“I don’t know, exactly,” I whispered back. “But the threads around the tree are moving, pulling back. And the tree itself is starting to change.”
The treewaschanging. Branches were shrinking, leaves vanishing altogether. The gnarled trunk grew thinner and thinner until, with a final spasming of threads, the entire tree disappeared in a cloud of light and dust.
What was left behind: a single piece of splintered wood the length of my arm, glimmering threads still wrapped around it.
I looked at that simple chunk of wood lying in the sand and shivered.
Raithe must’ve felt it, for he gazed at the spot where the shard lay, then back at me. “Do you see it?” he asked softly.
I nodded. “I guess... I should go pick it up.”
I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. “You’ve already proven yourself to a goddess,” Raithe murmured in my ear. “Don’t be afraid, Sparrow.”
“I’m not.” I smiled at him, squeezed the hand on my shoulder, and took a step toward the broken shard of Maederyss’s loom.
There were no final obstacles. No last-minute surprises. No spirits, threads, or monsters that came leaping out of the wood at me. The loom piece lay unassumingly in the sand, lifeless and unmoving. Even the shimmering threads coiled around it were still.
I knelt and studied the wooden shard. If I hadn’t just seen the tree, the great cat, and the millions of writhing threads, I would have been hard-pressed to believe this splinter could be part of the loom of the goddess of Fate. For a moment, I wondered about the real loom, and how big it would have to be to hold the souls of the world. Or was it the size of a normal loom, and Maederyss could weave millions upon millions of threads together because she was the goddess of Fate?
Enough stalling, Sparrow. This is what you came for.
I pushed down the last of my fear, reached out, and grasped the piece of the Loom of Maederyss.
The instant I touched it, the threads came to life. Flaring up,they writhed in the air a moment before snaking forward and coiling around my arm. The glowing threads spiraled up my wrist to my elbow, an instant before my entire vision went white.
Images flickered through my mind, places and people I had never seen, worlds I had never been to. Sprawling forests and endless cities. Snowcapped peaks reaching up to the sky. A body of water that stretched on until it touched the horizon. Millions upon millions of faces, all fluttering through my head like the beats of a moth’s wing. I closed my eyes, covering my face with my hands, but it didn’t stop the flood of images. They grew faster, more numerous, an avalanche of pictures and voices and sensations, too much. I cried out for it to stop, begged it to stop, but it didn’t.
Finally, finally, it was over. The rush of images slowed, flickered, and faded into blessed darkness once more. As my senses returned, I became aware that I was lying on my back, cradled in someone’s arms, and that someone was gripping my hand tightly. There was also a smaller, lighter weight on my chest. I gingerly reached up to touch it and felt soft fur under my fingers.
“Are you still with us, Sparrow?”Hisvoice echoed overhead, soft with concern. The weight on my chest gave a little bounce.
“Human awake now? Not in pain?”
“I’m all right,” I whispered. “I think.”
“Can you open your eyes?”
My eyes were still tightly shut, and the darkness was comforting after the flood of images. Slowly, I cracked them open, searching for Raithe first. His face swam above me, silvery-blue eyes shadowed with worry and relief as our gazes met.
Then I looked past him, at the open sky overhead, and everything inside me froze.
The sky was no longer swirling clouds and flickering lightning. It was... threads. Billions upon billions of shimmering, writhing threads, coiling around and through each other in a blinding hypnotic pattern. I couldn’t focus on a single one; they blended together and vanished into the eternal Weave that covered the whole sky.
It was staggering, dizzying. Even lying down, I felt like I was standing at the edge of an endless drop, a heartbeat from plunging into the Void. Suddenly unable to breathe, I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my face away, blocking out the swirling kaleidoscope of threads and color. Raithe’s arms tightened around me, and I could feel myself shaking against him.
“What is it?” he murmured. “What do you see?”
“I...” Words were suddenly inadequate. How could I explain the impossibility of what was happening? This wasn’t meant for mortal eyes; I knew that now. Carefully, I opened my eyes again, deliberately not looking at the sky. The view wasn’t any better. I still saw threads—not as many, but hundreds, crisscrossing each other through the air like an endless, moving spiderweb. All leading to the great Tapestry overhead. Whose souls were they connected to? What fates was I seeing? I didn’t know; there was no one in the chamber but me, Raithe, and Meeka...
My gaze shifted to the jair’oa, still sitting on my stomach, and my blood went cold.
Meeka tilted his head, watching me with guileless black eyes, his tail waving behind him. For an instant, I caught the glint ofan ethereal, delicate strand a few inches from the jair’oa’s head. As I stared at it, the thread shimmered into view, stretching away from me until it was lost in the Tapestry.
“Sparrow.”
A hand pressed to my cheek, and Raithe gently turned me to face him. His expression was concerned, and I realized he had been saying my name for a while now. I could see my reflection in his gaze, my eyes wide and unblinking, staring into nothing.
“Breathe,” Raithe whispered, and I drew air into my lungs shakily. Apparently, I hadn’t been breathing, either. “Focus on my voice, Sparrow. What do you see?”
