Sky Stitcher, page 8
The Daughters are monsters. Stop them. Kill them! Prisha’s voice pushed into my subconscious with a jolting furor of screeches. Do you understand? Do. You. Understand?
“Stop it!” I yelled to no one, forcing the unwelcome voice from my head. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. Why did those thoughts keep surfacing in my mind? I wished my Sisters no harm—I didn’t want to destroy them. This connection to Prisha had to be his doing. The voice had begun interrupting my thoughts as soon as I pulled him from the sky. It was his fault…he wanted to destroy us. He served the goddess.
But no, I remembered with a frown. Prisha had invaded my mind since the moment she first noticed me, when I unintentionally ripped the heart of stars from her sky. His presence had only amplified her hold on me.
Both he and the heart of stars had to go.
I should have killed him. I wanted to kill him. So…why couldn’t I? I scowled. I’ll find a way.
I had half a mind to retrace my steps back to him and demand he release me from whatever spell he’d worked, but I couldn’t afford to lose valuable time when Ahma so desperately needed a healer.
My hands rested on the Eldress’s shoulder, willing her awake. “Please, Ahma. I need your help.” She didn’t stir. Tears burned in the rims of my eyes, though I was not sad. Whatever I felt was hotter, fiery and volatile. The acknowledgment of that fact made the tears flow faster, washing my frown away to reveal the stoic calm of dead-set determination.
“Ahma, I have to take care of something. You need to stitch the skies into a cloak and hide. Protect yourself. Please.” I pushed gently against her uninjured shoulder, only deepening the wrinkles between her eyes. Nothing unearthed the Eldress from the clutches of sleep. Perhaps she had been poisoned.
I wiped my hands over my cheeks, erasing my tears. Stars twinkled above, their brightness a silent rebellion against the roiling gashes that ripped through the sky. No matter how vehemently the dark curse strained to suppress them, they never lost their shine. They never gave up. Nor did Prisha.
If only it were so easy to persevere.
A true blanket of indigo swathed the skies now, and the rifts crackled ominously—an unequivocal reminder of the dangers of night.
Damnit, Ahma. I couldn’t leave her in the open, nor could I carry her. I could not take one more step toward the guryas. Not without slicing lacerations of agony in my heart. I could not chase down the monster and demand his death. I—could not. I could not, I could not.
I growled with the frustration of helplessness. How had I landed myself here? How had everything gone so catastrophically wrong? My eyes settled on the horizon, beyond the guryas to where the great city of Rashii hid beneath the rolling dunes. To the potential safety that seemed just out of reach—grains of sand draining faster from my hands the more desperately I tried to contain them.
Light rippled through the sky—an angry crackle of power that tore a new gash into the fabric of stars.
And yet, the stars persevered through it all. Let them guide me.
Something fierce surged within me—a raw, volatile emotion that sparked life into the embers settled in my stomach. Light erupted from me, or raced toward me, or simply consumed me. The source of it did not make itself known, and I did not question it. I just accepted it—harnessed it.
It engulfed me, condensing in the same way that steam collects into droplets, then droplets run into streams, and then streams flow into rivers. The light pooled at my sternum, flooding me with power, responding to my call to the stars for guidance. My eyes followed the stream of starlight that wound its way around my heart, trailing away into the darkness, beyond the line of the horizon to its other end. To the answer.
That bastard.
You’re coming with me.
I pulled on the tether. Hard.
Chapter 10
Unruffled
With the stars’ intervention, the answer presented itself clearly. If I could not make my way back to him, let him come to me. After all, wasn’t I the one who had pulled him from the In Between? Wasn’t this leash my accidental creation—however disastrous the results?
The response on the other end of the connection made my knees melt into the sand. The pain and tension around my heart eased, as did my muscles and the pressure around my temples. He’s coming.
With one hand wrapped around the hilt of my dagger and the other protectively splayed over the Eldress’s heart, I bowed my head and waited, listening for any disturbances to the silence of night. Any hint of his approach. Only the quiet chirruping of dune crickets and the warped crackle of Prisha’s hatred reached my ears until—
The staccato rhythm of wings beating against air. My stomach clenched and my body stiffened.
“You called.” He landed before me—his hands free and unrestricted, his eyes narrowed in question. How had he escaped the bonds so easily? My knots had been perfect.
I pushed the concern aside and glared back at him, rising to my feet and lifting my chin to meet his gaze. With the dagger gripped in my right hand, I wrapped my fingers around the tendrils of starlight between us, coaxing it into view. The curse I’d cast between us when I’d beckoned him from the skies—or the one he’d tricked me with, binding me to him. It did not matter which. The only thing that mattered now was my intention to destroy it.
“What…is this?” I asked, indicating the connection between us. My jaw clenched, so the words hissed slowly through the narrow gaps between my teeth.
“I would think you’d be the one to know. You were the one to lasso me from the sky, Starlight.”
I frowned. Did nothing phase him? Did nothing ruffle his massive, formidable wings? Wings need feathers to be ruffled, Zara. A cursory glance across the dark shadows above his shoulders proved how very…unruffled he would ever be.
I shook my head, my wary gaze never breaking from his. “I asked for the stars to help me show the Dune Riders a real monster—I did not ask for a permanent arrangement with one.”
“Well, here I am, at your service, all the same. How very lucky for you.” He bowed with an air of mockery, his eyes glimmering as though my anger served as the very catalyst that set them ablaze with stardust.
I grumbled and marched toward him, straightening my spine so that he merely towered over me by a technicality of height, not by presence. The steel of my blade warmed in my grasp, becoming part of me, eager to oblige the slightest hint of a command. I leaned closer until his shortened breaths whispered across my face, bridging the charged space between us. My eyes narrowed. “You have already served me by obliterating the Dune Riders. Your continued existence is a threat to me. This ends now.” With a determined swoosh of metal through air, the dagger rushed toward its target. The connection between us erupted into a shower of sparks when the blade met it, but the force of impact ricocheted through the hilt, sending the dagger flying out of my hold.
A sharp gasp passed my lips as the dagger arced toward the ground, sinking with finality into the sand. A monument to mark my failure. What in the name of Halah had I done? Was there no way to free myself from this curse? I snapped my gaze back to him. What had he done? My heart galloped at the same canter of a wild mare, but I forced my fear into a box, compacting it until it fit in the smallest compartment of myself. Perhaps he would not notice how thoroughly he had shattered my nerves. I would not let him see.
If he felt any of the same concerns, he masked them with an ease I could never presume to replicate. A crooked grin flickered on his lips, then faded just as abruptly, washed away before it could fully form. He folded his arms over his chest, resuming his perpetually apathetic composure. “Must we continue the same tiresome argument? It’s become quite clear, hasn’t it?”
“What’s clear?” I snapped, though it was perfectly clear. As clear as the skies before Prisha had unleashed her curse upon the realm. Back in the days of our most ancient ancestors, before the word “war” had ever passed their lips.
“You’re stuck with me, Starlight.”
My mouth opened and snapped shut like a fish in the desert, failing to produce the words that buzzed with impatience on my tongue. Stuck with him? He raised his dark brows over his deep-set eyes, somehow communicating his facade of unfathomable boredom while, in the same expression, exuding an intensity that drew me to him.
I stepped backward, horrified by his statement of the obvious. By the presumed permanency of our bond. I felt my heartbeat stutter out of control, but forced myself to slow my breaths before I lost my focus. “There has to be a way to undo this—”
“Perhaps. But aren’t there more important matters to attend to?” His head tilted toward the Stitcher.
Wiping my hands over my face, I tried to erase the tension that wedged between my brows. No matter how long I stressed and reconsidered and reformulated, there was only one solution. One path forward.
He watched me with casual interest, waiting patiently for me to piece together my thoughts.
“Fine,” I muttered, accepting my failure to come up with an alternate solution. As I loped toward him, I felt the air for the golden threads of energy and gathered a bunch in my fists. If the rope hadn’t held him when I bound him earlier, perhaps this would fare better.
“What are you doing?” he asked, but he didn’t resist or pull away when I grabbed his hands, working to rebind his wrists. He merely studied my movements, humoring my effort with a quirked brow.
I didn’t deign to offer him a response, keeping my focus on knitting the tendrils of light into the most unforgiving knots.
“Is this really necessary?” he challenged, his voice a slow drawl.
“Yes, sky ruffian. You’re a monster of Prisha.” I pulled a knot unnecessarily tight with a jerk. “You may have information that could help us, and I’m still not convinced you won’t try to kill me when my back is turned. So yes, it’s necessary.” All of those were only partial truths, of course, as they left out the most obvious crux of my predicament. It killed a piece of me to acknowledge it, but exhaustion had taken over every muscle of my body, and I needed to stop fighting whatever it was between us. The bond seemed intent on staying. “And, against my better judgment, I can’t go a step further without you. Which is…infuriating. But whatever this connection is between us won’t allow it.”
He nodded his head slightly, not divulging any of the emotions hidden behind his effortless mask. “I noticed.”
Why did every word that slipped through his half-committed smirk annoy me? Did nothing bother him?
“Doesn’t it hurt you too?” I spat out, my nerves shot. Do you feel the same anguishing destruction of your heart when the connection between us is pulled too tight? Do you have any idea how much this frustrates me? How inconvenient this is? To not only call the angry goddess’s attention but also find myself latched to one of her dark creatures in some unfortunate chain of events? Highly unfortuitous.
Something flickered in his gaze—something dark with the faintest hint of discomfort. “Yes. It hurts me, too.”
Well, at least there’s that. His admission wasn’t comforting, per se, but there was a fairness to it that made my heated attitude ease from boiling point to moderately hot. “Good. So, since I’m inexplicably stuck with you for the foreseeable future, I’m going to need your cooperation. Hold still.”
He bristled slightly, but replaced his mask of cool indifference in the same breath. “So you need me to go with you because of an unfortunate circumstance of your doing, and because you suspect you can use me, but you haven’t once considered what I may want.” He angled his head slightly, dipping one ear toward his broad shoulder, as if to consider me from a new perspective. “So tell me, Starlight, what makes you think you’ll have my cooperation?”
“Because you’re my prisoner?”
His laughter illuminated the futility of my attempts to restrain him. I pressed my lips together and continued tying the knots all the same, giving them an extra tug with each loop for added security.
“Good luck, then,” he answered, reclining backward against the sand.
Is he joking? It had never crossed my mind that he’d need convincing. If he suffered the same torment that inexplicably ripped me apart when I’d tried to flee from him, then neither of us really had a choice. Like he said...we were stuck together. At least until I figured out how to destroy the stream of light that bound us.
I frowned, pulling my mouth into a lopsided grimace. “Do you enjoy feeling like your heart has been served to an army of bulgroiches on a platter, then? It’s not like I want to be stuck with you.”
“Well, if you’re trying to convince me to help you, you’re doing a poor job of it. Tying me up and leaving me for dead. Attempting to assassinate me not once, but thrice. Why should I help you? Convince me.”
I scoffed, breathing a shortened, half-formed laugh through my nose and shaking my head with disbelief. “I’m very sorry for my numerous attempts to kill you.” I huffed as I tied off the glowing threads around his wrists. “And I’m sorry for my fixation on severing this hellacious bond. I apologize for my ambivalence in deciding the best course of action and my persistent efforts to restrain you. Mostly, I am just…sorry to find myself in such a predicament. But, I’m going to need you to come with me, so just—hold still for one more minute.”
And what had he said earlier? Oh, yes. “Besides, whatever happened to you being my monster? Or was that merely a convenient line to win over my affections so you can get whatever you want from me?”
The faintest hint of a smile curled on his lips, but he gave me nothing more to indicate the amusement he worked so hard to subdue. “What I want?” His eyes darkened with his predatory gaze, and his voice lowered into a rumble. “You’re mistaken if you think I did not speak the truth. I say I’m a monster because I’m honest. But now I’m curious…what is it that you think I want?”
What do you want? I wondered, stepping back to let my gaze sweep over his folded wings, his broad shoulders, and landing on the black serpent etched in ink upon his neck. Prisha’s mark.
The Stitcher must die. Kill all the Daughters. That voice. Was I—reading his thoughts? His eyes met mine, and I bristled at the sensation of chills running along my spine. Did he want to kill me? To trick me into revealing the location of the Daughters so that Prisha could end us? I exhaled, pressing my lips together.
A creature from the In Between, one bearing Prisha’s mark, was certainly not to be trusted. I couldn’t presume to know what he wanted, but I knew what I should want. And what I should not. My cheeks flushed as I dropped my eyes to the sand. “I…you said—” I began, but my mouth gaped open as I floundered to articulate an answer. He raised his hands and shook his head.
“I said I’ll be your monster. For a price. Key difference there. Give me a reason to pick you over Prisha, and I’ll be yours.” He leaned in toward me and cupped my chin in his hand, setting every muscle in my body on edge. “This is the part where you convince me, Starlight.” His voice deepened an octave, hitting a gravelly, low note that sent a shiver down my spine. The stars in his eyes flickered beneath a shroud of darkness. “What’s in it for me?”
For Halah’s sake. The sooner I could part from this horrible curse, the better. But for now, I needed him. I needed his cooperation just long enough to take care of the Eldress so that I could defer all of my problems to her judgment. She’d know what to do.
“Well?” he asked, his tone clipped.
“What do you want?” Ideas raced through my head, tinged with the color of concern. What would a monster of the In Between require of me? What could I possibly offer that would convince him to favor me over a goddess?
“Unbind me,” he said simply.
“What?” I snapped.
“Unbind me if you wish for my cooperation. Unbind me and trust me to follow my own free will, and you will already be a more favorable master than Prisha.”
“Master?” I balked, hating the way the taste of the word drained the moisture from my mouth. I did not intend to be anyone’s master, and certainly not his.
He pulled at the tether between us. “You stole me from her, Starlight. You summoned me from the In Between. And this connection? You used it to command me to follow your will when you placed me before those Riders.” He paused, chewing on his words for a moment. “But I don’t like being controlled. So, if Prisha cannot reach us here, perhaps I can be free to choose who I serve. If you’re brave enough to permit it.” The corded bond between us shimmered in the spaces between his fingers as he considered it. “Or perhaps this bond means you will continue to force my hand and rob me of that freedom to choose. It is yet to be known. As is my decision on whether or not to kill you.”
I shook my head. “Well, thanks for confirming I can’t trust you. Pick something else. A different price. There’s too much at risk.”
“Fine.” He sighed, clearly disappointed by my rigidity on the matter. “I should know better than to hope for such freedoms. For now, more bread will do.” He held out his hands expectantly.
I quirked a brow. “What?” My eyes bounced between his outstretched palm and his entirely serious expression, analyzing his motives. Surely I’d misunderstood.
“Get me more of that bread, and I’ll play your game. I’ll go as your prisoner without a fight.” He stated it like he was explaining something obscenely obvious, and I stared back at him as though he were speaking a foreign tongue.
Oh great. He’s crazy.
But, acknowledging that his request could have been much worse, I readily accepted his terms before he had the opportunity to change them. “Fine.” I scattered my fears with a shake of my head. “There’s plenty of halfmoon bread where I come from, if that’s what you want. Help me get the Stitcher to safety, and I promise you will be well fed.” Mother would fret and set herself to making halfmoon bread and other delicacies as soon as I stepped through the leather flaps of the gurya, anyway. I had no doubts about that.
