Thunder Rattles High (Unweaving Chronicles Book 3)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “You can hear all of this?” I asked him. “An’alepp couldn’t see the mortal world most of the time.”

  “It’s like I’m standing right beside you but no one else can see me. Maybe it’s because I’m only recently dead.” He winked and I tried to ignore him.

  “Stop worrying, Rusk,” I said. “I’m here with you. I’m married to you.”

  My words didn’t have nearly the calming effect I had hoped for. What could I say to remind him of what he had? I grabbed the tether between us and gently pulled him in towards me, and then I stepped in close to where I could look at him eye to eye. He turned his gaze on me, letting me see all his worry in the lines of his face. I kissed him, passionately, but a little desperately. When would the tumult in our relationship end? We both knew we were destined for each other, and now we were married and chained together. Couldn’t we stop worrying now and just be confident?

  “Stop worrying,” I whispered as I released him. “I’m not going to let anything come between us.”

  He gave me one of his crooked half-smiles, and the took my hand so we could walk the rest of the way together.

  “Very smooth,” Kjexx said from the spirit world. “I give your man handling skills a three out of ten.”

  I ignored him.

  Rusk stopped just outside the pavilion and when he looked at me he grinned. “I think I’m glad that Kjexx is in the spirit world with you. You need someone to keep you out of trouble. Tell him I said so.”

  I gaped, but he was already entering the pavilion and Astrex was upon us, gesticulating wildly, her voice pitched too loud.

  “Where have you brought us? We’re in the middle of the desert, with no road or any indication of where to go. We can’t just live along this river, you know. And what of the shadows we saw in the distance? Did Catane copy your trick?”

  The clan leaders stood in a ring, shuffling slightly as she spoke, but their steady gazes were on us. Only last night they had fought and died for me. For us.

  “They are Veen,” Rusk confirmed. “About two thousand. Heading north-east of here. They sent no troops this way.”

  North-east meant they were heading towards Al’Karida. How did Catane know to go that direction? Had they fallen upon a road? Or perhaps he still had Amandera with him to guide his path. She knew this land better than I did, even if I was the rightful heir.

  There were grunts of acceptance from the ring of Clan Leaders, but Astrex was not finished.

  “So, it is as we feared. We are in a strange land with children and elderly and nowhere to shelter them as Catane’s armies run wild.”

  She might be right, but how was that of help to anyone?

  “Enough, Astrex,” I said. The shocked look on her face would have made me laugh if I didn’t have to calm her down. “There is a place not far from here where our people may shelter. I plan to lead you to it before nightfall. It’s defensible and should have what is needed to support our people.”

  She sniffed. “And how can you be sure of this?”

  “I will lead you to the Silken Gardens where I spent my childhood on the banks of the mighty Penspray River.” I raised my chin so I could look down my nose at them as I said, “Pack your things and gather the people. We leave immediately. If Catane is in Canderabai, then we must race to beat him to the courts of the High Tazmin. The High Tazmin must know of his ambitions and the threat he poses.”

  “We don’t have the resources to go haring off saving the world,” Astrex argued. “We need a safe place and then we need to fit it for defense. You may be our leader by right of marriage, Windbearer, but you are not our king.”

  “You have kings?” I asked.

  She scoffed. “Of course not. We are the hereditary people of Kjexx son of Axrun as we were the hereditary people of Axrun son of Agidaxx.”

  I chuckled. “It sounds the same to me.”

  Astrexx scowled, turned on her heel and stalked away. I could see her gesturing to anyone in the way, pointing and shooing with her hands. At least she seemed to be mobilizing them all. Maybe we could leave sooner than I had feared.

  “You have our blades, Windbearer,” one of the Clan Leaders said, raising his sword as if to illustrate his point.

  “That’s Edrixx,” Rusk whispered to me. “Leader of the Double Talon Clan.”

  “I am honored, Edrixx. We will carve out a future for our people,” I said. “But first, we’ll find a place to shelter them.”

  He nodded and strode away, the rest of the Can Leaders peeling off, one by one, to follow him out. They nodded or bowed slightly to me as they left. Who would have thought that such a gnarly collection of men and women, pitted with scars and laced with tattoos, would see fit to accept me as their leader?

  Rusk and I were the last to leave. Outside, a boy was already loosening the stakes and preparing to lower it and pack it away.

  “You’ll need to determine how many can defend the Silken Gardens and how many we can take with us,” I said.

  “With us?” Rusk asked.

  “Unless you think we should go to the High Tazmin’s court alone?”

  “I’m worried about my sisters,” Rusk said, and his furrowed brow underscored his words. “Amandera promised to free them, but when I saw her again she told me that she’d never even spoken to the High Tazmin about them.”

  Above us crows circled, seeming to center themselves around Rusk.

  “So, it’s even more imperative that we get to Azaradi quickly,” I said.

  Beneath us, the ground shook and rocks tumbled from the hillsides. Screams and shouts in the camp and the cries of Eaglekin made my heart race. The cataclysm was still coming. We needed to decide which of our many problems was the one that needed the most urgent attention: Kjexx’s people, Rusk’s sisters, Catane or the cataclysm.

  “Look!” Rusk shouted, his cry so sudden that I startled. He was pointing up in the sky and as my gaze followed the line of his arm, I saw a streak of black shoot across the sky. Along the edges, tiny cracks formed, almost as if our world were an egg hatching. I shuddered and felt light headed. We were not an egg. And this was not a new birth. A thundering boom followed a few seconds later.

  “We might need to think about dealing with the Cataclysm first,” I said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WERE THE CRACKS IN THE sky worse? No. I’d checked only a few minutes ago, but I gazed across them again, looking for any hint of further damage. Thunder boomed and echoed above us like it was Astrex trying to give me a piece of her mind.

  “You need to stop staring at the cracks,” Rusk said from where he walked beside me.

  “I just want to be sure that they aren’t getting worse.”

  “And you think you’ll repair them with your gaze?”

  I scowled at him.

  “You’re going to hurt your eyes,” he went on. “The Canderabaian sky at noon is not soothing to the eyes.”

  “They’re my eyes, aren’t they?” I muttered, but I looked away from the sky and focused on the narrow trail we were following.

  With the children, elderly and all their worldly possessions packed on the Eaglekin, we had to walk and the journey was taking longer than I’d hoped. We didn’t have enough time to waste in travel. Maybe I should just open up a door to the Silken Gardens. Better yet, a door to the High Tazmin’s court. I sighed. There would be no doors through Ra’shara. I could still see the feet of An’alepp frozen to the ground where I’d drained her soul dry the last time I’d made a supernatural door. They were a constant reminder that I needed to learn caution.

  “We’ll be there soon. It was in this direction.” I didn’t need to say it. I’d already said those very words a half-dozen times, but my impatience was making it hard to keep quiet. I needed to do something more productive than walking and worrying.

  Rusk, thankfully, seemed distracted by the Eaglekin. Their progress was slow over the boulders and loose debris of the Canderabaian wilderness.

  I pulled the scintellex out of
my pocket, studying the long, white cylinder. Somewhere within was the key to fixing the cataclysm, but what was it? I couldn’t read the writing etched into it, and even if I could read the individual words, they could be lined up so many ways by twisting the rings, how would I know what the correct combination was?

  I twisted one of the rings, absently. They moved easily but didn’t rattle or spin on their own. Perhaps it was like one of those locking boxes where you had to twist the pin in the correct pattern to open it. But how would I know what the pattern was?

  It had seized a hold of me before, “rewriting” my brain, An’alepp had called it. Perhaps it had the power to speak right to me, through my mind. I concentrated, trying to open my mind up. I entered Ra’ahara, but nothing else happened.

  “Nice to have you back,” Kjexx said. “I see you’re leading my people home.”

  “Can you read the text on the scintellex?” I asked, holding a spectral image of it out to him.

  “No. Can’t you?”

  “I don’t know what any of it says. I wish An’alepp were still in Ra’shara. She knew many languages.”

  “But if she was still here, you wouldn’t be gifted with my incredible charm.”

  “I think I could go without.” I gave him a dry look. “What I need right now is a secret weapon to stitch the sky back up, not a sarcastic dead warrior.”

  He laughed. Why did he always find my most insulting comments amusing?

  “It worked for you before. What did it do then?”

  “It rewrote my brain somehow. I thought of things I’d never considered.”

  He reached for it, letting a finger run along the rings. “Hmmm. Maybe it’s an amplifier. Maybe it will take what you give it and make it more.”

  “Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t believe him. It was something more, I knew it. I just needed to figure out what. It had to be the key. They’d used it in Axum’s cataclysm, and it could work here, too - if only I could figure it out.

  “You should be careful with that. If Catane wanted it before, he’ll want it even more now.”

  “Catane also tried several times to kill my ancestor. I’m not the only one who should be careful.”

  “If Catane comes sniffing around here, then I’ll show him how tough it is to deal with me when you don’t have a handy balcony to drop me over.”

  “Bold words.”

  Banter was nice, but understanding the scintellex would be better. Maybe if I just kept turning it and studying it? I focused on the etching, my mind straining so hard that my head began to pound. It had to be here somehow.

  I twisted the rings and then twisted them again. And then, all at once, my vision blurred and my mind began to spin like I was thinking too quickly and then my hands moved as if by their own will, twisting the rings in a pattern.

  A soft note erupted from the scintellex and my eyes fluttered open. I didn’t know how I knew, but somehow I understood it as sure as my own name. I was going to need help if I was going to use the scintellex to save our world. It required more than just a single unweaver to work the power within the scintellex and heal the sky.

  I shook myself out of my trance, to find Rusk leading me by the hand, while my body almost sleep-walked along. We crested a hill and there, before us, were the grounds of the Silken Gardens.

  “Is this your home?” he asked me.

  “It was,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Not anymore. Let’s hope it has what we need.”

  “Did you learn anything in Ra’shara?” he asked me.

  “I’m going to need others with my gifts if I’m going to stop the cataclysm.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’re going to your old home. Can anyone there help?”

  “Perhaps my sisters can.”

  He smiled as we left the rocky path behind and crossed over the ancient bridge over the Penspray River.

  I pulled my heartstone out of my pocket and wove it into my hair so that the flashing stone was over my forehead. I left with a dull, dead stone, but I would return triumphant with a stone as alive as anyone’s. I couldn’t wait for them to see it!

  As our long line of travelers moved further into the verdant gardens, I let my gaze scan the lines of the trees and the paths around the place that had been my home.

  “Something isn’t right here,” I said. A strange shiver twisted around my spine.

  “I don’t see any people,” Rusk said.

  Where were they? My sisters and their instructors and guards couldn’t have all just vanished. The paths were raked, and the gardens tended. There was no reason for them to be absent.

  I didn’t speak as we walked out of the forested part of the gardens and towards the white palace. No laughter or greeting met us, but across the courtyard, items were scattered: a basket here, a scarf blown into the bushes there.

  Without thinking, I ran up the wide steps into the main hall. My footsteps echoed on the marble – the only sound in halls that I remembered being full of the noise of life. More chaos greeted me within. A chair had fallen over and a sack of cloth was scattered across the floor. Furniture and belongings were scattered and broken everywhere that I looked.

  In the center of the main hall, I saw why. The walls looked as if they had been split down the middle and then forced back together, but they did not exactly meet where they had originally been whole. It was as if a giant child had ripped the palace apart and then tried to jam it back together.

  Surprisingly, the one thing that seemed untouched was the ragged half of An’alepp’s plaque.

  This daughter of the stars…

  I couldn’t even bear to read it. It brought back such sharp memories of my ancestor. My mind was rambling. It didn’t want to think about where my sisters might be. The ground had opened up here - that much was obvious - and then it had been jammed back together. But what tumbled into it between those two events? I was trying so hard not to think of the question that it was all that I could focus on.

  My breathing began to speed up until I couldn’t gasp in a full breath anymore. Tiny specks swam across my vision. I collapsed to my knees, straddling the ragged line of the floor.

  “Don’t worry.” Rusk’s hands were on my shoulder, his strength and confidence at my back. “They fled. You can tell by how their things were scattered. They fled. They are alive somewhere else.”

  Above us thunder boomed, an ever-present reminder of the threat hanging over us.

  “But how many of them fled? And how many are…?” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t ask if my sisters had fallen to their deaths, or been crushed by the earth when it jammed back together right here beneath my feet.

  “All of them fled,” he said. But he couldn’t know that. I couldn’t know that. This world was unraveling, and I had known, but I hadn’t returned in time. How many places across Canderabai looked just like this? How many people were dead because I was not fast enough?

  “You need to get up. We need to help the Black Talon settle in.” Rusk’s voice sounded tight. Did he see how obvious it was that this was my fault?

  “They can’t stay here!”

  “The danger has passed. It will make a reasonable defense until a better one can be found.” His gaze was running along the support pillars. They were strong enough that the whole structure remained intact despite the split down the middle.

  I knew one thing. I would not be sleeping in here. Every time I closed my eyes I saw my sisters’ faces cold beneath the earth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “THERE’S NO POINT PACING. WE can’t leave until morning at the very earliest,” Rusk said from where he was sprawled on the bed a few feet away. “Besides, it tugs on my wristband and it’s driving me crazy.”

  The Black Talon had taken possession of the Silken Gardens over the course of the afternoon and evening with the unstoppable determination of a line of army ants. After solidly refusing to stay there, I’d found a place for Rusk and me to spend the night in Jakinda’s former quarters at the guards’ barra
cks. I’d even found some old clothing, which I thought might be hers – a pair of black leather leggings and a loose silk shirt - in one of the wardrobes. It was nice to be out of the stifling outerwear I’d worn in Axum, for the sake of warmth, and back into something that let my body move again, but I still wished we were heading out again instead of spending the night here.

  “If the Black Talon is going to defend their noncombatants, Edrixx won’t be able to spare more than a dozen men at best. I’m not even sure if we should take them with us. Speed is key here, not force, and the two of us can move faster on our own.” Rusk’s fingers tapped on the bed as he spoke. “I’d like to bring Graxx with me, though. Which brings me to another issue. We need to talk about the Eaglekin.”

  I stopped pacing, drawn out of my worry by this unexpected turn of conversation. “Is the climate too warm for them?”

  “Actually, they love it here. They can finally get warm enough, although they may molt their underlayers.” He shook his head like he was throwing away a distracting thought. “No, what I mean to say is that the Eaglekin are intelligent, and they should be autonomous. It’s never sat well with me that they are essentially slaves of the Black Talon.”

  What would it be like to be as sweet hearted as Rusk? To care about the freedom of giant bird-like creatures when the world itself might end only days from now?

  “Are you saying that they should be freed? It will take us days to get anywhere on foot.”

  “We need to negotiate with them. And yes, they should be free. Free to ally with us and join our cause or free to abstain.”

  I sighed.

  Rusk stretched out on the bed and the motion pulled the tether tight and forced me to take a step towards him. I gave up pacing and sat on the edge of the bed, but he reached out and pulled me the rest of the way onto it.

  “Relax. You’re too worried. We’re only two people and we can only do so much. We can’t go anywhere tonight, so there’s no use fretting about it.”

  “I’m just worried. What if I can’t find a way to seal up the hole? What if I can’t figure out how to use this thing?” I pulled the scintellex out of my pocket. He opened his palm and I handed it to him.