Page 139

“C’mon,” Kato panted. Taly groaned when they picked up the pace, running down the street along the fence line, almost to the—

A black shadow slammed into the pavement in front of them, throwing up dirt, rock, and debris.

Kato dropped Taly, Ana moving to take his place as he shot forward in a flash of shadow magic.

The harpy loomed, easily 15 feet tall—a twisted mix of peeling scales and patchy feathers clinging to leathery, wrinkled skin. Sunken eyes flicked, sharp and ravenous, tracking every move.

It shrieked—half scream, half animalistic roar—and lunged, all claws and teeth.

Kato spun, dodging a swipe from its spindly arm. His hand slipped into his coat, fingers closing around cold metal.

He threw.

The disc hit with a sharp click, fastening to the harpy’s wasted chest.

Light and sound exploded.

The harpy reeled back, its chest torn open—violet light pulsing from within.

Ana and Ren took the opening, funneling into the courtyard with the crowd.

The harpy’s wings flailed, struggling for balance. Kato didn’t waste a second. In a flash, he closed the gap, twin blades flashing as he drove them into the harpy’s exposed chest.

With a guttural snarl, he twisted the blades, slicing through rotted sinew and brittle bone until they struck something harder.

Shadow crystal.

Teeth bared, he slammed the hilts forward. A sharp crack split the air.

The harpy screamed, a final, ear-splitting wail. Its massive body convulsed, shuddered, and then collapsed, lifeless.

People were still bottlenecked around the entrance to the Swap, but the doors began closing, pushed by the frantic people inside.

Another harpy dove at the wards, claws tearing through the shimmering veil of magic like a web.

Seeing the weakness, others followed, shrieking and raking at the spellwork until it buckled.

The mages holding up the temporary shield wavered.

Then the first broke rank, and the rest fractured like glass, scattering into the crowd.

Ana and Ren charged for the Swap. Kato caught up, sweeping Taly into his arms and relieving them of her weight.

He pushed through the tide of people, slipping through the doors first and jamming his foot between them, holding the doorway open a crack.

Just enough to pass each of the girls through.

Then for Ana to squeeze by as Ren shoved his shoulder against the door to pry it open wider.

Inside the Swap, people flung themselves against the doors, blind with panic. Hands grappled for Taly, pulling her out of Kato’s arms and away from the crush.

With a roar and a flare of shadow magic, Kato lunged for the doors, grabbing the edge of one and heaving it back open.

Gaining an inch, then two.

Ana shoved at the others, reaching for Ren’s hand as he tried to squeeze through the crack.

Kato roared, throwing his head back as that gap once more began narrowing. It wasn’t enough. There were too many working against him, Fey and Shardless, all pushing as one.

“Stop!” Ana shouted. “Please!”

She tried to pull Ren through, more still behind him, all pushing for the door, shouting, pleading for the doors to open.

“I’m sorry,” Ren mouthed to his mother, the words lost in the roar of the crowd and the shrieking of harpies behind him.

His eyes lifted, finding Taly’s staring back at him wide and choked with tears. A sad, quiet smile passed over his face.

Then he let go of his mother’s hand.

The doors slammed shut. The wards snapped into place with a shimmer. The closing echoed through the building, and silence followed, settling over the crowd like a held breath.

No one moved. The moment hung, trembling and waiting.

Then the first scream pierced the air.

A hundred more followed, rising in a wave of terror.

Fists pounded on the doors—then came something heavier. A sickening thud. Immediately followed by another, and another as bodies slammed against wood.

Taly gasped into consciousness as Kato gently laid her on a cot, positioning her on her side so that the shard of wood in her abdomen wouldn’t jostle. She must’ve blacked out again. The lights were brighter here, flickering occasionally. The tang of antiseptic burned her nose. An infirmary perhaps.

“Hey,” Kato said gently, smoothing a bloody hand over her hair. “Can you look at me? Taly?” She tried, but her eyes still wouldn’t focus. “I’m going to find a healer. You just sit tight.”

It must’ve been bad for him to look so worried. Dazed, she lifted a hand to touch the blood on his face. Her blood, she realized. He was covered in it.

He grasped her hand, squeezing. “I’ll be back,” he said. The bed creaked as he rose, all but sprinting for the door.

For long moments, there was only the pounding of her heart and the pain that pulsed with it, wracking every inch of her body. Burning hotter and digging deeper with every panted breath.

Taly curled in on herself. She’d had worse—Azura had made sure of that. Burns, broken bones, and lacerations covering the whole of her body. This was nothing in comparison, though it didn’t stop the sobs from slipping through teeth she couldn’t unclench.

Pain wrapped tight around her skull, shadows bleeding into the edges of her sight. And she welcomed it, that darkness, closing her eyes—

“Well, isn’t that cute,” a male voice drawled. “You thought you could run.”

Taly cracked open her eyes to find a graying Shardless in a white mender’s robe standing over her.

“Wakey, wakey,” Aneirin said, smiling. “You and I still have matters to discuss.”

“Oh, for Shards’ sake…” Taly rasped. “This is hell, isn’t it? I’m in hell.”

The old man’s face might’ve been kindly if not for the malice in his ageless eyes.

“Nice to see you haven’t lost all your spunk.

Considering the state you’re in, I was concerned it had all leaked out onto the table.

” He flicked the shard of wood in her belly, and Taly bit back a whimper.

“That is really wedged in there, isn’t it? ”

Taly stared up at him, hissing through her teeth, “ What the fuck do you want? ”

Aneirin cocked his head to one side. “No need for vulgarity. I simply wished to—”

A convulsion seized him mid-sentence, snapping his body taut.

“Sorry, that—hrnnng,” he groaned, his head jerking sideways, yanked by an invisible force. Like something was pulling him back—trying to tear him from that body.

His hands clawed at the infirmary bed. “Pathetic old fool,” he spat, struggling against the force pulling him. “He should know better than to—agh!”

His face… glitched. It was the only word for it.

Expressions overlapped—anger, disbelief, fury—all warring for control. His body shuddered, straining against something unseen.

Then his head snapped back.

“ENOUGH!” he roared.

The word reverberated through the infirmary. Conversations hushed as curious eyes glanced over.

The mender’s chest heaved, his breaths ragged and uneven, but his posture straightened. When his head lowered, his eyes were clear again—no flickering, no glitching, just that calm, calculated predator’s gaze.

“Didn’t think the old man had that much fight left in him,” he said, adjusting his robe and running a hand through his hair. “Shall we proceed, then, without further interruptions? I simply wished to continue our conversation. You left so abruptly.”

Taly’s laugh turned into a cough. Blood splattered the sheets as she hacked into her pillow. Her throat felt like it was full of gravel, but she managed, “What makes you think I would ever help you?”

“Because then you’d be rid of me,” he answered smoothly.

She swallowed against the taste of blood. “You killed Calcifer. I’d rather rot with you in hell than help you with your cause.”

“Calcifer?” Aneirin paused, as if turning the name over. “Wait, was that—was that the mimic that attacked me? Big, black, fangs, claws—that one?”

Taly had to bite her lip to keep the sob in.

“Do you actually mean to say that you named it? Like what, a… a pet?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “No offense, but natural selection really did take a hard right turn with you.”

Tears spilled down Taly’s cheeks, streaking the blood there. “He was my friend,” she whispered.

“Hardly.” Aneirin sighed, almost pitying. “Symbiotic relationships between predator and prey do happen—but they never last. Eventually, one of you was bound to turn on the other.” He smiled. “I did you a favor. You’re welcome.”

Taly’s fists clenched so hard her nails bit into her palms, drawing blood.

Calcifer was dead.

Ren was dead.

So were the women in the street. The ones who looked like her. Who died because of her.

She was the thread that tied them all together. Wherever she went, people died. They burned, bled, and broke.

Her throat tightened. Her breath hitched. The sob started deep—buried under guilt, under fury, under the weight of damage she couldn’t undo.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

Aneirin grinned. “Well, now… that cracked something, didn’t it? All this time I’ve been trying to appeal to your better judgment, and yet…”

His eyes swept the room, where the infirmary was now filling up. People crowded along the walls with more still filing through the door. An endless stream of injuries, broken bones, and long, bloody scratches.

“I suppose it is a bit more… visceral ,” Aneirin mused, “when it’s right there in front of you. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.”

His eyes landed on Taly.

“Let’s back up.” He leaned over her. “I need your help. We’ve covered that.

And I’ve been very reasonable up to this point.

And patient. I’ve even tried to see this from your perspective.

You want me off this island, I want to be off it.

I see no reason we shouldn’t be able to come to a deal.

I have agreed to your every demand. For any normal person with normal wants and desires, I feel this would be enough, but you, Talya Caro…

I can see now that you require a more immediate incentive. So, I’ll make this simple.”

Leaning over her, he whispered, low and lethal, “If you do not help me, I will kill every person in this building that you’ve so conveniently cornered yourself in. You think you’re exhausted now? Imagine how you’ll feel when he dies.” He pointed at a man as he walked in. “Or him.”

Taly stared up at the old mender, pure malice in her eyes.

“He’s going to die,” Aneirin said, pointing to a young Fey boy with claw marks on his face. “And he’s going to die. And him. Her. Him. Definitely him, and—oh yes, all those children right there. Harpies really do have a taste for veal .”

Evil came in countless forms, but this was more insidious— apathy .

The kind that used pain as leverage and lives as disposable tools. He’d keep killing and killing, and every death would trace back to her.

She couldn’t outrun the weight of it—the unrelenting, ever-expanding tally of lives lost because she existed.

Aneirin stared down at her, that sharklike smile only widening. “Well?” A loud thud sounded overhead, followed by the sound of a body rolling across the roof, pulled by momentum and gravity. “The clock is ticking, I’m afraid.”

Taly was tired. Tired of the guilt. Tired of feeling like a burden. Tired of knowing that no matter what choice she made, someone else would suffer for it.

There was no way out, no way to stop the bloodshed, except to let herself be caught—to let the rot finally be cut out. Maybe then it would end. Maybe then, the relentless tide of death following in her wake would finally—

You are not tainted, little light.

Taly jolted.

You are consecrated. And that is always harder.

The woman spoke with a voice like thunder, beautiful and terrible and full of fury.

Taly knew it instantly. In her blood, she recognized the call.

“She’s here, isn’t she?” Aneirin scowled, eyes searching the room. “Lachesis, darling, this is a private conversation.”

You are no match for his power, the voice continued, rising to a howl inside Taly’s head. But I am. All things living and eternal are bound by me.

She could almost feel them—threads brushing against her skin like spider silk, too light to catch, too faint to hold.

I can help you.

The runes pulsed sharply against her wrists, resisting. But the threads forced their way in, bleeding across her vision like light through torn cloth.

Stop obeying their limitations.

The barrier held, trembling, for a breath—then shattered.

Be what you were always meant to be.

Suddenly nothing stood between her and the Weave. Light surged in filaments and strands above, beneath, and inside her.

They moved with purpose, as if directed by an unseen hand—countless threads redirected and shifted, pulling back to reveal a single line burning brighter than the rest.

Taly could see it there, bleeding sparks in the air in front of her.

Shall we begin again?

There was nothing but the roaring in her blood, and the screams of the dying, and the two paths that Taly could now see diverging.

Either die here today or keep fighting.

She made her choice.

She felt the weight of the decision echoing, reverberating through the Weave.

Threads snapped—one after the other, all of them joining in a rising chorus that rippled out into eternity.

For better or worse, the path was set.

Take it, little light.

“What is she saying?” Aneirin growled. The hatred in his eyes was a living thing as he frantically searched the room. “Believe me, girl, whatever that bitch is offering, it comes with strings.”

Taly laughed, riding the edge of that ancient, wild power. “It does, indeed.”

Then reaching up, she grasped the thread the goddess offered and unraveled the universe.