Ark(9)

“I don’t need protecting.” Anger flashed in his eyes despite his calm tone. His fingers tightened on my arms.

This had all happened so fast. I still felt the tingle of his lips on mine, and the thrill of his hands on my waist just above the swelling curve of my buttocks. His skin was warm and I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to sneak him into the palace and bring him to my chambers and love him there beyond moonrise and into the dawn.

Instead, I jerked myself out of his arms and fled, Irkalla right behind me.





2





The Wickedness Of Man





“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5 (ESV)





Oh, Inanna. I could not get him out of my head. I had heard the maidservants speak of being lovestruck and heartsick and had always mocked them for it. Foolishness, I would say, mooning over block-headed men. But now I was caught up in this web, and I could not extract myself from it. I knew, too, that it would be my downfall.

I saw it in visions, feared it in the deepest places of my soul, but I could not deny the events that came upon me, one after the other like stones tumbling down a hill before an avalanche. It was foolishness, and I knew it well. He was a human, and a commoner. I was Nephilim, and a princess. It was my destiny to be married to a king and bear royal children, to keep my race alive and strengthen the kingdom. A human man had no part in that. All I would accomplish would be to get him tortured and killed, and bring trouble down upon my own head.

I will simply stay in the palace, I told myself.

I will be safe in here, and he will be safe out there.

We would each be safer apart. I would forget him.

But I was weak. Or perhaps my destiny was not so indelibly written as I had thought. I’d stopped believing in the gods of my father and my people a very long time ago. I think I first realized our gods were empty and lifeless statues when I watched my mother die.

I offered burnt offerings to the gods, begging them to give her back to me. I prayed to the gods, I brought grain and fatted calves and gold and jewels, and I wept before their altars, and yet always were they silent. I sat beside my mother when she lay still and pale on her deathbed, her once beautiful and now-frail body swathed in fine linens and glistening with the ointments and unguents of the priests and healers. I sat beside her corpse, praying. There were no last words, no weak squeeze of my hand. Just a hollow aching silence.

My girlhood died with her; my faith in Anu and Enlil and Ereshkigal and Inanna died with her; my capacity for love died with her.

Or so I thought, until I felt Japheth’s lips upon me, felt his eyes devouring my body as I ran away from him. I knew him not at all, had no understanding of his character. But yet, I did. I knew him, I felt his very soul brush up against mine as we kissed, and felt its touch as a familiar caress. I thought I loved him, as foolish as it was. The moment I kissed him, I felt as if I loved him, and knew even then that it was foolish and dangerous.

That very night as I ran to the gate, Irkalla slipping another coin into the guards’ hands to buy their silence, as we ghosted through the deserted palace hallways to my private chambers . . . that very night I knew I loved him. I knew also that I should not. But yet I did, and I could no more escape it than I could bring my mother back to life.

I crept into my bed, and moments later I heard Irkalla, my handmaiden, come into my chamber. She perched on the edge of my bed and unbraided my hair. I refused to speak first, knowing she would she would not approve of my actions with the human Japheth, and I did not wish to hear her lectures.

Perhaps she could convince me to abandon my folly; Inanna knew I could not convince myself. All I knew were his lightning-blue eyes, the deadly grace of his movements, and the tender touch of his lips, the inciting blaze of his hands on my body.

Oh gods, I was in trouble.

“Mistress,” Irkalla said, eventually, “we are more than princess and servant, I should like to think. Please, if you harbor any affection for me at all, please . . . do not have anything more to do with that human.”

“His name is Japheth, son of Noah. He is a warrior, and he believes in The One God.” The last few words were whispered, even in the privacy of my own bedchamber.

“A worshipper of Elohim? You know better, mistress.” Her voice dropped to a whisper so quiet I barely heard her. “If your father even hears a rumor of you being seen with a human, much less a believer in that god—he would raze the entire city looking for him, and he would turn you out into the wilderness to be eaten by lions.”

I sighed. “Irkalla, why does he hate them so much? I’ve long wondered, and I can’t figure it out. I know what happened with my mother made things worse, but that doesn’t explain it . . . not entirely.”

Irkalla’s hands, gently untangling the snarls in my hair, stilled and rested on my shoulders. “I do not know all the details, because what little I know myself is from rumors and stories whispered amongst the older servants. I have heard that your father once loved a human woman by the name of Lily. He would have been very young indeed when all this occurred. He was rebellious in his youth, they say, refusing to take up his responsibilities as the crown prince, preferring instead to dice with the soldiers, and spend his time drinking and gambling and whoring.