Sky Stitcher, page 22
“Yes, sir.” The guard bowed curtly and hustled back through the crowd. The prince’s deadened stare masked a maelstrom of emotions when he faced me, mixing together so violently they could hardly be recognized. Anger. Fury. Desperation? Hatred? A tempest on the brink of devastation. His voice rumbled when he spoke, boiling like the bubbles of a steeping pot of venom tea. “Hurry up and pray that your goddess accelerates her blessing of this union, little zealot, or we’re all dead.”
“And what will you pray to your goddess for, traitor?” I snapped back, wedging the accusation of his association with Prisha like a sword through his heart. My lips drew into a hateful sneer as I plunged the dagger of my words to the hilt.
“Get the fuck up there. You know nothing,” he said dismissively. His guards shouldered past him and linked their arms through mine, guiding me to turn back to the palace steps. My eyes locked on his deadened ones, refusing to break contact, willing him to witness the anger flaring to life in mine until the guards finally forced me around.
I nearly tripped over the first step when they shoved me toward it, and my Sisters flinched, hugging the sandstone wall behind the stairs. Lurah caught my elbow so I did not fall, and we passed a wordless moment of terror between us.
I nodded, though what I promised with the gesture, I didn’t know. Just…a promise to not give up. To fight.
I’d always been good at fighting. Now was not the time to stop.
My legs trembled, and the entire crowd fell hushed with wonder, watching in awe as I began my slow ascent. To them, I must have looked quite regal, with the elegant train of my gown flowing over steps behind me, my chin lifted, and eyes fixated on the granite columns of the portico. But every part of me strained, resisting each step, melting like putty whenever I forced my legs to propel me upward. And my insides twisted, not just with emotion but with Rue’s absence…his distance digging the anchor of his bond tighter around my heart…stretching too far. Where are you? I worried. I should have woken him. I should have found a way to sneak back to my chambers, but there hadn’t been an opportunity. Please come, I willed, pulling gently against the tether. I need you. The line slackened instantly. A wave of relief flooded my chest.
When I reached the main landing to face Prince Tiralish once more, the dark sky crackled ominously, then thundered with a tremendous roar that shook the ground. The sound timed itself perfectly with the strike of my foot against the sandstone. As if I could claim Prisha’s fury to be my own when I walked toward him, all hatred and venom.
The spectators cried out, cowering and pointing to the sky. The gilded veins of Prisha’s rifts bled closer to us, the fine lines of new tears racing toward Rashii’s palace.
Prince Tiralish’s face paled, and his throat bobbed with a swallow, but he looked out over the crowd. “A’i Halajan!” he bellowed, his voice commanding and sure.
“Aili Halajan ru,” they murmured in response.
“Daughters can’t marry royalty!” a lone voice shouted in the crowd. “Halah won’t allow it!”
The prince’s gaze narrowed, but he softened with a smile, as though glad for the opportunity to address the matter. “Ancient law prohibited such unions, but modern times require…reconsideration. Reimagination of those out-of-date practices.” He graced me with a doting expression, his tenderness at war with the hatred in his gaze. “Zara and I courted for a year, and we’ve fallen in love.” He squeezed my hand playfully with a gesture of encouragement, but my hand burned, adverse to his grip. “We have spoken at length about our future, and in turn, Zara has communed with Halah, asking for her blessing to reconsider the rules that no longer serve Rashii’s best interest.”
Revulsion churned inside of me, disgusted by the way he twisted truths to suit his agenda, but least he’d given the man the courtesy of an explanation instead of simply silencing his challenge. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me toward him to portray our united front to the crowd. Couldn’t they see how my shoulders tensed? How my body recoiled from his touch? How my face contorted with disgust? Perhaps they were too entranced by his charm.
“Our union will bring two powers together, two respected lines of strength and authority, joining our forces to fight against the enemies that threaten our people. Working together, we will restore stability and power to Rashii.” He paused for a moment, letting the weight of his words sink into the hopeful hearts of his people, before raising his arm high, lifting mine and his in a triumphant gesture. “Rest assured…Halah will bless our union!” he proclaimed, then lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. “Halah will bless us all.”
The crowd murmured with excitement, and Tiralish walked me to the altar at the center of the portico. The hair raised at the back of my neck as I eyed the tapestry woven by the Daughters draped over it, spilling onto the ground. Dozens of candles in all shapes and sizes danced with life above it—gifts from the people, from cities all over the realm, Basmina had explained. A demonstration of their well-wishes for Halah’s blessing.
The grand vizier shuffled forward carrying the ceremonial kettle, dressed in navy robes as dark as the night. His buttons captured the flickering candlelight of the altar, glowing like a constellation of stars down his front. He swayed gently as he walked, his steps falling in time with the deep, sonorous vibrations of the solemn city bells, struck to herald the initiation of the ceremony. The vibrations of each strike rippled through me, echoing in the chambers of my heart and throughout my tremulous limbs.
When he stopped before us, the bells quavered away into silence. He fished the tea bowl from his left pocket and set it in my hands. I stared down, wondering what to do with it, my heart still pounding to the ghosted echo of the bells.
The tea bowl shimmered in my hands. The elegant glazed pattern mimicked the nebulous clouds of the heavens, blue and silver and copper, swirled together in harmonious beauty. I wanted to smash it. My fingers tightened instinctively around the lip.
The aroma of black tea layered with sweet florals blossomed into the air, carried to my nose by a waft of steam. The grand vizier poured the star well tea with practiced precision, careful to not waste even a drop of the sacred brew.
A crack shook through the sky, and I winced when the hot tea spilled over the lip of the cup, landing on my hand. The prince’s attention turned upward, his eyes lifting warily. From the corner of his mouth, he muttered toward the grand vizier. “Can we hurry this along?”
But my attention fell over his shoulder to the shadows accumulating at the far end of the portico, and blazing amethyst eyes locked on mine. My heart jolted, pulsing with a rush of relief. Help me.
“Pass the tea,” Tiralish seethed, wrenching it from my grasp and peering into it. The suggestion of a frown frosted over his face, and I smirked. Shadows stretched above us, cloaking the twinkling stars from view, denying them access to the star well tea.
Thank you, I mouthed to Rue, who met my eyes with an intensity that made me shiver, the corner of his mouth lifted into his signature, devious smile. I could just…kiss him.
The prince did not miss a beat. Unperturbed, he lifted the bowl to his mouth and sipped deeply.
“The stars have answered! The ancestors approve,” the grand vizier shouted behind us.
My attention snapped to him. What stars? Not a single one blinked above. Not one single star pierced through Rue’s shadows to cast its light into the tea. The surface of the brew showed nothing but…tea. Just tea. Tiralish knew it, I knew it, the grand vizier knew it. But the spectators swooned with admiration, hanging onto every romanticized notion of the ceremony, believing any sign affirming our match. In fact, they probably found it more impressive that the stars had found their way to the tea through the thick cloud of shadow.
The prince shoved the tea bowl back to me, a look of warning in his eyes. “Drink, my love,” he cooed in a tender voice undercut by the poison of his hatred.
A thunderous boom made the surface of the star well tea ripple as I stared into it—even the tea shivered at the prospect of passing through my lips. A cry lifted from the crowd, followed by another collective shout. A gilded gash stretched across the sky, oily darkness seeping from the spidering veins. They ran toward us like wisps of smoke, crossing right above our heads, disappearing behind the patch of Rue’s shadows and emerging on the other end.
The prince’s eyes blazed when he looked back at me. “A light shines above us…Halah’s chosen to bless us, after all,” he said through a dangerous smile, triumph written across his face.
“Only a traitor would see Prisha’s curse and call it a blessing,” I said through gritted teeth. He reached for my wrist, snapping his fingers around it like a viper’s fangs.
“Drink the damn tea,” he whispered in my ear.
A familiar humming called to me, simmering beneath the crackle of Prisha’s sky. Winding and weaving—a compass’s call to home. The Daughters, weaving prayers. At the same time, the shadows around us thickened, enveloping us in a swirling cloud of darkness—a magic I recognized with equal familiarity. My eyes snapped to Rue’s, my head shaking almost imperceptibly in warning. Do not implicate yourself in this…don’t show them what you really are. Only as a last resort.
With his hand wrapped around my wrist and nostrils flaring, the prince sneered into the crowd. My Sisters sat cross-legged at the base of the stairs, arms connected, tethered by the roots of their weaving magic, their eyes milky white and vacant.
“What are they doing?” he snapped at me, assuming them to be the cause of the disturbances. “Make them stop.”
A smile uncurled from my lips. “Basmina told me they were meant to weave at the union. Besides, Mother never listens when I ask her to stop praying. I doubt she’ll start listening now.”
The rifts above crackled ominously. “Drink the tea,” he urged. I narrowed my eyes, and his jaw clenched with fury as he pushed the cup toward my face.
I’d already had that choice taken from me once. Never again.
Rage overwhelmed me, and I splashed the contents of the bowl onto the prince’s face. He doubled over, clutching where the hot tea burned his skin with a shriek, his mouth gaping and eyes contorted with pain. I turned the tea bowl over in my hand, staring at the glazed surface. Not a star to be found, and not a drop of tea remaining to pass through my lips. To hell with his union. The bowl shattered into a thousand perfect shards of rebellion at my feet.
I pushed past him and ran, crossing the distance toward Rue.
Shrieking rose up from the crowd, one voice at first, then several, then a complete frenzied panic. “Khazdruki!” The word echoed through the crowd, passed from neighbor to neighbor with increasing urgency and fear.
I paused, turning in horror toward the square. The Khazdruki of the north? I’d heard so many whispers of the tensions with Khazdra, but…an invasion? Now?
The scene unraveled into chaos, spectators shoving and screaming, trampling over one another to get away from the lumbering shadows that towered a whole head taller than Rashiiki men, their curved blades slashing indiscriminately through the crowd.
The grand vizier shouted, his voice shrill and piercing as a Khazdruki wrapped the bulging muscles of his arm around the old man’s neck. His torso was bare save for the layers of jagged beads and the ancestral markings tattooed over his biceps. Vikings of the sand and sea north of Taara.
A hissing sound from above startled me, and I stumbled backward. Four husky shadows descended the length of the granite columns, slipping all the way to the base before dropping to their hands and knees with a solid thud. One barreled into Rue, but he wrestled him to the ground, slicing the man’s throat with his stolen bone blade. He regained his footing and sprinted toward me, but another Khazdruki rammed a shoulder into Rue, sending both of them tumbling across the portico.
I shrieked when another pair of arms wrapped around my throat, pulling me off balance. My nails raked over the Khazdruki’s forearms, and I gasped for air, kicking my heels against the sandstone to regain my footing. He tightened his grip around my neck, flexing his muscles until—
I can’t breathe.
Rue, I screamed in my mind, still thrashing against the Khazdruki’s hold, legs scrambling beneath me.
The thread of light tugged sharply at my heart, and I craned my neck, straining every muscle in my back to follow its path to my shadow monster. My Rue.
When our eyes locked, a wave of understanding rushed through our bond, but not with words. It was an innate awareness of one another…a mutual agreement. The tether between us pulsed with light, then solidified into obsidian shadow.
Shrill screams rose through the height of the clamor, ripping my attention from Rue. I stared, paralyzed by numbing horror, as the Khazdruki sliced through Sessu, then Basmina. Basmina’s blank eyes gazed toward the heavens, lifelessly watching the orb of light that carried Sessu’s soul to the ancestors in the night sky. A new star to guide us.
Something inside of me broke. I shouted, my voice warped by gut-wrenching grief, and Prisha’s sky fractured above me—the sound worse than the screeches of a thousand ravenous crawlers. The sound of obliteration. Shred the skies, Sky Render. Unleash your power.
And I did. Not because Prisha commanded it, but because dark energy flowed from me, whether I willed it or not. It wasn’t the beautiful, quiet magic of the Daughters’ weaving, nor the powerful, unwieldy force of the heart of stars buried deep inside of me. This magic felt like rage. No. Vengeance. This magic twisted and burned, darkened and destroyed. It flowed through my bond with Rue, filling me with shadows until they no longer fit within me. My body forced them outward and upward when I could no longer contain them, reaching toward the rifts in the sky, shredding the gaps wider. The Khazdruki restraining me howled in anguish, falling into a pile of writhing pain. I did not turn to see what damage I had inflicted.
I stood, vaguely aware of the shrieking crowd, the fearful clamor, and Rue’s widened, unblinking gaze that watched me with panic. Producing a guttural shout, I sent the tendrils of shadow flailing, directing them toward the sky. They groped within the rifts, twisting and writhing, tightening their unrelenting hold, grabbling and snarling in knots around whatever they touched.
I had already stolen one monster from Prisha’s sky by accident. Now, I would take them all. On purpose.
They fell like meteors, one after the next. Dark streams of toxicity from the In Between splashed into smoky puddles at my feet, shadows rising and dancing into a twisted duet at my side. Crawlers. Bulgroiches. More winged Guardians like Rue. All bound by the shadows flowing through me. And the pièce de résistance rising from the longest pool of darkness stretched across the portico. Horns first, then spiked crown, a vicious maw, horrible barbed wings and a thrashing, angry tail.
The dragon’s head leveled on me, eyes as dark as coal and head tilted as it considered the horrible pounding of my heart within my chest. Then the world stilled, and the night hushed. The fighting ceased to exist in that moment, that void-like gap in time when all terrors held their breath, leashed by the shadows flowing between me and Rue.
Kill the Khazdruki, I demanded.
The dragon blinked with placid understanding.
Rue’s eyes darkened, all traces of the microcosmic universe within them drowned by blackest night. When I turned toward him, his gaze passed through me without recognition—everything that made him Rue devoured by the web of shadows I spun, controlled by the leash of power between us. Just like the rest of the puppets attached to our shadows.
I pulled on the threads, controlling the movements just as Rue had controlled his dragon when the crawlers attacked in the desert. Regret shattered like splinters through my heart when I saw Rue bend to my will like the others, but I did not have a moment to acknowledge any misgivings or change my course of action. The Khazdruki ripped through the crowd with a bellowing yell, and Prisha’s rifts spewed blackness into the crowd…shadows that Prisha would twist into the shape of nightmares.
This was all a nightmare.
Everyone was dying.
I balled my hands into fists and raised my arms in sync with the deep, drawing breath that gathered air into a swirling storm inside me, then unleashed a soul-shattering scream. I flung my hands to my sides, fingers outstretched and willing the creatures to do as I commanded. A vacuum of noise fell into the void left behind by my furious screech, and shadows billowed all around me. Bulgroiches slashed through the bare chests of the Khazdruki, lacerating their hearts into ribbons that dangled like sinewy trophies from their jaws. Crawlers shredded and scratched, reducing the hostile men to piles of mulched flesh. And the winged men, the Guardians, flew through the sky, severing the Khazdruki’s howling heads from their spines with each confident slash of their swords.
When no Khazdruki man remained upright, I doubled down on my power. Clenching my fists with a surge of shadow, I crumpled the creatures I’d summoned until they were nothing but black, pulverized dust. Soot upon the ground. The scorched remains of chaos. They withered away, disintegrating into a graveyard at my feet. All except one—I spared one. The one that tugged at my heart, reining me back from that place of oblivion, that brink of forgetting who I was…stopping me from losing myself to shadow.
My heart jolted with the horror of what I’d done.
“Monster!” The word echoed through the crowd, gaining traction as it expanded from hushed murmurs to condemning shouts. Rue pushed up to his elbows and held me in his piercing gaze, the amethyst galaxies of his eyes painting an emotion I couldn’t define. One that punctured a hole in my lungs, making it impossible to draw in air. Painful to even try.
What would he think of me now? He’d asked me to let him make his own decisions, to pick his own master, but hadn’t I just stolen that choice from him? I knew how it felt to be robbed of the freedom to choose.
