Nightweaver #1

Chapter Thirty-Seven

My heart stutters, threatening to stop altogether.

If I have Nightweaver blood in my veins… what does that say of my parents? Have I spent my entire life hating Nightweavers, never knowing that my own mother or father were the very thing I hated? Neither Mother nor Father ever told us much about their lives before they met each other, or where they came from. Only that they found each other and that was when their lives truly began.

My heart splinters. Father…

“Focus, Aster,” Titus says. “You can put out the fire. Command the water to go where you want it to go.”

“You make it sound easy,” I half-laugh, half-sob.

He smiles sadly. “‘Easy’ is a relative term.” He gets to his feet, gripping the edge of the fountain for support. “Now, take a deep breath.”

I do as he says, inhaling deeply. I cough as smoke fills my lungs, gritty and unforgiving.

“That’s it,” Titus murmurs, his lilting voice as gentle as a lullaby. “The water obeys you. It is your servant. Make it listen. Make it yours.”

The water lapping at the fountain whispers a strange plea, and I answer it, my hand hovering over the surface. My reflection ripples as the water rises to meet my palm, drawn to me, bending to my inarticulate will.…

Mine. This power is mine.

I raise my left hand in a fluid motion, just as I saw Titus do, as if I am reaching for Bludgrave. The water climbs, hovering in the air like a gigantic wave, towering over us. Titus watches me with a look of awe as a new torrent of water crashes into the east wing of Bludgrave, stronger than what he wielded moments ago. My bones shake with the power thrumming in my veins, fueling me with some innate sense of belonging in this world. I am the water. The water is me. I will not relent. I will not waver.

But the power I conjure leeches from my marrow, my blood, until every last drop of Manan I can afford to give has been spent. My knees buckle, my muscles failing me, but Titus takes me by the hand, his fingers clasped in mine. His other hand grasps my wrist, holding my outstretched hand in the air, in the direction of the east wing. He stands facing me, his gilded eyes locked on mine, but it’s as if I see through him—to the veins in his face, the blood pumping throughout his body. He speaks to me, but I don’t hear him over the sound of his heart beating in tandem with my own. I latch onto the power that thrums in his chest— mine . I make it mine.

The force of water as I summon it from beneath the fountain cracks the stone, splitting the earth. Unbound, the water rushes past us on all sides, creating a tunnel that surges toward Bludgrave, extinguishing every last flame until I hear Titus’s voice from far away, begging me to stop.

“It’s all right,” he says, his hand on my cheek. “It’s over. You can stop now. You’re safe. We’re all safe.”

Safe.

His hand squeezes mine, and his face comes into focus—his paling skin, his blue eyes, his tousled blond hair. He wraps his arms around me, solid and real and familiar in a way I can’t explain.

Safe.

I collapse, and Titus lowers himself to the ground with me, heaving for breath as the smoke clears, revealing the caved-in framework of what was once the ballroom. I must have tapped into whatever power Titus had left—whatever small store of Manan he’d reserved—and spent it, too. I don’t understand how this magic works, but by the looks of it, he’s been drained of any energy he may have had a minute ago. His body goes limp, but I can still hear his heartbeat, and the rise and fall of his chest lets me know he’s unconscious but alive.

Alive. Thank the Stars. Earlier this evening, I would have reveled in knowing I was the one to end the prince of the Eerie. But now… in only a few hours, everything has changed.

Everything.

I lay Titus gently on the ground and make a move to find Killian—to find Will.

“Annie?” Elsie cries, her small voice breaking through the chaos. I spot my little sister across the lawn, her face covered in soot. “Where’s Annie?”

I start toward her, but the ache in my head splits open, causing my vision to blur.

“Aster.” I hear the distorted voice again—the Shifter’s voice, I’m sure of it now—this time even louder than before. It bores into my skull, drilling into my subconscious until I cannot tell if the voice comes from within or without.

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “Get out of my head!”

A gunshot rattles my chest. No—not a gunshot. In the distance, fireworks erupt over Ink Haven. Each blast takes me back to the Lightbringer —back to the thundering cannon fire on the day Owen died. At sea, I couldn’t flee whenever I felt afraid. There was nowhere to go. I had to face every battle head-on. Had to plant my feet and fight . But now… now I can run—away from the heartache, away from the fear, away from everything.

I can just run .

I think someone shouts my name as my feet carry me west, bile creeping up my throat as I bolt, a wild attempt to outrun the pain that follows me despite the distance I put between myself and Bludgrave. Bludgrave—where my father lies dead on the kitchen floor. Bludgrave, our gilded cage, exposed for what it truly is. A battlefield. A prison. A tomb.

I couldn’t save Father. I couldn’t save Owen. What if Elsie is next? Or Albert? Lewis? Margaret? Charlie? Mother? I’m doomed to lose the ones I love. Cursed. Tonight is only the beginning. The Guild isn’t going to stop until they tear everyone I ever loved from my grasp and leave me with nothing. Nothing but this hollow grief, this violent rage. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Agony cuts me like a blade, and I fall to my knees, clutching my skull as a keening wail bursts from my lips. But just as I begin to feel the burgeoning heat of anger rise up within me, something cold douses my senses.

Almost too low to hear, a growl raises the hair on the back of my neck. Through bleary eyes, I make out the shape of a dark, cloaked figure kneeling over a limp corpse about ten feet from where I collapsed. Blood coats his pale mouth and chin, his eyes glowing gold as he pierces me with a ravenous look like that of a wild animal.

Will?

He cocks his head, a preternatural stillness about him as his lips curl back, revealing bloody teeth.

“Will?” I squint through the darkness, my pulse racing. He crouches over the lifeless body like a wolf protecting its kill. And the body… he looks just like the groundskeeper. “Oh, Stars… Martin?”

Will winces as if I struck him. Another low growl makes my blood run cold as he shifts toward me. I realize with a chill that in this moment, he appears exactly as I always expected Nightweavers to look. Like something out of my worst nightmares.

Like a monster.

“Will, it’s me,” I say on a shaky breath. “It’s me, Aster.”

He grunts, his posture feral as he creeps on all fours over Martin’s corpse. His tongue swipes out, licking his lips.

I look past him, to Martin’s face, his empty eyes; his expression, so calm, as if he felt no pain in death. The gaping wound in his neck stains his pressed white shirt, sodden with blood.

Blood is the purest source of Manan , but human blood is the most potent , I remember Will told me the night we found Mr. and Mrs. Hackney. But it drives Nightweavers to mindless bloodlust. We become no better than the Underlings—as ferocious as a Gore, and twice as deadly.

“What did you do?” I whisper, unable to look away from the mangled wreck of exposed arteries and tissue. “What did you do ?”

Will continues toward me, his golden eyes pinning me to the spot. My breath hitches at the sight of him, framed by the white lilies, all spattered with crimson. Sympathy for that which has come to an end , I hear Will’s voice from all those months ago. And new beginnings.

I taste salt before I feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.

Will is so close now, I am almost certain he can hear my frenzied heart as it leaps into my throat. He leans in, his breath—tinged with the sickening stench of metal—warming my face. Warm , not cold. Will— my Will—is warm. He is thoughtful and loyal and kind. He is a boy—not this beast that looms over me, drenched in innocent blood.

“Will?” His name escapes me in a panicked whisper. “Will, please. I’m here. I’m right here.”

He sniffs, his face hovering near the crook of my neck. His nose brushes the exposed skin of my throat, and something in his posture shifts, more human now as he lifts his hand, his thumb tracing my scar.…

When he speaks, his voice is raw, deeper than his usual tenor, and so low I can barely make out the word.

“Run.”