Lightning Strikes Twice (Unweaving Chronicles Book 2)

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Our kisses, while passionate before, were life in that moment. They fed me, restored me. I abandoned all reservations and threw myself into loving Rusk wholeheartedly.

  “I’m here, Wild Girl.” He whispered, when finally we drifted into peace in each other’s arms. “I’ll never leave again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ancient Patterns

  RUSK SHOOK ME AWAKE in the light of dawn. His tender smile was the first thing I saw. He kissed me lightly on the forehead.

  “You’d better get dressed. I can see the edge of the Veen Empire.”

  “So far, already?”

  “The Eaglekin are swift runners when they hit full speed.”

  I shed my dress, shivering in the cold as I wiggled into my travel clothing and outer garments from my bag. I still had the oak leaf pin and the tether in my pockets. I traced the design of the pin with my finger. Kjexx had bought these for us. It gave them a strange significance they didn’t have yesterday.

  “How do you know we are at the edge of the Empire?”

  “Graxx said it ends at those hills. The Landers — Kjexx’s people — wait for us there and the Eaglekin will need rest once we get there.”

  I nodded, cinching my belt. Rusk handed me a bundle wrapped in cloth.

  “What is this?”

  “If it belongs to anyone, then it belongs to you.”

  I unwrapped the cloth, letting my fingers skim over the carved letters on the scintellex.

  “I wonder how it works.”

  Rusk shrugged. “It feels strange to hold — almost electric.”

  I sat down, cross-legged in the pannier and let my hands drift over the scintellex, drifting into Ra’shara without even thinking about it.

  “You have it, at last.” I jumped at An’alepp’s voice.

  “I needed you last night, Ancestor.”

  “I was held by Catane. He wrapped me up in an ancient pattern and refused to set me free.”

  “And why would he do that, Ancestor?”

  “I found out why we can’t go through our side of the door. Catane has programmed it so that all the original codes are erased. He enters a new code manually every twenty-four hours.”

  “Wait, are you telling me that he rips his way through Ra’shara in the flesh every day.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The ancestors were deeply troubled when I ripped through.”

  “Why do you think Ra’shara is in shreds? Catane respects no wisdom that is not his own.”

  “So we need to be there, and then we wait until he comes and we force him to give us the code. But how? He’ll have Amandera with him.”

  “Amandera!” An’alepp looked pleased. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “Not all of us share your unfounded affection for my stepmother,” I said, acidly. “She tried to kill us. She did kill Kjexx.”

  I choked on his name.

  “I’m sure you misunderstood the situation. Amandera is a powerful potential ally. With two of you, Catane won’t stand a chance. Unweavers are strong and tough, but a weaver like Amandera could easily tip the balance.”

  “I know that.”

  “She could weave shields as quick as he wove lightning.”

  “I know.” I twisted the scintellex in my hands.

  “She could start to repair holes in the fabric of reality that he unwove!”

  “I know all this, An’alepp. Do you want to know how? Because I had to fight the two of them last night. You’re right. Having her as an ally transforms Catane from fiendishly difficult to defeat, to impossible to survive!”

  “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”

  “Then where have you been these last days?”

  She coughed uncomfortably. “We’ll have to find a way to turn Amandera back to your side.”

  “She was never on my side!”

  An’alepp shrugged. “Then we’ll need to convert her. She’s too great an asset not to use. Very clever of her to ally with Catane. I wonder how she did that.”

  I thought of the filmy white nightgown. “She had her ways.”

  “Promise me something, Tylira.”

  “What do you want, Ancestor?”

  “Promise me you’ll try to get Amandera back on your side. That you won’t just assume she is your enemy.”

  “She killed my husband.”

  “I still think that must have been unintentional. Promise me.”

  I sighed. If Amandera wanted to come ‘back to my side’ it would only be because she was beaten and begging for mercy.

  “Fine. If she wants to end hostilities and commits to fight with me, then I’ll give her another chance. Again.”

  “Thank you, Tylira.” An’alepp looked at me affectionately, and I squirmed under her gaze. I wasn’t used to so many people liking and trusting me. It didn’t feel normal.

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Do you have something in mind?”

  “How did you escape the ancient pattern?”

  “It held my mind in place. That can be done in Ra’shara. The only way out is to learn how your enemy thinks and follow his mind down the path of the pattern it makes. It is a very revealing exercise, but time consuming.”

  “And did it teach you anything about Catane.”

  “He wants everything for himself.”

  “Yes, he told me that.”

  “No, it’s more than that. It’s a deep, almost senseless selfishness that pervades the way he sees everything around him. He is not unlike you in that way.”

  “Wow, I’m flattered.”

  “It bears thinking on, Tylira. I wonder if the very power to unweave — to essentially destroy all that matters in this world — comes from the inherent selfishness of your nature.”

  “No, seriously, don’t hold back.”

  “You’ve made strides to correct that, but you’ll need to work harder. Did you find what you were looking for among his treasures?”

  I held up the scintellex.

  “Good. I learned something about it while I worked his pattern. The scintellex is ancient and it will rewrite your pattern, but will it help us to communicate with Earth? We can only hope so. Let’s figure out if we can work this artifact.”

  In her excitement her form flickered in and out of visibility. I focussed on her for a moment. Was she growing more transparent here in Axum? Was it a result of Catane’s traps, or something else?

  “We have a short time to work with it right now, Ancestor.” Should I be worried about how much time she had left before she went on to the next place? And what would that mean for my connection with the Common?

  “Then let us begin.”

  I stared at the words inscribed on the scintellex, trying to make them out. The form of them wobbled and skipped across my vision. Was something wrong with my eyes? I looked out across Ra’shara. My vision seemed normal, but Ra’shara was always otherworldly and shadowy — especially here in Axum. I tried to look out across the real world. Rusk had finished strapping on his spatha over his outer clothing. He smiled warmly at me, and stroked the great feathers along Graxx’s side affectionately. Those two certainly had a bond.

  “Later, I’d like to talk to you about making a deal with the Eaglekin,” he said.

  I nodded, still concentrating on the scintellex. My vision was fine. So why couldn’t I see the words? I tried twisting one of the rings. Suddenly my vision was entirely aqua, as if a glass pane had been pulled over my eyes. I blinked rapidly, but nothing changed. My head hurt, as if I had been concentrating for hours instead of seconds.

  An’alepp gasped. “It creates its own patterns.”

  And then I saw what she meant, spanning out around me, on the ground, across the sky and all around An’alepp and me, a mandala-like pattern seemed to flow from the scintellex. My eyes followed the lines of it unconsciously, a light aqua pattern laid out over my aqua vision.

  “What do I do, ancestor?”

  “You’ll have to follow the pattern wi
th your mind. Learn it, understand what it reveals.”

  “It’s just lines and whorls.”

  “That’s how it appears visually. Your mind will learn to interpret it as thoughts.”

  “Are you telling me, that I need to think the thoughts of this scintellex?”

  “Yes, very good! That’s exactly what you must do.”

  “Like a reading book?”

  “No, no. When you read a book you know it isn’t your thoughts. You choose which ones to agree with or discard. You might not even pay attention. With a mind-pattern you must fully engage your mind with the thoughts it gifts you and you must embrace them in order to master them.”

  “That sounds dangerous.” I swallowed. How could I embrace the thoughts carved into an alien artifact without knowing what they were?

  An’alepp’s expression was one of cynical amusement.

  “Well of course it’s dangerous, Tylira. It’s going to rewrite your mind.”

  “I’m not going to let it do that!”

  She shrugged. “Then you’ll die here and everything you love will die with you.”

  I bit my lip, summoning up my courage. I couldn’t let that happen. Not to Rusk, not to the Eaglekin, not to my home in Everturn and not to the people that Kjexx had left in my care. I owed him everything.

  Nothing I’d ever come up against had been able to change me. No matter how hard, no matter how challenging. Could this little cylinder really take anything I wasn’t willing to give? How bad could it be?

  I clenched my jaw, made my hands into fists, squinted my eyes, took a deep breath in and opened up my mind.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Rewriting

  I COULDN’T HAVE DESCRIBED what I did if someone had asked me to. It was sort of like focusing on a point far in the distance and then unfocusing your eyes…but mentally. It was sort of like approaching a problem with a completely open mind and setting prejudices aside. It was sort of like leaping off a cliff with the complete and utter faith that someone would catch you. It was none of those things and all of them at the same time.

  I was in the meditation of Ra’shara and in the real world at the same time. My mind in Ra’shara was buzzing, looping, focusing intently on something so subconscious that I couldn’t have verbalized it. My perception in the real world was still there, but I was like someone in a trance.

  “We’re here,” Rusk said.

  I nodded, my mind too focused to afford any concentration to what we were doing.

  “Are you okay?”

  His face hovered in front of mine. I couldn’t tell if time had passed. I couldn’t remember if it was important.

  “I need to concentrate on the scintellex.”

  His face blurred and refocused in my view, choppy, scattered. Why were we here again? My mind was working overtime. He grabbed my hand, helping me down off of Graxx. Graxx was aqua. Had he always been aqua? My mind in Ra’shara sped down the pathways of the mandala, absorbing and shifting as it read, without my conscious understanding of how or even what.

  Something told me to shift the rings. I turned the first one a full degree and the next one a half-degree. My vision shifted from aqua to emerald and a new mandala sprung up. Automatically my mind spun down the new pattern, veering and shifting along the tracks. Thoughts, images, convictions, skipped across my view. My temples pounded. My breath was ragged. Rusk’s face moved in and out of my vision, concern across his features.

  He led me over the snow to a huge encampment. Tents and pavilions fluttered in the breeze. Faces like Kjexx’s peered at me. Children with faces like his ran laughing with colorful streamers flapping behind them. My heart lurched. Kjexx. His sacrifice had bought me freedom and a future. Why would he do that for someone he barely knew?

  My mind raced down the scintellex’s pattern, thoughts of Kjexx intermingling with the thoughts of the pattern and I was lost again. Who was I? How was I here?

  Astrex swam into view, blurry, then sharp, then blurry. She was speaking to Rusk, not to me.

  “We received word by the messenger Kjexx sent. We have gathered all of the Landers in one spot to make a final bid for freedom. All of them, just as he asked. He told us to listen to you, but where is he now?”

  Rusk’s answer was lost as I plunged back into the mandala. It prompted me to shift the rings until my world was violet and whorls dominated the mandala. I felt like I was spinning.

  “…married her? We thought the messenger must have been mistaken. This changes everything, but you must know that with him gone her rank among us is tenuous. She would need to agree to produce an heir in his lineage. Marry one of our own and…”

  Why was I even listening? This had nothing to do with me. The world swam pleasantly and I smiled with the joy of the light gilding the clouds. Why didn’t I ever stop to enjoy the wonders around me? I should do that now.

  “There’s no need for that!” Rusk’s voice sounded harsh. “Of course I agree to your terms.”

  There were sounds of raised voices and harsh words, but I was enjoying how blue the shadows on the snow were and I couldn’t be bothered to worry about them. Rusk had my hand. I wouldn’t fall, and that was all that was needed. Something wound around that hand, soft and smooth. The feel of it made me feel happy. I smiled wider, soaking in the pattern.

  “And the first heir of my body will be his in name. Mine to protect and raise, but his to carry on his name and rank.”

  That was Rusk’s voice, but his words were so peculiar. Was he reading me a story?

  The scintellex prompted me again and I shifted the rings so that my world was scarlet and everything in it was passion and fury. I spun along the concentric circles of the new pattern, driven by inner forces.

  “I so swear it.” Rusk was still saying those strange words. They sounded so formal. He shouldn’t be distracted. We needed to save this world. It was urgent. I just needed to find the end of the pattern first…

  “So we swear, too.” So many voices. They boomed. And now music filling my mind and being led across a too-colorful landscape that bobbed and weaved and set down on a fur rug. I sighed, shifted the rings, and let my mind drift in the crystalline logic of the sharp edges and straight lines of the new, golden pattern that filled everything.

  Time had lost meaning, but I caught glimpses of a night sky and bright stars beyond. One star streaked across the sky like a promise. People flickered in an out of my vision — now pink with lines at tight angles — as they danced and cooked and then the silence of sleep descended across the camp. Still, I sat.

  The pink left a bitter taste in my mouth as if my shadow was being siphoned off. Would I still be myself when this was over? My head hurt and my vision was too sharp. I could feel that the shape of my mind had changed. Not only was I thinking different thoughts. I was also thinking them in different ways. But would it be enough to stop Catane? Would it be enough to save Kjexx’s people?

  A silver streak of light lit the edges of the hills when I worked the final knot of the white Mandala free. I had come to the end. I had been immersed in the scintellex and washed clean, fresh, new. My whole being felt tingly as if it had been scrubbed with too much soap. I was raw in places that I shied away from, aware of my weakness and flaws in ways I never had been. Open to things I had resisted. I hated it and embraced it at the same time.

  I felt cold, now, in the gentle light of the pre-dawn. I shivered and set the scintellex down on my lap. Someone had wrapped me in furs. Good thing they had. I would have frozen out here without them, and I had been in no state to worry about my own safety.

  I gently released the meditation and looked around me. The camp slept, but for a few sentries circling at regular intervals. We were camped on the top of a shallow hill, and the landscape rolled out flat in every direction. It would be hard to surprise us here. Someone had been thinking when they set up the camp. But why did they bring children? I felt a stab of fear. I would be responsible for these children’s safety- for their future. I had never considered
that someone would hand me such a solemn thing. But hadn’t I known all along that the fate of our world lay with me? Then why did it feel so much heavier now?

  I glanced around me. I had been placed in the center of an open pavilion. Something solid was against my back. More furs? I poked the hump of ground. No, they didn’t give the way furs would.

  “Ow.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped my lips, but my hand clamped over my mouth. I shouldn’t be laughing. Not in Kjexx’s home with his people. He’d died only yesterday.

  Rusk poked his face out of the furs, blinking in the dawn. When he saw me he scrambled out the furs, slid across the rugs and seized my face between his hands. The sun came up over the hill at that exact moment and lit his face with a golden tinge. I was seeing real colors again! It felt so strange. And I was seeing clearer. I could see the pain and worry that etched his face clearly and for what seemed to be the first time.

  “Are you hurting?” I asked, my hands feeling along his sides, but through his thick clothing I couldn’t tell if he was bandaged or not.

  “Me?” He laughed as he spoke. “It’s you that I’ve been worrying about. I was afraid that thing would never let go of you.”

  He kissed me, sweet and sharp in my new-found perception. His eyes, as they gazed into mine, warm and familiar, were like molten honey. The smile that spread across my face was impossible to stop.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I said.

  “You’re the most precious person to me.” He bit his lip. “Please don’t be angry.”

  “Angry?” I kissed him again. I was anything but angry!

  “You were in that trance, and the Landers were furious. They received Kjexx’s message, and they planned to honor his wishes, but they expected him to be with us. It was a shock to them that he … was not.”

  I nodded. Of course. I still found it shocking. It set off a burst of pain deep in my chest.

  “So, when they insisted that I honor their customs. Well…” He scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, I owe him a debt, Tylira. I owe him a debt for saving you. I owe him for keeping you safe while I was gone. I understand what it means to have a people that depend on you. I couldn’t be there for my people. Maybe I can be there for his.”