“Lightbringer,” she says, more slowly. “The god who will end this cycle and begin the next. The one who will remake the world.”
“Of course,” I say, slapping at an insect trying to bite my neck. I haven’t got a clue what she means. I’ve heard of the worship of gods—it was a part of my education. Something my people did, long before the time of the Ascension. We had a whole club of gods then, according to the stories. Once, I asked my heartmother why we didn’t have them anymore. She said that we probably stopped believing in them once we came into the sky ourselves and discovered nobody else was there.
The girl’s eyeing me strangely, and I wonder just how out of place I sound right now. Who, or what, she thinks I am.
“Do you worship the Lightbringer at the temple we’re going to?” I try.
“Among others,” she says. “The temple is about a day’s journey from here. By tomorrow night, you will see for yourself.”
I’m not sure I like that answer. It’s too smooth—and reveals too little. Whoever this girl is, at least one thing about her is familiar—she’d fit right in on the council at home. She considers every word before she speaks it. She isn’t telling me everything. But I don’t call her on it—not yet. No matter why she’s taking me with her, it’s better than standing in the middle of the lake with a broken glider and hungry monsters all around me. “What will happen when we get there?” I ask.
Nimh steps over a rotting log, the cat creature leaping over it in one fluid move. “There,” she says, “we will search for someone who knows how to put a man back up in the sky.”
It sounds fantastical when she says it, but I can’t help craning my neck back to catch a glimpse of my home. The stars are blocked from my sight by the canopy of leaves overhead.
“You mentioned Sentinels,” I say. “You said they might have an idea of how to get me back up in the sky. Who are they?”
“A story for children,” she replies. “But stories often have a seed of truth, however long lost—it is said that they were a secret society of magicians who once guarded the way between worlds. The archives are vast—if any texts about the Sentinels still exist, you will find them there.”
The archives are vast. My brain’s still just about short-circuiting at the possibility of some kind of tribe down here, clinging to life after all these centuries, and they’ve got vast archives?
“The temple, is it in a camp or a village, or something larger?” I ask.
“It sits above the city,” she replies. “There is not much land here that stays dry—we are just leaving the rainy months now. The temple is on a rise overlooking the forest-sea, and many of the houses in town leave during the wet season.”
A city? But that would mean thousands of people. My brain starts spitting sparks and threatens to catch fire. But something she’s said doesn’t compute. “The houses leave?”
“Of course.” She glances sideways at me. “The temple remains, but most other places float. To find food, to trade … It is a rare and treasured responsibility, to spend all your life in one place.”
Understanding clicks into place. If most of the surface is flooded, then cities would need to sit on top of the water. “Our cities move too—we just move the whole of them, rather than individual parts.”
“Do they glide, like your craft?”
“No, they use engines, it’s a different kind of propulsion.”
“Engines,” she says slowly, as if tasting the word. “Propulsion.” Her face is keen, curious, intelligent—but my heart sinks. She clearly doesn’t know what I’m talking about. How am I going to find a way to repair the Skysinger if these people don’t know even the basics of aeronautics?
“What is engines?” she asks, not seeming to notice my dismay.
“They’re, uh … I’m not sure how to explain it,” I admit. My tired mind isn’t sure where to start. “They’re a thing you can build that creates energy, the way wind pushing on a sail does. Only you can summon the energy whenever you want, instead of waiting for the wind to blow.”
“Oh, a kind of magic,” she says, as if she’s saying, Oh, gravity, got it. “I would like to learn it—is it a magic you know, or have you only seen it done?”
“It’s not magic,” I say. “It’s science. Science means you can explain it, that you know how each part of it works. Magic is—I mean, it’s science you haven’t figured out how to explain yet.”
“I can explain my magic,” Nimh replies. “And you just said you could not explain your engines.”
Well. Maybe I should shut up, then.
“North,” she says gently, “I will do all I can to help you. I could not be sure, at first, whether you were a friend or an enemy, and I am sorry if I frightened you—but I do not believe you are an enemy. So if you will call me friend, I will keep you safe.”
Her dark eyes are on mine as she speaks, with a directness and sincerity that would feel almost intimate among my own people. It must be normal among hers, but it makes me want to shift my weight, clear my throat, look away.
I have to clear my throat to find my voice.
“Thank you, Nimh.” I’m beginning to think I must have gotten very, very lucky that she was the one to find me.
She smiles and tips her head. “We are close now, cloudlander. Come.”
We reach the edge of the trees—and, I realize a moment later, the edge of more water. This isn’t the shallow, reflective stuff we saw earlier. This is more water than I’ve ever seen outside the city reservoirs, a thick river of it slowly drifting past the shore on which we stand.
Nimh leads me down the muddy bank to where a raft’s moored, and as we climb onto it, it wobbles gently beneath our weight. This probably isn’t the moment to tell her I don’t know how to swim, so I keep my mouth shut as she guides us across with a paddle. I breathe more easily when we reach the other side and climb onto dry—or rather, damp—land again.
A few steps from the edge of the water, though, she slows, and with a soft chirp, the cat creature halts by her feet. She leans on her spear, tilting her head, and I try to listen too.
“Nimh?” I venture, instinctively keeping my voice soft.
“You said you came here alone,” she says, and it’s not a question. It’s one final opportunity for me to revise my story, suspicion back in her tone.
“Yes,” I say. “I give you my word.”
Her measuring glance reminds me she doesn’t know the worth of a prince’s word—or even that I am a prince. I’m not dumb enough to point out the value of my word, or of me, until I know what she’ll do with that information, so I stay quiet.
Eventually, she explains. “My people should be on guard. And they ought to be looking for me—we should have been challenged by now.”
There’s something about the way she says it: my people. It reminds me of the way my bloodmother speaks. Like a leader.
While I’m considering that, she leans down to run her fingers along the cat’s spine. As if the gesture was a signal, the thing prowls alongside her as she moves on once again.