Chapter 13 Tear in the Sky
Tear in the Sky
Imove the brush, one stroke at a time.
A soothing rhythm at odds with the war beyond the tetheryard.
The horses hear the screams, but I feel them in my bones. They tear through the air beyond the fences. Steel rings out, wild and ragged, against shrieks not meant for this world. The sky darkens as if anticipating death. The ground shudders—something massive has hit the western perimeter.
My hands are steady.
Brushing Astenos.
One stroke.
Then another.
Each pass of the brush down his flank is deliberate. Rhythmic. Calm.
I sing the song of the Serevyn, the great river that winds through the mountains and remembers the ages of the world. A low, steady melody—half lullaby, half spell. A song for the other horses. They gather close, nostrils flaring, ears pinned back—their wide eyes full of faith and trust.
I must be steady now. For them. For the song. But my heart wavers.
It’s all right. He’s all right. I’ve seen Kailorien’s strength with my own eyes. A mountain’s stamina to stand against the mightiest of winds. Nothing could move him. Nothing could hurt him.
Even now, I feel him. Somehow. Perhaps it is the runes—those brands of power etched into his skin. The way they burn when he moves. The way I can whisper to them sometimes—and how they whisper back.
Another stroke. Another breath. In my other hand, I hold Astenos’s reins with a firm grip. The war steed stands still. Too still. Every shriek from the distance makes his ears twitch back, but he stays with me—ready, alert, coiled.
“It’s all right,” I tell him, eyes on the horizon. “You can feel him, can’t you? Your Resh’Agar. Mine, too, when he allows himself to be.”
Astenos snorts, his breath misting the air in great gusts.
“He sees everything. He’s strong. Nothing can surprise him.”
I soften my voice, hoping none of my worry taints it.
The wind changes. Astenos shifts beneath my hand, muscles snapping taut. His massive body trembles. Not in fear. In anticipation.
My brush falters in its rhythm—palm falling to my side as gooseflesh shivers across my arms.
A beat of silence.
Then a tear. Not in sound, but in presence.
I look up, and the ground gasps and shudders beneath my bare feet.
A gash rips through the sky high above.
Astenos rears, trumpeting a war-cry.
A rift. The world screams in agony at the raw wound. Silver at its edges. Black at the center, a hole into nothing and everything at once.
Misshapen limbs claw through the tear—slick with rot and blood, grotesque and many-jointed. Deformed bodies follow; eyeless faces, red tongues, twisted bone. Voices like shattered lullabies scream into the yard.
“Maaammaaaa…”
“Heeellllp meeeeee…”
I clutch Astenos’s mane, wanting to run. To stay. To fight. To flee. The screams mean nothing to me, but my eyes fill with tears at their pain. At the sorrow of last moments now weaponized to breed more death.
Four Reskala warriors form up around me—only four brave men against a flood of violence and hunger. Too few. No one had expected an attack here. No one had listened when I warned them. One little star and her intuition against an army and its ego. Now these Reskala would die for the mistake.
The first of the varkhounds hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Roars follow. Snapping jaws.
“Rift! Rift by the tetheryard!” the Reskala shout.
Steel cries out in the night. Bone shatters. A Reskala vanishes into the tide of black bodies, swallowed whole.
Above, the rift sings. Not with voice, but with pull. An ache in the fabric of everything. Begging me to heal it. Begging me to stop it. My hands lift. I can close it. I must. For the Reskala. For Kailorien.
For myself.
:: Stop. ::
Not my voice. Not the rift. Not Astenos. Thunder through still water.
:: The price for this is higher than you can pay. You do not owe them your life. ::
Truth. Naked. Undeniable. I do not owe these soldiers my allegiance.
But my will is not about debt or justice.
It is about Kailorien. My sun. My mountain.
And about Zarrek, too. The pain he carried in all the words he does not say.
About Thessia, and how I wish to know the end to the Lioness’s tale.
How I wish to see her violet eyes again.
My vision blurs, hot tears spilling over onto my cheeks. An unnamed sorrow of a reborn star taking shape for the first time in the world’s memory.
My fingers steady.
“I must close it,” I whisper to the voice inside. “Please. Let me.”
:: Is your ambition worth the trial? ::
“It is worth everything. Let me.”
:: He does not even see you. Not as you are. Will you break yourself for him? ::
“Not for him. Or anyone. For me. Because I must always be myself. In this world that does not see me, I cannot be anything else.”
My eyes snap open just as the varkhounds close in. Astenos kneels before me, his flank quivering. Without hesitation, I leap onto his back.
“Please,” I beg him, pressing my cheek to his neck. “Hold until I can seal it.”
He snorts in reply.
I raise my hands. Toward the rift. Toward the wound in the sky. Silver spills from my fingers like thread from the hands of fate. The strands reach, growing—touching.
:: Remember your choice. ::
Pain explodes in my chest. A scream nearly breaks from my lips. The rift pulls. The Veil tears. The wind howls. Mana lashes at my skin like whips of lightning.
Voices shriek—
“Ssssslayyy…”
“Maaamaaa!”
“Sssssilver blooood…”
Astenos rears—hooves cracking skulls, his fury a fortress. But it isn’t enough. There are too many teeth. Too many claws. And inside, I am breaking. Splitting. Unraveling.
The rift hangs open, but the cost comes due. The price. The toll.
And still—my hands stay lifted.
Still—I sing the Weave.
I must be myself. Even if I vanish doing it.
A hound lunges.
Too fast.
Astenos turns.
Too slow.
BOOM.
The hound vanishes beneath the slashing force of a glaive.
Thessia.
A whirlwind of golden braids and blood.
Armor like a god.
Fire in her grin.
“Keep casting, moonbeam!” she roars. “I’ve got your back!”
Every strike opens a path. Every blow buys time.
I cannot fail her, so I push harder. Pull deeper. Until my vision turns to shadow.
I will show them.
All of them.
The world, if I must.
I am not small.
I am the Weave.
I was not made for silence.
Sweat pours.
Blood runs.
Silver light scorches the sky.
I twist the strands—twist the rift shut. Remind the sky that it was whole, once. That only the vast horizon has the right to cleave its depths.
A shout behind me.
My name.
But I cannot not turn.
If I turn now, everything will unravel.