The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,92
well into his thirties. But if Quenti’s mind was stuck in a time ten years past, Orrun would have been younger too.
Please, I pray, reaching for the latch on the door, let him be as foolish now as he was then.
I step back, inspecting the inside of the door—and there, hanging from a hook, is a little chain holding the amber keystone. I let my breath out, fetching it down with trembling fingers, and step up to the controls.
North is watching curiously, no doubt wondering what technolog y will explain away how a riverstrider’s barge responds to its keystone—but I pause before starting up the barge.
“Thank you,” I whisper, unable just yet to lift my gaze.
“For what?”
“For Quenti. For taking his hand when I could not.”
When I finally do look up, North is outlined by the moonlight that streams onto the deck of the barge. My eyes meet his, and he smiles a little, though his face is sad.
“Whether your prophecy is right about me or not,” he says, with just enough of a wry twist to his voice, “we’re in this together now.”
I used to dream of being the one the Lightbringer came to. Having a partner, being understood, sharing the weight of divinity with another. Despite the grief threatening to paralyze me, I can still feel the pull of that dream.
“Hey.” North’s eyebrows rise as he ducks his head a little, catching my gaze. “No time for zoning out. Let’s put some distance between us and the temple, hmm? And maybe then you can tell me a story or two, because if your people think I’m this destroyer, I should probably know what that’s all about.”
I fit the keystone into its hollow and start priming the boat’s magic—the motions are all still familiar, for all that I’ve not been riverfolk since childhood.
North’s voice is still ringing in my ears, telling me we’re a team.
I used to dream of not being alone.
And now, here is someone to stand beside me.
TWENTY-TWO
NORTH
“There is a story among my people,” Nimh says, her eyes on the dark river ahead of us, hands resting on the boat’s wheel. “It is said that a thousand years ago, when the gods still walked among us, the world was ready to come to an end—that existence had grown weary, and it was time for life to begin anew.”
Another time, I might have asked her to skip ahead and get to the part where I’m some prophesied savior of her people. But we still have distance to put between us and her pursuers, and nothing but time.
And, if I’m being honest, I like the way she tells stories.
“To that end,” she goes on, “a new god was born. He was called Lightbringer, and he was to remake the world. But he was young and untested, and when the time came, he was afraid to do what must be done.
“When the other gods decided to abandon humanity and take to the sky, he fled with them instead of fulfilling his destiny. One god stayed behind—the first living divine—and she gave us words of prophecy. They eventually became the Song of the Destroyer—the Lightbringer’s story.”
“This is the prophecy about me?” I interject.
She nods. “It tells us a new Lightbringer will come, and finish what the first one could not. Restore balance to this world, remake it into one where its people can thrive.”
I sigh. “And you believe this prophecy is coming true now.”
She echoes my sigh, unaware of how closely the sound matches—I hide my smile in the dark. “I have faith, yes.” She’s standing there like a statue, the cat motionless at her side, guiding the riverstrider’s boat down the slow, lazy river.
The only real noise is the lapping of the engine’s blades as they slice through the water at the stern—because that’s what’s driving this thing. An engine. It’s soundless, and Nimh says it’s running on magic—because what doesn’t in this place—but something is turning the blades on the propeller. It could be a circuit that the insertion of the keystone completes. Or a reaction between the keystone and one of the materials the boat is made of.
Or the power could be magnetic—the harnessing of some kind of attraction or repulsion.
Funny thing is, after the initial rush of excitement that I might have found a power source that can help lift my own ship, I stopped really thinking about it. Glider repairs don’t feel like my top priority. Ensuring Nimh’s safety does.