The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,93
your people believe mine are gods—,” I begin.
“Descended from gods,” Nimh corrects me, voice lightening a little. “I have revised my opinion about your people’s actual divinity since meeting you.”
It’s a dig, but I feel a rather foolish smile spread over my features. “Oh, very nice. To be fair, we didn’t know we were meant to be anyone’s gods.”
I catch a glitter in her eyes as they shift momentarily away from the river to catch mine. “Did your people never simply look down?”
I lean back, this time watching the river myself. “I’ve wondered that once or twice since discovering you existed,” I admit. “But the clouds below Alciel are pretty thick. No one’s gotten a good look through them in centuries. And I suppose …”
“You suppose?” Nimh asks curiously.
“I suppose my people stopped wondering what else might be out there.”
She’s quiet for a little while, and then says very softly, “I think that would be a very hopeless sort of life.”
A part of me wants to object to that, because my people are happy, for the most part, and fed and secure. But I know security isn’t exactly the same as hope, and the more time I spend here, the more I wonder what we gave up when we forgot about gods and magic and the power of prophecy.
I clear my throat, hoping to change the subject. “So what is it, exactly, that I’m meant to do? Shouldn’t I be prepared in some way?”
Nimh is quiet for a moment before she answers, her voice thin. “I promise I will be honest with you, North. I will tell you what you wish to know, I just …” She falters, and I fold my arms over my chest to stop myself reaching out to offer to steady her. “It is a long story, and it is full of things for which you have little patience. Magic and destiny and divine callings.”
My chest constricts and I force a slow breath. It’s been a long night, but for Nimh far more so than for me. “Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?” I suggest. She nods, features flickering with gratitude.
The world slips by us in the moonlight, the trees getting thicker the farther we go from the city. Great mossy blocks of stone are strewn in among the brush, as though the jungle is taking back what was once the edge of the cultivation. The ruins have been visible on the banks for some time now, and I think the temple and its surroundings used to be much bigger—that they’ve contracted over the centuries to huddle where they do now at the place where the rivers meet.
I’m still afraid.
Afraid of the murderers we left behind us at the temple, afraid of the animals that are out there prowling the banks, afraid of what we might have to do next—but I also see a beauty here that escaped me when I landed.
Was it really just twenty-four hours ago? Neither Nimh nor I have slept since then, and that, I definitely feel. When I look over at her, I see her statue-like silhouette wobble. She’s like a part of the landscape, half-hidden in shadow like the trees along the bank. I rise to my feet to make my way toward her end of the deck.
“Nimh,” I say softly as I approach her—and even so, she startles. “I think we should stop the boat for a little.”
“No,” she says automatically, without taking her eyes off the moonlit ripples ahead of us.
“Nobody knows how we left the city, and we’ve come a long way,” I point out. “We need to rest, even if it’s just for a few hours.”
Now she glances over her shoulder, as if she might see pursuers rounding the bend. The cat makes a soft chirping noise.
“See?” I try. “Even our fearless leader is tired.”
That draws just the faintest smile from her, and she concedes, turning the wheel to ease us in closer to the shore. “We need to find a place to tie up,” she says.
I’m a clumsy deckhand, but I do my best, and she shows me how to sling ropes around the trees and then let them out a little, so we’re firmly secured, but far enough from the bank that nothing with big teeth can make the jump to us.
Watching Nimh work gives me a little glimpse into what she might have been like, had she not been singled out by the high priest as a child. She’d have been a