dropping to their knees, calling out for blessings. Nimh’s serene, as if she’s used to it all, and the cat stalks along beside her as if they’re actually here for him.
As I watch the crowd from inside the wall of our escort, there’s another color that draws my eye away from Nimh’s crimson: gray.
Plain gray banners hang from some of the buildings and boats, big bolts of cloth fastened to window frames, draping down into the street. And there are people wearing gray too, standing mostly in groups of three or four.
They don’t drop to their knees when everyone else does. Instead, they turn their faces from Nimh, holding up one hand like they’re shading their faces from the sun, like they want to avoid seeing her.
I grew up in a palace—I know politics and intrigue as well as I know my own name. And whatever’s going on with these people in gray, it’s murky and it’s dangerous. The cultists who tried to kill us weren’t wearing gray, which makes me wonder if there are two different groups opposing Nimh.
And I can’t help wondering if these people in gray might be potential allies of mine. Nimh and I worked together to get back to the city, and I mistook that for some sort of connection. Now I have to wonder if she has any intention of helping me at all.
When we reach the temple, we’re escorted into a huge reception hall, lined with yet more guards. Nimh turns to their leader, inclining her head. “I must see the high priest,” she says quietly. “Please see that my honored guest is accommodated.”
I have time to meet her dark eyes, to try to silently communicate how much I don’t want to leave her—how badly I need her to explain what’s happening, to tell me I can trust her—and then she’s stepping back.
As the guards escort me away, I can’t help but remember what she said to me in the forest, after finding her people slaughtered in that clearing: You may be safer if you do not come with me, cloudlander.
ELEVEN
NIMH
I sense something is wrong before I’ve even reached the temple. Even before North is bustled away, glancing back at me to meet my eyes for one tense moment, I know.
My people love me. Or, at least, they worship me—it’s only been in the last year or two that I’ve thought to ask myself whether that is the same thing. But despite the devotion they feel to their faith and to their goddess, it’s unusual for those in the city to have quite the same reaction as those who only see me when I travel on pilgrimage.
But as my escort and I reach the first terrace, the public gathering place where anyone may come to be near their goddess, I find it’s teeming with people. One man, from one of the more distant riverstrider clans based on his black-and-yellow attire, gives an audible sob while dropping to his knees when I pass. I can’t help but watch as he stares hungrily after me, tears streaming down his lined cheeks.
I knew that by now I would have been missed, but I am surprised that word of my absence has reached the city in general. I am even more surprised my unauthorized journey was not covered with some cloak of legitimacy, so my priests were not forced to admit I had struck out on my own. There is no reason my people should have feared I would not return.
And yet the cries that follow us as my escort clears a path for me to ascend to the next terrace of the temple … There is a pitch to them I don’t recognize. They sound full of tension. They feel … desperate.
Once inside the temple proper, the city guard gives way to a quartet of handservants—weapons are not allowed, except to my own personal guard, within the sanctity of these walls. I recognize only two of the servants. One is a lad of thirteen named Pecho, quick and eager at his studies and obviously hoping to find his way into the priesthood. The other, a moon-faced girl my own age, joined my service around the time of last harvest. She still finds herself so overcome by her proximity to me that she can hardly bring herself to speak, and more often than not spills or drops whatever she’d been charged to bring me.
The other two must be Daoman’s.
Technically, all the handservants in the temple are mine,