Sky Stitcher, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by A.C. Guess
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact by emailing acguesswrites@gmail.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Imprint: Draconis Ink
Cover by Etheric Designs
Editing by Kate Seger and Holly Barnett
Realm of Taara Map © Oakleaf Arrow Studios
1st edition 2024
Don’t be so hard on yourself. The stars shine for you.
Contents
1. Descendant of Halah
2. Caught in Prisha’s Web
3. Tapestries and Tea
4. This Old Snake
5. Mender of Skies
6. The Dune Riders
7. Halfmoon Bread
8. Not the Type
9. Invisible Lacerations
10. Unruffled
11. Night Mare
12. Rali
13. Monster
14. Kill Them All
15. Tinoya
16. Rashii
17. Coordinator of Ceremonies
18. The Others
19. The King’s Bees
20. Stitches
21. Rali’s Gift
22. Star Well Tea
23. Morals
24. A Familiar Sound
25. The Role Fate Assigned
26. Broken
27. The Unmaking
28. No Earth or Sky
29. A Cloak of Stars
About the Author
Chapter 1
Descendant of Halah
I stood on the swell of the dune, shoulders squared like the descendant of Halah I was, and narrowed my eyes at the nightmarish heavens.
The sky bled.
Not with blood—not red and dripping streaks of crimson. The sky bled black. It oozed shadows, weeping darkness from the golden gashes between realms. I craned my neck back to calculate the extent of the damage, glaring up at the spidering veins above.
Prisha was unhappy—worse than unhappy. She was mad.
And when the goddess was mad, the monsters came.
The sand shifted beneath my feet as I stepped forward, hastening my pace across the dunes. I did not want to be caught alone in Prisha’s tempest.
My tunic clung to my skin, the fabric adhering to the sticky sweat that swathed my legs. The sun’s descent granted some reprieve from the sweltering heat, but the stars had not yet had time to work their magic, bathing the dunes beneath the moon in the crisp, cool glow of stardust. Still, the shiver that traced its way down my spine sent a chill through my blood.
Rustling at my feet drew my gaze.
A serpent darted away from me. I tilted my head, considering its effortless glide across the dunes, weaving through the brush like a shadow. One of Prisha’s creatures, but certainly not the worst of them. I had killed far worse today.
My hand moved to the sheath at my ribs, fingers wrapping around the studded hilt. I watched the shadow wind its way between the dried roots, waiting for the window of opportunity. There.
The dagger sailed through the space between us, soaring toward its target with one calculated flick of my wrist. It met its mark, and the serpent writhed, its body pinned beneath the blade, life blood spilling into the sand.
The head would be dangerous for a few more hours, but the venom could not be wasted—the Daughters needed it. Perhaps Mother would spare me her usual lectures when I brought home the ingredients for the Daughters’ beloved venom tea. Not that I’d be drinking any.
The venom’s taste was the least offensive side effect of the brew. The worst of it—the mind-altering state that accompanied the affronting flavor. I had no aspirations to drink the tea to heighten my connection with Halah like the rest of the Daughters, but if there had been a brew to keep Halah away…to avoid her notice…
That I would drink. With gusto.
I shrugged the satchel from my shoulders and withdrew a length of heavy fabric from within, the earthy musk of leather filling the air. The material snapped as I unfurled it, and it drifted toward the sand to cover the deceased snake. Kneeling, I wound the beast into the wrapping, folding it carefully and tucking it away in my sack.
Sticky blood coated my dagger, but it cleaned up easily against the sole of my boot. I had to be careful to keep my trousers neat—Lurah hated it when I borrowed her clothes, and she hated it even more when I ruined them.
I slid the dagger back into the sheath at my ribs, then adjusted the scarf over my face. Lurah was the best weaver of all my Sisters and she knew it. Her fabrics felt like cool breezes, while mine scratched like dune nettles. Nobody ever stole my fabrics—unless you count the time Mother used them to scrub the pans.
A crackle split through the air with the snapping finality of breaking bone. I flinched, a wave of foreboding washing over me, pooling in my stomach like simmering acid, corroding my insides as my heart thumped loudly against my chest. The fabric between realms had been worsening for weeks, frayed like a worn piece of gauze stitched together too many times. There were so many gashes between realms that it had become difficult to discern the old scars from the new.
But this—this felt worse. Worse than worse.
I gasped as viscous tendrils of darkness reached through the gashes like fingers. The shadows groped, moving toward the dunes like serpentine plumes of smoke—grasping, searching, stretching the tears in the sky wider. My heart dropped into my stomach.
I covered my head with my hands, holding Lurah’s silk scarf in place over my brow, and ran.
A shriek filled the emptiness of the night. Crawlers. The abrasive sound grated against my nerves—like knives screeching across a whetstone. I slammed my hands over my ears, wincing as the noise intensified. How many are there? I could not turn back to count, but I knew the answer. Too many. Prisha’s smallest creatures were easily subdued, but I could not manage the entirety of her wrath—not on my own. Not against an army of crawlers.
I had to get away—to the safety of the Daughters and the guryas to gather reinforcements. I have to warn them.
A piercing wail wrenched my heart. There wasn’t time.
Halah help me. Please. The Mother of Daughters didn’t answer me. Of course she didn’t…she never did.
Fire coursed through my veins. I raced over the dunes, my pulse hammering in my eardrums as the screeching drew closer.
Shit, shit, shit. I will be good, Halah, I promised, leaping over the slope of a dune. My lungs burned with each gulp of arid air, but I pushed myself to move past the discomfort. To move faster.
You should have drank more of that damned tea. Then maybe she’d listen to you.
Shadows stretched alongside me as the creatures closed in. I could not outrun them, but I urged my muscles forward. I will try harder, Halah. I will be a proper Daughter—please.
Venom and hell.
The dunes opened like an abyss before me, offering no place to hide or shelter from Prisha’s curse, but the magic of the Daughters’ weaving called to me, steering the internal compass within me, guiding me home.
Let me warn them, Halah. Help me get to them. For them, if not for me. Let me help them.
I sprinted as fast as my legs would carry me, forcing my sluggish muscles to ignite, urging them to propel my body forward when they only wanted to collapse and sink into the pulling sand.
Dark shapes appeared at the edges of my vision, and my heart ricocheted against my ribcage. I wasn’t fast enough—if I didn’t find the strength to run faster, they would end me. Prisha’s crawlers would shred me and stitch the last of my soul’s light into the stars to glimmer among the ancestors.
The stars above twinkled with laughter at my fate, perhaps elated I would shortly join them. Their lights—the lights of all Stitchers and Daughters from the past—shone brighter, fighting against Prisha’s darkness even in their death. Help me, I begged. Help me if Halah will not.
Fleshy fingers wrapped around my ankle, and a sharp pain followed. The crawler sank its serrated teeth into my thigh, latching onto me like a leech, wholly undeterred by my attempt to fling it from my leg as I ran. My dagger sliced through its rubbery skin and it hissed. The creature dissolved, creating an oozing dribble of shadow that trailed along my leg.
More were coming—I could hear the slither of their movements even though their wails had grown silent.
Faster. In the distance, sunken between the dunes, the guryas stood like sentries in the sand, guarding the city beyond that glistened with lights more abundant than the stars. But nothing guarded the space between the crawlers and the tents sheltering my clan. Nothing except me. Not much farther. Run, Zara.
The sky shivered, then split, followed by the booming sound of thunder. The stitches were failing.
A fresh swarm of inky blackness descended from the tear in the heavens, tumbling like ink through water, landing on the sand and spreading into pools of shadow. I skidded to a halt.
The black pools quivered, and then, from their depths, the figures emerged. First the rigid, curved spines, then the elongated spider-like limbs, and finally, the gaunt faces with milky white eyes gleaming like moonston
I whipped around, looking for an escape, but the monsters surrounded me, creeping closer on their knobbled limbs, chests dragging along the sand as they moved.
Use your weaving, Zara. The stars shimmered, as if Halah herself had whispered the words through the sky and her breath made them dance with brilliance.
My body tensed, stunned by the ethereal voice. I can’t. I don’t know how. Halah’s other Daughters weaved with gentle, quiet magic under the influence of venom tea. My brand of magic was reckless. Uncontrolled. While they created, I…wreaked havoc. Surely, Halah must know that.
Try, the voice commanded. Do not let Prisha take you, Daughter.
Sand and wind stirred, circling me in a storm of dust. Prisha’s inky curse tumbled through the gash, warping and twisting until it formed a shadowy hand. Its fingers sprawled and scrabbled across the land, searching blindly for their target. I collapsed to my knees.
The shadowy fingers seized me. I screamed and pushed against them, trying to free myself, but the snakelike tendrils writhed and elongated. Prisha’s darkness wound over my limbs like overgrown vines and tethered me to the ground, restraining me as a swarm of her crawlers climbed over me.
I tucked my chin to my chest to shield my face from the whirlwind of debris and screamed as teeth sank into my back, ripping into the flesh of my arms, preparing to shred me to the last light of my core.
Another little Daughter for the sky. Another little Daughter must die. The crooning voice emanated from the shadows themselves, and my bones screamed in protest at every syllable it uttered. Another star for Prisha’s sky, she continued, her voice as singsong as a crow’s lament. I hate you, I hate you. Now, you must die.
The shadows wound tighter around my neck, squeezing until the pressure threatened to pop every blood vessel in my body. I couldn’t breathe. My bones bent unnaturally, crushed in the goddess’s grasp. Prisha’s grasp.
Mother had warned me it wasn’t safe in the dunes anymore. She’d told me it was better to stay within the guryas, under the Stitcher’s protection. She’d warned me to dedicate myself to prayer like my Sisters, to beg Halah to choose a new Stitcher to replace the Eldress so we could continue our fight against Prisha.
But I ignored her—because I never wanted to be chosen. But now—
I’m dying, I registered with a surge of panic. By the hand of Prisha. And if it were truly the hand of Prisha, our last defenses against her had failed, deteriorating as quickly as our Eldress’s aging body.
For the love of Halah, Zara, do something. Try. Try before she kills us all.
I turned my face toward the stars—beseeching the ancestors that glittered above, witnesses to my last breath. Please.
But I could hardly focus—my vision blurred, slipping into oblivion.
A torrent of panic surged life back through me. No! My body responded, pulsing with a sudden burst of raw power. I gasped, and my eyes snapped open. Tendrils of light shimmered into my vision—the invisible threads that the Daughters called on to entwine with the goddess in prayer. Normally hidden, the roots of magic now drifted in plain sight—rushing toward me like old friends, embracing me and winding themselves into my aura, banishing the black bindings of Prisha’s curse.
I did not ask questions—I didn’t worry or second guess or wonder why they availed themselves to me. I simply reacted, snatching as many strands as I could and winding them together, projecting their power back out through my limbs. The tendrils of magic did not function in the way I expected, in the way of the Daughters—it did not allow me to root and entwine myself in prayer to beg Halah for help. Instead, the streams of energy erupted outward, streaking toward the sky in great slivers of blinding starlight, sending Prisha’s creatures skittering away. The threads pulsed and collided with the stars, knotting themselves into the fabric of the night.
Take it, a voice whispered, close to my heart. Or perhaps from my heart.
Take what? I watched in utter confusion as the stars hummed with magic, bound to me by the strange connection I’d unleashed into the sky. The stars multiplied, merging together, compacting and melding until they formed a single blinding starburst—a diamond in the heavens. A bright light erupted between Prisha’s rifts, shedding an ethereal glow upon the dunes. The light trickled over me like a bath of warm milk and honey.
Take it. It’s yours. The dazzling, dense flash raced toward me, and I flinched, falling backward into the sand as the luminous orb burrowed itself beneath my skin and spread into my heart. I clutched a hand over my chest, surprised by the sensation of warmth that spilled beneath my breastbone.
A light unfolds in the darkness, beginning what will have no end, the stars whispered.
No, not the stars. Halah. The goddess—the Mother of Daughters. The first enemy of Prisha.
You have plucked the heart of the stars from the sky, child, so it is yours. So it will be, beginning what will have no end. Use it well.
Prisha’s disembodied voice hissed wildly in response. Thief. Thief of stars! Put it back!
The glow around my heart flickered and dulled, dampened by the toxic shadows she hurled my way. Her fingerlike tendrils billowed across the dunes, reaching out to grab me again. All around me, her creatures leered from the shadows, creeping closer, emboldened by the thick darkness choking out the last of my sputtering light.
No, I wanted to scream, but my voice failed.
I arched my back, letting a soundless shout shred through the sky as magic pulsed from my veins. Magic born of the stars. It was not the quiet, gentle weaving powers of my people—the magic I summoned burst from me like a shockwave, exploding outward in every direction from the light in my heart, decimating the shadowy creatures around me who shrieked and dissolved into nothing. Prisha’s shadows hissed and recoiled when my light exploded up to the heavens. I watched, horrorstruck as the blinding flash rippled through the stitches in the sky. The sky frayed, seams splitting in the navy velvet to reveal new gashes. New fissures. As if the outburst of my magic had destroyed centuries of protection in one fell swoop. What have I done?
Prisha’s laughter cackled, breaking something within me. Perhaps I will let you keep your stars, after all, Sky Render. I’ve never met one of you before. Her voice dropped to a bone-chilling tone that painted darkness in every crevice of my being. Kill the Stitcher. Shred the skies. Set me free.
No! I said, shaking my head frantically, suffocating beneath the weight of my mistake.
You must, she crooned with a serpentine hiss. You will…It’s unavoidable. You know the prophecy, don’t you?
The Prophecy of Dusk and Dawn. The last hope of our people. Of course I knew it.
A light unfolds in the darkness, beginning what will have no end, Prisha’s lilting voice sang before I could respond. You are the light. I…am the end.
No. That’s not how it’s meant to go…My fingers groped over my chest, clawing at the light burrowed within my ribs. No, no, no. Get it out. Get. It. Out!
The prophecy was meant to save us…it promised a hero who’d free us from Prisha’s wrath and deliver a peace with no end to the realm. But if Prisha spoke the truth, I’d condemned us to a very different fate.
What have I done? I had to fix this. I—
The light around my heart erupted, chasing her shadows away until my mind disconnected from my body, and I fell onto the sand, detached from reality as the last traces of my vision slipped and the dunes faded. No, not now. Please don’t. But a heavy weight pushed me into the ground, exhaustion spreading like lead through my limbs.
The last stitches are failing, little Star Thief. Pity the Eldress is dying. Go and warn your Sisters…tell them what you have done. The end has begun.
Chapter 2
Caught in Prisha’s Web
I groaned, facedown in the dunes, heart racing from the last traces of a terrible nightmare. Sand had worked its way into my nostrils, settling in my throat with the viciousness of a thousand glass shards. I stirred and attempted to swallow away the sensation of hot ash, but the walls of my throat stuck together. I coughed through the discomfort and pushed myself up on my elbows.
