The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,124
reading from a new prophecy.”
Her brow furrows, the mist receding back to settle around her like a halo, catching the rising sun. “Yes … I remember.” She blinks, urgency cutting through her daze. “It was a new prophecy. You are the Last Star—by your light, I knew myself … the Lightbringer. You were always going to be here at this moment, and I was never going to manifest until you arrived.”
“A prophecy a thousand years in the making predicted me?” I protest.
Her weight shifts as though she wants to step toward me, but she stops herself. She can’t hide the intensity in her gaze, though, and that’s enough to make me want to flee. “Jezara was wrong, North. I do not know what magic Inshara has used to convince others that she is communing with the Lightbringer’s spirit. But I have never been more certain in my life. I am the Lightbringer. And you are the Star—you unlocked the scroll for me to read. Don’t you see?”
“And what does that mean, exactly?” Though the mist around her is quiet now, I can still see it, like a faint iridescence in the air. Somehow, its near invisibility is worse than when it was reaching toward me—now it’s waiting, lurking, like a predator in the shadows. “You’ve been promising since the temple to tell me what the Lightbringer is meant to do. Because all the other names for that god—Destroyer, Wrathmaker, Eater of Worlds—they all sound incredibly … murdery.”
Her eyes are clear, and though she doesn’t hesitate, her voice does quiet. “The Lightbringer is the one who ends the world.”
“Ends?” My throat is tight, my body cold. “That can’t mean what it sounds like.”
“Do those words have another meaning in your land?” she asks. “The Lightbringer brings about the end of the world. The sky will fall, the forest-sea will burn, and the slate of creation will be wiped clean. We will see an end to the cycle of suffering and poverty and disease. A return to the nothingness from whence all this was born.”
A cold feeling settles in my gut at her words. “Nimh … you can’t be serious—you want everyone and everything in this world destroyed?”
She leans forward, her gaze intent, pleading with me to understand. “Here, we are taught as children about the cycle of creation and destruction—we all learn that the end will come, and that we will be reborn in a world without suffering. But for that to happen, all this”—a sweep of her arm takes in our surroundings: the dawn, the golden light filtering through the trees, the tumble of the river below—“must die. And so must we.”
And so must we… .
“The sky,” I manage, trying not to let my dread infect my voice. “When you say the sky will fall …”
“The cloudlands,” Nimh says, her voice softening a little. “Yes. The gods must return to us in this new cycle.”
“The blood of the gods will rain down,” I whisper, echoing that line of her new prophecy.
Her dark eyes fix on mine. “Your people and mine were never meant to exist apart. If there is anything I know with absolute certainty, it’s that our two peoples were bound together long ago. Our worlds must be reborn together.”
She’s talking about bringing my people crashing down to Below in what could only be a firestorm of death and destruction. An impact of that magnitude would certainly destroy this land—her people and mine would be all but vaporized. The forest-sea would burn. The ash and debris from that fire would block out the sun for generations. It could mean the death of everything.
Suddenly, her words are real.
The Lightbringer shall rise, that the sky might fall.
And she believes everything will somehow be reborn. Maybe eventually some kind of plant will take root again, but the idea that the world itself could ever …
My blood unlocked the scroll just as if it were a DNA lock in the palace. That means our tech is here, all over the place, mixed in with faith and magic and ancient prophecy. The scroll could hold the key to bringing down the sky-islands. If that’s true, the end of the world is no metaphorical idea—Nimh could do it.
“What will it be like? After?” I ask, still hoping for a loophole and stalling for time.
“No one can say with absolute certainty,” she replies. “No one in this age could have witnessed anything before its beginning. But there have been many, many remakings before. Infinite worlds, an