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PROLOGUE
BLAISE
Nox is dead. Again.
This time it’s in a cave, a girl with cropped golden hair cradling him in her lap as she weeps over his lifeless body.
His heart takes its last beat, but the organ itself has been displaced from his corpse, strewn across the floor of a dim cavern, a smear of blood staining its path.
The muscles in my fingers ache with strain as I pick the Rivrean thread from the tapestry, undoing my work, erasing Nox’s death, and not for the first time.
My entire body trembles, and I’m so focused on unwinding the last segment of the tapestry, so rushed to undo what I’ve done before it cements itself into Nox’s reality, I hardly notice the tears that dampen the fabric.
I drop the seam ripper I’ve been using to remove the thread. It clatters against the floor, glinting in the dancing light seeping through the stained windows of Abra’s abandoned ballroom. Panic surges through me as I chase the instrument across the stone floor. Time ticks, numbered by the pulse drumming against my ears as the seconds I’m allotted to undo Nox’s death drain away.
That’s assuming you have the ability to undo his death, the voice in the back of my head whispers, but I push it away. I’ve survived being infested by an ancient parasite. I’ve kept my vampire cravings at bay to protect my friends. I tricked a monster of legends into Gunter’s bedroom so I could force him into an indefinite slumber, and I will keep Nox from dying, even if it’s through sheer obstinance.
I’ve already lost too much.
Where is my baby where is my baby where is my baby…
I grab the seam ripper, then scramble back to the loom, unloosing the recent stitches until the scene of Nox’s death has disintegrated into a series of colorless strings hanging limp from the end of the tattered tapestry.
The sigh that escapes me provides little relief, and I try not to look at the colorless threads. The Rivrean thread is infused with magic that seeps into the ground surrounding the Rip, the fray in the Fabric that separates the Realms. Before Gunter’s death, he used the magical thread to weave Nox’s sister, Zora, into the Fabric itself, allowing her consciousness to slip between realms and live out a series of reincarnations while her body remains trapped in slumber.
I’ve been under the impression that Gunter maintained some semblance of control over the events of Zora’s many lives, but I’m beginning to think I was wrong. Either that, or I’m just incompetent at weaving magical tapestries. Every time I try to weave Nox’s story, the thread dyes itself whatever colors it finds necessary to conclude the story in a manner it finds satisfying.
And the Rivrean magic wants Nox dead.
Either that, or the Fates do, and they’re controlling the outcome.
I don’t know if it’s for some eternal purpose, or their own amusement, but I won’t let it happen.
Nox can’t die. He can’t…
The wheels clatter against the divots between the stone tiles on the floor as I push the loom away, unable to bear looking at the tapestry another moment. If I don’t continue the tapestry, I figure Nox’s body will be released from the slumber that ties him to the Fabric. That’s problematic, since Farin is the one in control of Nox’s body at the moment. Zora’s in this tapestry too, so I figure I’m prolonging her captivity as well, but I don’t actually know that to be the case. Gunter wove dozens of tapestries before he died. For all I know, Zora has several more to complete before she wakes up.
So I weave, hoping for, if not an alternate ending, then at least a prolongation of the inevitable. At least until Az and I can figure out a way to expunge Farin from Nox’s body.
Figure out a way, the voice inside me laughs. As if you haven’t already decided what you intend to do.
I ignore that little voice inside my head, the one that seems intent on making me feel guilty for what Az and I have planned.
I’ve spent enough of my life feeling guilty, allowing shame to stake me to the ground, to fill my muscles with saltwater until I’m unable to move, bloated with indecision.
I’m done feeling guilty. I’m done not getting what I want.
As if what I want is so unreasonable, so evil, that the Fates refuse to grant me my wish. As if I long for power or domination or violence or to subject others to my will.
No. All I want is Nox. And I’ve about decided that’s not too much to ask.
I practically collapse onto the cot I dragged up here for Nox, curling into his side and tucking my ear to his chest. Each time I do, there’s a moment of dread when I fear I won’t hear a heartbeat. That I won’t feel the steady rise and fall of his chest.
That completing the tapestry truly killed him this time. Permanently.
I don’t know what will happen to Nox if he dies in another realm.
I don’t intend to find out.
