“I think,” replies Nimh gently, “that if we stand here to wait, we will keep the people from enjoying their market day. We will continue on.”
Well, I want to snap,let’s not stop anyone from having a nice day. That would be terrible.
But nobody’s looking at me, and the cat underlines her words with a cranky kind of yowling sound. Despite how fearsome the guard appears, she’s clearly as wary of the creature as I am, because she inclines her head and signals for her troop to form up around Nimh. Nimh gestures, and without a word, they shift their formation to include me, as well. I stare at her, willing her to meet my eyes, but she won’t.
One of the guards, at an urgent order from the patrol leader, sets off running ahead of us into the city. But the rest of us don’t wait, and soon we’re making our way through the crowd with guards dressed in black and gold flanking us on all sides.
I can see our destination—the temple at the heart of the city, raised up on a hill. It’s built from great blocks of stone, and it is, without question, the largest building I’ve ever seen in my life. Its layers grow smaller as they rise, lined with elaborate windows and balconies. Greenery spills out here and there to mark the presence of lush gardens on the different terraces. Intricate patterns carved into the stone wind all the way from the towering heights of the highest level down to the muddy ground below. It has an undeniably ancient quality to it, a gravity, not unlike the palace in Alciel.
We’re about halfway there when a second detachment of guards, moving at double time, arrive to greet us. One walks forward and sinks to his knees to present Nimh with a bundle of red cloth draped across his outstretched hands, topped with a crown of woven gold, simple in design but exquisitely crafted. She takes both—careful not to touch the guard—and when she shakes out the fabric, I can see it’s a large, loose robe that opens at the front. She slips her arms into it and settles the circlet on her brow, and it’s like she’s flicked a switch. Like suddenly, everyone around us is seeing something that wasn’t there before.
Like a ripple traveling out from a stone tossed into the middle of a fountain, the people around us sink to their knees, bowing until their foreheads touch the ground. In half a minute, only Nimh, the guards, the cat, and I are left standing. The words travel through the crowd like a whisper, growing louder, escalating into shouts.
“The goddess has returned!”
“Bless us, Divine One!”
“The goddess returns to the city!”
All along our path, people of all walks of life, those dressed in rich silks and those in rough-spun rags, are ecstatic to see her, dropping to their knees, calling out for blessings. Nimh’s serene, as if she’s used to it all, and the cat stalks along beside her as if they’re actually here for him.
As I watch the crowd from inside the wall of our escort, there’s another color that draws my eye away from Nimh’s crimson: gray.
Plain gray banners hang from some of the buildings and boats, big bolts of cloth fastened to window frames, draping down into the street. And there are people wearing gray too, standing mostly in groups of three or four.
They don’t drop to their knees when everyone else does. Instead, they turn their faces from Nimh, holding up one hand like they’re shading their faces from the sun, like they want to avoid seeing her.
I grew up in a palace—I know politics and intrigue as well as I know my own name. And whatever’s going on with these people in gray, it’s murky and it’s dangerous. The cultists who tried to kill us weren’t wearing gray, which makes me wonder if there are two different groups opposing Nimh.
And I can’t help wondering if these people in gray might be potential allies of mine. Nimh and I worked together to get back to the city, and I mistook that for some sort of connection. Now I have to wonder if she has any intention of helping me at all.
When we reach the temple, we’re escorted into a huge reception hall, lined with yet more guards. Nimh turns to their leader, inclining her head. “I must see the high priest,” she says quietly. “Please see that my honored guest is accommodated.”
I have time to meet her dark eyes, to try to silently communicate how much I don’t want to leave her—how badly I need her to explain what’s happening, to tell me I can trust her—and then she’s stepping back.
As the guards escort me away, I can’t help but remember what she said to me in the forest, after finding her people slaughtered in that clearing:You may be safer if you do not come with me, cloudlander.
ELEVEN
NIMH
I sense something is wrong before I’ve even reached the temple. Even before North is bustled away, glancing back at me to meet my eyes for one tense moment, I know.
My people love me. Or, at least, theyworshipme—it’s only been in the last year or two that I’ve thought to ask myself whether that is the same thing. But despite the devotion they feel to their faith and to their goddess, it’s unusual for those in the city to have quite the same reaction as those who only see me when I travel on pilgrimage.
But as my escort and I reach the first terrace, the public gathering place where anyone may come to be near their goddess, I find it’s teeming with people. One man, from one of the more distant riverstrider clans based on his black-and-yellow attire, gives an audible sob while dropping to his knees when I pass. I can’t help but watch as he stares hungrily after me, tears streaming down his lined cheeks.
I knew that by now I would have been missed, but I am surprised that word of my absence has reached the city in general. I am even more surprised my unauthorized journey was not covered with some cloak of legitimacy, so my priests were not forced to admit I had struck out on my own. There is no reason my people should have feared I would not return.
And yet the cries that follow us as my escort clears a path for me to ascend to the next terrace of the temple … There is a pitch to them I don’t recognize. They sound full of tension. They feel … desperate.
Once inside the temple proper, the city guard gives way to a quartet of handservants—weapons are not allowed, except to my own personal guard, within the sanctity of these walls. I recognize only two of the servants. One is a lad of thirteen named Pecho, quick and eager at his studies and obviously hoping to find his way into the priesthood. The other, a moon-faced girl my own age, joined my service around the time of last harvest. She still finds herself so overcome by her proximity to me that she can hardly bring herself to speak, and more often than not spills or drops whatever she’d been charged to bring me.
The other two must be Daoman’s.
Technically, all the handservants in the temple are mine, but traditionally I ask them to serve my high priest as well, to thank him for his devotion. In truth, that structure is a formality—his servants are his own, trained by him and his people, and rarely in attendance upon me.
Unless, that is, High Priest Daoman wants something from me.
