Slaying the Vampire Conqueror(44)

I need the future, I told the Weaver—told myself. Not the past.

The threads intersect, the voice whispered, a teasing caress at the crest of my ear. This is the nature of life.

No. I didn’t accept that. I was a daughter of only the Weaver. I was a Sister of only the Arachessen. I had a task to complete.

I kept walking, chin up.

Show me more.

The silhouettes around me, limp like abandoned puppets, sprang back to life, floundering as if traveling backwards in time. Waves of vampire warriors surrounded me, moving in skips and lurches, fragments of many different moments in time.

The battle was vicious. The vampires were more skilled, obvious even in these shattered flashes—but the Vasaians were numerous, throwing themselves at their aggressors like lemmings over a cliff.

The blood around my ankles rose and rose. More red than black.

My heart pounded rapidly. I kept walking, step by steady step, but at this point, I wasn’t choosing to, nor could I have stopped myself.

Death was everywhere.

The mist rolled in and out. A violent crack of silent lightning, and it all went dark.

When the light returned, it revealed the same broken bodies as before. Broken bodies. Broken homes. Broken souls.

Please, a woman begged, crawling over the wreckage, dead-eyed. Her palms were raw and bloody as she stretched them toward me, but she didn’t react when the wounds were touched. She was lost in a Pythoraseed haze. Please, she begged.

No, I said. No. I can’t. I don’t— Someone was speaking at the same time as me, our voices layering over each other. The little girl was small and dirty, with messy dark waves.

Someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward.

Familiarity clenched in my chest, a sudden reprieve from the fear that choked me.

I knew that figure. The two of them walked ahead of me. The boy was only a handful of years older than the girl, perhaps thirteen to her nine. He was skinny and lanky with a head of messy copper-chestnut hair.

Don’t look at them, he told the girl.

Alright, I thought, and didn’t.

I just walked. I was still very afraid. But I felt a little less so now, following him.

Distantly, someone was calling me, but I couldn’t make out the words.

Just look straight ahead, the boy said to the little girl. Alright? Just look straight ahead and don’t look anywhere else unless I tell you.

Alright, I thought. I can do that.

I kept walking. I kept looking straight ahead.

Suddenly, the girl stopped short. She turned around and stared right at me. Her eyes were bright blue. Striking, actually, surrounded by her dark hair and all the blood and dirt on her face.

The boy stopped too, glancing at the girl, confused.

Then he turned around.

I let out a horrible choking sound—a scream that didn’t have enough air.

Suddenly the boy was not a boy. Suddenly he was an adult, still lanky, still skinny, still with the same blue eyes and messy hair.

His throat was open, his abdomen torn apart, revealing glimpses of pulsing gore.

His eyes widened.

Vivi, he choked. His voice was warped, drowning with blood. He reached out. Stumbled toward me.

I couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed me. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t look anywhere but straight ahead, just like he had told me.

Vivi! he begged again, coming closer.

I tried to move, but threads tangled around my ankles—so many threads, past and present and future, intertwined and tightening and— He grabbed me—





22





I couldn’t breathe. My lungs frantically tried to pull in air and failed. I was drowning in blood. I was dying. I was— “Sylina.”

The voice was a blade, cutting through my panic.

Someone was holding onto my shoulders, gripping me tight. I wasn’t falling.

I wasn’t falling.

I couldn’t see. The threads were chaotic, my grip on them slippery. Pulling the world into focus seemed impossible.

“Drink,” the voice commanded, shoving a canteen into my bloody hands. “Now.”

Atrius.

The name was the first tangible thing that came to me.

I did as he told me, taking a gulp of water. I immediately choked on it, then had to thrust the canteen back to him as I flung myself to my hands and knees and retched into the sand as he held my hair back.

When I was done, he pulled me upright again.

“More,” he said, pushing the canteen back into my grasp.

I did. This time I didn’t choke. I took one gulp, then another, and then I was throwing my head back and drinking the whole thing while water ran down my chin.

By the time I finished, the world had fallen back into place, though my heart still felt like it was about to fracture my ribs.

Atrius still held onto my shoulders, watching me with a thorough, assessing gaze. I nearly jumped when his hands fell to mine, gently closing around them—noting the wounds.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

I didn’t want him to feel that. I extracted my hands from his grip and folded them in my lap.

“I’m fine.”

He stared at me. I wondered if he was waiting for me to scold him for pulling me out of a Threadwalk—again. I should have. It was dangerous.

But I couldn’t bring myself to. Not when I was secretly grateful he had done it.