoulders heaving. Japheth wanted to weep at the sight of her torment, and actually took a step back into the throne room, but Emmen-Utu hurled the spear at him, the spearhead burying in the wood door frame beside his face, the shaft shaking and thrumming and wavering side to side.