Lightning Strikes Twice (Unweaving Chronicles Book 2)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  I squinted at his arm, and now that she said that, I could finally see the brand underneath the golden tattoos. It was exactly the same as mine.

  I tried to speak, but I had to swallow before words would come. “I’ll give you what you want, if I can.”

  “Hand me the tether you used to wear,” Catane said.

  Amandera licked her lips nervously. Was she less certain than he was of all this?

  “Tylira, you don’t need to listen to them. Just go —” Rusk cut off as the blade pressed tighter against his throat. His eyes pleaded with mine. How could he expect me to leave? I’d seen Kjexx die for me. I’d never let Rusk do that.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tether, handing it to him. What should I do? I had to find a way to get us out of here. I needed to get back to the defenseless children along the butte. Every time I blinked I saw their pleading eyes.

  “Good girl,” he said, snatching it away and snapping one end back onto Rusk’s wrist. “I bet you didn’t know that this tether is tuned to you now. If I snap the other end back on your wrist things go back to the way they were before. If I hurt him, you’ll feel it. If I kill him…you’ll die, too. Not right away. It will take a few minutes for you to die. Just long enough for someone who knows the trick to remove the tether…if they wanted to. Did you know that it creates a bond where you feed off each other’s energy and vitality? Did you feel that when you were bound?”

  I glanced at Amandera and she nodded. Why was he telling me this? How did he know?

  “Put it on, little sister. I grow weary of waiting,” Catane purred.

  I hesitated.

  “Run, Tylira. Don’t die for me.” Rusk’s eyes were tight, stressed.

  Catane nodded to Amandera. She pulled out a second knife, her mouth twisting as she plunged it into Rusk’s calf. He flinched, blood spraying across the snow, but he didn’t cry out, didn’t move away.

  “You’d better hurry and obey, Tylira,” Amandera said, a warning in her eyes. Was she as much Catane’s pet as she appeared?

  I hurried over, slipping the tether onto my wrist and fastening it in place. It became seamless again, just like it had been for so long before Catane removed it.

  “I thought you served the High Tazmin,” I said.

  She leaned in close to me, her eyes deadly.

  “I serve the future High Tazmin. He is the only hope for our world. And we’d like the code to the door.”

  “You already have that.”

  “Not the one to open it. We can do that. We want the one to make it big — the way you made it when you came through with the tooth. Big enough for an army,” Catane said.

  Ah. The code that Rusk’s ancestor provided. They wanted to make it big enough to march the Black Brigade through and conquer Canderabai. Perhaps we could just give it to them and then hurry to the rescue of the Landers. We could figure out how to stop them later. But I didn’t have that code, only Rusk did.

  “Rusk —”

  “Don’t talk to him, talk to us,” Catane said.

  “I don’t have it,” I said. “And if you kill Rusk you’ll never get it.”

  Catane’s face went black with rage.

  “Well,” he said. “I think we’ll find out.”

  With the flick of his wrist, Catane slit Rusk’s throat. His eyes went wide and then he slumped to the ground, Catane towering over him, his bloody knife dripping onto the snow.

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Again

  “NOOOOO!” I DROPPED TO the ground beside Rusk, cradling his head in my lap, trying desperately to hold the blood in his throat with my hands. He gasped and coughed, his face blue, his eyes locked on mine. “Rusk, oh no, no, no, Rusk!”

  I choked on my sobs, frantically trying to weave something to hold him together, but I never could weave. I could only unweave. I could only destroy, never heal. No, no, no. Not Rusk! He stilled in my hands.

  It couldn’t be. He couldn’t be gone. It didn’t make sense for him to go and for me to stay. His eyes, his gorgeous honey brown eyes glassed over, lifeless and cold and his bright, bird-like ko evaporated. Tears spilled down my face. I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt too tight.

  “You have only minutes before you go, too,” Catane said. “Don’t you feel the life beginning to drain from you even now?”

  “I don’t care. I’ll die right here and everything you’ve done will be for nothing.”

  It wasn’t right that he had died. It wasn’t right that the Landers’ children would die. So many innocents were dying — and all to take something that I didn’t even have. The scintellex felt hot in my pocket, like it was trying to remind me of something. My duty, perhaps? I couldn’t live for duty. There was no hope in that. I could only ever live for love, and mine was flooding the ground with Rusk’s life blood.

  “Tell us the code and I’ll remove the tether.”

  I laughed bitterly, looking first at Amandera and then at Catane. “You’ve sabotaged yourselves in your cruelty.”

  Catane sighed, “Very dramatic. But he was always going to die. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how they usually remove these tethers? There’s a ceremony and the dar’lelion is exalted to her new position and her san’lelion has his blood spilled on the Cliffs of Canderabai to remind her that wisdom is not enough. They killed mine right in front of my eyes. He’d been a kind man, though weak. It doesn’t do to grow too attached to them. The moment this man was tethered to you his death was assured. I’m just speeding up the process.”

  I gaped at him. He’d had a san’lelion? He really was kin of mine, then. And Rusk, they’d always planned to kill him? He was love of my life, the only one worth loving.

  I was seeing red. I thought for a moment that rage had clouded my eyes, but then I realized that this crimson was familiar — it was the same lens over my sight that the scintellex had flooded my eyes with. But there was no pattern now — not unless it was the puzzle I was subconsciously trying to solve, the problem of how to heal death and how to mend a breaking heart.

  “Then the joke is on you, Catane. Because I never knew the code you want. Only Rusk did.”

  My beloved Rusk who always put everyone above himself, who loved birds, who was made of honor. They had no right to reach out and slice away his life. They might as well take mine with it.

  Catane launched forward, grabbing my neck in his hands and throttling me. His hands were slick with Rusk’s blood.

  “Give it to us! You think you can stand against me? You think that brand on your arm makes you my rival? You’re nothing! I’ll crush the breath out of you.”

  I gasped and choked, but I forced a smile on my face. I reached a hand into my pocket and gripped the scintellex. It burned my skin with it heat, but my vision flared gold and teal and then my mind flooded with a memory and a plan. In the VR test Catane had killed An’alepp. He thought he had beaten me then, just like he thought he’d win now. What did I have to lose? He’d already taken everything from me.

  With the guidance of the scintellex, I began to unweave — not his clothing or his chest, or that smug look on his face, and not space so that I could rip through to Ra’shara like he had to bring us here. I saw a new pattern now — the pattern of time. It fanned out around us, ticking and shifting to the rhythm of the stars and the sun. My vision flickered black and white, oxygen a scant resource, but I didn’t need sight to feel my way. Amandera cried out and Catane cursed angrily. I ignored them both, desperately unweaving, picking at the pattern of time, pulling at the thread that anchored Rusk and I here and flinging us back.

  In the back of my mind I heard An’alepp screaming at me to stop, pleading with me not to do this. Sorry, Ancestor. If there was any chance, any chance at all that I could go back and change this, then I had to take it. I had to. I felt my life fading away, felt it draining from me into the tether and into Rusk’s lifeless body. I felt my throat growing soft and close to the crushing point in Catane’s harsh grip.

  And then I was tumbling. I saw a m
oment of shock on Catane’s face, and then my vision flared red and I spun, the end of the thread I had been holding flicking back and forth violently. An’alepp rose beside me like a spectre, her hands reaching outward. She caught the thread, wrestling it like a man with a grizzly.

  “What have you done?” She screamed as she fought. You’ve doomed us all!”

  But had there ever been a choice?

  “You’ll destroy anything that ever was, and write us out of time itself!” She wove a pattern so intricate that I couldn’t follow it. It wrapped around the thrashing thread, anchored to the pattern I had pulled it out of, but the patch couldn’t quite fix it in place the same way. It fell just short of the space it had been in before.

  I spun out of control, but somehow she managed to grab my chin in her fingers and scream in my face, “Never again!”

  The world went red and then black, and then back to color and I was stumbling across the battlefield on the butte. I was stumbling through the battle, scanning the lines. There was Catane working his way across the field just as he had before. The Black Brigade hadn’t reached our troops yet. The battle was only beginning.

  Chapter Thirty-Six: A Doorway

  “YOU ALMOST DRAINED ME dry with that stunt, Tylira!” An’alepp raged from beside me. “You could have doomed us all. If I hadn’t patched that hole you would have unwoven everything!”

  Where was Rusk? Why wasn’t he here? My eyes scanned the hillside, but I couldn’t find him among the masses of bodies. He had been there last time. Where was he? My heart galloped.

  “What are you going to do? Relive it? If you have a plan you’d better do it now, girl.”

  “I need to take them all to Canderabai before Catane can bring his army there.”

  “You can’t. The door is locked.”

  I spun and looked her right in the eye. She shook her head, taking a step back from the intensity of my gaze.

  “If you use my power to punch a hole into Ra’shara and to the other side into Everturn you’ll drain me dry, and yourself, too, and anyone else who is nearby and connected to the Common.”

  I didn’t speak, but I didn’t drop my gaze.

  “Don’t do it,” she pled. “There’s so much more you need to do. Don’t risk it for this.”

  The clash of steel on steel rang out from the ranks. I had to do this now, before Catane stopped me.

  “Do it with me, ancestor. Please.” I grabbed her clothing, drawing her close. “Please. If I let Catane get to us again, I won’t know what to do. He’ll be a step ahead of me again.”

  “I’m not ready to let you sacrifice yourself.”

  “It’s not up to you.”

  She blinked, her eyes wet and nodded, giving me the strangest look, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “I’ve grown…fond of you.”

  “We don’t have time for pretty words,” I said, running towards the civilian camp. I was still scanning the crowd for Rusk. Where could he be? Where? Would Catane steal him away again if I didn’t find him?

  There he was! Beside Graxx, just at the edge of the civilian camp, Rusk was speaking to one of the Clan Leaders, gesturing out towards the beginnings of the battle. I ran to him, ignoring the Clan Leader, and threw my arms around him.

  “Rusk, oh Sweet Penspray, you’re alive!”

  The startled look on his face was more precious than words. He didn’t remember. He wouldn’t have to relive being killed in his nightmares. Relief flooded over me. I drank in the sight of him, his honey eyes still warm and his bemused smile mobile. He was alive, alive! His ko danced brightly over his head, pulsing with life and spirit. I had a second chance. I didn’t dare waste it.

  Lightning stabbed at the ground feet away from us. Catane was here.

  “Rusk, come with me. We’re going to make a gate in the civilian camp and start sending everyone through to Canderabai.”

  “A gate?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. We need to move, now! Catane is already here.”

  “I’ll go give instructions to the Clan Leaders,” he said, pulling away from my arms.

  “No!”

  He froze, his expression confused.

  “Please, you have to stay beside me. I can’t do this if you don’t.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Tylira I’m needed to lead your armies.”

  “Delegate. We need to do this. Now! And I need you to stay with me.”

  Was it selfish to keep him with me? But if I didn’t then Catane could snatch him away again and I’d be back to where I started.

  “Good plan,” An’alepp said from beside me. “It’s going to drain a lot of you to open that gate. If you attach that tether again then he can bear some of it.”

  I froze for a second. I hadn’t thought of that. But could I ever ask him to shackle himself to me willingly? Rusk spoke urgently to the Clan Leader and then rushed to join me as I strode through the camp towards the center of the civilian encampment.

  A second Clan Leader ran up and Rusk called out hurried orders. I didn’t listen to the details. That he was still with me and arranging our escape was enough. As soon as I reached the center of the camp I began to unweave the very air, tearing a rip into Ra’shara. Why did it feel more difficult than the last time I’d done it? Had it been like chewing through wood with your teeth last time?

  Was Catane watching? Would he attack as I worked? A clan was forming up behind me and I heard the sounds of children and elderly being loaded onto the backs of the Eaglekin. I had to get this right.

  “Why are you so pale, Tylira? What is that ancestor of yours telling you?” Rusk asked as I worked.

  “She wants me to re-attach the tether,” I said absently. If I pulled that thread would it hurry the process? Perhaps …

  “Why would she want that?”

  “She thinks I’ll need your strength to do this. Don’t worry. I’d never enslave you again.”

  Perhaps if I twisted it just so. Yes! There! And now I needed to unweave the same rip in Ra’shara to the other side. If I did it in the same place it should make a rip that brought the people directly from here to there. Beside me, An’alepp turned paler than ever. Sweat poured down her face. Her hands were trembling, but the rip was opening, it was beginning to unravel.

  “You keep it in your pocket?”

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  There! The Hills of Canderabai! I could see them just on the other side. All I needed to do was keep pulling at the threads. A scream ripped out from behind me. Catane’s lightnings were cutting into the civilian camp. Please, don’t let it be one of the children! I bit my lip, pulling frantically.

  “Faster,” An’alepp muttered from beside me. She swayed, but her feet were solid under her.

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  As soon as the rip was large enough for a man the Clan Leader ran through the gap, his warriors following and fanning out on the other side to provide advanced protection for their people. Even I wasn’t entirely sure exactly where I had brought them. We were somewhere in the wilderness north of Al’Karida. That was all I could manage.

  I kept pulling, ripping at the threads and the hole grew larger. Rusk pulled me to the side as the first Eaglekin squeezed through, and then they were all dashing through one by one to the other side, their precious cargo squealing, or screaming or in rapt silence as they passed in the panniers.

  “They’re going to be safe,” Rusk breathed like a prayer, or a hope.

  “Go to the other side, Ancestor.” I said. “Perhaps the other ancestors will help.”

  When she didn’t answer I spared a lance for her. She was turning, rapidly, into a pillar of salt. Starting at her feet, it had crept up her body and covered her mouth. She could no longer speak, but her eyes blazed with tears and…pride? I was burning her up for the sake of these children, and for Rusk, and for my duty to Kjexx. Bitter pain filled me, but I didn’t stop. I’d committed now to this. In my pocket, the scintellex grew
hot.

  The last Eaglekin thundered through and now our rear troops began to shove through the gate. My own feet felt like lead. I could no longer raise my hands. Desperately, I thrashed around for help. On the other side of the door I felt the souls of other ancestors. I pulled at them, ignoring their resistance. I hated myself for it, but what other option did I have? Life was for the living. I could feel them becoming pillars of salt just like An’alepp. The salt had crept up past her eyes. They were solid, white and emotionless, no longer showing the passion she had felt in her last moment.

  I felt my knees begin to buckle. My mouth was dry. I tried to call to Rusk, but no sound came out. In my pocket, the scintellex was so hot I feared it would burn through my clothing. I couldn’t stop. Not yet. The hole was large enough, but I had to maintain it or it would just fall apart, and we still had at least a hundred warriors retreating towards the gap.

  I looked out over their heads and locked eyes with Catane. He studied my door, his eyes bright with speculation, as he slashed down my warriors with swaths of lightning. There was nothing I could do to defend them if I wanted to keep their door open. I shook so hard that I couldn’t see clearly, and then, suddenly there were arms around me, holding me. Rusk whispered something in my ear that I couldn’t make out, but the tone was soothing.

  I was going to lose the strength to hold the rip open. My eyelids were too heavy. I fought against my own exhaustion, and then suddenly there was a sensation of cold on my wrist, and my eyes snapped open. Rusk steered me through the rip in the world.

  “Try to hold on while I pull you through. You’ll be no help to them if you’re stranded on this side.”

  I couldn’t move my feet on my own, couldn’t have protested if I tried. I couldn’t even think clearly. Every scrap of my strength was holding on to that impossible rip in space.

  The sun of Canderabai was like a physical force. It hit me as we moved through the rip, warming me thoroughly for the first time since I’d left Everturn. If it weren’t for Rusk’s arms around me I would have fallen under the force of it.