“Did you think this was over?” Ethiel hissed.
Again, the red needles shot at Mirolah from behind. She let her body go limp, sinking into the threads, and repelled the attack, but her defense was slower.
“I underestimated you, girl,” Ethiel said. “Savor your victory. You are nothing, do you understand? Nothing!”
“Give her to me,” Kikirian growled, waiting eagerly below.
“Yes, Kikirian,” Ethiel murmured. “Have her.” Mirolah’s body plummeted toward the dramath.
Mirolah reached out to force Ethiel’s threads apart again, but before she could, the dramath snatched her leg and yanked her down. Kikirian wrapped one huge hand around her neck.
She doggedly tried to force his fingers, as thick as her wrists, open with her threadweaving, but Ethiel batted down her attempt. Kikirian’s grip tightened. A cry escaped her. He was going to break her neck.
“Hold for a moment, dramath,” the Red Weaver said.
“Don’t play with her, Ethiel,” Kikirian warned, but he stopped squeezing. “Just let me kill her.”
“Be quiet,” Ethiel snapped. “I want to know how she learned about my connection to the Fountain.”
“It was…obvious,” Mirolah said, clenching hard to her defiance and pushing the words out of her tight throat. They’d kill her, but she wasn’t going to grovel before them or give up Harleath before they did. Besides, she had one more thing to do before she went down.
She lashed out at the spell around Medophae. She grabbed his infected threads, imagined them gold like Oedandus’s fire.
But Ethiel’s weaving was stronger than anything she had tried to change before, as though Ethiel had put more of her concentration into it than anything else.
Mirolah was only able to turn a handful of the threads gold before Ethiel’s red worms swarmed over her changes, devouring Mirolah’s attack and replacing the gold with red, restoring the spell to its impenetrable perfection.
“Snap her neck, Kikirian,” Ethiel said.
49
Medophae
Medophae stood at the rail of the balcony of his study in the palace, gazing at the red sands and the rolling ocean in the distance. Lately, he sought this balcony often. He wasn’t sure why. He had never spent time here before, but it seemed comfortable somehow.
The distant whitecaps on the surf winked at him, the waves curling, crashing, flattening, only to curl and crash again. Saraphazia ruled that great expanse of blue, and Medophae knew she liked things to remain constant. The ocean was like her living body, and he imagined the waves like the ocean breathing. Thinking of Saraphazia made him think of her impassioned brother, Tarithalius, the god of humans.
Thinking of the deep-voiced, bearded god gave Medophae an inexplicable hollowness in his stomach, like something horrible had happened to Tarithalius. But he was hale and hearty, happily wading through the Polikses War. Why should Medophae feel this sense of foreboding when he thought of the god?
And then there was Bands. He had that same, hollow feeling of loss when he looked at her, even when she was standing right in front of him.
He wondered if it was some kind of threadweaving they hadn’t perceived, an insidious spell laid over Calsinac. Usually, the first person he would talk to about that kind of problem was Bands. She could detect most spells easily. But he didn’t...
Medophae pushed the thought from his head and let out a slow breath, then said the thought aloud so he could hear how ridiculous it was.
“I don’t trust her,” he murmured. He decided this must be what it felt like to go insane. He didn’t trust Bands. But he couldn’t deny that she seemed different. It just didn’t make any sense, because she sounded the same, acted the same, shared all of their personal jokes.
He tried to track his memory back to when he began feeling this way, and it always went back to the beach, where he first experienced that feeling of displacement and memory loss. He still didn’t remember going there, though Bands assured him that they had walked every step of it together. She showed him their footsteps. They even came across a flower that had fallen from her hair. It lay on the red sand on their return path. She explained how he had picked it for her.
After, he had walked the palace half in a dream. He knew every room, every twist in the hall, every color of every tapestry adorning the walls, yet he still felt lost in—
“Daydreaming, my love?” Bands spoke from behind him. Her voice was pure music. It soothed him, as it always did. He put aside his foul, dark thoughts and smiled as he turned around. Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the wide wooden rail and contemplated her. His worries vanished, and he cursed himself for a fool.
She was the most alluring thing he had ever seen. He had heard from many people that, after many years, the fire of romance banked into the low-burning coals of companionship. But he had been with Bands for centuries. To this day, he still got a catch in his throat when he looked at her.
“You shine,” he murmured to her. “You rival the setting sun.”
She gave her crooked smile. He loved that smile. Both corners of her mouth curled up, but one was noticeably higher than the other, giving her the look of a wise woman and a saucy maiden at the same time. He’d never seen another woman with the same smile.
Her eyes glimmered, the shimmering green of an emerald. They were a dragon’s eyes, and if you looked closely, you could see it. The pupils were not completely round, but elongated vertically, not so sharp as a cat’s eye, but noticeable if you knew to look.
Bands was a shapeshifter, but no matter what form she chose, those dragon eyes never changed. They reflected the unending expanse of years she had seen and a strength beyond human understanding. Yet, with all that power, she always looked down after a long moment of his stare, as if she was shy. Was that her dragon’s way of blushing? He had never asked her why she did that. He didn’t want to know. Some things were better as mysteries.
“Diddier Milessius is fuming,” she said after the little dip of her gaze. She stood in the archway, poised and composed like the arch was a frame and she the subject of a master painting. “He is outraged at being made to wait.”
Medophae nodded. “It’s why I made him wait.”
“That may not be wise,” she mused.
“Diddier thinks he’s king in Calsinac. He’s not.”
“Without Diddier, trade with the north would all but stop.”
Medophae grunted. “For a time. Someone would step up. If you make a hole in the ocean, water rushes in to fill it. Diddier thinks he is the ocean, all by himself. Truth be known, I would almost welcome him withdrawing. It would make room for scores of other caravan drivers anxious for the opportunity, and likely filled with a much smaller sense of self-importance.”
“That could take months, even years.”
“I know. Diddier is wealthy, but greedy. He is powerful, but petty. A man like this cannot be Calsinac’s salvation. We founded Calsinac on different principles than that.”
“We did, my love—”
A slash of golden light rent the stone of the wall just to Bands’s right. Beyond, deep red glowed like fire, illuminating red castle walls with tall windows and red curtains.
Medophae leapt between Bands and the attack. She stepped away from him, searching for the cause of his distress as though she didn’t see the obvious weaving of the spell. The godsword raged to life in his clenched fist, and he stared at the opening, ready. But no chips of stone broke from the wall. It was as if the air had been nothing but a canvas with the balcony of his room painted on it, and someone had torn the canvas to reveal the red wall and tall curtains beneath.
“What is it, my love?” Bands asked, circling behind him and gazing in the same direction he was.
“There’s a hole.” Medophae studied it. The red room beyond was cavernous, some kind of great room. There was a battle scene painted on the ceiling, and wide, curved steps leading downward, as if they stood on a dais. “A...portal,” he said.<
br />
“Where?” she asked again, her voice edged with concern.
He pointed, close enough to almost touch it. “There, half covering the wall, half covering...the air opening onto the balcony,” he murmured. “You can’t see it?”
“There’s nothing, my love.”
“Yes, it’s there...” Beyond the rip, he saw a dramath! It was Kikirian, the god’s lackey who had been there the day Medophae slew Dervon. Kikirian held a struggling young woman in his huge arms, and...she seemed familiar. He tried to think of her name, and his head began to ache.
He heard Bands behind him, whispering. She often did when she was threadweaving. She thought he was being attacked. She was coming to his aid.
“No. It’s okay,” he said. He put a hand to his head, tried to chase the elusive name. Who was the young woman? He saw her face, her wavy brown hair. Oddly, her face reminded him of the beach, though she obviously had not been there. It had been just him and Bands.
Bands continued murmuring. The portal began to close.
“No, wait,” Medophae said. “I know that girl. She needs our help.” The portal vanished, and the castle wall returned to normal. “Bands, I said don’t!” He looked back at her.
“Don’t what?” she asked.
“Don’t close the portal.”
“Medophae, I didn’t close anything. I don’t see a hole. I was threadweaving to try to find what you were looking at. You say it’s gone now?”
Medophae turned and put his hand on the wall, felt the air beneath the balcony’s arch. The wall was solid and the air was air. “It... Damn it!” He let the godsword flicker and fade.
Then the name came to him, as though a wall in his mind had cracked, and it had slipped through.
“Mirolah...” he whispered. His head throbbed now, like it was resisting this new information. He fought it.
How did he know that name? He’d never heard that name before in his life. With a growl, he turned around, putting a hand to his pounding head. “I’ve been here before,” he croaked.
“It’s your balcony. You come here every day. Or at least, you have for the past week,” she said, and every time she spoke, it broke his train of thought. Who was Mirolah? Why did he feel this need to get to her, to protect her?
“Give me a moment,” he said. “Please. I have to think—”
“You’re worrying me.”
“Just for a moment. Don’t speak.” By Thalius, his head felt like it was going to crack open!
“If you’re seeing things, there are herbs I know that will help.”
“Bands, I’ve asked you twice. Just give me a moment to...” He turned to her, and he felt a cold trickle run down his spine. Bands didn’t chatter. Even in the midst of heated battle, she was calm, and she said little. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked her to stop talking. He had never asked her to stop talking twice, let alone three times.
“Medin, what’s wrong?” She watched him with those beautiful, exotic dragon eyes.
“This place. This entire time. I... I think I’ve been here before.”
“Of course you have. This is where we live—”
“No, I’ve done it before. I’ve lived this before. I’m living it again. I don’t belong here.”
“Of course you belong here. With me. I love you.”
That didn’t sound like Bands at all. Her words struck a discordant tone. Her confession of love was...beseeching.
His head pounded. The details of the portal grew fuzzy. He closed his eyes, tried desperately to hold onto the name that had sparked his memory, but it was fading. Miro... Mira... Mir...
She took his head in her hands and shook it lightly. The name vanished. “I don’t know what you’re seeing, Medin, but it’s not real. Come out of the sun.”
“You’re not listening,” he said.
“I am, but you aren’t making sense, beloved.”
“Yes I am,” he said, and he took a step away from her.
She froze, like a thief caught stealing money, then she flashed him a quick smile, held her hands out palms forward. “Medin, what do you—”
“You’re not Bands,” he said, and his stomach twisted. She was saying the wrong things, things Bands would never say.
She looked wounded, and guilt stabbed at him. He loved this woman more than his own life.
“I think you’ve taken ill, my love. Look at me. Don’t you recognize me?”
“You’re not Bands,” he repeated, holding on to the elusive feeling that threatened to fade, even as the name of the woman in the portal had faded.
Bands moved toward him with the fluid grace he knew so well, and raised her hands to his face. “You love me. I love you. This is what you want. It is what you’ve always wanted.”
He shied away from her, horrified. She made a grab for his head that he barely dodged. The rail of the balcony hit his back, and his heart thundered in his chest.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“I’m Bands.” Her green gaze glittered, and he saw that their pupils were round.
“No,” he said. “You’re not.” The godsword sparked to life, and he drove it into her chest.
50
Mirolah
Mirolah would have screamed, but Kikirian choked the breath from her. She clenched her teeth, eyes shut. Gods, it hurt so bad...
Then he stopped.
Her eyes flew open. Kikirian’s murderous face was right before her, the pointed horn almost touching her nose. His enormous hand was wrapped her neck, but he had stopped squeezing. Slowly, the grip eased, and Mirolah sucked in a deep, ragged breath, coughing.
With a furious growl, he jerked his other hand up, grappling with her head, and trying to twist, but he couldn’t get a grip. Something was holding his hands at bay. He roared and tried again.
Ethiel’s cloudy self flowed forward. “Kill her,” she demanded.
Kikirian’s arms flew away from Mirolah as if they’d been struck.
Black light oozed over Ethiel, Kikirian, and the entire throne room. Time stopped. Ethiel’s voluptuous form froze, arms up, preparing to aid Kikirian. Kikirian’s hands were still thrown wide, his face an unmoving snarl. They weren’t moving. Yet somehow, Mirolah could move. Holding her broken arm and wrist, she got away from Kikirian and looked about. Medophae stood next to Ethiel’s throne, still entranced, frozen like the rest.
“What a refreshing surprise you have been, Mirolah of Rith,” a voice said.
She turned, searching, trying to absorb everything that was happening. The raw pain in her throat, the fierce agony in her arm. A moment ago, she had expected to die. The pain in her body, the shock at being alive, left her unbalanced and confused, but finally, she spotted the man speaking.
He was a medium-sized man, and he walked toward her across black marble that had once been red. He wore clothing from a bygone age, a high collar that went almost up to his ears, and a finely tooled, black leather vest tight against his chest, fastened up the front with wooden toggles. Beneath was a billowy white shirt with lace at the cuffs and throat. His black leather breeches tucked neatly into wide-cuffed, knee-high boots. He reminded her a little of Orem, except Orem had the weathered quality of a traveler. This man had no rough edges. He looked as though he’d walked out of the court the Age of Ascendance.
“I— Were you the one who...” She swallowed through the pain in her throat and tried to focus. “Did you stop everything?”
“Indeed.”
There were more threadweavers in this Fountain than bees in a hive. But Harleath had said threadweavers gathered to the Fountain as soon as it started leaking GodSpill.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “You saved my life...”
“You, a fledgling,” he said. “Have set the Red Weaver on her heels. That deserves applause.”
Mirolah cast a nervous glance at the frozen Ethiel, expecting her to deduce the nature of this odd weaving and begin her attack.
“How can you control time?” s
he asked, trying to give herself a moment. She reached out, pulled GodSpill from the walls and whispered to the threads of her arm, her throat. The bones knit together; the internal bleeding stopped. Flesh healed.
She drew a painless breath and set her mind back to this new threadweaver. How did one find the threads of time? Time had no presence, no physical form; how could it have threads?
The man was watching her as if he knew exactly what she was doing. Only when she was done healing did he start speaking again. “This kind of weaving is older than the Fountain, older than the Red Weaver. It comes from a time when weaving was the pursuit of only the most driven. When I first learned about the great tapestry, the GodSpill was hard-won. We scraped it from the bones of the land. It took me years after my death to learn the secrets of time.
“However, the flow of time, like a dammed river, must eventually break free. We cannot linger forever.”
“Help me and Medophae escape.”
He gave her a disapproving look. “Escape? Really? After all this? To come so far only to collapse under your fear?” He shook his head. “You disappointment me.”
“She’s just too strong. I can’t...” she said. “She’s going to kill me.”
“Of course she will. And if you run, she will find you. And then she will kill you. There is only one way to make sure she doesn’t.”
Mirolah took a deep breath.
“That’s better,” the man said.
She viewed him with her weaver’s sight. It did not surprise her when she found that he was another spirit. Any threadweavers who weren’t spirits would be like her, new to it, just learning. How many threadweavers had lashed their spirits to life when their bodies died?
“Who are you?” she asked.
“If you’d like to get acquainted, we can do so until my weaving crumples and time begins again. Or, you can keep your questions for another time and follow me.” He gestured at her, and she hesitated. “Come, young weaver. Join me as a spirit, and I will give you the edge you seek.”
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