The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,76

high priest,” she says, “over there by the far wall, wearing the gold-trimmed robe.”

“Your high priest,” I say, trying out how it feels to say it aloud.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “His name is Daoman. He leads the priests who live here in the temple. He is … a formidable man. He raised me, for the most part.”

Which explains why you’re so formidable. I bite down on the words and focus on the dumpling in my hand while she searches out other characters of note.

She points out Techeki talking to a guildmaster, a couple of the council members who lead the city, dignitaries from foreign governments.

It all feels oddly familiar—the cast of characters might be different from those who occupy my grandfather’s palace, but their roles and the patterns they make are the same.

“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