THE GOD

YOU HAVE MY HEART. You know you do.

I have heard this said, from one of you to another. Mortals say it as though they can feel the hand of the beloved inside their ribs, palm supporting the heart, fingers curled lightly around the trembling muscle. Pain could come so easily. All it would take is a good, hard squeeze.

Once there was a girl who traded her heart to a god for knowledge. It seemed, at the time, a fair bargain. One should never bargain with a god, let alone this god, yet Nirrim had been raised to think more of others than of herself, and as such people often do—the orphans, the underlings, the lesser-thans—she soon tired of being trod upon. She sought power. Eventually, she would seize it with a vengeance. A heart seemed a small price to pay. Anyway, it was broken.

Yet she hesitated. I can’t live without a heart, she told the god, who said, Not that lump of muscle beating in your chest. I mean what makes you you.

If you take my heart, what will I become?

Who can say? said the god.

Nirrim made her bargain. She plotted to make a palace fit for the new person she was, and looked out at the sea, which glinted like beaten tin. She placed a palm against her breast, and her heart knocked back. I am here, it said. But was it truly? Something was gone. Nirrim, self-crowned ruler of Ethin, our lost city, Queen of the Hollow Heart, discovered that her bargain had not taken away her longing as she had hoped. No, she was not done with wanting. Now she wanted all the world.

And me?

I warn you now: do not think well of me. I have murdered your kind before. Nirrim’s black-eyed lover, Sid of the Herrani, will know this when she meets my gaze. Fear will shiver through her.

How does a story end? For you mortals, it always ends with your life.