Duskwoven

by Carrie Summers

  “The cannon! Where’s Pirri? Where’s my baby?” The woman tried to pull away from the spirits.

  Leesa Ulstat seemed to grow bigger as if her heart swelled to hold them inside. “Your child is still alive,” she said. “Here, let me show you.”

  At once, I felt my attention drawn to a little spark that twinkled yellow against the fathomless aether. “She’s laughing,” you see. “A neighbor has her. They’re running.”

  I glanced at Nyralit. A wrinkle on her brow mirrored my strange feeling of unease. I’d come here for a reason. Time was short, but I had difficulty with the concept.

  The cannon . . . At once, I felt Tyrak again. He shoved his way through madness and reached for me.

  Lilik, whatever you’re going to do. Do it now. There’s no time.

  The duskweaving. Of course. I’d come to bind these spirits to my Need. How much time had passed?

  My walls were already gone—I couldn’t open any farther to the aether. Yet the only bond I held was with Nyralit. How to begin?

  Chewing my illusory lip, I imagined how it would feel to be one with this group of spirits, infused into the fabric of their realm. One by one, I reached for the souls. But in my mind’s eye, I took each spirit by the hand. At our contact, rapturous expressions lit their faces. I pulled each soul close, knotting them to me.

  “You Need us,” someone mumbled.

  ““It’s like before, only stronger,” another said.

  “Lilik,” Leesa whispered. “Do you sense it? The choice?”

  I closed my mind to the images projected within the aether, shutting out Leesa’s congregation and the twinkling sparks of the living. As before, the whirl of possibility surrounded me, a vast, incomprehensible tumult. Yet within the storm, I picked out first one vortex, and then another, swirling close then whipping away. In both, I sensed destruction. A slow, agonizing darkness, or a fiery torrent. Either would serve my need. Somehow, I knew that when I stepped forward, one of the whirlwinds would suck me in. But I had no way to know which.

  “Time is short,” Leesa said. “The Need is almost too much for us.”

  The spinning futures were dizzying. Hypnotic. I lost track of the vortices, but felt them waiting. My control over the duskweaving started to slip. Desperate, I leaped into fortune’s grasp.

  I felt as if I were expanding. Growing to fill the space. The filthy depravity of the Ulstat realm retreated even as it pressed harder against us. My weave unfurled across the aether, blanketing the taint of the Ulstats. The maddened strands were suffocating, confined in a smaller and smaller space. Their anger and torment only strengthened as they were forced into the crush. But they were helpless against the constant press of our joined spirits.

  The ball of rage grew blacker and denser. Their hatred was a whirling sphere falling beneath our tide. And all at once, they chose fire.

  The aether flashed with the concussion as hundreds of dead Ulstats and their loyal servants disintegrated, giving themselves to the fire in the same way that Mieshk fed strands to Ioene. Following the first detonation, a wave of writhing strands flashed to life inside the collapsing bubble of the Ulstat domain. Newly dead, flashing into the aether in a burst of malevolence only to explode as they, too, joined with the fire. Somewhere in the world beyond the aether, dozens of Ulstats and their loyalists were dying.

  What had happened? On Ioene, each strand given to the fire had brought anger and spume from the volcano. Lava had coursed down the mountainside while ash sprayed high toward the heavens. No volcano burned inside Araok Island. Yet the fire had unleashed destructive fury all the same. I just had no idea what form it had taken.

  Under the assault of the Ulstat strands’ final act, I felt the weave tattering, burning away at the edges, and focused every drop of my will to hold it together. The spirits bound to me cried out, despaired, then accepted my urging and strengthened their resistance.

  We held firm against the Ulstats’ final blast of destruction.

  And in the silence that followed, I heard someone sobbing. A man. Raav?

  A strange hush filled the aether, quieting the odd cry I’d heard. Or maybe it had been my imagination. I remembered Raav. In the past, I thought I might have fallen in love with him. But he’d married someone else.

  After a while, souls shook free of the daze. One by one, I released my hold on the spirits. Taking children and the elderly, mothers and cobblers and blacksmiths by the hand, I squeezed with affection and then released contact.

  The aether woke, murmurs rising to a babble that hummed through the space.

  Once I’d finished unraveling the weave, Leesa stood before me. She fixed me with a kind expression.

  “It’s been centuries, from what I understand of time,” she said. “Thank you for finally cleansing our realm.”

  I furrowed my brow, hearing her words, but wondering how she couldn’t feel it. The Ulstat domain had winked from existence, but the pressing doom still lingered at the fringe of the aether. I sensed that I should recognize it, but trying to seriously consider anything felt like pulling my thoughts out of sticky mud. I could recall one fact, though. The Ulstats weren’t gone. Only the spirits of their dead had obliterated themselves.

  “There will be more. The Ulstat line continues.”

  “But maybe we can guide them now. We no longer need to battle the weight of centuries of hatred.”

  Nyralit appeared beside me. She cupped my face in her hand. “You don’t belong here, Lilik. Not yet.”

  I nodded but struggled to recall why. That sob. It couldn’t really have been Raav, could it? He had married Ashhi, right?

  “It’s hard to remember things,” I said.

  “It’s because you’re divided.” Eron held Leesa’s hand. When had he reappeared? “Most of your spirit is here. But some lingers inside your body, waiting for your return.”

  “How do you know that?” I looked down at myself. Embarrassingly, I was wearing the sort of tattered clothes that were all my family could afford before I left on the Nocturnai. My sandals clung to my feet with ragged straps, and the pants ended halfway up my shins.

  “Because your light is in two places.”

  The memory of a silvery thread rose in my thoughts. I looked around—where had it gone? I saw only the other spirits, the vast nothingness of the aether, the countless sparks of the living. And beyond, the lurking malevolence that was both green-black and colorless. Heavy and encroaching, and not there at all.

  “But I don’t know how to leave,” I said.

  “The other part of your light,” Leesa said. “Can you see it?”

  I felt my attention nudged to a silvery glow that brightened and waned. Flared and faded. “That’s me?”

  She nodded. “Go to it.”

  As I stared at the light, it grew brighter as if swimming up to greet me. Another spark stood beside it, shining a deep, royal blue tinged with streaks of violet-black.

  “The blue and black are colors of grief and fear,” the Silent Queen said.

  I reached out to touch the blue light, and Raav’s awareness exploded in my mind. He was crying, clutching something close, awash with despair. I remembered now. He had married Ashhi. But this grief . . . it wasn’t for her.

  “Raav!” I said.

  “He can’t hear you.”

  “Is he with my . . . body?”

  Leesa nodded. I circled around the two lights, one roiling in pain, one scarcely there at all. Raav’s presence here, his anguish meant that he still cared. That was clear. But I understood little else.

  “What’s happening to me? To my body?”

  Leesa dipped hands into Raav’s light. “Your body is in grave danger. The fires are so close,” she said, her voice tight with sudden fear. “But it may not matter, because your spirit is dying as fast as the danger approaches.”

  I reached for the silvery light, the last spark of spirit filling my body. It shied away from my grip. I snatched again, but it squirted away. As I watched, the light b
egan to fade.

  “Lilik!” Raav cried. His voice sounded as if he spoke in a cavern miles away. “I’m trying! Please don’t die. I can’t go on without you.”

  Again I tried to join my body, diving for the light. Again, my spirit slipped away, like a bead of oil on a skim of water.

  “What can I do, Leesa?” I asked, desperate.

  As I spoke, my light dimmed again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “TELL ME WHAT to do!” I shrieked. The vastness of the aether muffled my voice, stealing the fear from it.

  Leesa’s eyes were full of compassion—and sadness. “I don’t know, Lilik.”

  “What did you do with his spirit?” I asked. “I felt his emotions when I brushed his spark, but I want to see what’s happening, too.”

  She nodded. “When sparks burn as brightly as his does, we can sometimes perceive the world through them. Especially when their emotions are heightened.”

  “Show me. If I’m going to die, I want to know how. I want to be there.”

  Nyralit laid an incorporeal hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure? It won’t bring you peace.”

  “Yes. Show me. Please.”

  “Very well.” With a nod of assent, Leesa mingled part of her spirit with mine, giving the sense that our hands joined. She led me forward and guided me into Raav’s spark.

  The world exploded in fire and fear. Across the refinery, the mules screamed as they died. Flame licked the far wall, and a choking smoke rolled across the ceiling. But the real danger was closer. The crack in the ore pot ran from the rim all the way to the bottom. Molten metal and rock bubbled out. Above the pot, the chain securing it was red-hot. It would give at any moment, releasing the cauldron and a deluge of lava.

  “Hang on, Lilik!”

  Through Raav’s eyes, I saw my body slumped against the post. I hung from the shackles, chains wrenching my shoulders. Despite the heat, my face had a waxen, gray pallor.

  Sweat streamed from Raav’s pores, stinging his eyes and blurring his vision. Running his hand along my arm, he stopped at the iron cuff and pried at it with his fingers. Nothing. Nearby, a small, steel-headed mallet lay on the floor. He snatched it and pulled my arm, trying to place a length of chain against the post. He hoped to smash the links to break them. No use—the chain wouldn’t reach.

  Raav’s eyes shot to the bolts holding my chains to the rafter. He whipped his head around, searching. A ladder rested against the closest wall. Splinters dug into his skin as he lifted it and leaned it against the rafter. When he stepped on the first rung, the top of the ladder skidded off the rafter. He fell, elbow cracking the floor, ladder clattering down atop him.

  Head lolling, eyes half-lidded, my body gave no reaction to his fall.

  Raav tried again, balancing the ladder, tested it. Satisfied, he ran toward the wall and grabbed an ore pick from a hook. He scrambled up the ladder, pick in hand. His first strike missed the bolt. The pick’s sharp point lodged in the wood. Grunting, Raav worked it back and forth until it popped free. The sudden movement flung his body away from the ladder like a barn door swinging wide. Only a desperate grab for the rafter kept him from falling.

  Again he struck, and this time sparks flew from the soft metal of the bolt. He aimed again, and finally gouged a link in the chain. Another miss, and the swing after that bit into the chain again. Holstering the ore pick through his belt loop, Raav grabbed the chain and pried. The link bent but didn’t break. He whacked it again with the pick, and finally, the link broke. The length of chain binding my right arm crashed to the floor. My body toppled, boneless, to the floor with my left arm still tugged toward the ceiling.

  Raav half-climbed, half-jumped down the ladder and ran to me. Above the furnace, the chain holding the ore pot groaned.

  He laid a finger against the pulse point in my neck. After far too much time, a single heartbeat pushed the blood through my veins.

  “Just hold on, Lilik! Just a minute more.” He pressed his lips to my forehead and searched the area. Leaping up, he grabbed a shovel, set the flat blade on the earthen floor, then scooted my body back to give slack in the chain binding my left wrist. Laying it across the shovel, he took aim and struck with the pick. The first hit glanced off, sending the chain skittering away. Raav bit his lip, grabbed the chain, and breathed deep to gather his focus.

  The cauldron fell, plummeting down, glancing off the furnace, whirling in the air. Molten metal splattered the refinery. Gobs landed on either side of us, lighting wood and straw where they landed. The massive pot bounced then rolled, a stream of fire following. Like molasses, lava oozed from the cauldron. Ten paces away. Five. The bottoms of Raav’s shoes were about to burst into flame.

  He closed his eyes again. Swallowed. Struck.

  The chain broke in two.

  Yelling through gritted teeth, Raav scooped me in his arms and sprinted for the door. He leaped the line of fire where the cauldron had left a trail of molten metal. Shouldered aside the door, and stepped into full, bright daylight.

  At once, my strength waned and I lost my connection with Raav’s spirit.

  The aether felt cold, as if I might expand so far I’d dissipate into nothing.

  “It’s a strain on your spirit to conform to another’s spark,” Leesa explained.

  “My spark . . . am I gone?”

  She shook her head. “Fading. Here. Let me help you recover.”

  From the edges of my spirit, a hum of energy penetrated, tickling like the hum of a swarm of bees. I felt rejuvenated. Whole again.

  “Thank you.”

  Leesa nodded. “Of course.” Her voice sounded thinner. Less substantial. I hoped she would recover whatever she’d given me.

  Once again, I was able to perceive Raav’s spark and the scrap of my spirit beside it. Concentrating, I tried to join with my body in the same way Leesa had shown me with Raav’s spark. But my spark just fled my grasp, fading with the energy spent.

  “Can you hold it?” I asked Leesa.

  In her projected image, she chewed her lip. Reaching forward, she cradled my spark. But when I extended toward it, the silvery veil just spread thin, stretching and fading and threatening to wink out entirely.

  “I don’t know what else to do but keep a vigil,” I said finally. “Will you stay with me?”

  “Nothing could make me leave,” Nyralit said.

  “Nor I,” said the Silent Queen.

  Before me, Raav’s spark throbbed, a deep blue-violet. A black halo fringed his light. I had so many questions. How had he found me? How had he escaped the Ulstats? The daylight had come again. When? My skewed perception of time made the questions even harder to answer. But at least my thoughts were clearer now. So close to my body, I no longer felt I was losing track of myself.

  I traced the shape of my fading spark as it flowed, silvery, in the air before me. The tranquility of the aether lent a sense of calm. I suspected the serenity here was Leesa’s doing. I remembered the confusion and torment that had permeated the aether in my home city of Istanik. No channelers had been ready to guide Istaniker souls to their next existence. None worked here on Araok either, but Leesa and her congregation made up for it by receiving the newly dead with love and compassion.

  My body’s spark was a dull gray now. Not much longer.

  Out of habit, I closed my eyes to the surrounding aether and reached for Tyrak. A shock traveled my spirit when I felt his contact. But his response was strange. Separate. It felt almost like I sensed his spirit through a thick pane of glass.

  Can you hear me? I asked.

  I felt confusion from him. A thrashing of attention as he searched for me. But no words entered the aether. It made sense; Tyrak could speak to other nightstrands, but only when I provided a conduit with my channeling ability. Without me or another channeler, he would never speak to Zyri again. Only an ability like mine could break the thick glass that kept them apart.

  “Raav?” I asked. Nothing.

  At least Raav and I would nev
er be separated like Tyrak and Zyri. Neither of us would be stolen from the aether and eternally imprisoned in a nightforged object. Someday, he would die and join me again. For his sake, I hoped it would be many years before that happened.

  As my spirit began its final fade to black, Raav’s anguish grew to a boiling, blue-black cloud around his spark. Desperate to be with him during my final moments, I dove inside his light. His emotions consumed me. Regret for the future we’d never share. Hatred for what the Ulstat’s had done. A strange . . . pity for Ashhi. But almost every drop of his soul focused on me. Immersed in his spark, I felt my body in his arms. My skin was growing cold, my heart no longer beating.

  He leaned to kiss me, and I felt the cool texture of my unmoving lips beneath his. My head rolled on his forearm, face falling away from his as he straightened.

  “Rot, Lilik!” he cursed. “Why?”

  Anger flooded his body. It sizzled through his veins while his muscles tensed beneath the fine fabric of his wedding tunic. And just as quickly as it had come, the rage vanished.

  “I wish we’d had a chance,” he whispered, running his thumb along my cheekbone. I felt his hand run across my knee, the roughness of my linen bandages beneath his fingers, the rigid wooden slats of my splint. Underneath his fingers, Tyrak was a strange, angular shape hidden in the bandage.

  Lilik! Tyrak’s thought blasted through Raav and into my mind.

  Raav jerked. “What?”

  “Tyrak? You can hear me?” I said, still speaking aloud within the aether.

  Oh, thank the tides. Lilik! You’re dying!

  “I know. I can’t get back. I’m sorry.”

  Raav squeezed his head between his hands. “What’s going on?”

  Can he hear me? Tyrak asked.

  Raav? I thought.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  Raav. It’s . . . Tyrak. Lilik’s dagger. Can you hear me?