On the night I’d tried to perform a duskweaving and had nearly been shredded by the Ulstat nightstrands, I’d drawn upon a strange calm and had gathered a final burst of strength for my escape. At the time, I’d thought it might have been the distant aurora giving me power. But from what Leesa said, it sounded like my help had come from her domain. I grimaced. My head hurt from trying to understand the new information while I fiddled with the lock.
The others are mostly dead Ulstats, right? I winced as soon as the words left my mouth and I realized I may have just insulted her.
It’s okay, she said. I didn’t marry into the family out of love or even affection.
I know. There are legends about you.
A strange emotion flowed from the woman. Not pride, but rather satisfaction.
I’d hoped to do more, she said. I thought I might end the Ulstat line when I didn’t produce an heir. But other branches of the Ulstat family took over the House when my husband died.
How many are with you? I asked. As we’d spoken, I’d started to hope. After my last experience with duskweaving, the thought of another attempt made my palms slick. But Tyrak had claimed the strands would respond to my need. And right now my need was great.
A strange silence followed my words as if Leesa had vanished. I nearly fumbled the lock pick but brought my focus back. Another tumbler slid into place.
Abruptly, my head filled with a choir of spirits. Everyone humming. One hundred. One thousand. I could not count them, but I knew I could ride their song to the highest mountain top. Moments later, they left me alone with my thoughts.
The Silent Queen returned. It was the easiest way to show you, she said.
They’re all Araokan? I asked.
Yes. I summon them. The newly dead find their way to me if their hearts are empty of hatred. But even with the others helping me reach for new spirits, we’ve never been able to bring our domain to other islands.
So you and the Ulstats . . . Do you fight?
I suppose you could call it that. We have no bodies. We are already dead. But every day, we try to swell our portion of the realm. We push against them, and sometimes it feels we might be able to extinguish them. We only need enough strong spirits on our side.
Finally, the last pin slid home, and the lock tumbled over inside the door. We were free.
And separated from the exit to this mine by thirty or forty experienced criminals, a maze of tunnels, and whatever fighters Ashhi might have sent into this hole.
Leesa, I said, I’d like to try something. It’s called a duskweaving. Or spiritbinding. I would join your strength to mine. Would the spirits in your domain be willing?
Before she could answer, the boom of an explosion shook the room beyond the door. Shouts followed, and steel clashed.
Flames lit the thieves’ den, leaping at the tablecloth, the furniture, and the clothes of men and women locked in combat. The acrid scent of black powder stung my nose. As I sidestepped around the edge of the chamber, back to the wall, I spotted the scorch marks on the floor. The Ulstat fighters must’ve thrown some sort of containers holding black powder. I squinted into the smoke and flame, searching for the far door. For freedom. My hand fell to my side, reaching for Tyrak.
I spotted him in Caffari’s hand. The bandit leader danced through the fray, cutting and slashing. One moment, she grabbed a man by the throat while she plunged my dagger into his gut. The next she whirled away and landed an elbow on an attacker’s nose. She sliced one way then switched hands on the hilt, stabbing back into the thigh of an Ulstat man I hadn’t even noticed before he sprang.
Watching them together, I knew how a true master fought with a nightforged blade. During my previous fights, I’d felt so graceful, so quick. But seeing Caffari, I knew I had only Tyrak to thank. In me, he had a student. In her, a partner. But someday, with enough practice . . .
A musclebound smuggler ran at me, face red with rage, a dirk in each hand. But he stopped short, whirled to stop an attack from a hulking swordsman with the Ulstat sigil upon his bracer. I ran forward, kicked the Ulstat soldier in the back of the knee. He went down, planted a hand, barely got his arm up to stop a strike from the thief. But the smuggler’s other hand whipped in, scoring a hit and opening a cut on the Ulstat man’s shoulder. Lips in a thin line, the thief’s eyes flicked to mine. He nodded as I backed away, seeking the safety of the wall again. I scanned the room for Nyralit. Couldn’t see her. Couldn’t hear anything but the hungry crackle of fire and the grunt and clash of men and women fighting.
How can we help? Leesa asked.
Of course! The spiritbinding. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I glanced back toward the room we’d been locked in and yelled for Nyralit to stay back. With luck, she was still inside.
I needed to get up above the battle before attempting the duskweaving. Shoving off the wall, I sprinted across the room. Fire licked my legs as I vaulted onto the table. A few quick steps carried me to the center. I kicked off treasures that were piled upon the tabletop, clearing a space.
All around, fighters were bleeding, falling, grunting, slashing. The Ulstats had come in force, dressed in full armor. Had Ashhi sent this many after just Nyralit and me? Or had a scouting party spotted the operation and sent for help? I supposed it didn’t matter.
I scooped up a knife from the place setting near my feet and dropped into a crouch, ready to fend off an attacker if I must. Caffari spotted me and sidestepped through the battle.
“You claimed you weren’t a friend of the Ulstats,” she yelled. “Here’s your chance. Prove it.”
“It would be easier if I still had my dagger,” I returned.
She flashed me a smirk and parried another blow. Moments later, the battle swallowed her again. The odds didn’t look good for her band of rogues. The Ulstat fighters outnumbered her smugglers, and they’d had the advantage of surprise. A couple Ulstat guards had fallen, but at least five thieves lay sprawled on the floor, injured or dead.
Thinning my walls, I reached for the strands. Sounds retreated into a muffled roar. My world became the island of space within three paces. Near my head, a chandelier swung back and forth, candles swooshing through the air, warming my face every time they passed.
Leesa’s astonishment wrapped me. Your light, she said. Before you were a bonfire. Now you are the sun.
I opened wider still. My barriers were gone, but I had to go farther, deeper. Lowering the knife to my side, I closed my eyes and fell into the aether. Into the arms of the dead.
We’re here, Leesa said. You Need us. We feel it.
My scars burned as my spirit expanded beyond my boundaries. I felt the nightstrands take hold of my inner self, and I imagined gathering our power together.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt, Leesa said, voice full of awe. The joining . . . It’s as if my purpose is fulfilled.
So why wasn’t anything happening?
I opened my eyes, felt the power surging through me. I could lift the table. I could pull down the roof of the chamber upon us. I could will my enemy’s heart to tear free from his chest. But nothing was happening. Was my Need not strong enough? My family’s lives were at stake. My best friend was trapped on Ioene. Raav would have to marry another. And Mieshk threatened to break the world. Yet I stood in the middle of the melee, flame nibbling at the edges of the table, and nothing happened.
I reached for Tyrak, searching the aether for our connection.
Lilik! Run! he said. This battle is already lost.
Tyrak, I bound the spirits, but they don’t know how to answer my Need.
You did what? Are you crazy? Don’t you remember what happened last time?
It’s different. Different nightstrands. Please tell me what to do because it’s not working.
I don’t know Lilik. I never learned.
Lilik . . . Leesa said. Her voice held multitudes, the woven strands making a harmonic chord. We feel your Need. It’s just . . . there are so many paths. We don’t know how to choose.
Many paths? What did she mean?
I fell even deeper, and the pain in my scars moved beyond burning to a white-hot numbness.
Tell me the theory again, I said to Tyrak. About the aether and chance.
He grunted, and I saw Caffari throw off a man twice her size, using a clever twist to get leverage on him. The aether expresses possibility, he said. There are many ways our lives can go, and a spiritbinding uses this net of possible fates to choose the best outcome.
The strands claim there's a decision.
I don’t know what it means, Lilik.
A pair of brawling women shouldered into the table, tilting it on two legs for a moment. I staggered, through my arms wide to catch my balance, cracked a porcelain plate as I stomped on it. But I kept my balance.
I opened further.
Like a storm around me, I felt the woven strands, the tumult of raw power. The future opened, unfurling in all directions, but I could make no sense of it. The room spun around me as my potential futures whirled and tilted. I stood on a precipice, and my only choice was to fall.
A step in any direction would lead to misfortune. How did I know this? Was that why the strands couldn't choose for me?
You see it . . . the Silent Queen said. Darkness waits on all sides, but if you do nothing, the doom is greater still.
I did. I saw it. And with fortune whirling around me, I stepped off the spire of possibility.
Every flame in the chamber died. Snuffed, as if all air had vanished from the world. In the absolute, inky darkness, my feet lifted from the table. Drifting higher, I spun in a slow circle as my scars flared to life, glowing brightly enough to chase all shadow from the room. Silence filled the chamber.
After a moment of frozen animation, the Ulstat guards began sliding across the floor. Slipping faster and faster, they stared at their feet in shock, windmilled their arms to keep their balance.
My scars flared, incandescent, and then bodies flew, slamming into walls. Caffari’s bandits stood rooted as the Ulstat guards crumpled to the floor. The Ulstat fighters moaned, struggled to gain their feet.
Like the spray of a wave slamming the shore, the power gushed from me, filling the thieves with strength.
As one, they growled and leaped on the guards. Dagger strikes that might have scratched leather sliced through muscle and bone. A small woman grabbed an Ulstat fighter who looked as heavy as a mule and threw him a dozen paces. Clenched fists crushed windpipes, the Ulstat fighters helpless against the fury.
It wasn’t a battle. It was a slaughter.
“Give them a chance to surrender!” I cried out. “House Ulstat is the real enemy. These men and women only followed.”
My pleas stilled a few hands. Nonetheless, in the time it took to draw a dozen breaths, over two dozen men and women died.
I released the spiritbinding, and the power fled as quickly as it had rushed to fill me. Darkness swallowed the chamber, a sudden, impenetrable night. I fell from the sky, glanced off the table, and tumbled to the floor.
Darkness waited on all sides, I thought. This was my choice.
My vision faded from gray to black to nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
“. . . BUT THE MOUNTAIN erupted, and the Evaeni sank.” Nyralit’s voice, heavy with sadness, flowed over me.
“And they blamed her?” Caffari said.
I drifted again, buoyed on a dark cloud of memories. I saw flashes of Zyri’s death. Heiklet’s last hours. Raav’s stricken face when he killed for the first time.
“. . .remarkable,” Caffari was saying.
“Sometimes I think of her like a daughter,” Nyralit said. “Motherhood was never in my future, but I’d like to imagine I could raise someone like her.”
Light fell on my face, red through my eyelids. I smelled blood and remembered the streets of Istanik, Waikert and gutterborn and traders fighting and dying.
I rolled my head to escape the memories. But the smell remained. From one side, dragging sounds were joined by grunts and grumbles.
“Pikao. He was one of the good ones,” someone said. “Rotted Ulstats.”
I fluttered my eyes open. Above me, the ceiling swam. Points of light danced. Candles, or were they fireflies? Ridges in the hard stone floor pressed into my back. The rock was warm. The fires . . . Images of the battle came back to me. I tried to move, but my arms and legs were made of wet gravel. So heavy. My tongue was too large for my mouth, and my words piled up behind it.
More dragging sounds, farther away this time. The bodies. At once, the guilt covered me, pushing me down, a cold, wet blanket. So many dead because of me. It might as well have been by my hand.
Darkness waits on all sides, but if you do nothing, the doom is greater still. Leesa Ulstat’s words echoed in my mind. My Need had demanded these deaths. How could I face that? How could I accept that there’d been no better choice?
Rolling my head, I tried again to speak. Only a moan escaped my lips.
“Nyralit! She’s awake.”
I swiveled my eyes and saw Daonok crouching on his heels, staring at me with a knit brow. Moments later, slippers whispered over the floor and Nyralit was on her knees beside me. She clutched my hand in hers, her warm, soft skin wrapping mine.
Hurried footsteps approached from the other side. Caffari grabbed my other hand, her work-hardened palm rough against my skin. She pried my fingers open and laid Tyrak into my grasp. A surge of encouragement flowed from Tyrak into my heart.
“Tyrak,” I finally whispered.
I caught Caffari’s eyes, and her mouth twisted in an ironic smile. “My own nightforged blade . . . I guess it was too much to hope.”
The effort to keep my eyes open exhausted me. Once again I felt darkness pulling at me, small hands reaching from the void and tugging. So many urging me down. I closed my eyes.
“Lilik,” Nyralit said, squeezing my hand.
Tyrak added his energy to mine, his strength sizzling where it contacted the grasping hands of fatigue. Swallowing, I dragged my eyes open again.
“What did you do?” Nyralit asked. “You flew . . .”
I tried to sit up, clenching my stomach and sending a fresh wave of black tunneling down over my sight. “Help. Sit,” I squeaked.
Daonok jumped forward, working his hands beneath my shoulders and gently nudging me upright. The world spun, but I planted my hands and locked my elbows.
Nyralit hadn’t been on Stanik Island during the siege or the final battle. She knew nothing about my duskweaving ability. I licked my lips, wanting to tell her, but I was just too tired.
“I’ll explain later. Too weak. My spirit . . . It needs to heal.”
My vision slowly sharpened, the blur at the edge of the room resolving into blackened furniture, overturned barrels, grim-faced smugglers shoving belongings into trunks and backpacks and crates. As they worked, they glanced at me with a mix of apprehension and awe.
“How long was I out?”
“An hour. Maybe less,” Nyralit whispered. “We have time still before dawn. But not much.”
The reminder of my family’s plight was an icy spike through my breastbone. “Need to stand. Help me.”
“You should keep resting. We—”
I shot Nyralit a sharp gaze that cut her off. Lips pressed together, she nodded and supported me by the elbow and wrist. Daonok took the other side, and together they heaved me upright. I staggered, and they caught me.
“Wait,” Caffari said, dragging over a chair.
I shook my head, refusing to sit. But I laid a hand on the chair’s back to help steady my balance.
Tyrak, I said. I need your strength. As much as you can give.
At once, he melded with me. His heart beat within mine, and our breath drew life-giving air. My mind awakened as energy flowed through my body. I felt my spirit begin to knit back together. I was strong enough to say what I needed now.
I looked at Caffari as I spoke. “I told you the truth when I said I’m not a tr
ader. I’m a gutterborn from the slums of Istanik, turned nightcaller of the Nocturnai, turned soul priestess of Ioene. My name is Lilik Boket, and I led the resistance against the Trader Council in Istanik. And if I don’t get out of this mine before dawn, Trader Ulstat will kill my family.”
“You needn’t say anything more,” she said. “I—we believe you.” Her gaze roved over her band, scattered about the room. One by one, the smugglers abandoned their work and drifted over, forming a loose crowd around me.
“You saw what I can do,” I said.
Nervous shifting followed my words, the thieves’ discomfort obvious in their fidgeting feet, the way thumbs rubbed the pommels of their weapons.
“I won’t harm you,” I said. “No matter whether you help me or not. But I’d like your help. My powers may be frightening, but Mieshk Ulstat has gained abilities that are absolutely terrifying. She’s far away on Ioene right now, but unchecked, she’ll destroy the Kiriilt Islands. The waves striking the shores right now are just the beginning. I don’t know if I can stop her, but I have to try. Tonight, though, all I want is to save my da and my little brother, Jaret. I need to get back to House Ulstat before the sun rises. And when I do, I want to ruin the Ulstats for good.”
As I finished my speech, my eyes fell on Caffari. She examined her followers, watching their reactions. A good leader, she wouldn’t force them against their will. But when the men and women began to nod, wrapping fingers around the hilts of their swords, she turned to me, determination on her face.
“I have some ideas,” she said.
Torchlight flickered across the ceilings as we filed through the tunnels. Around forty smugglers in Caffari’s band joined Nyralit and me, escorting ten Ulstat prisoners bound, injured, and limping. A few of Caffari’s thieves had stayed behind to cart the most precious of their treasures deeper into the mine. From what I’d overheard, they’d hurry to a safe house afterward.
When people spoke, the voices echoed through the passage, the stone walls throwing words back on top of words into a confusing babble. The steady drip, drip of water punctuated our shuffling procession.
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