Sky Stitcher, page 27
Rue’s eyes flickered angrily toward Tiralish before he raced toward me and scooped me into his arms. His wings unfurled with a swift slash of motion, then he shot toward the sky, holding me close to his chest. I screamed, thrashing against his hold, fighting to free myself. Where was he taking me? To Prisha’s army? To Prisha herself? Would he kill me?
Every muscle in my frame engaged, violently twisting to break his hold.
“Zara, please.” He gasped, winded by the elbow I wedged into his breastbone. “Zara, stop. I’m taking you to—”
“I won’t go anywhere with you, you monster! Put me down. I’ll kill you!”
I struggled, wildly bucking my body so that the strokes of his wings faltered as we crossed over the city gates to the desert beyond. The black smudge of Prisha’s army flowed like a crashing wave over the rise and fall of the dunes, charging toward the city despite the raining arrows that did little to thin the herd. He was taking me to them…he was going to kill me.
“Zara…let me…explain. I had to break—” He gasped, holding his perfect nose that no longer looked so…perfect.
“You will not break me,” I screamed. “I will not—”
The sky flared, a thousand veins of gold flowing like liquefied ore through the sky.
We froze, horrorstruck by the sight, but I came to my senses and used his shock to my advantage, reaching for the dagger he sheathed at his side. “Zara, stitch! You can stitch—” he shouted.
But I wasn’t listening. Not truly. I drove the blade into his forearm, and he howled in agony, plummeting downward as the rhythm of his wings failed. Seems there’s nothing left in my subconscious to keep me from ending you now. I ripped myself free from his arms and dove toward the ground, my foot crumpling beneath me before I fell forward and swallowed a mouthful of sand.
The fall winded me, and I gasped greedily for air, pushing up to my forearms to lift my gaze toward Rue. He hung in the sky, bobbing with every stroke of his wings and gripping the gash on his forearm. Horror outlined every angle of his face.
Agonizing rage poisoned my body, bubbling inside of me until it could no longer be contained. “Go back to where you belong, monster,” I shouted.
I stood, ignoring the sharp pain that lanced through my leg, and reached a hand toward Rue, summoning the ribbons of light. They flowed to me readily, no longer fearful or resistant to my touch. They wound around my wrist, entwining into a beacon of snakelike ribbons that raced toward Rue, binding him and raising him toward the gashes in the star-filled sky. I hope they swallow you whole. My jaw clenched, set firmly into a scowl of hatred.
The stars hummed in response to the subtle twist of my outstretched hand, bending to my will. They flared into angry lances, piercing his body with ardent rays as instinct guided the path of my stitching. Tendrils of light grasped him like a crushing fist, passing him through Prisha’s rift until her shadows grabbed for him, pulling him back to where he belonged. His jaw tightened, and the starscape of his amethyst eyes dulled to darkest night, but I saw no anger in his face. No trace of fury to match the raging fire that swelled between my ribs, hating him for his deceptions, for his illusions…for making me feel. For making me believe that I had been worthy of his love. That I had been worthy of love at all. None of it had been real. He had always been the enemy.
Now I would be his.
But as the stitching channeled through my fingertips, my breath hitched at the slightest grimace marring his features, and I recognized the emotion there—the one mirrored by my own. It was not pain that settled into the creases of his eyes or the bittersweet pull of his smile. It was sadness. Infinite sadness.
His gaze met mine, and I gasped as their color flared to life once more, shining like the incandescent swirls dancing between the streams of stars above. “The stars favor you, Zara. Never doubt that I meant it. I always meant it,” he called out, his voice murky and muddled by the entirety of space between us, but his words found me, landing like the pierce of an arrow in my heart.
My hand wavered, conflicted. Struck by a dagger of clarity. In that moment, I understood. Every time he had told me the stars favored me, what he really meant to say was I favor you, Zara. I love you. And somehow, even in this moment when everything was broken, when everything was wrong, I knew it had been true. I didn’t understand his betrayal, but I knew which version of Rue was true. Despite his deceit, despite our incompatible trajectories and opposing loyalties, he’d fallen for me. And—against reason or judgment, I loved him back.
I didn’t want to admit such a thing, not even to myself, not when I needed to choose between what was right and what I deeply wanted. But I knew it with irrefutable clarity. I loved him—for if this was not love, his betrayal could not have eviscerated me so completely, breaking me, body and soul. All of this pain stemmed from the absence of love, and to notice its absence meant it had once been there, quietly blooming like a desert sunfire blossom, despite the crushing adversity of its circumstance. Thriving. Evolving. Growing. It had been real. But it had been planted in a lie.
The stars favor you, Zara. I watched the stars close around him, and I knew what he expected me to say back, our little joke he waited to hear one last time to heal the pain of these final moments together. As if this were just another lighthearted moment between us…another moment of banter and flirtation and quietly blooming feelings. But I could not. I couldn’t say it. As the starlight surged around him and my vision blurred with tears, the words lodged themselves in my throat, and I choked on them. Hot tears fell down my cheeks, and I swallowed dryly, as though all of the moisture from my body had fled, making its traitorous descent from my eyes in great droplets.
Though he deserved it, though I knew this was what I was meant to do—what I’d been born to do—I could not force myself to voice the words he expected. Not as I watched them come true before my very eyes. The stars are swallowing him whole. And it was the last thing in this world that I wanted.
I faltered with my hand frozen in salute, somewhere between stitching the last of the stars to seal him away forever, and reaching through the portal to pull him back. Whether I would strike him or kill him or kiss him until my lips and heart swelled with contentment, I didn’t know. I—could not know. He was gone.
And I was—broken.
I fell to my knees and uttered a sky-shattering wail that reflected only one fragment of the agony inside me.
The monsters approached—the great rolling mass of destruction raced toward me. Prisha cried out from the heavens, and somehow, in the stutter of time, Prince Tiralish found his way to me. He screamed at the top of his lungs, ordering me to get up, get up and stitch, get up and fight.
I hung limply from his hold and slumped back to the sand. My ribs cracked, or perhaps they’d already fractured along with my heart. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
None of it mattered. Nothing mattered.
Chapter 27
The Unmaking
RUE
No stars graced this forsaken land between realms. Only absence and shadows.
The pervasive void of Prisha’s lair reflected one’s darkest thoughts like a mirror, until only the worst remained, trapped on one side of the looking glass, staring longingly back at the unmirrored pieces left behind. The malevolence of the air corroded through flesh and bone, its cursed shadows wending through my flickering existence. The oppressive darkness sought to dampen every last shred of light in my soul.
There was little left of me to extinguish. I had already sacrificed everything. For Zara.
By some cruel twist of destiny, my last act had confirmed the only truth that resonated with meaning in this great abyss. I was a monster, and fate would never let me be anything more.
Prisha’s grotesque bindings slithered out from the shadows, emboldened by the return of darkness as the last stitches of Zara’s magic sealed me off from her realm. I squeezed my eyes shut, wrestling back the overwhelming rush of emotion. At least now she could stitch. I’d done that for her. Now, she could win. Even if it had cost me everything.
Prisha’s magic hissed as it wrapped around my ankles, between my ribs, around my neck. I slumped over. They could have me. The stony pavement chafed against my skin as her magic pulled me toward the palace, winding through the streets as steely white gazes tracked the progress of my shameful journey, observing coldly from either side.
When the dark tendrils carried me over the threshold and through the foyer, my head sagged over my chest. They strung me up against a wall, and four daggers hissed through the air. Each sank into the wood behind me, pinning me in place.
I flinched with the searing jolt of each puncture through my wings, a pain just vibrant enough to confirm I still lived, if only for a few excruciating moments longer. The blades, forged by Prisha’s darkness, compelled my magic to hold its form, refusing my own shadows the permission to bend or fade away. Forbidding my escape.
I would end here. A monster. Banished and broken.
I lifted my chin at the sound of shuffling, meeting Dresgar in the eyes—my commanding officer from what seemed to be a lifetime ago. Unfounded hope that he might take pity on me or care to help urged me to speak—to offer him some form of bargain—but I held my tongue. I knew better.
The only loyalty permitted in these parts was to Prisha. There were no friends, no family, no empathy among acquaintances in the In Between. There was only the goddess who made us and survival. And I was fresh out of bargains—I had nothing more to offer. If Prisha planned to unmake me now, there was nothing left I cared about that hadn’t already been destroyed.
Except Zara. And at the end of things, I would face this unmaking again and again for her.
“Your desertion nearly cost me my life,” Dresgar hissed, landing his spittle across the bridge of my nose. “I’m glad justice finds you, and not me, pinned against that wall to pay the price of your abandonment.”
I wrinkled my nose, disgusted by the wet flecks glazing it, then met his hollow stare. Dead eyes. Dead soul. There are only monsters in the In Between. Was that how I’d looked before Zara? Was that who I’d been before our bond forged me into something new?
“Is this the life you really wanted?” I wondered out loud. I couldn’t help myself…the question slipped through my clenched teeth.
“What other life is there?” Dresgar responded.
I shook my head, grinding my teeth against the agony caused by that slight movement. What other life is there? “A better one than this.”
One with freedom and choices. A life filled with laughter, love, and stolen kisses in the dark. A life with food that wasn’t scarce or fought for. One with sacrifice and honor. Connection and the favor of stars twinkling above. A life with starlight.
He snorted with derision. “Any life is better than the unmaking you’re about to face. I’ll let Prisha know you’re ready.”
Of course he didn’t understand. There were only monsters in the In Between, but…perhaps I no longer had to be one of them.
Not now that I had nothing left to lose. No reason to hold back. If Prisha planned to unmake me now, there was nothing left to fear.
I don’t have to be the monster. Not anymore. I’d already played my part.
“Yes. Let Prisha know I’m ready for her,” I growled, sneering back at him. I’ll kill her.
The little etchings of light that Zara’s bond had traced over the vessels of my heart burned with something fierce that felt like hope. Vibrant. Undeniable. Compelling. The remaining scars of our connection seared deep within my soul, dimming the numbing apathy that poisoned me the second I returned to the In Between, pulling me back to remind me of who I was. No…who I wanted to be. Who I could be. For Zara. And because of Zara.
I bellowed, screwing up my face as I summoned the strength to wrench myself free from the magic of Prisha’s daggers. They crumbled into dust behind me, and Dresgar’s eyes swelled as I swept him aside. I barreled past him toward the foyer. Prisha might have planned to unmake me, but she couldn’t unmake the reckoning she had coming for her.
The goddess emerged from the shadows, as if called forth by my rage. Her eyes flared, and shadows amassed at her ankles in a kinetic swarm, hinting at the dark emotions she held below the surface. With a commanding dart of her gaze, her darkness obeyed, spiraling around my body to envelop me. “Rueper,” she crooned over me, leaning toward my ear to address me before clicking her tongue in disapproval. “Where are you running to this time? Not back to the one who returned you once your usefulness had run its course? Once she discovered what you truly are?”
My body thrashed against the bindings, straining violently to break free. Yet, with every measure of progress I made against her restraints, she tightened them tenfold. Heat rose to the surface of my skin with my frustration until sweat leaked from my pores. “You have no idea who I am now,” I spat, pausing long enough to carve out my hatred for her with the daggers of my eyes.
“Don’t I?” she asked. Her voice lilted with a trace of amusement before dropping back to a chilling tone. “Let me tell you a little secret. My usefulness for this version of you has run its course, too. But if I unmake you, I can mold you into something new. Something with less dangerous ideas. Something less…you.” She smiled, the deep merlot of her eyes swirling with bloodlust. The bindings tightened, constricting me, crushing the life from my lungs and enshrouding me in the shadows of her anger until I could see nothing at all but darkness. Suffocating darkness.
There were no stars in this forsaken space between realms.
If only I could see them one last time.
I’d find my way back. To Starlight.
Chapter 28
No Earth or Sky
Everything was a scream. The prince screamed for me to focus, demanding my cooperation with increasing hysteria, begging me to do something, anything to save the realm from Prisha’s desolation. The goddess’s creatures screamed, scaling the walls with scraping claws, slashing the throats of terrified guards, then moving on to frantic civilians. My body screamed at the lancing pain of broken bones and the emotional shards that eviscerated my soul with savage ruthlessness. But nothing screamed louder than my heart, the anguish reverberating within me, numbing every ability to think or feel anything but the deepest, most sorrowful regret.
What have I done? Why did I not think first? Surely I’d missed some critical piece, some secret that eluded me. Rue’s sudden change of heart…that was not him. I knew that now without a shadow of a doubt. Some unseen influence or hidden purpose had forced him to hurt me, but I’d reacted in the worst possible way…not stopping to ask questions. Not pausing to follow my heart and my mind to find the truth. And now I would never have it—that truth had been lost when I’d banished him from this realm, stitched him into the sky, sending him to the unmaking that awaited him beyond, and I’d never see him again. The hole in my soul where answers and understanding should be gaped wider, shredding me to nothing.
When Tiralish tired of my catatonic state and realized his efforts to compel me were wasted, he tossed me into a dark chamber, forcing me to endure my fragmenting soul by myself, no longer hopeful that I could save him from his involvement with Prisha. No longer holding on to the delusion that I could hold back the reckoning she’d unleash upon him. She would come…her monsters would destroy what was left of me, and then she would come.
At least in death, I might be closer to Rue, hanging among the stars between the rifted skies. Maybe then he could see me once more, and recognize how I glowed only for him. How I favored him, despite the impassable rift betrayal had torn between us.
I sat in the quiet—staring blankly into the windowless, skyless room, a prison devoid of earth and air, until the overwhelming pain compacted into a heavy stone inside me, transitioning my excruciating suffering to the numbness of apathy.
My cheek pressed against the stone floor, my body curled into a heap of uselessness. I experienced every shriek, every tremble of the stone floor, every nightmarish terror my imagination conjured for me as I worried about the defenseless people facing Prisha’s final army without me. I knew I should worry more, should work up the strength or courage or drive to do something more for them, but…it was over. There was nothing left to do…no fight left to draw from. No trace of Halah’s magic existed in this skyless, earthless room, and no Eldress, no Rue…nobody left to save me. Nobody to save them. Prisha had won.
The prophecy held true in the end—it just wasn’t what we had expected. Prisha’s gashes blazed like wildfire through the sky, and now her reign of terror would commence.
A light unfolds in the darkness, beginning what will have no end.
The clatter of hastened steps filled the passage outside my chamber—not just one pair but a great number. I picked my head up from the floor to listen, but the rest of my body refused to move. “It’s this one, isn’t it?”
“Yes—third door. That’s the one he kept us in,” a hushed voice whispered back.
A fist pounded against the heavy wood, then the doorknob rattled with an aggressive force. “Zara? Zara, are you in there?” a third voice questioned.
“Move over,” another voice whispered harshly.
My Sisters. My Sisters had come to find me. A bittersweet melancholy spread through me—my heart somersaulting with recognition at the sound of their voices, but the guilt of failure spreading like icy venom down my limbs. I could do nothing to help them from here. The prince had locked me away from Halah’s magic.
“It’s locked. I can’t open it.”
“Zara, please! We need your help.”
“She can’t help us from that prison. No earth or sky…remember? No magic,” the first voice hissed with impatience.
Lurah. Mother. Aunt Vanya. Rada. Magura. Juna. Sisters from inside and outside the city. How many had come for me? How many still survived? I forced my body into motion and crawled toward them, my ribs and ankle shooting arrows of white hot pain through my body with every movement. I scrambled to my knees, pressing my cheek and hand against the grain and wishing I could dematerialize and simply…slip through the wood to find them. But the door remained unyielding, and the room remained devoid of Halah’s aid. The barrier between us may as well have been the curtain between realms…there was no way to cross to gain their help. And no hope left to save them.
