His lips pull into a sinister smile, his canines on full display.
He’s kneeling with the blade pointed under his chin. But the only thing on his face is the promise of what’s to come.
“Why are you smiling?” Rhett demands.
“Killing you is going to be the highlight of my entire existence,” he answers through bloody teeth.
Rhett pulls the dagger back, and a scream tears through the air.
It’s coming from me.
Time slows.
Slender lines of starlight and shadow wrap around me like the webs of a spider. Some are warm, vibrating softly like thepromise of a new dawn. Others are dark, so dark they almost appear blue. Cold and void. Both kinds pulse with purpose. Memories. I’m surrounded by a kind of magic that doesn’t manifest into powers but undoes them.
A soft voice echoes around me.
Norissa, weaver of threads,it whispers like the delicate wings of a butterfly.We’ve been waiting for you. The one that does not control fate but repairs it. Light and dark. Not one but both.The voice is comforting. Familiar.Only a weaver can repair the invisible threads of fate. Or undo them altogether. Few are trusted with such a responsibility. To do so incorrectly results in chaos. War. Famine. Destruction.
A breeze wraps around me, blowing my hair in an arch of crimson.
You can correct what was woven in error. Unravel fates, undo wrong pairings, reinstate legacies.
A thread appears in front of me—frayed, dull and coming apart at the edges. It shimmers in onyx shades, blowing in the breeze as if it’s lost its purpose. It calls to me. It vibrates with urgency.
I brush my fingertips around the thread, and the roomtilts.
I’m thrust back into the throne room, where the little boy looked so sad. An obsidian crown lies in shattered remnants upon the velvet cushion. There is grief in the room, too old to be mine. The little boy stands beside the throne. Shadows swirl around him, and anger burns in his eyes.
Wrong cannot rest, nor ill deed stand. When it is corrected, a crown will be restored, a legacy will be returned.The soft voice wraps around me.The Arcane Heir will be found. He was meant to rule, and you were meant to find him.
The thread hangs low in front of me. Waiting for me to choose.
There are pivotal moments in our lives that shape the legacy we leave behind.
This is one of those moments. A choice.
I reach out and hesitantly touch the pulsing thread again. The breeze stops, and the thread vibrates beneath my hand. Fury and revenge.
His.
Somehow, I know without a doubt that it belongs to him.
There’s a price to be paid.Although the voice is delicate the words are not.One must give to take. To repair the bridge between what is and what should have been. The weaver must become part of the fate. Forever tied to the thread restored.
I should turn back and go the way I came. But I can’t resist the pull the same way my lungs can’t resist the urge to breathe.
A gold thread, shimmering like stardust and embers, floats toward my hand.
I must pay the price.
I take the light and dark threads and twist them together. I’ve made my choice.
Power radiates up my arm and through my chest. Light erupts all around, and shadows coil over my skin. The wind thrashes across my face and through my hair.
Then silence.
The threads woven together pulsate in front of me—a living thing.
