The Sky Weaver

by Kristen Ciccarelli

Eventually, Eris stopped trying.

  After all, things could be much worse.

  Jemsin was a monster, but if not for him, she wouldn’t be alive. He’d kept her safe from the empress before, and would do it again. That counted for something.

  Suddenly, the door clicked but didn’t open all the way.

  Eris held her breath, listening, as two voices issued into the room. One belonged to the commandant; the other she didn’t recognize. Eris glanced out the window, to the starry sky above Firgaard. It was well past midnight.

  Who would she be bringing back to her room?

  A sweetheart? Eris wondered. Her stomach turned over at the thought.

  But when the door opened wider and the commandant stepped inside, Safire stepped in alone.

  The moment she did, her strong posture softened. Her shoulders folded in. And just like that, she wasn’t the commandant. Wasn’t the proud cousin to the king.

  She was just a tired girl.

  Through the lace edge of the curtain, Eris watched Safire light the lamps, then move through the room. She disarmed herself first—unbuckling the saber at her hip, then the belt holding her throwing knives. She set both of these down on a tabletop near an arching window, then slid off her boots and undressed, donning a pale blue tunic that fell almost to her knees. The last thing Safire did before getting into bed was slide a slender, decorative throwing knife out of the knot of hair at the back of her head. This she hid under her pillow before blowing out the lamp flame.

  That was the knife Eris had come for.

  The sheets rustled. The wood creaked. And then: silence bled through the room.

  Eris remained still as a shadow while her sight adjusted to the darkness, waiting for the right time to strike. It wasn’t long before the commandant’s breathing changed: deepening and evening out.

  As soon as Eris was certain Safire was asleep, she stepped out from behind the curtains.

  This bedroom was far simpler than the king’s and queen’s rooms—which Eris had crept through simply to slake her curiosity. After the king and his sister, Safire was next in line for the throne. Eris expected lavish furnishings and fine silks. But Safire’s room was small, her bed even smaller—not big enough for even a bedfellow.

  Eris cloaked herself in shadow as she slunk across the room, awash in the silvery-blue night. Her footsteps made no sound as she stepped up to the bedframe. She should have reached immediately for the knife beneath the pillow. It could have been quick and easy. Over in an instant. But as she stood over Safire’s sleeping form, Eris . . . hesitated.

  The commandant looked so different asleep. Her black hair spilled like ink across the pillows. Her skin was much fairer than her two cousins’ and her pale brown fingers curled gently against her cheek. She looked not at all like the fearsome soldier who snapped and snarled and doled out orders. She seemed . . . young. Too young. Like a sapling that hadn’t quite taken root.

  Eris stared, drinking in the sight of her.

  It was only when the girl stirred that Eris remembered why she’d come. She set the scarp thistle down on the bedside table, and then—gently, slowly—slid her hand beneath the pillow.

  Soon, her fingertips brushed the cool steel of the commandant’s favorite throwing knife. Eris knew it was Safire’s favorite, because she’d spent the past few weeks trailing her like a shadow.

  When you watched someone as closely as Eris watched Safire, you couldn’t help but notice things.

  Carefully, Eris pulled the knife out from beneath the pillow. She stood there for several heartbeats, running her fingers over the decorative hilt, smiling a little as she did.

  The moment Eris turned to leave, however, something tightened around her ankle.

  Eris looked down. It took several heartbeats before she could make out what it was.

  A loop of slip-knotted rope. One made of twisted silken sheets that appeared to snake beneath the bed.

  Shock made Eris go still. Had it been there all along? Before Safire even entered the room?

  Had Safire anticipated her coming here tonight?

  “Who are you?” came that voice from behind Eris. The cold tip of a blade pressed into the back of her neck, digging into the skin.

  Eris felt a tug on the silk rope and knew the other end was gripped firmly in the commandant’s hand.

  This was a trap. One set for her.

  A torrent of conflicting emotions washed through Eris. If she wasn’t already late reporting to Jemsin, she might have been flattered.

  But she was late. And while the raven following her through Firgaard’s streets today might not have been Jemsin’s summoner, it wouldn’t be long before his summoner did arrive.

  A low and steady panic hummed within her. She needed to get out of here.

  “Who am I?” Eris said without turning, lifting her hands to show she meant no harm . . . all the while trying to determine just how far away Safire was. “I’m just a petty thief.”

  Safire’s voice was low and dangerous as she said, “How did you get in?”

  If Eris reached for her spindle, would the movement provoke Safire? She swallowed, casting her gaze through the moonlit room, trying to think of how to put space between her and this girl long enough to open the way across.

  She stalled for time.

  “How did I get into the palace? Or into your bedroom?” Eris asked the second question a little huskily, just to irritate Safire.

  The pressure on her ankle tightened as the blade against the back of her neck dug in hard, drawing warm, wet blood. Eris bit her lip at the prick of pain.

  “Both,” Safire growled. Clearly sick of Eris’s games, her voice rung with authority now. “Drop the knife. Then turn around slowly and answer my question.”

  Eris chewed her lip. Safire hadn’t looked upon her face since the day they’d run into each other in the hall—right after Eris stole the tapestry from the commandant’s office. Remembering the dismissive look in those blue eyes, Eris steeled herself. She dropped the knife, which clattered against the tiles at her feet, then slowly turned.

  Safire stood in nothing but a tunic. Eris’s gaze trailed up the girl, whose dark hair was loose around her lean shoulders. In one hand was a knife, held to Eris’s throat now. Her other gripped the end of the makeshift rope.

  When Eris met her gaze, she was surprised to find a sliver of admiration in Safire’s eyes—hidden beneath loathing and disgust, of course, but admiration nonetheless.

  It made Eris want to do something drastic.

  Something reckless.

  “Answer my question.” Safire repeated herself, narrowing her eyes. “How did you get in?”

  Eris smiled, thinking of the rumors she’d heard about herself. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she leaned in, as if to tell Safire a secret. “Didn’t you know the Death Dancer can walk through walls?”

  Safire took a careful step toward Eris, like a predator warily approaching prey. “You think you’re clever?” she said without breaking her gaze. “You think you impress me?”

  Eris’s smile fell away.

  “I deal with criminals like you by the barrelful. Every day.” Those blue eyes narrowed. “Trust me, Death Dancer. You’re just another delinquent with nothing better to do than bring chaos to people’s lives.”

  Safire took another step, moving in so close Eris could almost feel the heat of her body next to her own. “Do you know where people like you end up?” she said, drawing the steel of her knife gently across Eris’s skin, softly tracing her collarbones. Suddenly, her voice went flat. “You end up alone and forgotten in the belly of a dungeon. Which is exactly where I’m putting you.”

  Maybe it was the assumption beneath Safire’s words—that she was used to having the upper hand and thought she had it now. Or maybe it was the threat of her locking Eris up and forgetting about her—forever. Like she was nothing.

  Either way, it would not do.

  “I’d rather rot in a cell full of honest criminals than walk
free among you and your ilk,” said Eris, her knuckles bunching.

  Safire stared as if Eris were mad. “You consider thieves and murderers honest?” She shook her head. “You’re delusional.”

  But Eris wasn’t finished. “You helped King Dax steal a throne. Isn’t that why he made you his commandant?” She sneered at the thought. “And that cousin of yours—the Namsara—didn’t she kill a man to make her brother king? Sounds a lot like thieving and murdering to me. And yet here you all are, sleeping in silken beds, eating off silver platters, doling out judgments on everyone but yourselves.”

  That steel was back against her throat, pressing hard. It brought Eris out of herself—out of her fury—and back to reason.

  The longer you stay here bickering with this girl, the worse your punishment from Jemsin will be.

  At the thought of Jemsin, one of his lessons rose to Eris’s mind. From the early days when he’d first made her part of his crew. When she was yet too young to realize the monster he really was.

  The bent elbow forms a point, you see? He’d shown her using his own arm. It fits perfectly below the enemy’s ribs.

  “The former king was a tyrant,” Safire was saying, her voice sharp with warning. As if speaking against the commandant and her cousins was a felony in itself.

  Never fight fair, the captain’s voice rang through her mind. You understand? That’s not how you stay alive.

  “I’m not judging you for killing him, princess. I’m just wondering. . . .” Eris kept her gaze locked with Safire’s as she clenched her small fist. “Can it truly be justice when those who enforce the laws are the only ones exempt from them?”

  Safire’s nostrils flared.

  Before she could lash out, Eris punched—right where Jemsin showed her, all those years ago. Into the soft place beneath the girl’s ribs.

  The air whooshed out of Safire as her eyes went wide. She doubled over in shock, her knife falling away from Eris’s throat, gasping for a breath that wouldn’t come.

  Eris wasted no time. She took several steps away from the bed, then ran, diving beneath it and alongside Safire’s makeshift rope, grabbing the dropped knife as she did. Her slight frame slid swiftly and easily to the other side, putting half the room between her and Safire within heartbeats.

  Only half recovered from Eris’s punch, the commandant yanked on the rope, but there was too much slack now. Nothing happened.

  Eris bent down and slashed the silk with Safire’s knife.

  It severed easily.

  Fingers trembling, Eris withdrew her spindle from its pouch and immediately drew it across the floor tiles. The night seemed to deepen. A bright line—pale as starlight—flared to life. It quickly formed a threshold over which silver mist poured and rolled. The air turned damp, cold, and with it came the gentle pull of Across.

  It was then, with the door to another place yawning open before her, that Eris hesitated a second time.

  Rising to her feet, she looked across the room to where Safire stood in her nightdress: her nostrils flaring, her mouth pinched with fury. Fully recovered.

  I’m going to miss playing this game with you, Eris thought. The commandant had proven to be a formidable opponent.

  “It’s been fun, princess. But I have to go.”

  Safire moved, coming around the bed now. Coming straight for Eris. “The only place you’re going is into a prison cell, thief. . . .”

  The mist swirled, concealing her now.

  “Good-bye,” Eris said softly, stepping into the gray. Leaving the commandant behind. Trading the palace of Firgaard for a path of mist and starlight.

  She heard Safire begin to say something else, but the words were lost. Which was how Eris knew she was already a world away.

  When the mist receded and Eris opened her eyes, she was alone.

  But that was all right. Eris was used to being alone.

  Loneliness was a small price to pay for staying alive.

  The Shadow and the Fisherman’s Daughter

  Once there lived a boy with eyes as black as the sea, hands as swift as the wind, and footsteps as silent as death. He was a creature of the shadows who walked through the world alone and unheard and unseen.

  But the fisherman’s daughter saw him.

  Whenever he passed by her father’s wharf, Skye shivered. Each time she looked up, she saw the shadow moving through the meadow. Curious, she stepped away from the women of the cove and the codfish drying on the salt flakes, and followed him.

  The first time, she followed the lonely shape of him for three days. By the time he turned around and saw her, Skye was weak with hunger.

  The shadow recoiled at the sight of her.

  Skye knew what she looked like. Her body was too small, too slight, too bony. Her eyes were set too wide apart and one of them always looked in the wrong direction.

  She’d been born too early. No one had expected her to live. Skye looked down at her knobby hands, studying them as if for the first time. Seeing what he saw.

  The shadow scowled. Before he could tell her to go away, though, she looked up at him with her one good eye.

  For such a frail thing, she had a fierce gaze.

  “What’s your name?” her small voice asked.

  He shook his head, annoyed by her presence. He didn’t have time to indulge the whims of mortal creatures. They were nothing more than soon to be ghosts; their finite little lives beginning and ending in the span of a sunrise.

  “I don’t have a name,” he told her.

  “Then I’ll call you Crow.”

  “Call me whatever you like,” he said, turning away. It wouldn’t matter. He would never see her again. He would make a point of walking more silently past her father’s wharf next time.

  “Crow,” she said, and her voice pinned the word to him like a spell. “Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere you can never come.” And with that, he slipped into the shadows, into nothing, leaving the fisherman’s daughter alone.

  A month later, as he was walking at dusk, Crow heard familiar footsteps behind him. Turning to look, he found the crooked-eyed Skye trailing after him through the cliff-top meadow.

  “What are you doing?” he growled at her, his pace quickening.

  “Coming along.”

  He spun. “No!” This time, he spoke with the voice of the sea—thunderous and terrifying. After all, Crow had only to breathe on her and she’d crumple like a pile of sticks.

  Skye took a step back, quivering.

  But she did not stop.

  Again and again, when he walked past her father’s wharf, or through her cove, or up the cliffs looming above her house, Skye saw and followed him.

  He bellowed at her. Threatened her. Chased her back.

  Just when he thought he was rid of her, there she was. Again and again and again. Always a little older than she was the time before.

  Finally, he gave up. Gave in. Stopped trying to lose her in the shadows. Instead, when he heard those familiar fragile footsteps, he slowed and let her catch up.

  In the beginning, he ignored her endless nattering as she spoke about everything under the sky. But days turned to weeks, and though he wasn’t sure how or when it happened, he found himself lulled back from dark thoughts by the sound of her voice. Again and again, he found himself drawn to her knowledge of the winds and the tides and the skill of her small hands—rowing her dory through an angry sea; pulling nets full of shimmering fish into her father’s boat; and, most especially, weaving rough spools of wool into beautiful webs of color. Tapestries, she called them.

  More than anything else in the world, he learned, Skye loved to weave.

  But things from the shadows did not make friends with mortal girls. And fishermen’s daughters grew into women. Women who fell in love with mortals just like them. Mortals who bore children and grew old and eventually stepped through Death’s cold, dark gate.

  And yet, Crow waited for her.

  Worse still, he began to seek he
r out.

  Four

  The Sea Mistress was moored just north of the Rif Mountains, about a day’s sail from the port city of Darmoor. The moment she stepped aboard, Eris went to report to the pirate Kor, as per Jemsin’s orders. Kor’s cabin door was closed and she could hear the faint sound of muffled voices within. Not wanting to risk his temper by walking in on something, Eris handed over her spindle to Rain, the first mate—something Kor insisted on. She told Rain to inform Kor that he could find her belowdecks when he finished.

  Kor was Jemsin’s precious protégé. A year after the scrin burned, Jemsin found Kor beaten half to death by a dockhand in Axis’s port. Kor was thirteen at the time, and the dockhand was his father. Jemsin killed the man and took Kor, raising him like his own son and turning him into a formidable pirate. Jemsin’s crew grumbled about the favor he bestowed on Kor. Thirteen-year-old boys were half-grown men and less moldable than children, they said. He should have been more careful.

  They were right. When Kor turned eighteen, he started showing signs of dissatisfaction. It wasn’t enough to be part of Jemsin’s crew, obeying Jemsin’s orders. He wanted his own crew. He wanted to give orders.

  Kor was an investment Jemsin couldn’t afford to let spoil. So he gave Kor his own ship—with the understanding that Kor would continue to do his bidding. He would patrol the waters Jemsin wanted him to patrol. He would attack the ships Jemsin wanted him to attack. He would come to Jemsin’s aid when requested. In order to ensure Kor’s obedience, Jemsin gave him a crew full of spies. That way he could keep an eye on Kor from a distance, enabling him to get word if Kor ever planned to stab him in the back.

  Fully aware of the spies in his ranks, Kor bided his time, sniffing them out and slowly winning them over, making promises better than the ones Jemsin made. Now, two years later, his crew was fully his own—a fact Jemsin knew, and one that made him nervous.

  But other than outright killing Kor, there was nothing Jemsin could do. Kor hadn’t done anything to provoke such an action. Not yet, anyway.

  It was only a matter of time, though. Because the more power Kor tasted, the more he wanted. One day, Kor would break free of Jemsin. Eris knew this. So did Jemsin. But before Kor made his final move, he wanted one more thing. Something Jemsin would never give him.