The Sky Weaver Page 17

  Surely Dax didn’t agree to this, she thought, looking around her. The five dragons who’d traveled with the king and queen’s ship all lifted their heads at the sight of her. Bands of metal encircled each dragon’s jaws and hind legs, and the iron chains rooting them to the ground were so short, they could barely stand, never mind walk.

  All at once, the dragons stood up, stretching their wings as if to say Are we leaving now?

  As Safire looked from one to the next, she noticed one dragon was missing.

  Sorrow.

  He must have panicked at the sight of Axis. Sorrow abhorred cities. He probably flew off long before the others were quarantined. The thought made her glad. Being chained and muzzled like this would have done irrevocable damage to a dragon like Sorrow.

  A soldier approached, interrupting her thoughts.

  “They’re supposed to be stabled,” said Safire, handing him the empress’s letter.

  He arched a dark brow, then motioned to the courtyard around them. “What do you think this is?”

  A prison, thought Safire as every slitted pair of eyes followed her and the soldier toward Dax’s golden dragon, Spark. She didn’t dare say it aloud. She’d already caused enough chaos today. Biting her tongue, Safire pulled on Dax’s flight jacket and gloves as she waited for the soldier to unlock the dragon.

  As soon as her chains fell off, Spark shook herself out, vibrating with excitement. Safire clicked the commands she’d been taught, and Spark obediently came to her side. Scenting her rider on Safire’s jacket, Spark sniffed her for several heartbeats, then nuzzled her hip.

  Dax doesn’t know, she wanted to tell the dragon, rubbing her scaly forehead. But you can be sure I’ll tell him as soon as we return.

  Asha was going to be livid.

  With that thought, she mounted Spark, then waited for the soldiers to open the gate at the north end of this courtyard. As the cranks groaned and the iron bars lifted, Safire saw that the light was disappearing with the sunset.

  Spark shifted from foot to foot, anxious to be out of here.

  You and me both, she thought.

  The moment the gate was up, Spark bolted toward the open gardens beyond. She had a gentle, graceful gait and before Safire could blink, they were out of the courtyard and in the sky.

  As the citadel fell away, and the cold air made her shiver, Safire felt lighter. Beneath her, Spark hummed with her newfound freedom as they headed south.

  She was tempted to not bring her back.

  Their flight took longer than it should have, partly because the sun was gone and partly because Safire was looking for lights. The other villages they passed had been speckled with the glow of oil lamps in windowsills, spilling out onto the street.

  They passed the village they sought three times before Safire even realized it was there.

  When they landed, she could barely make out the shapes of houses in the moonlight. With a clicked command, she told Spark to wait, then started down the overgrown path between homes. It was so silent, her footsteps seemed to echo in her ears. In the light of the moon, she studied each house. The windows of the first one were all broken. The roof of the second had all but caved in. The door of the third had rotted off its hinges.

  Safire stopped.

  “No one lives here,” she realized aloud.

  The frame of the nearest house groaned in the wind, making her jump. When the silence returned, Safire called into the darkness: “Asha?”

  No one answered.

  Cupping her hands around her mouth, Safire shouted, “Asha!”

  She was about to return to Spark when something rustled in the grass behind her.

  Asha?

  She felt the heat of the newcomer at her back. Felt the massive bulk of it. For some reason, she thought of the shadow in the empress’s paintings and quickly spun, her heart thudding hard.

  Two slitted eyes stared at her through the darkness.

  “Kozu?” Safire immediately relaxed. “Is that you?”

  But Kozu only had one eye. As the shadow came closer and the moonlight flickered across its scales, Safire saw they were white, not black.

  “Sorrow?”

  Sorrow clicked, almost pleasantly. As if happy to be remembered by Safire.

  Any hope she had was extinguished. She pressed her palms to her eyes as Sorrow studied her. “She’s not here, is she?”

  Did that mean Asha found what she needed in this abandoned village and moved on? Or did it mean Eris found her and had taken her to Jemsin?

  It was one thing to steal Asha. Safire fully believed Eris capable of that. One prick of a scarp thorn dart when Asha was alone would be enough to overcome her, after which Eris could easily disappear with her—just like she’d disappeared with Safire—only to reappear somewhere else. Like on Jemsin’s ship.

  But there was still Kozu and Torwin to contend with. If Eris kidnapped Asha, both of them would go after her. The only problem was, as Eris made clear several days back, dragons could be killed with harpoons. And Jemsin had plenty of them aboard his ship.

  Even if Eris hadn’t found Asha yet, Safire knew she would soon. She was the Death Dancer, after all. There was nothing she couldn’t steal.

  Sorrow clicked, interrupting her thoughts. Safire looked up.

  “Where is she, Sorrow?” Safire stepped toward the dragon. “Can you find her for me?”

  Sorrow tilted his head. But as Safire took one more step, she came too close. Sorrow panicked. The skittish creature darted away as quickly as he’d come, leaving the space before Safire empty once more.

  Safire breathed a weighty sigh.

  There was only one course of action she could think of: return to the citadel and seek the empress’s help.

  The Shadow God

  No one knew where he came from, but with him came death, disaster, and disease. Wherever the Shadow God walked, chaos followed. The wind grew cold and cruel, making it harder to grow things. The ocean rose up and gorged itself on cities and villages alike, sweeping their homes and their loved ones out into its depths. The fish disappeared, and in their hunger the spirits of the sea—who once lived peaceably with islanders—began killing and eating them instead.

  From her loom, Skyweaver listened. She heard the despair of the Star Isles. She felt their misery and fear. Unable to bear it, she left her weaving room, descended the stairs of her tower, and sought the Shadow God out.

  She walked for days until she came to the immortal scarps—the highest point in the Star Isles. There she found him, perched on a dark elder throne: a black, twisted shape with eyes of white fire and a gaping, hungry mouth.

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried.

  “It is my nature.”

  “What will make you stop?”

  “I can’t stop my nature any more than you can yours.”

  Skyweaver begged and pleaded. When he could bear her beseeching no more, he finally said, “Your weaving. Give up your weaving and I will give up my chaos.”

  Skyweaver frowned. If she stopped weaving, there would be no one to turn the souls of the dead into stars. No stars to light the way for those left behind. No one to give hope to the living.

  She swallowed and shook her head. “I cannot.” It was her sacred task.

  Something flickered in the Shadow God.

  “Then get out of my sight.”

  Skyweaver fled. But when she returned to her tower, she could not weave. She was too furious. Too heartsick. Too powerless to stop the terrible power of the Shadow God.

  Until the day a savior arrived.

  She came from the sea with a fleet of golden ships. Leandra, she called herself. From halfway across the world, she’d heard of the chaos tormenting the Star Isles and was here to stop it.

  Leandra built a walled city where people could seek refuge from disaster and disease. She sent her soldiers out to hunt down the sea spirits terrorizing the islands. She made treaties with neighboring kingdoms for the things the islanders needed that they
could no longer harvest—from land or sea.

  Last of all, she climbed the steps of the Skyweaver’s tower.

  “Join me,” Leandra said, standing before her loom.

  Skyweaver wanted to help. Wanted to put an end to this horror. But what could she do? All she had was her spindle, her loom, and her skill as a weaver. All she knew was how to take souls and turn them into something else.

  Leandra drew a knife, put it in the Skyweaver’s hands, and said, “You can kill him.”

  But could she?

  The Skyweaver paced her tower for three days and three nights. Finally, she agreed to Leandra’s plan.

  Skyweaver didn’t spin souls into stars that night. Instead, she called the Shadow God, saying she’d considered his proposition and had decided to accept.

  The Shadow God heard her.

  The Shadow God came.

  The moment he stepped through her door, Skyweaver spun a web made of starlight to catch him. She bound him up tight in her threads.

  As she raised the knife to kill him, though, she found before her not a mighty god. Not a bringer of chaos and destruction. But a creature full of sorrow. A thing to be pitied.

  “Do it,” he hissed.

  But she couldn’t.

  Instead, she hid the Shadow God away, in a place between worlds, where no one would ever find him.

  And then she took something precious from him. Something that would ensure he remained ensnared forever.

  Something he didn’t even know he owned.

  She told Leandra it was done. The Shadow God was dead. What did it matter if she lied? He would never get free of her web.

  So peace returned to the Star Isles . . . for a time.

  Twenty-Four

  Eris, whose fingers were cramped from weaving all night, had only meant to rest for a moment. But when she shut her eyes, sleep claimed her. She dreamed she’d failed to do as Jemsin asked, and now the summoner was walking the labyrinth, coming for her.

  Eris woke with a start, sweat soaked. Heart hammering.

  For a moment, she lay quiet and still, listening for the clicking of talons.

  But all was silent.

  Just a dream.

  She remembered her half-finished weaving and sat up. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could find the Namsara and trade her in for freedom. So Eris rose from the bed of woven blankets.

  It wasn’t her bed, just like the clothes in the wooden chest weren’t her clothes. They’d been left by whoever came here before she did. This place had never felt like hers, but rather like she was borrowing it until its true owner decided to come back.

  Unlike the rest of the labyrinth, the bedroom had a natural warmth. The floorboards were well worn. Candles were lit on top of the dressers and bedside tables. And the embers of a forever-dying fire glowed in the fireplace. She’d never seen that fire go out, only burn. Same with the candles. She had no idea who kept them lit.

  Maybe the ghost.

  Now, as Eris passed the blue gown hanging over the chair in front of the vanity, she paused to study it. The weaving was so fine—expertly done—and no dust soiled it. No dust soiled anything inside the labyrinth.

  The weaving, she reminded herself. The door.

  Eris withdrew her hand and returned to the loom.

  As she sat down before her half-finished tapestry and her fingers picked up the threads once more, she thought of what the summoner said: that Jemsin only wanted the Namsara because the empress wanted her.

  Whatever she wants her for, thought Eris, sinking down on the soft rug and staring up at her progress, it can’t be good.

  She should probably warn Safire.

  Except no. Why would she? Safire and the rest of them had intended to hand her over to monsters today. Safire would do it again in a heartbeat.

  She couldn’t care what the empress wanted with Asha. She didn’t care.

  Eris thought of her goal. Of what Jemsin promised her: Freedom. Freedom to leave, to run, to never be hunted ever again.

  Her gaze followed the dark blue threads of the weft. Reaching for Safire’s ribbon, she tied it on, then started weaving it in.

  She had just fallen into a rhythm when that familiar soul-chilling cold swept through the room.

  “Couldn’t sleep either, hmm?” she said as she worked.

  Silence answered her.

  When Eris looked up, the ghost was back. It was no longer quite so formless. If she looked hard enough, she could almost make out edges, like a silhouette. It even seemed more . . .

  Human.

  Eris thought of the bed that didn’t belong to her and the chest of clothes she’d never worn.

  “Did they belong to you?” she murmured, wondering about this ghost’s story. Who it was, how it came to be here, how long it had wandered this lonely labyrinth.

  It didn’t answer her. So Eris went back to weaving.

  “Are you trapped here?” she guessed as she worked.

  “Yes,” it said.

  Her fingers fumbled the thread. Recovering, she thought of something Day used to tell her: that sometimes spirits with unfinished business didn’t cross from one world to the next but got stuck in between instead.

  “Did you forget to finish something before you died?”

  “I’m not dead,” said the ghost.

  Sure, thought Eris. You probably all think that.

  “I’m imprisoned.”

  “Oh?” She paused again. “Who imprisoned you, then?”

  When it didn’t answer her, she glanced back. For a moment, Eris could swear the ghost had fingers now. And those fingers were turning into claws. But the next moment, they were fingers again. So maybe she’d imagined it.

  “Someone I loved,” said the ghost. “She’ll pay dearly for it.”

  Eris turned to look more fully, to ask who would pay, and who it had loved, but by the time she turned around, the ghost was gone.

  Sighing heavily, she shook her head. It didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered.

  She returned to the loom.

  Eris finished her weaving just before dawn. Cutting it free, she lifted it up to study the brown and blue threads and to run her fingers along the bits of Safire’s ribbon showing through.

  She’d never done it before—made a door connected to a person. Normally, a door took her to the same place every time. She didn’t know if it would work the same way with a person.

  Time to find out, she thought, moving through the labyrinth now, her candle illuminating the images depicted in colored glass. Mossy green meadows and bright orange bogs. Grassy headland and rocky shorelines. Brightly colored fishing huts. Hooks and nets and boats.

  Eris was so used to the images trapped in the glass, she hardly saw them anymore.

  Finally, she arrived at the yellow door. The one leading to Kor’s now destroyed ship. Setting down her new weaving, she opened the door. Silver-gray mist poured in. But she didn’t step through. Instead, she slid the pins out of the hinges, and pulled the whole thing off.

  The moment it came free, the door dissolved into thread. Now her hands held a weaving made of yellow and gold threads, tied with pieces of the Sea Mistress’s sails. She’d made it years ago, when Kor was first given a ship and became the one Eris reported to.

  Good riddance, she thought, dropping it on the floor. Lifting up the new tapestry, she hesitated a moment before sucking in a breath and setting it into the empty doorframe. The moment she did, the blue and brown threads faded and hardened, transforming into wood. Eris slipped the pins back into the hinges.

  A door the color of Safire’s eyes stood before her now. Waiting to be opened.

  Pulling it open, Eris stepped through and into the silver-white mist.

  Twenty-Five

  Safire strode across the uncovered walkway leading to the empress’s receiving room. She could see the grid-like streets of Axis below her—so unlike the twisting roads and alleys of Firgaard. Another difference between Axis and Firgaard: the sun didn
’t beat relentlessly down on her here. Instead, the afternoon was cool and damp; and even from this high up in the citadel, she could taste and smell the sea.

  As soon as she and Spark returned, Safire requested an urgent meeting with Leandra. The empress, she’d been informed, would receive her midafternoon.

  It was midafternoon now as Safire followed her armed Lumina escorts through the citadel and its many walkways. As they approached a set of massive teak doors, carved with seascapes—waves and sails and scaly-finned creatures—Safire’s skin prickled with a familiar sensation.

  Someone was watching her.

  It was the same sensation she’d felt back in Firgaard, while trying to catch the Death Dancer. Her footsteps slowed. But when she turned to look, there were only her escorts and a handful of guards standing at attention down this hall, each of them ignoring her.

  As the Lumina soldiers announced themselves, Safire shook off the feeling.

  The doors opened and an attendant looked out—a young woman with auburn hair pulled tight in a bun. She took the folded summons from Safire’s escorts and, after scanning its contents, wordlessly let Safire in.

  The room beyond was perfectly round and brightly lit by shafts of sunlight coming through the windows that climbed to the ceiling. At the center of the room, bathed in light, sat the empress at her desk, her hand moving furiously as she inked something on the parchment before her.

  For such a sterile room, it smelled strangely like brine.

  Safire’s gaze lingered on the large sword hanging on the wall behind the empress’s desk. The steel was thick, the edge thin and razor-sharp. The plaque beneath it read: The Severer.

  The severer of what? she wondered.

  “Good day, Safire,” said Leandra without looking up. “Please take a seat.” She motioned to the chair on the other side of her desk. It seemed to be fashioned from the vertebrae of a very large mammal—a whale, Safire thought—and cushioned with velvet. Hesitantly, Safire sat.

  She waited for the empress to finish, looking from window to window. In the west, the sea shone silver. To the north, looming above Axis, a white mist was collecting in the scarps high above the city. It made Safire think of something Eris said, back on Dax’s ship: She’ll take me up to the immortal scarps and dispose of me—like she does with everyone she hates most.