The Hollow Heart by Marie Rutkoski

THE GOD

I SAW SID OF THEHerrani sail through sleety wind, ice glazing the ropes and stiffening the sails. I heard her nervous heart. What would Nirrim say, when Sid returned? What if each word Sid gathered inside her, arranging and rearranging, tumbled out in the wrong order … or the right one, so that Sid said, I will never leave you again, and Nirrim did not care? Sid might look upon Nirrim’s face again only to see it averted—in pity, perhaps, or kind regret. Yes, even in rejection, Nirrim would be kind. She had never been cruel.

Or so Sid believed.