Her friends swam before her vision, their paths spreading out into a rocky, uncertain future. She watched them die at the hands of Thinir’s unthinking minions. Impaled, hacked apart, burned by tonicloran, their lifeless bodies strewn across a blood-soaked battlefield. And their eyes—lifeless, listless, and yet so accusing—stared at her across dozens of realities and unrealized—but avoidable, changeable!—destinations. The accusations in their gazes barely brushed aside the fear in her heart. And that’s what it was—fear. She was afraid of the choices she’d have to make. Afraid of the failure.
Kaiya tried to expel the accusatory glares of the friends she had abandoned, but they only swam closer. She shut her teary eyes against them, but they did not dissipate. Tendaji, Eili, even Mollie stared at her with tortured, broken gazes, agonized and raw.
Kaiya watched them all. She watched their fights and their falls. She watched as they died and burned, again and again, spinning through her visions at a dizzying speed. Their anguished screams deafened her with an incessant, mind-numbing tirade. The monastery, her Faoii sisters, Mollie, Lyn, Emery, Asanali, Eili, Tendaji . . .
NO!
Kaiya wasn’t sure whether the cry was of her earthly voice or her internal one, but it was real either way, and it shattered the broken faces of her companions, silenced their plaintive cries. The shriek filled the gloomy pit for only a moment before being cut off.
Preoii-Vonda smiled as fading echoes filled the place where Kaiya had been.
“Well done, Faoii. Well done, indeed.”
36
The Goddess’s white halls were darker than Kaiya remembered. A chilly wind blew through the open windows and toyed with the frayed edges of the Tapestry as she fought her way to her feet. Preoii-Vonda’s laughter echoed from far away, fading into a haunting mist. Then there was only the sound of the wind and the rustle of the Tapestry. With a deep breath, Kaiya turned toward it and stared at the infinite cloth with unfocused eyes. There was so much information there. So many things that she could do to save those that she loved. So many questions she could ask and answers she could seek.
An infinite number of ways she could become lost in the Tapestry and never break her way free.
Kaiya dragged her eyes up to focus on the images before her. She searched the Tapestry for Croeli-Thinir. That, above all, was her goal. She could return here and lose herself in the Tapestry or stay clear of this place for all eternity if she wished—but only after Croeli-Thinir was gone. Doing her best to not focus on anything other than her objective, she explored the Tapestry for her loathsome uncle and his ever-present horned god.
When she found him, the weight of his influence was staggering. A thousand images, a thousand possible futures that were at the mercy of his will rushed forth. Kaiya’s head spun under the weight of the horrific map that Thinir wove, its threads coloring a world of displaced citizens and lives filled with fear under his growing fascism. Their hatred and terror rolled off them in waves, paralyzing her.
She did her best to subdue the hurricane of emotions, and eventually she freed herself from its grip. Her heart filled with rage for the innocent people caught in his bloody web, and she pushed forward with her search. There had to be a way to defeat him. There had to be.
Time passed, and still the storm rolled on. The images continued, over and over, swarming around Kaiya in their steady stream. Eventually, certain patterns became clear. In the endless possibilities that flooded the hall, some things were consistent no matter what decisions were made before. Taking a deep breath, Kaiya forced herself to focus on these repeating themes, searching them with steady eyes.
Thinir’s brooding keep was always nestled between the tangled trees of the eastern forest. She saw his cruel eyes and soulless, unblinking army. She watched a thousand different battles on the same vast plain. She watched dozens of soldiers make their way to him, fighting through the horde of mindless fighters. Each fell, however, as their sparking blades cracked against his impenetrable skull. His laughter filled the night.
Still Kaiya watched. The possibilities piled up, and the Faoii stared hard as warrior after warrior made their way to Thinir only to be cut down. Hundreds of possible outcomes, and all ending the same—in failure. A thousand soldiers that came within reach of ultimate victory, and a thousand broken blades that rang like bells against his tattooed head and body. A thousand deaths beneath Thinir’s crackling criukli or lightning spell.
It was easier to focus on the Tapestry when you looked at only a specific point. Kaiya did not dare to wander off and find out what became of those fallen warriors’ families. She did not watch for the tears shed or the oaths uttered after each fall. She only stared at each of Thinir’s attackers, quickly moving on after each one failed. The millions of other images beckoned to her, called to her, but she held steadfast. There must be a way to defeat him. There must be.
There. A shadowy figure. Feminine. Faoii. Wielding a blade unlike any that Kaiya had ever seen. Her cry was brutal and beautiful, and in its lingering echo…Thinir lay dead at the woman’s feet.
Kaiya focused on the woman, but the past webbed out before her, leading to a hundred different people, a hundred different warriors that could possibly wield the blade that would be Thinir’s downfall. She frowned.
It’s the blade’s fate to destroy Thinir—not the person’s.
Could an inanimate object even have a fate? Kaiya didn’t know, but she kept her eyes on the Tapestry, searching over and over for Thinir’s death in the midst of his thousand victories.
There. And there.
Each time the flicker of Thinir’s demise graced the Tapestry, it was because of the same sword.
That settled it, then. The sword was the key. She had only to find it.
Kaiya took a shaky step back and let the images fade. She sighed and waited for her mind to clear and for the ache in her head to subside. She knew the future. Now she had only to look to the past. Surely that would be less distressing—the past was finite. Decided. Her task should be easy: find the sword, retrieve it, and kill Thinir with it.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Kaiya stepped up to the Tapestry again.
The past bombarded her with a force nearly as devastating as the future. She had known that the past was set. She was not, however, aware of how much there was of it. All her sisters, her friends, the innumerable refurbished forces, the millions of common citizens barely aware of the war—all of these combined were little more than a raindrop in a hurricane of the billions and billions of lives that the world had seen. They swarmed over her, drowning her.
Kaiya was thrown back from the Tapestry, her mind pressed flat under the weight of all that had transpired. Trillions of people had come and gone. Billions of wars had been waged and lost—an infinite number of victories and defeats. Each had seemed as important in its time as her current battle seemed now. But this war, and all of the people who would survive its aftermath—the dozens of generations that would thrive after its conclusion— were no more than a single grain of sand on the life pond’s many shores. How important could her work truly be when her entire world and everyone in it . . . was only a single fiber in the Eternal Weave? Surely there was nothing etched onto that grain of rice that was worth the pain of digging through so many memories in order to find it.
Kaiya wanted to give up as she stared at the millions of lives and dreams that had already passed by and been forgotten. In the wake of all of those people, how could any single Faoii—or even the entirety of the remaining Order—be worth anything? Could any of it matter? Could anything . . .?
And through this, I shall remember that all things are sacred and all souls worthwhile . . .
The Oath floated to Kaiya from the voices of a thousand silenced Faoii, their pride and determination—their loyalty and faith—dyeing the tapestry a hundred beautiful colors. Kaiya heard it and set her jaw, batting the tears from her eyes. Resolutely, she fisted her hands and bowed her head.
“My bla
de will be held above all, for it protects all, and shall be a part of me. For I am Faoii.” Determination in her stance, she forced herself to see the Tapestry again, darting her eyes across the cloth until she found the blade she was looking for. The one the Tapestry demanded. Waves of uncertainty and fear crashed against her from both the future and the present, but she ignored it all and focused on what she needed to see.
Thinir fell before her eyes, cut down again and again by the glistening sword, though its wielder shifted beneath her ghostly gaze. Kaiya ignored the numerous warriors that met him with their steely eyes and hearts filled with grim determination. Instead, she focused only on the blade that sang out with the voices of a thousand angels as it clipped through his surety and skull.
Focused on the sword, she followed its glittering thread backwards. Back through the battles against Thinir. Back through the bloody war that had not yet, and may never be, waged. Back through mountains and plains. A hundred paths it took to get to Thinir, but always from the same roots. The same beginnings. Like a bloodline, Kaiya tracked the fantoii’s path back to its origins.
And gasped at where the road ended.
A grave with an iron Goddess symbol at its head. A rainy night and bloody hands tearing the symbol from the muddy ground. A broken edge. A tortured cry. A blacksmith’s pale blue eyes, filled with pain and tears. A single Faoii’s final dirge. A lump of iron left, forgotten, in a forge that would never again echo with a hammer’s fall.
Kaiya remembered Leonard the blacksmith, whom she had passed during her final trip through Resting Oak. She had seen his shop and the pain in his heart, but she had not stopped to
truly see him. The story in the Tapestry unraveled before her.
Leonard had made hundreds of blades in his lifetime. He had prepared for war even when no one else had seen it on the horizon. Both criukli and fantoii had been crafted by his steady hand. Kaiya saw the blades he crafted, watching each take shape beneath his bulging arms. Dozens passed through the Tapestry, sold off and used to kill men or save families. She did not watch their passing but kept her eyes trained on the smithy in Resting Oak, waiting for the blade that would save them all.
It was never forged.
Sure she had missed something, Kaiya watched Leonard again and again. The blades swept by her, and she recognized them by his technique even before the blade was finished.
That one is forged, pounded again and again to make its edge. It will become fantoii. That one is crafted by cutting the blade from steel. Stock removal. Criukli. Fantoii. Criukli. Criukli. Fantoii.
The blades swept by, and as she stared, Kaiya began to recognize the flaws in each, the minute differences that could ultimately mean victory or defeat in stories that she didn’t want to read. Meanwhile, Thinir’s tattoos made their impressions on her mind.
After watching the swordsmith go through his life—and death—a dozen times, wondering how many times she must hear his screams before they stopped haunting her, Kaiya was sure that the blade she had seen in her vision of Thinir’s demise had not been crafted by Leonard. But its thread traced back to his shop.
Kaiya slammed a fist into the marble wall of the Goddess’s hall and prepared to watch it all unravel again. It had to be there! It had to be!
Finally, something caught the Faoii’s eye. After Leonard had been cut down and dragged away, the rain washing his blood into the gutters, the image of his workshop remained. And there, on the dusty floor of the abandoned space, barely visible in the darkness of the eaves, was the broken remnants of a Goddess’s marker, coated now with dried blood and dust.
Kaiya saw the potential in that twisted metal. It had been broken and tossed away, forgotten by everyone, and yet she still saw it for what it was—a tool of Illindria. An instrument of glory. The markings of a tomb.
It would be hard—nearly impossible—to refashion a decoration into a blade. But it would not become just any blade. Thinir’s swirling tattoos protected him from fantoii and criukli alike, but she had seen the inherent weakness in those already. She would craft something that none before her had created. For the first time in millennia, she would reunite the Croeli and Faoii and combine their blades as one.
After all, my child, how else can you expect to conquer Thinir?
With a resolute nod, Kaiya refocused on the Tapestry, preparing to watch Leonard again. This time she gave into the emotions that rolled off him as he worked, pushing past the fear of being overwhelmed. It was necessary. She could withstand it. She had to know what made him feel victorious when he forged a blade, what movements felt like mistakes. She had to know exactly what he did to create his weapons and how to prevent any imperfections.
Again and again she watched his life pass before her eyes.
Time in the Goddess’s hall seemed unmoving, and Kaiya never felt like she needed food or drink as she watched the Tapestry day after day. But when she finally felt like she’d learned everything there was to know about Leonard’s skills, a glance at the Tapestry told her nearly a month had passed, and her friends were quickly making their way to Thinir’s keep. There wasn’t much time left, but at last she knew what to do.
With a surety born of determination and will, Kaiya focused on her goal, letting the Tapestry fade away as she fell willingly into the oblivion that would take her where she needed to be.
37
Now that Kaiya had forced her body through the Goddess’s gate once, it was not so difficult to force it back, though her head spun when she found herself on hands and knees in front of Leonard’s long-abandoned forge.
It was a disjointing experience, and she had to fight for several moments to piece the scattered parts of her mind back together. The insanity of the Croeli made more sense now. Had Illindria not assisted her in that very first attempt, Kaiya, too, would have lost her mind to the Blinking spell.
An ear-piercing scream broke behind her, and Kaiya rolled to her feet, immediately on edge. A frail woman stood in the street, clutching a parcel to her breast.
“Witch!” Her shriek rose above the dingy shops and dust-covered shingles, shattering the night. Kaiya frowned. Her time in Resting Oak was already limited.
The woman backed away before turning to run down the street in the opposite direction, screaming her accusations as she went. Already Kaiya was aware of the sounds of booted feet striking the cobblestones in a dead run, heading in her direction. She looked down at her cracked leathers. She had no sword, no breastplate. She was not prepared to take on the Croeli alone.
Grimacing, Kaiya sprinted into the dusty remains of Leonard’s shop. His anvil stood, a silent monolith over the mass grave that Resting Oak had become. At its base lay Kaiya’s prize.
The Faoii scooped the disfigured Goddess symbol to her chest and spun to face the oncoming Croeli soldiers. Their criukli dripped venom, and their scowling masks burned in the moonlight.
Kaiya willed herself back into the Goddess’s hall, leaving the Croeli in a frustrated huddle as they swung at empty air.
Once she gathered herself again, she turned the disfigured metal over in her hands, its jagged edges glinting in a nonexistent light. There would be nothing left over, especially after she cut down the sides after the forging. But there would be enough.
There had to be enough.
Kaiya felt the power in this hunk of metal. There was love there. Not just for Illindria or for the Order, but for things even more binding than that. Kaiya had not known of anything more powerful than those Oaths and songs while in the monastery, but her time outside it had shown her the things that Leonard had cherished: the love of a wife, a family. The love of living and being allowed to live without fear. The love of joy and the freedom of choice. The love of children’s laughter. Leonard had poured his love of all the things that he held dear—all the things that tied him to this world and gave him a reason to continue existing in it—into that one beautifully crafted symbol.
If there was anything in the world more powerful than the Goddess�
��s love, it was the love that people had for one another—father for son, wife for husband, sister for sister. The roots of the life tree might spread wide, but the branches that humans chose to nurture supported the most weight. Kaiya saw that now.
Unbidden, without even looking at the Tapestry, Kaiya saw the devotion that had brought them here: Lyn’s loyalty to Mae and Jade, and eventually to Kaiya. Eili’s faithfulness to her troops and her lost lover. Tendaji’s devotion to his sister. Their parents’ love for each other. Those were the things that had led them this far. Their victory was not based on prayers or Oaths, but on the faith they had in those around them and the desire to get through this ordeal together.
Kaiya looked at that broken scrap of metal and knew all of this. She knew that she could make it whole and beautiful, not because she desired to create this blade for the War Watcher and Her immortal will—but because she desired to save her friends. That had been the final lock that had separated her from the Tapestry. Her love for them tugged at her more than any Oath or battle spell.
The Last Faoii Page 29