“He said something to you that is breaking your heart.” I hadn’t noticed Rusk stand and come over to where I was, but now his arms were around my waist, and he was looking out over my shoulder, cheek to cheek with me, watching the horizon with me.
“He wants me to go back in time and prevent it all.”
“If only things were so simple,” he said. There was a long pause and then he said, “Why does he think that you could do that?”
“Oh, well, you know.”
He spun me around so I was facing him, his hands tight on my waist. “There’s something you’ve been hiding from me.”
I bit my lip.
“What is it, Wild Girl.”
“It’s better that you don’t know.”
“I thought you trusted me.” His eyes looked haunted. “What are you plotting with Kjexx that you can’t tell me.”
“Nothing!”
His eyebrows knit together. “I’ve gambled my whole self on you, girl. Every breath and all the love of my heart. Don’t keep secrets from me when I’ve kept nothing from you.”
I gasped and my eyes welled up. “I travelled through time before. Catane killed you – right in front of me - and I travelled through time to change it.”
His mouth fell open.
“I saw you die,” I was shaking now, holding back the memory. “I can’t see that again.”
He shut his mouth, but he was looking at the ground. Did I see tears falling diamond-bright from his eyes?
“You have the power to change the past? To bring back my parents? To make all of this we’ve had to endure untrue?”
My mouth was dry. Why hadn’t I thought of his family? He could have them all back. He could, if I was willing to give up everything. Why couldn’t I find the words to tell him that I’d give him that?
I summoned up every scrap of courage I had, but it felt like I was tearing my heart in two when I said, “Yes. You can have it all back. It’s yours if you want it. Just say the word.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I… I…”
He still hadn’t looked at me, and I bit my lip, feeling the seconds pass long and painful in the tension of wondering what he’d say. He’d erase me if he said yes, but he’d get himself back. Why was I even letting him choose? I should choose for him and I should choose a better life for him. But what guaranteed that it would be better? If I stopped Catane and myself from accidentally unraveling reality, wouldn’t the High Tazmin still attack the Kosad plains? Wouldn’t my mother still kill his family? Could he really prevent all of that? And if he did, what new thing would crop up and threaten those who he loved? I wouldn’t be there to help stop it.
I couldn’t take the wait. I just knew that he was going to ask me to go back and stop all this, and I couldn’t face the pain of knowing that he’d rather be happy without me than suffering with me.
“While you’re thinking about it, we should get a Tooth and fly Evanessa to the Silken Gardens so she can rest. Kjexx says her ancestor is gone.” I needed to be strong and practical so that when he told me his decision I had the strength to face it.
He nodded, but he still wasn’t looking at me. He didn’t meet my eyes when the roc landed and we climbed on his back and flew to the neighboring island. There was only one lonely Tooth left. I laid a hand on its smooth surface. When I had to go back and rewrite history, no one would ever find these. They’d stay under the lake forever.
He kept his gaze low when we woke the Tooth up and he flew it to land near Evanessa. We lifted her gently into the Tooth and settled her on a pallet I made from emergency blankets. We didn’t speak as he lifted the flyer up into the dusky sky and we flew silently towards the Silken Gardens.
I let myself soak up the sight of my home and enjoy the warmth of his arm just inches from mine as he flew. It might be the last time I experienced those things. I needed to enjoy them.
I thought he’d speak eventually, and I was waiting for him to take the initiative. I didn’t want to sway him, even by accident, by speaking first. I didn’t want to be selfish. I didn’t want to break down crying like a fool, but as the time passed, I was more and more conscious of the chain between us that he would be free of, if only he said the word.
We landed in the courtyard long after dark, to the horror of Astrex who was commanding the Night Watch.
“You should have sent word before you arrived,” she said. “And with an injured girl. What have you been doing? Messengers came yesterday telling us to convene at Al’Karida for the battle. Battle! You never even consulted us.”
“Can this wait until the morning?” I asked, my eyes half shut from the exhaustion of my failure and lost future. After all, if we waited ‘til morning, I might not be here.
Astrex crossed her arms over her breasts and sighed. “I suppose it can, but in the morning many words will need saying.”
“And I’ll listen to all of them,” I promised.
She snorted. “Leave the girl with me. I’m twice the doctor you are, and she can use my bed. I kept your room clear. Go and sleep, and expect to be busy tomorrow. We don’t let our leaders just give orders and lay around, not like you Canderabaians.”
“What’s got into her?” I muttered as we walked away and up the stairs to the room.
Rusk didn’t answer.
I was so tired. Or was it hopelessness that made me feel like I had nothing left? Either way, I shrugged off my dirty, lived-in clothing and cleaned myself at the basin, while he did the same. It was awkward trying to avoid touching him but I couldn’t bear to fall into his arms as if nothing was going on when my fate was in his hands and he was looking more and more like my executioner.
Astrex had, indeed, left our room alone and there were still clothes in the dresser. I found a training set with light loose pants and a wrap top and I pulled them on haphazardly and threw myself into the bed. Rusk sat on the edge of it with his back to me. He put out the candle, but the moonlight filtered through the wide windows.
I wished he’d turn around. He was just a black silhouette with an even blacker shadow against the moon-bright wall. When he spoke, he didn’t turn to look at me.
“I could have my family back. None of them would have had to die or suffer or fall in love with mad men.”
What was there to say to that?
“You could stop the source of what’s destroying the world before it even starts. This is what Kjexx wants, too, right?”
“Yes.” But who was to say that another thing wouldn’t destroy the world? Who knew what consequences would come from making a change?
“And he’d get his life back, too. And his people. And their world wouldn’t collapse. All those people would live.”
My mouth felt like someone had stuffed it with wool. My eyes ached. I didn’t need someone telling me what I already knew.
“I don’t really see what is so bad about that,” he said.
“Don’t you?”
“Everyone would be happy again.”
Everyone but me. It would be like I never even existed. It would have to be, for them all to be happy. But if I took myself out of the situation, did it makes sense to do this anyway? And even if I could remove myself from history - and Catane, too - would that prevent the cataclysm? We thought it would, but what if there were other unweavers? Maybe not now, but someday? Wouldn’t they have to figure out some way to heal the world without just going back in time to kill themselves? And what if going back that far destroyed the shreds of what was left of the world? It could. If An’alepp was to be believed, it would.
“Can I wait and do it in the morning?”
“Of course.” He settled into the bed next to me.
He’d probably marry that girl he’d been meant to marry. And they’d have a happy life together.
“And then you and I can finally be free,” he said.
I lay a long time before answering him, thinking about his freedom. He wouldn’t even remember me enough to miss me.
“I
suppose death is a freedom,” I whispered. “Although it wasn’t the one I was looking for.”
He sat up as if he’d been bitten by something. “What?”
“Death. I’m trying to accept it, but it’s still tough.”
“Don’t you get it? This way you wouldn’t need to die!” He sounded so certain.
I laughed bitterly. “It’s you who doesn’t get it, Rusk. In order to fix all this, Catane and I would need to be gone, and there’s nowhere else to go. We destroy worlds just by existing in them. For your plan to work, I’ll have to die.”
“Oh.” His whisper was horrified. “Oh, oh, oh.”
“But don’t worry. It’s not like you’d know. You’d forget, just like last time, and it will be as if you never even knew me.”
I wrapped my hands around my arms. It would be worse than death because no one would know I’d ever lived, but I had to be brave. For all of them.
I didn’t expect his arms around me, but suddenly they were, warm and strong. His lips found mine and his kisses tasted salty. It took a moment to realize that I was tasting my own tears.
“I didn’t mean,” he said in a gasp, before kissing me again. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t realize.”
“You made the right choice,” I said, trying to be brave. At least I’d have this memory.
“No, no, no. To give up the pain, I’d have to give up everything. I didn’t realize. I’m not willing to lose all the good, just to take away the bad. I didn’t…I… please, no.”
And he was kissing my cheeks, my hair, my forehead with so much desperation, as if he could keep me in the here and now with the power of his affection alone.
“It might be the only way,” I said.
“Oh, Wild Girl, please, can you forgive me? I didn’t mean that at all.”
My heart swelled with relief. It might still come to that, but he didn’t mean that he would be happier without me.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in my hair.
“I love you,” I whispered back, reveling in the feel of him. Because as much as it pleased me that he didn’t want to give me up yet, it might still come to that in the end. “There’s one more thing we can try… if you’re sure that you don’t want me to take back everything that has happened to bring the cataclysm.”
“If there’s one thing I’m sure of, Wild Girl, it’s that you are everything to me. I can’t believe you are so selfless - that you’d give your life for me. But I would never accept that from you. Your life is my life.”
I sank into his words. For one more night, they were enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
My dreams tumbled wildly from one nightmare to the next.
“Wake up! Seriously, you have to wake up! You’re here in Ra’shara. You should be able to hear me!”
I was being tugged and pulled. I opened my eyes to Ra’shara. Did anyone ever mention that I could dream my way into the meditation world? Kjexx looked relieved, but he was tugging at my arm.
“Hurry. Pull yourself together. You have to come with me.”
“What…?”
We had been in the Ra’shara mirror version of the room I slept in, but as he pulled me we merged seamlessly into the Hall of Doves, behind a painted screen. Warriors of Veen lined the room and I stood on tiptoes to see over their heads and around the painted screen
“Keep your head down,” Kjexx said. “The warriors aren’t in Ra’shara, but Catane is. If he sees you over the screen, he’ll kill you. Watch.”
The floor of the Grand Hall was littered with heaps of cloth. What was Catane doing? Sorting through the wardrobes of the late High Tazmin? He stood in the center of the room, head bowed, back to me, his body heaving with every breath. Maybe his was sick? Or grief-stricken? What would make Catane grieve? Did he hear that Axum had melted like wax?
“You have to let me try,” Amandera’s crystal voice rang out. Her voice was tight with emotion. She stood beside the High Tazmin’s throne, up on the dais in a peacock sarette, and an elaborate draping crown of sapphires and diamonds hung around her head, suspended by interwoven chains across her hair. At it’s center, her heartstone glowed its deadly red. “You must realize by now that you need my power.”
Power? Didn’t Catane have all the power he needed?
“One last chance.” Catane sounded almost crazed in his muttering. “One more to try.”
“None of the others succeeded, and this one will be no better. Please, my love. Please let me try.” Had I ever heard Amandera talk with such emotion? It was as if her heart were breaking.
“Can’t risk you. Don’t dare to try.” Catane’s mumbling reply was accompanied by the sound of several pairs of scuffling feet and a heavy sound like someone hitting a bag of flour, followed by a cry of pain. Were soldiers dragging someone across the floor?
Catane straightened, spinning to look at something outside my range of vision.
“Bring her here. Are there more?”
“She’s the last we could find. We took that Tooth and searched everywhere.”
The Tooth! The one we left behind. What were they using it to search for?
“We can’t go back,” Catane said, his voice haunted. “Only forward. Only ever forward.”
So, he did know about Axum.
He lifted his hands as if he were greeting someone, and the guards dragged a woman in a gray sarette forward. She twisted away, but Catane took her hands.
“Don’t struggle. Your sacrifice is for the good of your world. Together we must heal the cataclysm and make the world whole.” Desperation filled his face, and now I understood why. It was the same desperation that filled me - that sat sick and heavy in the pit of my stomach even now. It was the fear and despair of knowing we’d caused this destruction and that we’d failed to repair it. “I’m going to unweave it, and you will weave it back together. Draw on all your strength.”
“I can’t,” the woman sobbed, tears rushing down her face.
“You must.” Catane’s voice was dead and crackling. “Begin.”
His eyes grew far away and then he seized the Common and began to unweave the edges of the cracks in the sky, exactly as I had only hours ago. Just as they had when I tried, they curled and wavered at the edges, until the woman beside him began to reweave them, but her weaves were too feeble without the support of the scintellex. One of the threads Catane was unweaving lashed back, catching her weave and running down the thread until it slapped her with a spiritual blow so hard that she physically reeled back.
One of my hands flew up to my mouth as her eyes widened, her skin dried to nothing and then fell from her like dust. Her sarette collapsed into a heap on the floor. My other hand clamped over my mouth, too. I must not scream. I must try not to think about the heaps of clothing throughout the room. How many times had he tried this already?
“Please, beloved. We will try again tomorrow. You must rest.” Amandera’s sympathetic words sent a shiver down my spine.
Kjexx put his hand on my shoulder, and then we were back in my sleeping quarters. Rusk was still sleeping in the real world, and so was I, but here in Ra’shara Kjexx collapsed into a cross-legged position on the floor, cradling his head in his hands.
“I tried to stop it. It began while you were trying to fix the sky. I tried to hide them, but I couldn’t make them believe - ” His words choked off with emotion. “Some of them were helpless. Their ancestors and connection were already gone, but the ones with ancestors … I thought if I could just warn them then they’d be safe, but he found them all.”
I sat down in front of him, lotus style, trying to keep my calm as he spoke. “All?”
“Every weaver left in your land except Amandera.”
I felt lightheaded. I blinked hard three times, trying to keep it together. Was it possible? Had Catane really wiped out every weaver in Canderabai except for Amandera?
“There are hundreds,” I said. “It’s just not possible.”
“Half of them had already lo
st their ancestors. And all are well known. With a Tooth to transport the warriors of Veen and the doors Catane weaves through reality, do you really think it’s so impossible?”
I swallowed hard.
“There will be weavers in other lands.”
He looked up, his ice-chip eyes intense. “If you can fix the tear in reality before it sucks away all their ancestors. If I can stay here long enough to help you do it. If you can find a new weaver to help you fix the tear before it completely destroys this world. Maybe.”
My mind flashed back to Amandera begging Catane to let her help. There was still one weaver left with the power to try. And I knew exactly where she was. I gripped Kjexx’s arm.
“I’m going to find a way. Don’t let the cataclysm suck you away. Stay steadfast, and I will bring the wind of change to your people that you knew they needed.”
I stood, planning to return to the real world.
“Wait,” he said, standing as well. “I don’t want to wait until it’s too late to say this: I chose to give my life for you and to give you my people. I chose well. You have the determination and wisdom in you that it will take to snatch them back from the brink of disaster. You’re our Windbearer, and I want you to know with certainty that I have no regrets.”
I swallowed, blinking back tears of gratitude. “Thank you.”
“And I take back my request. Don’t go back through time. Any attempt now will shatter this world like a glass thrown on a rock. Now, go rain your lightnings down!”
He was laughing when I vanished back to the real world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“It complicates things,” Rusk agreed as we dressed.
“It means we really only have one hope of saving the world. And it’s Amandera!” I still hadn’t found a proper sarette and I was again forced into leather pants and a flowing silk shirt that had belonged to Jakinda.
Thunder Rattles High (Unweaving Chronicles Book 3) Page 10