The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,79

stone—stunned, she lets the blade fall from her fingers. It clatters, metallic and harmless, to the floor.

Cries of shock and horror ripple outward through the crowd, and my own hands lose their strength as surely as Elkisa’s did. I can feel North shifting his attention back toward me, confused.

“You said that you couldn’t use magic to control someone,” he whispers.

I swallow hard, watching Elkisa’s face, the fear in her eyes like a knife in my heart. “This cultist is controlling her body, not her mind—it takes a vast amount of power.”

A divine amount of power—but I do not say this to North.

I could not have done it.

The realization rings over and over and over in my head, surging up like a rising tide and bringing with it every doubt that ever lingered in the shadowy places of my heart.

She is more powerful than I.

As if she performs such feats every day, Inshara smiles a little, hand still outstretched to hold Elkisa in place. “I suppose,” she says lightly, “in Nimhara’s absence, I shall have to give this little demonstration instead.”

My guard’s eyes are wide as she hangs motionless, only the balls of her feet still touching the floor, the rest of her frozen. Her fear is writ so plainly on her face that I can read it from here.

Slowly, Inshara’s fingers begin to move. They curve, tip downward subtly, shifting with insidious grace.

And Elkisa’s arm moves, matching that slow gesture. She gives a cry of alarm, her body shaking as she tries to fight the invisible force compelling her to move—but she makes not an ounce of headway, for her arm continues to move as Inshara’s does.

The cultists’ leader tips her hand down farther, farther, farther—and when Elkisa is bent nearly double, her arm outstretched to the floor, Inshara slowly closes her hand into a fist.

Elkisa’s fingers wrap around the hilt of her fallen blade.

I throw myself back from the spy hole, clamping my hands over my mouth to stifle the cry that bubbles against my lips.

North does not reach for me, but he is closer than I would let anyone come under normal circumstances. “What is happening?” he whispers, eyes glittering in the darkened chamber.

I shake my head helplessly, too frightened to answer, too frightened to look back through the screen and watch as Inshara forces my closest, my only friend, to turn her own blade upon herself.

North looks over his shoulder at the spy holes, resting one palm against the wall beside my head, and then looks back at me. “Nimh—can you fight her, stop her?”

I shake my head again. “Sh-she is too strong.” The voice that comes out is thin and wobbly and alien. It isn’t the voice of Nimhara—it is the voice of Nimh, a little girl with no power. “She’s stronger than me.”

The words keep tumbling from my lips as though they’re the only ones I can say. North makes a frustrated noise in his throat, looking down and flexing his fingers to stop himself touching me, shaking me out of my terror.

“Enough!” Daoman’s voice, strong as ever, cuts across the rising sounds of horror and wonder down in the chamber. “You must know there is no power in this world that would compel me or anyone in this room to expose the Divine One to your threats. Every word you speak is a lie.”

Daoman’s tone is dismissive and furious all at once. I have no idea from where he is finding this strength—if I were at his side, witnessing up close the magic she’s using on Elkisa, I would have crumpled to the ground in terror. “There is nothing you could say to convince me to take your word over Nimh’s.”

My heart tightens, but this time with something other than fear. Not “hers,” not “the Divine One’s,” not even “Nimhara’s.”

Nimh’s.

How could I have ever doubted his loyalty to me? His faith? His love?

Summoning my strength, I give North a shaky nod and creep back toward the spy holes. Inshara and Daoman still stand opposite each other, and Elkisa still hangs frozen in place, her blade in her quivering hand.

Inshara is smiling even more widely, as if she is enjoying herself more with every moment that passes. She takes two slow, graceful steps closer to the priest, lowering her voice—although in the captivated silence, it rings just as clearly—as she murmurs, “What about the boy, Daoman? Did she tell you who he is?”

North’s breath catches as my stomach drops. I turn to find his eyes