I see the moment she wonders if I could be speaking of the one we have waited for these many centuries.
Lightbringer.
Elkisa opens her mouth, but then freezes for a long moment until her hand begins to tremble. Rather than risk it brushing mine, she drops both to the floor and then up to cover her eyes, a salute of the deepest respect of the devout toward the divine.
“I will protect him as I would you, Divine One.”
Moved by this display of her faith, I whisper a blessing, and ease back to rest on my heels.
“I will find a way to be worthy of your devotion,” I say quietly. “I am sorry for what you have been through.”
She looks up, and with a faint twist of a smile, she pulls us both back to normality. Once again, we are friends, rather than goddess and guard. “If you think you’re going for a walk without me again, you are sorely mistaken,” she says.
I am so very grateful for that smile, for even that small mercy. But the weight of all that has passed pushes down on me again, and I can do no more than nod in reply and then rise, turning to hurry from the infirmary.
The cat, who had been waiting for me at the doorway, spares not a glance for my guard as we leave her behind, and trots along at my side. He’s never been very fond of Elkisa, in that endearing but inconvenient way that animals—and some people—have of displaying jealousy toward anyone their chosen person cares for.
As I make my way through the halls, navigating my way toward my quarters, unbidden, a face flashes before my eyes in the darkened corridors. A delicate, handsomely featured face with a sharp nose, warm brown eyes, and a smile far too charming for his own good.
Is North the answer? Can he be connected with the Lightbringer’s coming—or could he be the Lightbringer himself?
My heart tells me with every beat that he is. I feel a strange, undeniable compulsion to believe that he and I were destined to meet. But does that mean I, with the weight of my divinity behind me, can see through to the truth of him? Or does it just mean that I am so weary of waiting, so desperate to find a way to help my people, that I’m seeing something that isn’t there?
I’ve returned to the temple just in time—tonight is the Feast of the Dying, one of the most significant yearly rituals. I must begin preparing for my part in it. I have no time to see North.
But I ought to tell him. I ought to tell him everything.
Perhaps tonight, during the feast, I’ll find a moment or two alone with him. And yet … I still hesitate.
Because right now, North is my secret, and mine alone.
Ruthlessly, I banish the little tendril of yearning to keep a secret that’s mine, to discover the truth about him on my own. To discover everything about him on my own.
I steady myself and open the door to my quarters, a dozen attendants turning toward me and sinking as one to their knees, greeting their goddess.
There is no room, in a life like mine, for wanting.
FOURTEEN
NORTH
The celebration of the Feast of the Dying begins at sunset, a solemn ritual on a large terrace that overlooks the city. Nimh stands on a platform that raises her above the others, bathed in the dying light, her arms outstretched.
She’s dressed in an exquisite robe of red silk, so fine it’s just this side of sheer, the edges catching in the breeze and rippling around her like a living thing. She has golden bands around her wrists and upper arms that match the crown on her head, and golden paint around her kohl-lined eyes, across her cheekbones, and at her lips.
The light seems to caress her, intensifying around her, until she’s glowing, brighter even than the glorious sunset spread out across the thick forest beyond the city.
Every face, even the sun’s, seems to turn toward her.
Low drums beat out a deep bass. Chanting priests act as counterpoint to her ringing voice as she carries out the ritual. I learned as I waited quietly in my place among the crowd that the ritual is all about the approach of the solstice—they’re fare-welling the sun, acknowledging that the shortest days lie ahead. In three days’ time, Nimh will preside over another ritual that marks the end of mourning for the sun—the Vigil of the Rising—an all-night affair where they await the sun’s rising as a symbol of hope in the coming months.
I wonder how much will happen here between now and then.
Nimh’s voice dips into a rhythm that’s nearly musical, her hands lifting, the sun glinting off the gold bands at her arms, and in this moment she is the sun, come down from the sky to shine warm upon our faces. I want to just surrender to the moment, to let the beauty of it—of her—sweep me away.
I want to be a part of this, to share it with everyone around me, to lose myself in the crowd. But I know I have to observe, to think. I can’t afford to miss anything that could help me.
I make myself look at Nimh objectively. She has all the presence my mothers have tried for years to cultivate in me. She’s regal, distant from all of us, but not remote. After my time with Elkisa, Matias, and Techeki, I was itching to see her again, to talk to her. But the girl I’m watching now seems impossibly far from the one I know.
Still, there are so many questions I want to ask her.
I want her to tell me why she led me here without admitting who she was. I want her to tell me what she thinks will become of me—why she didn’t want me to tell anyone I’m a cloudlander. What danger lies in that. Who her allies are, and her enemies, and whether they’re mine. Should I trust Matias, who seemed to care for her? Should I distrust Techeki because Matias does?
But it’s a battle to look at this world from the outside when everything about the ceremony urges me to step inside instead.
The ritual ends with a sigh that seems to ripple out through the crowd, and as if on some unseen signal, the gravity of the moment is over. Servants begin to light torches against the growing dark, and I’m caught up in the river of humanity that streams into the temple for feasting and dancing.
Once the feast begins, it’s harder and harder to remember there was ever any solemnity about this night at all. I’ll say this for them: Nimh’s people know how to party. I’ve thrown quite a few dusk-to-dawn blowouts in my time at the palace, and I like to think I’m pretty good at it, but I have to give credit where credit’s due. Techeki has earned the title Master of Spectacle.
The place is a riot of color, food, and music, song and laughter echoing down at us from the ceiling tiles. I’m not quite a part of the celebration tonight. I’m dressed all in black—Techeki had no other option, given my unknown status here, but I can’t pretend I don’t envy the gold paint daubed on those around me. Back home, my face would be painted up with exquisite flash and glitter, my clothes shot through with gold. After all the time I’ve spent shedding it to make my escapes from the palace, it’s ironic that I miss my golden thread. But I’m trying to keep myself a blank canvas, unknown to these people, so that Nimh and I can paint me with whatever pictures we want, and later on, whatever picture will get me home.
Also, I don’t know the steps to any of their dances—literally or metaphorically.
I decline an invitation from a pretty girl who wants to draw me into the middle of the crowd, and another from a handsome boy with a head full of braids, who offers me a drink I can’t identify. Shooting him a rueful grin, I slip around to the far side of a column. The architecture here is spectacular, and I tip my head back as though I’m admiring the mosaicked ceiling.