When I first looked over the scroll, there wasn’t time to wonder at the fact that she dreamed of this before she’d ever seen it in real life. “How could you have known?”
Her head turns a little, just enough for her to look at me through her lashes, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Magic,” she says, voice low and amused. The glance makes my chest squeeze—it’s a relief to see even a hint of a smile, after the day’s events.
She bends back over the text and points with one careful finger, her touch hovering above the last few lines:
The empty one
will keep the star
as a brand against the darkness,
and only in that glow
will the Lightbringer look upon this page
and know himself… .
“This isyou, North,” she murmurs. “I am the empty one, and you are the star. My people often usedlightmetaphorically in these old texts; thisglowcould mean in your company, or your lifetime.”
“Or …” I hesitate, realizing my sudden idea might not be the most tactful one. But when Nimh looks at me with raised eyebrows, I end up lifting my wrist. “Or it literally means by my glow.”
Nimh huffs a quick, appreciative breath of laughter. Even she wouldn’t go so far as to think her ancient predecessors could have predicted we’d be reading this thing by chrono-light, but it’s true nonetheless.
“So how would we know if I was, um, knowing myself?”Keep a straight face, North. Probably doesn’t mean here what it would sound like back home.Miri would be in stitches.
But Nimh bites down on her lip, uncertainty bubbling to the surface. “I thought it would be clear,” she admits. “I thought you might have a vision, the way I did, or experience an awakening of suppressed memory or receive some instruction.”
The paper begins to curl, one of the pebbles sliding aside as the scroll tries to return to the roll it was in for such a long time, and I reach out to carefully nudge the paperweight back into place.
Nimh makes a small sound and lifts one hand, and when I follow her gaze, I realize she’s staring at my palm, which is still oozing sluggishly from where it sliced along the blade of her spearstaff. “You’re still bleeding!” she exclaims, brow furrowing as she lifts her eyes to mine, faintly accusatory.
I grimace, muttering, “It looks worse than it is, I promise.” I give it a little shake as I pull away, and a few droplets of blood spatter against the scroll.
Before I can wince at having defaced such a valuable ancient artifact, the whole thing …flickers.
Like a vidscreen momentarily losing power, the text phases out, then back in. The ink begins to expand and unfurl across the page, flowing out from the original lettering to form new text all around the margins and between the lines, crammed onto every available part of the scroll.
It’s like watching a circuit come to life, like watching one of the DNA locks around the royal quarters activate—exactly like, since a drop of blood started it—and Nimh and I watch breathlessly as the whole thing unfolds.
The new sections are a tangle of ink, layer upon layer, some faded with the centuries, others newer and crisper.
“North … ,” Nimh whispers tremulously.
This must be it. This must be how the Lightbringer knows himself.
I’m not even sure what I want—to see nothing, and escape this madness, or to understand every word and prove to Nimh she was right.
But when I look at it closely, it’s absolute gibberish. It’s like one of the bugs circling the light of my chrono fell into an ink pot, and then dragged itself all over the page in its dying convulsions. I stare down at the mess of ink with no idea what to say. I want to put off the moment of saying anything. If this is the test for the Lightbringer, then Nimh has been wrong. And all this death and sacrifice has been for nothing.
“Nimh … ,” I start, and my voice is enough to make her lift her head, brow furrowed.
She shakes her head and extends a finger, gesturing to part of the tangled mess. “Here, this part,” she says. “This is written in your ancients’ lettering—can you not read it? It describes an omen that will point the way, a vision of a thousand wings. And here, it describes the blood of the gods raining down upon the earth… .”
It takes her a moment to realize I’m not looking at the text with her anymore. When she looks up at me, her urgency tinges with confusion. “North?”
My heart’s pounding in my ears. Our eyes meet.
“Nimh,youcan read it. Youarereading it.”
