Sky Stitcher, page 3
“The festival does not matter, Zara. There are more important concerns.”
“It matters to me—” My short tone gave away too much of the anger simmering in my stomach.
Mother scoffed. “Since when do you care about A’i Halajan? You have dug your feet into the sand against your union ever since it was proposed by the elders.”
My gut wrenched. “I don’t care about my union.” I groaned, weaving my fingers through the hair at my temples and clutching the sides of my face. I’d agreed to marry Rali begrudgingly because it was a tolerable match and because he was kind, but the prospect of marrying him did not excite me. It was merely a duty to fulfill. Sure, the sentiments of all his letters had earned him a tentative place in my heart—kindling the small flame of hope that maybe our union would truly be blessed by Halah. But I did not love him. Not yet, anyway. But there could be worse—my Sisters had certainly been pursued by worse. At the very least, Rali promised I could return to the dunes to fight as soon as possible.
Still, none of that meant I had to look forward to the union.
“I care about the people,” I amended with a sigh. “The whole thing is ridiculous…that they are crossing the desert from Haldratha or Zunar, heading to Rashii just to see me. They risk their necks to—”
“Then you’d best make yourself something worth risking their necks for,” Mother snapped, her stern tone seeped with exasperation.
I took a deep breath, holding it in my lungs as I steadied myself, reminding myself to focus on what was important and not on what stirred my emotions. I should have been more careful earlier. At least then, the tea would be brewing instead of Mother’s vitriol. “We need to protect them. If the Eldress cannot protect them, we need to patrol the dunes. We need to fight back. More monsters are coming.”
And I sort of destroyed centuries of stitches and weakened the fabric of the skies and now the threat of Prisha is imminent and we’re all going to die and it’s entirely my fault, but please don’t hate me, because the Stitcher will know what to do if you just let me talk to her. The thoughts flailed wildly through my mind, but I buried them deep down beneath the layers of panic, guilt, and self-doubt.
“We must focus on our prayers.” Mother sighed. “If Halah does not bless us soon with a new Stitcher to mend the skies and banish Prisha’s monsters, how much longer will the realm last?” She shook her head softly, her eyes brimming with emotion. “We do not need more warriors to die at the claws of her monsters. We need a new Stitcher. The realm needs us to protect them…and we will. But we must find a replacement for her. We must pray. We all must pray. We’re nearly out of time.”
Here we go again. Mother was ashamed of my lack of devotion and infuriatingly vocal about my shortcomings as a Daughter of Halah. Luckily, there were plenty of other Daughters to make her proud. If Halah cared for us as Mother insisted, surely she would choose one of them, and I could continue what I did best: fighting and orchestrating chaos.
I glanced around at my Sisters’ prayerful postures, silently weaving the shared tapestry with vacant eyes as the roots twisted and writhed around their legs. All unified by their connections—like none could exist without the others. All hoping the goddess would finally reach out and bless them as her choice to replace our Eldress.
Better them than me.
I did not want to pray to the goddess, and I certainly did not want to commune with Halah. I’d had enough of Halah for a lifetime, considering my last unpleasant interaction with the goddesses. It was best for all involved if I steered clear of them.
“I’ll brew more tea,” I hedged, sidestepping both Mother and her lecture in hopes that the offer would appease her into getting off my back. I rubbed my temples, trying to sort through the noise of concerns racing through my mind.
I reached for my satchel and withdrew the leather-wrapped package containing the crucial ingredient for our sacred tea blend. Not all of us could find the tendrils of energy without the venom tea, though some of us could. The heart of stars seemed to heighten my awareness of them, but they’d always come to me naturally, even without the brew, though I’d never wanted to use them. Probably because I spent so much time brushing them away. They were like the stray cat Mata had brought along when she returned to the clan from the city years ago. While Mata showered the cat with affection and treats, the little thing had latched itself to me, ignoring my efforts to avoid it. As if its life’s sole ambition had become to endear itself to me. I wonder what happened to that little thing…
Mother grabbed my wrist to interrupt my musings. “You were gone nearly two days, Zara. We saw the skies…we feared—”
I paused. Two days? My eyes darted to the canopy above, reassessing the position of the sun. I supposed it had been nearly two—the open canopy showed the fading sun rimmed with the color of blood, casting a warm glow across the sky, though the Daughter’s magic maintained the darkness within the gurya. “You should be afraid, Mother. It’s getting worse.” My gaze softened, so hopeful she would listen, yet devastated by the presumption she would not. “We should send out more Daughters to fight,” I braved. “And perhaps you should pray some more.”
She huffed with ill-concealed indignation. “Are you just trying to avoid me? We sent Lurah to search for you. We needed you home. The Eldress won’t last much longer. You really must pray with us…no more of these excursions. Not now.”
Mother hid her face then, moving toward the cook table where she promptly busied herself in her work. I noticed the anxiety in the way she carried her shoulders—she always cooked when she was worried. The flat white circle she tossed on the table slapped against the surface, and she worked quickly to spread leftover lorbean paste across it. She drizzled it with honey, then shoved it into my hands. “Eat. You must be starving.”
I bit into the bubbled crust of halfmoon bread and could not resist closing my eyes as I savored the sweet confection—the honey was a delicacy given as a gift to the Daughters at last year’s festival. Mother had scoffed at it, calling it a pity present to make up for the lack of new Daughters sent to our clan last year—the most recent unions hadn’t been as blessed as Halah had led us to believe. But me? I called the thick amber liquid a little taste of heaven.
In three eager bites, the halfmoon bread vanished, and Mother bustled about, already preparing another. I sipped deeply from the clay jug on the table, reveling in the way the water chilled my parched throat as it made its way down to my stomach. After greedily chugging half of the jug’s contents, I placed it down and locked eyes with Mother. She did not even scold me. Something was wrong. Well, something aside from the wrongs I already knew to be wrong.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Everything. The Eldress. Halah. You. Lurah.” She sighed heavily. “She hasn’t returned.” Silence fell between us, with only the humming sound of my Sisters’ weaving magic to fill the air.
“She will come back.” As soon as I said the words, I knew they were not true.
“Something is wrong. I can feel it,” Mother said. I suddenly realized how old she had become—her eyes frosted with white film, her cheeks sagged between cascading wrinkles. The beads she wore on her ears tugged her earlobes downward, and no amount of beaded collars could disguise the years of life the loose skin of her neck implied.
“I’ll go find her,” I offered impulsively, needing to do something other than marinate in Mother’s anxious presence. If Lurah were out there alone…she might not survive. Between Riders who patrolled the dunes hunting us, Prisha’s deadly monsters, and the fact that I’d accidentally opened more tears in the sky and summoned the vengeful goddess’s attention…she didn’t stand a chance. I had to return her to safety before anything bad happened to her.
Then I could speak to the Stitcher.
I leaned across the table and stashed a halfmoon bread in my pocket for the way. Lurah couldn’t have gotten far. She was an excellent weaver, but prayed too often to match my level of physical stamina. It wouldn’t take long. And perhaps if I returned her, Mother would relax and fall back into prayer.
But Loehla shook her head, her expression hardening to reveal how deep her wrinkles had become. “No, Zara. We cannot afford to sacrifice another Daughter. We’ve lost too many in the dunes and to unions in Rashii. No more. Not now. I fear the war is almost…beyond hope.” A teacup rattled in her hand as she held it out to me, no longer hot but still smelling strongly of nettles and spice. “Perhaps if you—”
I eyed the tea nervously and pushed past her, moving toward the entrance of the gurya before she could finish her thought. Only Halah knew what would happen if I drank that tea. I didn’t need anything to enhance my connection with the goddess’s magic…I’d already caused enough disasters this moon. Plus, I needed my full wits about me to rescue Lurah and return to speak to the Eldress as quickly as possible. Tucking my braids beneath one of Lurah’s scarves, I fastened it around my hair and across my mouth, then turned to face Mother.
“I’ll find her. Don’t worry.” The daylight assaulted my vision when I slipped through the opening, but Mother’s hand wrapped around my wrist, her grip a bit too forceful.
“Do not be ridiculous, Zara. You must stay. Weave. We must pray to get an answer from Halah before the Eldress dies.”
I pulled my hand away. “You know I’m not the answer we need. Let me find my Sister.”
“Zara, enough! I will not lose any more Daughters today. I will not let the realm suffer because of your selfishness. It is time you stop walking around with your head in the clouds.”
“I’m the one with my head in the clouds?” Resentment spilled from me with a short laugh. How could she say such a thing? At least I prioritized chasing the monsters to keep us safe—to keep everyone safe. What did she do? Nothing.
Mother opened her mouth to speak, her eyes fierce with righteousness, but I’d had enough. I leaned toward her, not bothering to dull my piercing glare for the benefit of her comfort. “You spend day and night praying to a goddess who ignores you, hoping for a solution that isn’t coming. It’s not working, Mother. But by all means, you stay here and...pray. Or whatever you think is best.”
My lips pulled into a scowl as my eyes scanned her over with unfiltered disgust. “I’m going to find Lurah and bring her back. I’ll do my part to save the realm by killing any monsters I come across. And you’d better reconsider what the realm needs because we don’t have time to wait for a new Stitcher. We need to wake up the one we already have and convince her to help.” I filled my lungs, realizing how much tension I held in my shoulders before I exhaled a slowly measured breath, demonstrating a return of my self-restraint. I lowered my voice. “But I can tell you with certainty, if we do nothing, thousands of people will die. I’m getting Lurah. Then I want to see the Eldress. And you will not stop me.”
Mother sucked in a sharp breath and opened her mouth, but whatever she wished to say in response fizzled out of existence. An arrow whizzed through the air, sailing over my shoulder so the whisper of its feathers grazed the skin by my ear. The shaft sank into the hide of the gurya with a thunk, pinning a blue and silver scrap of fabric to a tent pole. The material glimmered, woven with metallic threads that caught the essence of the waning sun as it tumbled downward, revealing the intricate patterns woven into the fine silk.
Lurah’s work.
Chapter 4
This Old Snake
Mother reached for the fabric, her eyes shifting from anger to despair. Her lips pursed in an effort to hide her shifting emotions as her fingers grazed over the embroidery.
A slip of parchment revealed itself, rustling against the smooth silk. Mother’s brow furrowed when she unfolded it, and her expression changed to confusion as she read the single word scrawled across it. Run.
Her eyes snapped toward mine. “Outsiders. We’ve lingered too long.”
The dry heat of the desert made my vision swim for a moment, and beads of sweat gathered at my hairline. The Daughters were a nomadic people—we moved throughout the Sundom Desert to avoid the notice of our enemies, who seemed to grow in number with every passing year. The Dune Riders had long pursued us, vigilantes driven by a misguided notion that our magic had caused the rifted skies. They blamed us for the monsters plaguing our realm and vowed to purge us from the land, but they had never succeeded in picking off more than a stray Daughter wandering the dunes.
Then there were the whispers of war brought home by Sisters returning from the city…murmurs of the northern Khazdruki who claimed the land of their ancestors had been stolen to build Rashii, and that Prisha’s curse was a punishment for our wrongs. The land had been lost in a war, of course, but they didn’t care for those semantics, if the whisperers were to be believed. And then there was Prisha—the most troublesome, long-standing threat of all.
The Eldress sacrificed most of her remaining energy to conceal our location from outsiders, and we never stayed anywhere longer than a few moons for our safety. But as she weakened, we risked longer waits between moves. Lurah’s note—if it had even come from Lurah—meant that our location had been compromised. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.
Venom and hell.
My stomach twisted into knots. Had Lurah been captured? Was she still alive? Should I go after her? Numbness crept from my fingertips to my limbs, turning them useless as my nerves sputtered with uncertainty. I knew we had to depart for our safety, but if we left now, I wouldn’t have the chance to speak to the Eldress for weeks. The moves always sent her to a state of comatose hibernation. I didn’t have the time to wait for such a long recovery. Stall, Zara. Make a plan. “Mother…we should call on the other elders. We should show them—”
“I am the Matriarch of the Daughters. We need to go. Now.” She glanced nervously across the dunes, clutching the opening of the gurya in her hand. “Come.” She beckoned me inside with an urgent wave of her hand.
“But is it Lurah’s writing? Did she send it? Are you certain it’s from her?”
“I do not know! It is Lurah’s weaving, but—”
A shadow of a shiver crept up my spine, and the sky crackled with energy. Mother felt it too—her expression faltered, and her mouth opened up, her next half-formed word forgotten. I looked up. A wave of darkness swept above us, spreading to dull the marred expanse of blue sky, changing it from azure to weary gray and finally to a foreboding charcoal—much too sudden to attribute the change to sundown. Something was wrong.
“What is happening?” I whispered as the skies darkened to total blackness, so inky it completely obscured the sun from our view.
A shriek from inside the gurya startled me out of my wonder. Mother pulled me beneath the tent, and my stomach turned as my eyes swept across the room. My Sisters sat taller, their chests lifted to the sky and their heads thrown backward to revere the blackened heavens. Blue lights flared to life between them, winding together to form an interconnected web of threads, pulsing and illuminating their vacant expressions. Their rigid arms stretched out at their sides, and they jolted in unison, like a strike of lightning met each of their hearts. A haunted humming rose and dipped, filling the air and seeping into every space of the room like a heavy mist.
The lights illuminated the gauzy curtains draped in front of the Eldress’s private quarters, turning them transparent. Through the hangings, the form of her crippled, weakened body moved like the shadow of a monster. Frail and gnarled, all skin and bone. A doleful, wailing groan emerged from behind the curtains—Ahma stirred. Or perhaps she was dying. Hard to tell.
A blinding light cracked in the center of the room, shooting straight up toward the heavens, as though the ground surged with the same electricity that descended from the sky on the hottest nights. My mind raced in competition with my heartbeat, wondering what I should do—if there was anything I could do—but I was frozen to the spot. No roots gripped me as they did my Sisters, but I was every bit as restrained by my fear.
I could not blink. A light unfolds from the darkness, beginning what will have no end. The words flashed in my mind. Was this…was this it, then?
The rod of lightning between the Daughters surged with power, reaching up through the opening of the gurya and scattering into a shower of sparks above. They lingered like stars in the sky, then rearranged, crawling into a new formation before my very eyes. The symbol of the goddesses appeared against the heavens—a double-headed snake with vicious fangs and slits for eyes. One head for Halah—the Mother of Daughters who passed down her magic, teaching us to protect the realm from her sister. The other head for Prisha, the jealous one—the sister banished to the In Between for her crimes, fighting to find her way back to destroy our realm and exact her revenge.
The stars forming the snake’s likeness shimmered as it writhed, freeing itself from its old skin and rising slowly, preparing to strike. The shedding of skin signaled the imminent passage of powers from one Stitcher to the next.
Halah was choosing.
And if she was choosing, I needed to be anywhere but here. I didn’t dare call the goddess’s attention for the second time this moon. But my muscles calcified into stone, and I stood staring in horror at the sky as the heaviness of dread anchored me to the spot. Not me. Please not me. And yet, deep down, beneath my ocean of buried thoughts and emotions, I knew.
Mother clasped her hands around my wrists, her eyes widening with a frenetic zeal I’d never witnessed in them before. “Zara! It is happening. It is finally happening! Halah is choosing. A light in the darkness!” My mouth gaped as I took in the scene—my Sisters humming, their faces contorted, bodies twisted into awkward positions, the lights winding through the web of pulsing energy, like little shooting stars streaking across the heavens. The stars announcing the arrival of a new Stitcher.
