long moment I think perhaps she won’t answer me, won’t even tell me she’s not going to answer me. But then she looks across at me once more, half-hidden in the dark. The clouds have drawn in close now, hiding the moons and the last of the stars.
“She fell in love,” she says softly. “She acted upon her desires. She chose him.”
She let him touch her.
“And so she lost her divinity, and was cast out,” I murmur. “What happened to him?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she whispers. “Did you think her touch would have incinerated him on the spot? It is the divine who loses everything—they are the one who must choose to remain apart, for the sake of their calling.”
“But that’s not fair. You didn’t choose this life,” I reply, keeping my voice soft to match hers. “Daoman chose it for you.”
“Daoman found me,” she corrects me gently. “But the divine had already chosen me for its vessel. You did not choose to be a prince, did you? Your birth chose that life for you. And you did not choose to fall from the clouds—destiny brought you to this land.”
“I thought we weren’t going to discuss destiny and magic tonight.” I feel a smile tug at the corner of my mouth.
Her mouth curves in answer, the movement of her lips making my heart speed. “I mean to say that none of us can choose everything that befalls us in this lifetime. It only makes the choices we can make all the more important. I choose to remain untouched, to honor my fate. That is my choice.” Her lashes dip, then lift again. “No matter how I might be tempted otherwise.”
“Then I won’t ask you to choose differently.” I intended the words to be light, reassuring—instead, they come out like an oath. Like a warrior in an ancient story, pledging fealty to some higher power. “I never will, Nimh.”
We’re close enough that I can see individual stars reflected in her eyes, and the moonlight glints off the gold dust on her lips. I can’t help myself—scanning her features, it’s impossible not to imagine what it would be like to touch her. To hold her. To feel her hair sliding beneath my palm, to know what she tastes like.
“North,” she whispers, her eyebrows lifted with regret, “I will be my people’s goddess until I die.”
“I know.” Slowly, making certain she has plenty of time to see me move, I stretch a hand out between us. Her eyes track the movement and then flick to meet mine, a question in her gaze as her head twitches back a fraction.
I pause, hand outstretched. I want to ask her if she trusts me, but the words stick. We’ve only known each other a few days, and it’s no easy thing I’m asking, for her to accept that I mean her—and her divinity—no harm. But as her gaze moves across my face, she smiles a little, and tilts her head back toward me.
So I reach out, bit by bit, and let my hand hover a breath away from her cheekbone, where I long to trace my fingers. Her eyes are on mine, and after a moment they widen.
“I can feel you,” she breathes.
My own skin tingling at her closeness, I move my fingertips close to the planes of her cheeks, forehead, chin. Her eyelashes dip, brow furrowing, as if she wishes to concentrate every bit of herself on this moment. I move slowly, to make certain I don’t touch her skin, but the slowness seems to affect us both. As I move the pad of my thumb over her lips, they part, and she lets out a quaking breath and opens her eyes.
Earlier, when she looked at me, her gaze was full of questions—lost, lonely, yearning. Now, her brown eyes are lit like embers, and my own breath stops in my throat at the sudden heat there.
She shifts away, then lifts herself up on her elbow so that her face is close to mine, a smile playing about her mouth—and then she leans forward, trusting me, now, to hold still.
Her lips are close enough to my ear that when she speaks, her breath stirs my hair.
“And you claim you cannot work magic?”
Robbed of breath, I search for words.
Then with a deafening crash of thunder the heavens open, and torrential rain begins to fall.
With a yelp, she scrambles to her feet, and I follow. Laughing, we gather up the pillows and blankets and make for shelter belowdecks.
This is