Chapter 100 THE GRAVEYARD WHEEL

Chapter 100 THE GRAVEYARD WHEEL
The silver thread cut into my waist like heated wire.

ZZZ-SNAP.

The freezing water swirled around us as the Master Loom pulled our knot closer to its spinning iron teeth. I couldn't scream. Every time I opened my mouth, the bitter, oily sea filled my throat. The blinding white fire from the centre of the giant wheel grew brighter, baking my skin even under the dark ocean.

We were all bound together in the same tight bundle of thread.

To my left, the skinless Emperor was still clawing at my father's throat. His blue eyes were dimming, but his bare teeth were locked onto my father's brown baking apron. My father’s silver-threaded eyes spun in a wild, frantic circle, his flour-white hands ripping at the threads that held him. Below my feet, the melted clone was still glued to my ankle, her iron jaw clicking like a broken clock.

They are all going to die here, I realized, the pressure squeezing my ribs until the cutlass wound burst open again, releasing a dark cloud of red into the sea. And they are taking me with them.

A wave of pure, boiling hatred exploded in my stomach. These monsters had spent my whole life treating me like a battery, like a servant, like a piece of meat for their great pattern. My father hid me in the kitchen while my mother was turned into iron cables. The Emperor treated my sister like a toy. They didn't care about the pain they caused. They only cared about who got to turn the wheel.

"Not today," I growled into the bubbles.

I stopped fighting the water. I turned all my anger inward, straight into the purple core behind my ribs. The World-Eater didn't want to be tied up. It didn't want to be woven into a peaceful network. It wanted to consume.

I forced my right arm, the sharp purple bone claw, to move through the heavy current. I didn't try to cut the silver threads around my own waist. Instead, I drove my skeletal fingers straight into my father’s chest.

CRUNCH.

His silver eyes went wide and dead. The white dough-magic inside his apron exploded into gray ash, polluting the water. Before his body could go limp, I yanked my bone claw out and slammed it into the Emperor's bare skull, shattering the bone into a cloud of white dust.

The two men who had ruined my life became nothing but floating scraps in the whirlpool.

The silver threads holding the knot loosened for a fraction of a second. With a violent kick of my good boot, I smashed the melted clone's face, breaking her iron grip on my ankle. Her white uniform disappeared down into the bottomless pit of white fire.

I was free from the bundle. But the whirlpool was still pulling me toward the spinning iron teeth of the loom.

My single black-stained wing flared out behind me, catching the heavy underwater current. I pushed my body upward, my human hand reaching for the surface light. My lungs were burning, empty of air, and my vision was fading into a swarm of tiny gray spots.

Just one more push, I told myself. Seraphina is up there. I have to get back to the boat.

My head broke the surface.

GASP.

I drew in a massive, ragged lungful of air, coughing up a mixture of salt water and dark blood. The ocean around our scout boat was boiling with white foam. I looked up, blinking the water from my good eye.

Kael was standing at the edge of the iron deck, his thick hand extended over the water. His scarred face was pale with terror. In his other arm, he held Seraphina tight against his chest. Her small, empty eye sockets were wet with tears.

"Aria! Grab on!" Kael yelled, his voice barely cutting through the mechanical roar of the rising loom.

I lunged forward, my human hand locking around Kael’s leather-gloved fingers. With a loud, grunting heave, he yanked my bleeding body over the railing and onto the iron floor of the scout boat.

I collapsed on my side, clutching my ripped belly. The purple core in my chest was beating slowly, weak and exhausted, but the fire was still there.

"Is it over?" Kael gasped, his single blue eye looking down at the boiling sea. "Did you kill them?"

"They're gone," I wheezed, spitting a mouthful of black grease onto the deck. "Both of them. They're at the bottom of the wheel."

Seraphina crawled over to me, her small, trembling hands reaching out until her fingers touched my wet cheek. "Aria... the ticking stopped. The big gears aren't loud anymore."

I pulled her close to my ribs, my eyes tearing up. For the first time in my life, the palace was gone. The kitchen was gone. The people who wanted to stitch us into their world were dead. We had our revenge. We were finally alone.

But the scout boat didn't start moving.

The blue fire in the engine room didn't go out. It turned a deep, solid black colour.

Suddenly, the wooden deck beneath our feet split completely in half, not from the monster below, but from a sudden, heavy pressure from inside the cabin.

A short, thin man stepped out of the dark companionway. He wore a simple white servant’s shirt, just like the one I used to wear, but his hands were completely made of solid, polished gold gears that turned with a sharp tick-tick-tick. His face was smooth, completely blank, with no eyes, nose, or mouth, just a single, large keyhole in the centre of his forehead.

The clockman raised his golden hand, pointing his finger straight at my chest.

"The First Weaver was just a manager, Aria," a cold, triple-layered voice echoed from the keyhole in his head, making my purple core instantly freeze under my ribs. "The High Council was just the cleaning crew. The Master Loom does not allow its battery to leave the basement."

Before Kael could raise his gun, the clock-man stepped forward with a blinding, mechanical speed, driving his golden fingers straight into the back of Kael’s neck.