The Sky Weaver

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  “You have no idea what I am,” the empress told Dax. “Nor the things I’m capable of.”

  “I’m beginning to see that.” Dax’s gaze locked with hers. “And I’m suddenly glad I made Safire run.”

  As if in answer, the wind howled from beyond the citadel, beating its fists against the walls. The room smelled like the sea in a storm, and Eris’s skin prickled like it often did before a lightning strike.

  “Caspian.” The empress turned to her captain. “Take the king away. He will take his cousin’s place until she can be hunted down and made to pay for her crimes.”

  “And the dragon queen?” Caspian asked, already binding Dax’s wrists.

  Dax went rigid at the mention of his wife.

  “Leave his queen to me,” she said.

  They turned the dragon king toward the doors and marched him—along with his captured guards—out into the hall, where Eris stood. At the sight of her, Dax looked, then looked again. As if not believing his eyes.

  “Eris . . .” His voice was no longer so controlled. “What are you doing here?”

  She raised her own bound wrists in answer.

  He opened his mouth to say something more, but the Lumina forced him past her. Eris glanced back over her shoulder, only to be shoved forward and into the room beyond the doors. There they threw her at the foot of the throne. When she tried to rise, the soldier behind her pressed his stardust steel blade to the back of her neck.

  “Stay down, dog.”

  So Eris looked up instead. Several paces away stood the empress. Leandra wore a gray fitted jacket, fastened down the left. Its silver buttons caught the flames burning in the sconces and threw them back into the darkness. Her ash-blond hair was pulled tightly back.

  Eris had spent seven years running from this woman. She’d never seen her up close before. Had never looked upon her face.

  The moment their gazes met, the room began to tilt. The ground seemed to crumble away beneath her.

  “You.”

  The stormy eyes peering down into hers were the same eyes she’d met that night the scrin burned. They were the eyes belonging to Day’s murderer.

  She’d thought it was a Lumina commander who killed him. She hadn’t known it was the empress.

  Eris moved then, not caring that her hands were bound behind her back. She would destroy this woman.

  The soldier behind her grabbed her hair, yanking her head back so hard, tears filled her eyes.

  “Be still!”

  If she ever got out of these stardust cuffs, Eris would destroy every last one of them.

  How had the Skyweaver let this woman rule over the Star Isles for so long?

  But as her hatred grew within her, Eris remembered the deserted room at the top of the tower. The broken loom. The overturned furniture.

  Something was horribly wrong.

  The empress’s boots echoed through the room as she walked toward Eris.

  That’s right, come closer, she thought, so I can tear out your throat with my teeth.

  As Leandra halted directly in front of Eris, her mouth curved into a thin smile. “Are you the one they call the Death Dancer?”

  Eris glared up at her, wishing she had the strength to throw off her guards. “Isn’t that why you arrested me?”

  “I’ve arrested you for breaking into the Skyweaver’s tower.” The empress began to circle Eris, her gaze trailing up and down, stopping at brief intervals to study Eris’s hair, her eyes, her mouth. It made Eris’s skin itch. “Did you find what you were looking for up there?”

  The empress stopped circling, waiting for an answer.

  Eris was too busy thinking of ways to choke this woman to death with her hands bound behind her back. When she didn’t answer, the empress crouched down, face-to-face with Eris now. Studying her captive as if searching for the answer to a burning question.

  “Why did you kill them?” Eris demanded.

  “Who? That pack of traitors in the scrin?”

  “They were no threat to you.”

  The empress’s eyes gleamed with a terrifying mirth. “No,” she murmured. “No, I did that for fun.”

  Eris’s anger glowed like embers within her.

  She spat in the empress’s face.

  There was a long, cold silence. And then the empress brought her hand swiftly across Eris’s cheek. The sharp sting was immediately followed by the coppery taste of warm blood. She’d bitten her cheek.

  Eris spat the blood out, too.

  The empress rose to her feet, stepping back. Her voice hardened around her next words: “I’ve spent the last seven years searching for two things, Death Dancer: you and that knife.”

  Eris frowned. What knife?

  “I know she gave it to that sniveling servant of hers. I thought for sure he would have given it to you. But it seems I was wrong.” She glanced up, over Eris’s head, to the Lumina soldiers guarding her. “No matter. I have one of you now and am quickly closing in on the other.”

  And then, like a picked lock springing open, Eris understood: she wanted Day’s knife. The one Eris sold seven years ago to buy her and Jemsin’s escape from these islands.

  That’s why you want the Namsara, she realized, remembering the sight of the knife at Asha’s hip.

  “Captain Caspian?” the empress said softly, as if to herself. “Lock her up with the other one.”

  The other one? thought Eris, her cheek stinging as the soldier behind her grabbed her beneath her armpits and hauled her painfully to her feet. What other one?

  They turned her away from the throne. Eris looked back once over her shoulder to find the empress clutching the hilt of a saber at her hip with long, thin fingers. After climbing the steps back up to her throne, she spun and sank down onto the white stone, leaning forward, as if deep in thought.

  The soldier at Eris’s side forced her onward. As he did, she thought back to the knife Day gave her. One for cutting scarp thistles. It seemed ridiculous now that he would give her a big, beautiful, ethereal knife to perform such a mundane task.

  He gave me a spindle, too, she realized. They’d taken it from her in the tower. A spindle that isn’t really meant for spinning wool.

  What if the knife wasn’t really meant for cutting scarp thistles?

  God of Tides

  The god of tides was a creature of tempests and terror. Revered by pirates and fishermen alike, she called herself Leandra and was loyal to no man but one: her brother, god of shadows.

  Together, they were wild and fierce and free.

  Together, they struck fear into the hearts of men and monsters alike.

  Until the day Leandra raised a tempest and her brother didn’t come to help her. Only stood and watched with something cold and dead in his eyes. When she dashed ship after ship against the rocks and roared for him to join her, she turned and found he was not at her side.

  She called; he didn’t answer. She searched the shallows and depths of all the waters. Of all the seas. But he was neither in the shallows nor the depths.

  Leandra began to worry. The waves churned. The winds swirled. And by the time she finally found him, all the powers of the sea boiled in her wake.

  “Brother!” she called, moving to embrace him. “I thought I’d lost you. I’ve come to take you home.”

  The god of shadows did not return her embrace. Nor did he wish to come home.

  Leandra lashed out, angry and confused.

  Her brother lashed back, striking her down.

  Her. His own sister.

  How dare he?

  Sensing she’d lost him for good, Leandra waged a war against her brother. But with each blow she dealt, he hit back faster and harder until the day she found herself on her knees before him, defeated.

  Leandra waited for the killing strike. When the blow didn’t come, she looked up into her brother’s eyes.

  What she found there revolted her.

  Mercy? Was this some kind of joke?

  He wasn’t going to kill h
er. He was going to let her go.

  Who had done this to him? Who had tamed her brother’s untamable soul?

  Sneering, Leandra took the chance he gave her, swearing to find the culprit. Determined to make this right.

  She did not go back to the sea. Instead, she waited and watched. She tracked the god of shadows through the darkness, stalked him all the way to a tiny house at the edge of the water. It was there that she found the source of her brother’s weakness: a mortal girl.

  A human had turned him against his sister and away from his purpose?

  As she stared down at the weak and fragile creature rowing her boat out to sea, the god of tides called the wind and waves around her. She would deal with this mortal. She would remind her brother of his true nature. And when she finished, all would be right again. He would remember himself and rejoin her.

  Together, they would be terror and chaos once more.

  Forty-One

  When the door to Dagan’s cottage burst open and the wind howled in, Safire looked up, expecting Asha.

  It was Roa who stood in the frame. Rain drenched her lavender dress and her dark eyes were wide with something like fear.

  “They took him.”

  The dragon queen stumbled into the room. Safire rose to catch her, gripping Roa’s ice-cold arms as the words rushed out of her. “I told her I would bring a war to her door . . . but she took him anyway.” She didn’t need to say his name. It was clear on her face that she was speaking about Dax. “She imprisoned him.”

  Safire’s stomach dropped. “On what grounds?”

  The door creaked on its hinges, hanging open and letting the rain in. Safire was about to leave Roa in front of the fire and shut it when two more figures entered.

  “Roa?”

  Torwin and Asha stepped into the cottage, just as wet as the queen. Rain rolled down their faces. As Torwin shut the door, Asha joined Roa and Safire on the carpet, her brow furrowing. “What’s happened?”

  Roa explained that as soon as Dax gave Safire’s refusal to the empress, she accused him of being in league with dangerous fugitives and took him and their guards into custody.

  Roa, however, was left untouched.

  “I told her this would incite a war between our two nations. I reminded her that we not only had a formidable army but dragons at our disposal.” She looked from Asha to Safire. “She was unyielding.”

  “But she didn’t take you into custody,” said Asha, her thoughts churning in her eyes as she stared down at the Skyweaver’s knife, now lying across her palms.

  Roa shook her head. “I believe she wanted me to find you.”

  “You mean she wants us to come for him,” said Safire. She had refused to hand Eris over, and now Dax was being punished for it. “This is my fault.”

  “No.” Roa reached for her wrist, squeezing tight. “It’s mine.” She let go, looking down to her lap. “We so badly need those seeds. I let Dax convince himself—I let him convince both of us—that Eris deceived you. I’m so sorry, Safire.” Roa shook her head, holding Safire’s gaze once more. “You should know that he defended you in the end. It’s why she’s punishing him.”

  Safire swallowed the lump in her throat, thinking of Kor and the others. Pirates who hadn’t been given a trial. Would the empress give Dax a trial? Would she dare execute a king?

  “I need to go,” she said, rising from the wood floor. “Before the worst happens.”

  “Wait,” said Asha, stepping between Safire and the door leading outside. “There’s something else. Something you both should know.”

  Torwin seemed to anticipate what she was about to say, because he emerged from the room beyond this one with a scroll, handing it to Asha. She unrolled it across the table beneath the window, revealing three pieces of parchment. She laid them out side by side.

  Roa rose from the carpet and joined them.

  “The stones I showed you?” Asha said to Safire. “There are stories carved into them, worn away by time and the harsh elements here. Dagan says they’ve been there since before his great-grandfather lived.”

  She touched the words scribbled across the parchment, many scratched out and rewritten.

  “From what I’ve managed to decipher, they tell the story of three gods: the god of souls, the god of shadows, and the god of tides.” Picking up the parchment, Asha handed it to Safire. “The god of tides disguised herself as a human woman and convinced Skyweaver to kill the Shadow God. Only Skyweaver couldn’t do it. She imprisoned him instead—in a world between worlds. Somewhere no one would ever find him.”

  Safire handed back the parchment, every inch of her body wanting to go. To mount Sorrow and fly to the citadel. “I don’t understand what this has to do with Dax.”

  “It has to do with the empress.” Asha looked out the window in the direction of the sea. “According to the stories, Leandra is the god of tides.”

  The room fell silent.

  Safire thought of the paintings in the citadel. Ones that told the story of Leandra coming to save the Star Isles and petitioning the Skyweaver for help. She shook off the strangeness of it. Mortal or immortal, it didn’t matter what Leandra was. Dax was imprisoned. She needed to get him out of there.

  Roa must have seen it in her eyes, because she said, “I’m coming with you.”

  “Me, too,” said Torwin.

  Safire thought of Kor and the other pirates, executed without a trial. She thought of the scrin burned to the ground with all the weavers inside it.

  The likelihood of any of them—of all of them—getting hurt . . .

  Safire shoved the thought away. She hated to think about it.

  “It has to be me. Alone.” She looked from one friend to the next. “It’s my job to protect you.”

  Asha reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. Those black eyes met hers. “No, Saf. We protect each other.” She squeezed hard and didn’t let go. “I’m in no danger so long as Kozu’s with me. We’ll follow at a close distance and keep to the sky. Just in case you need us.”

  “I’ll return to Firgaard,” said Torwin, looking from Safire to Roa. “If she refuses to release Dax, we’ll want the army on its way.”

  Roa nodded her agreement. “And I’ll propose a truce. If she’s willing to hand Dax over, we’ll leave these islands immediately, quietly and peacefully. If she refuses”—her eyes darkened at the thought—“then we go to war.”

  But there were four of them and only three dragons.

  It took some coaxing, but Sorrow seemed to understand he was needed, that their friend was in danger. Despite his fear, the skittish dragon seemed willing enough to do his part. So Torwin and Sorrow headed across the sea while the rest of them flew for Axis. Once the grid-like city streets came into view, Asha and Kozu stayed in the sky, keeping their distance from the citadel. Roa and Safire continued on, landing Spark in the empress’s courtyard while the rain lashed the earth around them.

  They were swarmed by Lumina soldiers immediately. Spark hissed and spread her wings while Roa tried to soothe her.

  “Go,” she whispered against Spark’s scaly throat, pushing gently. “Find Asha and Kozu.”

  Spark looked conflicted as the soldiers dragged Roa away from her. She seemed to understand, though. And before the soldiers came for her, too, Spark flung herself into the sky.

  Safire watched the dragon’s golden form disappear into the mist as they shoved her inside.

  They marched Safire into a familiar, circular room with rain-streaked windows on every wall. As the doors slammed shut behind her, she turned to find herself alone with four soldiers at her back, guarding the entrance.

  Roa wasn’t behind her.

  “Where have you taken the dragon queen?” she demanded.

  “My business is with you, Safire. Not your queen.”

  Safire looked to find Leandra standing at the widest window, looking out into the storm.

  “If it’s me you want,” said Safire, “then release Dax. You’re al
ready treading on dangerous ground by imprisoning him without just cause. If you don’t let him go, you’ll have an army at your gate and a horde of dragons burning your city to the ground.”

  Leandra sighed, staring out toward the water. “What are armies and dragons compared to the power of the sea?” Not for the first time, Safire noticed how she seemed neither young nor old, but both at once. Ageless.

  Asha’s story clanged in Safire’s mind.

  “I think I’ll keep your precious king and his wife,” said Leandra. “At least long enough to coax your cousin down from the sky.”

  Safire narrowed her eyes. “Asha is the Namsara. Kozu will eat you alive before he lets you anywhere near her.”

  “We’ll see,” said Leandra, clasping her hands behind her back. “She has something that doesn’t belong to her. Something I’ve been hunting for a very long time. In the wrong hands, it could unleash a monster. One I thought I put to rest a long time ago.”

  The Skyweaver’s knife? Safire wondered, thinking of the blade sheathed at Asha’s hip.

  “Now.” Leandra turned toward Safire. “You have been a thorn in my side since you first walked through my gate uninvited. You will need to be disposed of.” In the window at her back, thunder cracked, followed by a flicker of lightning. “Before you leave us, though, you should know: I did what you failed to do. I captured your precious Death Dancer.”

  An uneasy feeling twisted in Safire’s stomach.

  “Liar,” she said, her hands bunching at her sides.

  The empress continued, as if she hadn’t heard her. “Tomorrow I’ll give her the same punishment I give every enemy of the Skyweaver. Do you know what that is?”

  Safire heard the breath of the soldier behind her. Felt the shadow of them fall across her back. Her spine straightened and she reached for her throwing knife—but they’d taken it from her.

  “No,” said Leandra. “Of course you don’t. Let me tell you.”

  A cloth sack came down over her head. Safire gasped for breath as something tightened around her neck and a familiar bitter smell filled her nostrils.