I try to pull away, but my body will not respond—North has given up trying to interrupt my studying, and I cannot hear him nearby. All I can hear is the whispering of ancient words in my thoughts, louder each moment.
They wash over me and through me, leaving searing fire in their wake, until I am certain I am dying, burning from within, about to explode into a pillar of flame—and then comes a silence so complete that I would gasp, if I could move.
Lightbringer, the scroll whispers to me.Listen well … for this is how you will end the world.
TWENTY-EIGHT
NORTH
Wisps and curls of mist are gathering in the hollows around the clearing, slowly swirling into larger sections, coming together and then breaking apart. It’s hypnotic to watch.
Nimh is still motionless, a statue—I can’t even tell if she’s breathing. So I focus on the mist and try to fight off the worry that wants to unfurl into panic.
How long do I leave her like this? Is she even capable of coming back from wherever she’s gone? What’s happening to her now, and what happens next? I almost find myself missing her, though she sits just feet away.
I’ve been staring at the mist tendrils for hours when I slowly begin to realize that something’s changing. They’re moving with more purpose than they were before, writhing sections of the stuff joining together and swelling larger with a sort of restlessness that says,Something’s coming. The stars above us are fading, not just because dawn is near, but because the air above us is thickening. It takes me far too long to understand what I’m seeing, and when I do, I scramble up from where I was sitting against a tree.
There’s a storm coming. It isn’t safe to be here. How much time have I wasted, thinking about Nimh instead of properly keeping watch?
“Nimh!” I hurry over to kneel in front of where she sits, still caught in a sort of ecstatic trance. She doesn’t even twitch as I raise my voice. “Nimh, listen to me, I need you to wake up!” The cat adds a yowl to my pleas, stalking in a figure eight with me at the center, his fur fluffed up in every direction.
Nimh stays perfectly still, sitting cross-legged, one hand lifted to hold her spearstaff upright at her side, the other hovering over the scroll she’s still reading, her lips moving soundlessly, her eyes wide.
“Nimh, please!”
I don’t dare touch her, so I push at the haft of the spearstaff where it rests on the ground, until the whole thing slides backward and falls over. As the spear topples, her hand glides up until it reaches the place where the pointy end’s attached. My eyes trace its movement. I see her palm slide over the dried blood I left when I cut myself.
Instantly, her head snaps back, her unseeing gaze fixed on the mist swirling above us. She spreads her arms wide and the mist begins to move. I skitter back on my hands and knees, shoving myself away from her as the mist turns a pure, pearlescent white. It lights up the clearing like it’s daytime, a brilliant flash stinging my eyes.
The mist is radiant, clinging to her like an aura, curling around her arms and legs like the cat does when he’s angling to be petted. It’s a living thing, and a part of her. The sight makes the hair on my arms stand up on end.
For a long moment that’s the only movement around us—Nimh’s frozen. The cat and I crouch together, watching her, and the luminous mist weaves a path around her body. It feels like everything’s suspended, like time’s stopped.
Then it all comes back in a rush, and with a blinding flash she’s rising up from the ground, her arms still outflung, silhouetted perfectly against the shimmering haze. The clouds pick up speed, whirling in a quickening circle around her, spiraling up above the treetops, picking up leaves and debris and flinging them everywhere, the trees shivering and shaking. Our campfire vanishes in a whirl of sparks caught in the fierce wind and torn apart.
I slap one hand down over the ancient scroll before it can be whipped up into the air. I hunker down, letting the cat push his way in underneath the arm holding the scroll as the two of us make ourselves as small and flat as possible.
A light whirls by me and I realize it’s my chrono, tumbling along with the storm. I snatch it as it flies past, pulling it in beneath me. My hands press into the cat’s warm side as I shove it on over my wrist—my last link with home.
An instant later everything’s perfectly still, except the leaves fluttering slowly down. When I dare to lift my head, Nimh still floats in midair, holding her spearstaff, her body glowing white. And then she speaks, her voice raw, as though the words are being ripped from her.
“The Lightbringer will look upon this page by the light of the Star
and learn the lessons of years.
Then the Star shall light the path
in the place of endings and beginnings.
The mother of light shall speak,
And the two faces of the Lightbringer shall do battle.
The Lightbringer shall rise
that the sky might fall,
and the blood of the gods rain down.”
