The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,80
on me, a new level of urgency to his confusion. I hold a finger to my lips and put my eye against the spy hole again, even as my mind races.
The missing scroll—if Inshara’s people stole it—if she has spies in the palace who heard me speak of it to Daoman—if she knows I returned with a strange boy …
It has taken Daoman a moment to respond, surprise momentarily penetrating his facade of calm. “The boy?” he echoes.
“I am the vessel of the Lightbringer, priest. I know all. More than you, it seems.” She laughs again. “The boy she brought back with her to this temple. The one who does not know our ways, our customs. The one she guards as jealously as if he were something very, very precious to her.” She spreads her arms and calls out, “Come, boy! Let us see you.”
I bite at my lip, looking again at North. This time he doesn’t look back, intent as he watches the scene play out below us. His jaw is clenched, the light from the spy hole illuminating just his eye—I watch as it narrows.
Her voice intent, Inshara calls again, “I would enjoy the chance to pit my power against yours. Come, cloudlander.”
A ripple of gasps spreads through the chamber, even as the bottom drops out of my stomach.
“How does she know where I’m from?” North asks tightly. “Who did you tell?”
I can only shake my head, sick and dizzy with reaction. I told no one.
Daoman’s face has darkened as he watches her. “You cannot know that.”
Inshara’s lips curl into a smile, as though she’d been waiting for this opportunity. “The spirit of the Lightbringer told me so. He also told me something else—I know who your goddess thinks he is.”
“She does not think,” Daoman replies, his voice ringing out, a glimpse of his anger showing. “She knows. The Divine One has returned from her pilgrimage with nothing less than a god for company.”
North makes a strangled sound in his throat, a mix of disbelief and laughter—but he knew already, because I told him, that our gods dwell in the cloudlands. He already knew. I can barely focus on him—I’m too busy looking at Daoman.
I told him North was nobody. A boy who helped me back to the temple. But he has heard me recite the lost stanza; he knows of every other prophecy that mentions the Last Star. I should have known he would guess who I had found out in the wilds.
A moment too late, I know what Daoman is about to say.
North—stop listening. Turn away. Cover your ears.
“You are not the Lightbringer,” he says, his voice rich with contempt. “You are a cultist, skulking in the shadows to hurl your knives at those who are destined to lead. Nimhara has served her people, and she has performed her ultimate duty.”
No, Daoman, don’t say it… .
I cannot look—I tear my eyes from the carved wooden screen and wish with every filament of my soul that I could touch North and pull him away. As if by keeping the truth from him, I might somehow prevent it from escaping into the world.
“Nimhara has found the Lightbringer on her pilgrimage,” Daoman proclaims, his voice ringing out above the rising roar of the crowd.
North watches on, unblinking, pupil dilated in the light that shines through the crack in the wall. There’s no hint of laughter in his face as my high priest proclaims the truth.
“She has found the Lightbringer, and his destiny will be fulfilled.”
What reaction comes from below, I do not know. I can only sit, a dim buzzing in my ears, my eyes on North’s face. I see his eyelashes dip once, twice. Then the narrow beam of light against his eye softens and spreads across his face as he leans back. His head turns toward me—and I cannot hide from him, not in this moment.
He reads the truth there in a heartbeat, confirmation, a wordless confession. My divinity wasn’t the only thing I hid from him.
I also hid his.
EIGHTEEN
NORTH
My hands are fists. For a long moment, that’s the only detail I can focus on, my brain shying away from everything I’ve just seen, everything I’ve just heard.
But as always, my gaze is dragged back to Nimh, and her expression answers the terrible question that’s stirring in my gut.
She told me the gods left her people to flee to the clouds.
She didn’t tell me that she thought I was a very specific god. That I had some