“You know them all,” I say, when we pause for more dumplings.
She inclines her head. “I have many years of observing the rhythms of temple life. Watch now, that woman in the robes of the Congress of Elders will move around to the far side of that table, because she does not wish to dance with the leader of one of the riverstrider clans, the woman wearing blue and green. The clan is pressing the congress for a change to a trading law, and the elder does not wish to discuss it.”
And as we look down, that’s exactly what happens—one woman gracefully avoids the other by seeming to move around a table to investigate the snacks on the far side of it without ever looking the riverstrider’s way. I whistle, impressed. “Magic,” I tease, grinning.
“Too much spare time,” she returns, with her own smile. “You did not dance tonight. I saw several people ask you.”
“I love dancing,” I admit. “But we do it differently, and I figured it was better to remain mysterious than to step on everyone’s feet and make myself an ordinary idiot.”
That draws a laugh from her, soft and musical. “You could never be ordinary.”
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat at the obvious compliment. The cat, who has returned without our notice, chirps his disapproval of her laughter, and like misbehaving children we press our eyes to the peepholes once more.
“Is Matias here?” I ask.
Her breath seems to catch in her throat, and I have a feeling that if she were less restrained, she might have snorted. “He does not care for festivities” is all she says.
I wonder whether she’s told him he can give me the information I asked for. But I don’t press the issue, not tonight. Tonight is … something else. Tonight, or at least just now, the two of us are apart from the others. Joined in a way that feels different from being in the forest-sea and the ghostlands together, as though there’s something between us that can only show its face when no one else is looking.
“When I saw Matias today, he told me about how you came to be the goddess,” I say, thinking back to his words. “It must have been so hard, at five, to leave everything behind.”
“It was necessary,” she says simply. “They cannot see me as a person. They must see me as a symbol, and symbols must stay apart. They cannot be … longed for. Wanted.”
“Are you sure?” I murmur, as the music swells on the other side of the wall, and laughter drifts up. “It seems to me that ritual is designed to foster exactly that.”
She doesn’t answer my question, though she meets my eyes in the dim light. “I remember when the priests came for me,” she whispers, barely audible above the revelry. “My mother tried to hide me, because she did not want to give me up. She cried when they took me away. I have always treasured that memory. It was the last time anyone wanted me. Nimh. Not Nimhara, the Divine One.”
My throat tightens at the thought of it, of all those years of loneliness since. At what her duty requires her to be.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “For her hurt, and for yours. But what makes you so certain it was the last time?”
Her lips part, though I’m not sure even she knows what she’s going to say next. We’re both still and quiet, ignoring the party around us, our gazes still locked. I feel an ache in my heart—a yearning for something I can’t quite name.
A few breathless moments pass, her face clearly torn. “North … ,” she whispers finally, “there is something I should—something I would like to tell you—”
A deafening roar on the other side of the wall interrupts her, as if the sky has fallen and the world’s ending.
We spin toward the spy holes to see the far wall of the great room collapse in a spray of stone, knocking several people down and reducing the feast to a rubble-strewn pile.
The hole in the temple wall is filled with smoke and dust, but through it I can make out the barest silhouette. Someone is standing there. Before I can gather my wits to ask Nimh what’s going on, a voice from behind the rubble rises over the groans of the wounded and the frightened babble of the guests.
“Where is your goddess?” The voice is female, low and smooth, and utterly commanding. Now I can make out several other shapes flanking her, bearing weapons. “Come to me, Nimhara—you may either damn every soul in this room to death, or surrender yourself to the Deathless, and the true vessel of the Divine. I have come to take my rightful place and cast you forever into the dust.”
SEVENTEEN
NIMH
A voice rings out demanding my surrender.
It is then that I see the woman standing amid the clouds of dust.
For a moment, I want to laugh—for how could anyone think they could stroll up to the temple, blow a hole in its side, and start making demands of one of the most heavily guarded people in the world? There are only half a dozen others standing among the rubble, flanking the woman in front as if participating in some strange ritual.
But then reality descends upon me in a swift, dizzying swoop and seizes me in its talons.
The Cult of the Deathless has breached my temple. My home.
The woman standing in the rubble wears a robe much like my own, but of deep indigo, little flecks of stone and centuries-old mortar speckling its skirt like stars. Gleaming relics from the ancients adorn her fingers and hang around her neck, more than I have ever seen in one place. She holds a staff like mine, although it has no blade at the end, only ceremonial charms. Her black hair is long, but twisted up and tied so that it forms a circlet along the top of her head from ear to ear—a crown, not of gold, but of darkness. At first glance, it seems she is wearing a blindfold—but then I realize it is a stripe of black painted across her face, emphasizing the brightness of her eyes in the darkness. Even at this distance, I can see them flash as they scan the room.
She must have known from the instant she could see through the dust that I was not there, and yet she makes a show of searching for me. A few of those nearest her draw back as her eyes pass over them. Her lips, a red so dark they nearly match the paint across her eyes, curve a little.
“Why have you all ceased your celebration?” she asks, her voice still pitched to carry across the chamber. “I have no wish to stop such a moving display of faith. Please, continue.”
No one moves, her words hanging in the air like the dust from the collapsed wall.
“I said continue.” When her order fails again, those eyes flash toward the musicians’ dais just below my bathing chamber. “Play!” she snaps, and behind her, one of the other intruders draws a blade from his belt with a sound that lingers in the silence.
Haltingly, fumbling and out of sync with each other, the drummer and piper begin to play again, the lively tune a harsh contrast with the shock and horror of the room’s occupants.
The woman lifts one hand and makes an expansive gesture, like a ruler welcoming honored guests to her throne room. “Do not be afraid,” she declares. “You should rejoice—for you are the first beyond my own people to look upon the face of the one who will be your true goddess.”
Beside me, North makes a small sound. I wrench my gaze from the screen long enough to spare him a glance. His face is grave and tense, his hands clenched tightly together. When he raises his eyebrows and glances toward the door of my chamber, I shake my head—whatever he might be proposing, I cannot move.