The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,144
stain of Daoman’s blood on the stone floor during the feast afterward.
Attendants light lamps around the edge of the terrace as the guard ushers us forward. The broad stone platform looks out over the city, the stonework beneath our feet an intricate pattern on too large a scale for me to pick out. Toward the center of the terrace the design turns less freestyle and more structured—the lines in the stone are so precise, I’d say they were machine-cut if Below had tech of that kind. A knot of people is gathered there, and I catch a glimpse of crimson robes—Inshara.
She’s wearing the crown.
As my eyes adjust, I can see the city below us. Straight ahead, I see the river snaking away—the same river Nimh and I fled down only a few nights before. It vanishes into the gloom, the stars hidden in that direction by large, dark banks of cloud.
The river splits to pass around the city on either side, creating one big island, though so many boats and bridges cross the water that I’d never have noticed unless I came up this high.
The city below us, where I stood during the Feast of the Dying, is a sea of lanterns and flickering spellfire. I can just make out the faces of the crowd, turned up toward us.
Flanking Inshara are half a dozen temple guards, rows of priests and attendants, some of the civilian dignitaries I saw at the feast, guildmasters and council members, and I see solemn men and women dressed all in gray.
If I hadn’t known Elkisa’s performance the night Inshara took over the temple was all a lie, I would assume Inshara had somehow placed these people under the same spell. Though a few of them glance at me, their gazes troubled and uncertain, most pay me little attention.
How easily she’s taken Nimh’s people from her. How desperate they must be for a savior, that they were ready to believe in the woman who murdered the high priest in front of everyone that night.
Or, I think to myself, feeling sick, Inshara is just that persuasive.
So much so that she’s done what Nimh could not: unite the priests and Graycloaks alike. What must she have promised them?
Inshara makes her way toward us, crimson robes catching the lamplight. When she stops in front of me, I can’t help myself—my gaze drifts up to her crown. I never really looked at it when Nimh had it—I was more interested in its wearer.
But now … now I see it. The crown’s design is intricate, but there’s a message just for me hidden within the motif.
Two stylized wings spread out on either side of a small space that’s perfectly clear. And the shape of that plain little area is one I know as well as my own face. It’s the outline of a sky-island.
My family’s crest is on the crown, calling me home to Alciel. Our mark, left behind on this world when we fled. For a wild moment, I want to snatch the crown from her and run. If my blood really is the key, I could use it to get home, to warn my family that those below want to destroy them, that their religion demands it.
I know that’s what I should do.
It should be easy to choose. I’d be leaving Nimh behind, but I can’t sacrifice my people, abandon my duty, for just one girl, even this girl. It shouldn’t be a choice.
“Cloudlander, you look very thoughtful,” Inshara says, and with a blink, I realize I’m still staring at her. The golden paint on her lips shimmers in the torchlight and she has one brow raised.
“I, um.” My first attempt at an answer crashes and burns, and I feel the cat weaving through my ankles, the warmth of his fur and the easy movement of his muscle somehow comforting. “I was examining the stonework there. What’s the meaning behind it?”
Techeki, at my side, murmurs an explanation, willing to work with me to stall for time. “The first symbol, on the far side of the guardian stone, belongs to the nameless god. The other, on this side, to the nameless goddess. He was the first incarnation of the living divine, and she was the second. Their names are lost, but not their aspects. He was the god of endings, and saw the Exodus of the rest of his kind to the cloudlands. She was the goddess of beginnings, and saw the start of a new world in their absence.”