As long as Inshara doesn’t know Elkisa’s free, we have a chance to overpower her. So I scramble for a reply, anything to keep her attention on me.
“If the Lightbringer can tell you that your crown’s the key to going up to the sky—however that’s supposed to be a thing—then why can’t he just tell you how to use it? He must know, right?”
She lifts a brow. “If I am to be his vessel, I must prove myself worthy,” she replies. “He has told me thatyouknow. That is enough. You will tell me how to use it, and we will go to the sky together.”
Now it’s my turn to raise a brow. “You’re kidding, right? Of all the people I’d invite home to meet my mothers, you’re the very last on the list.”
“That’s unkind,” she chides me. “I know you’ve already met mine.”
My lungs tighten. Elkisa takes another step closer. She’s nearly at Inshara’s back now, her face impassive.
Inshara’s watching me with an interested expression, like a scientist watching an experiment play out. Her mouth curves to a smile, and then, turning her head a little, she says, “Come on, now, don’t be shy.”
Skyfall, she knows.
But Elkisa doesn’t look afraid to be caught or furious so much as … uncomfortable. I watch in confusion as her gaze slides away from mine and refuses to return, and she steps forward. I’m still waiting for her to draw her knife or rush Inshara, to produce her weapon orsomething, when Inshara turns, stretching out one hand.
Elkisa hesitates, but then slides her fingers through the other woman’s, reluctantly letting Inshara draw her close. And when Inshara tips the guard’s face down toward hers, when she leans up and gives her a gentle, tender kiss, Elkisa doesn’t pull away. Her hand tightens around Inshara’s.
This can’t be happening.
This feels like it’s my own heart being carved out. Like I’m the one she’s betrayed. Oh, Nimh.
“How long?” I manage, my voice low. “How long have you been Nimh’s enemy?”
Elkisa finally meets my eyes. “I’m not her enemy, North.”
A quick, sharp barb of laughter escapes me. “No? Then I’m impressed at the lengths you’re going to so you can lull Inshara into a false sense of security before you attack.”
Inshara actually laughs, and my free hand curls into a fist. Beside me, the cat growls low in his throat.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Elkisa snaps.
“You’ve been working against herall this time.” I’m so angry I can barely get the words out. “She trusted you, and you took her secrets to this …” I don’t have an insult strong enough to hurl at Inshara, who’s still smiling, clearly enjoying the moment.
“Elkisa let me know when Nimh ran straight to Daoman to tell him about the new stanza that had come to her in a vision,” Inshara says. “That girl really should be more careful about who guards her door.”
Elkisa turns her face away, jaw squaring, and I think she tries to tug her hand free of Inshara’s, but the other woman holds it too tightly.
“Did you help the cultists that first night?” I demand. “You were the only other person to get away from the camp—did you …” My stomach turns, queasiness replacing my rage.
Color floods Elkisa’s face, enough to show against the light brown of her skin. “Of course not. Inshara can’t control everything done in her name any more than Nimh can. She doesn’t want bloodshed, not if it can be avoided.”
“I don’t,” Inshara agrees. “I sent them there because the Lightbringer told me where you would be, when you would fall. If they’d managed to take you and Nimh, things would have gone very differently. I don’t want to hurt my people; I want to lead them.”
“You killed the closest thing Nimh ever had to a father.”
Elkisa’s hands ball into fists, but not before I can see the tremor in her fingers. “It had to be done!” she blurts, heat in her voice. “Daoman never would have let Nimh surrender herself peacefully.”
“So you stabbed him in the heart?”
Unbidden, an image of Elkisa the night of Inshara’s takeover looms before me. Wild-eyed, shaking, desperately trying to fight as her knife struck home at Daoman’s chest. Except she was going along with Inshara’s plan.
The only thing Elkisa was fighting was her own conscience.
“Nimh calls you her friend,” I say quietly. “And you betrayed her.”
The heat drains from Elkisa’s face and voice, and the look she turns on me is hollow and cold. “I’ve always been honest with Inshara,” she says quietly, her voice steel. “I love her, and she knows that. I love Nimh too. Insha accepts that what I do, I do for both of them. You know nothing about this world, or Nimh. You could never understand. This is what shewants, cloudlander—she is brave and strong and devoted, but she doesn’t want this life. She lives it because she must, because it was forced upon her. But if none of it’s true—when the Lightbringer infuses Inshara and she becomes the living divine, then Nimh can live any life she wants. She can do everything that has been denied her for so long.” There’s a determination about the way she speaks that catches me off guard. She believes what she’s saying.
