Chapter 96 THE SPLIT STITCH
Chapter 96 THE SPLIT STITCH
The skinless Emperor screamed as he dragged my father backward.
SCRAPE-CLANG.
The giant iron anchor tore through our boat's deck, throwing up a shower of blue sparks and rotten wood. My father’s silver thread eyes spun wildly. His leather boots lost their grip on the slippery metal, and his baking apron caught on a jagged piece of the broken railing.
"You are nothing but a broken puppet, your majesty!" my father shouted. His sweet, gentle baker's voice was completely gone now, replaced by the screech of grinding gears. "Your palace is at the bottom of the trench! Your crown is trash!"
"I am the network!" the Emperor’s bare skull rattled as he roared back, his blue eye-fires flaring. "I don't need a palace! I just need your blood!"
The iron dough around my right arm began to crack. The sudden jerk of the deck had loosened the white crust wrapping around my neck. I choked, drawing in a sharp, painful breath of air that smelled like burnt grease and ocean salt.
They are going to tear each other to pieces, I thought, my heart thumping hard against my ribs. Good. Let them bleed. Let them drag each other down into the dark mud.
The boiling hatred inside my stomach was a hot, heavy engine. My father had left us to rot. He had let the weavers hunt us like animals while he hid with his flour sacks. The Emperor had stolen my skin and killed my mother. I didn't want to save either of them. I wanted to watch the black sea swallow them both. I wanted to take my sister and run far away from their stupid, bloody loom.
"Kael!" I wheezed, my human hand scratching at the remaining dough on my shoulder. "Get Seraphina! Get her to the back!"
Kael was already crawling across the sloped floor of the cabin. His iron peg leg made a heavy THUMP-THUMP sound against the grating. He scooped Seraphina up with one thick arm, holding her close to his chest. Her small, empty eye sockets were hidden against his leather vest, her tiny body shaking with a silent, terrible fear.
"I’ve got her, Aria!" Kael yelled back, his single blue eye scanning the splitting deck. "But this boat is going under fast! The engine room is totally filled with blue fire!"
My father raised his left hand, trying to drive his silver needles into the Emperor's skull, but the Emperor was too fast. He wrapped his skinless, bloody arms around my father's waist, locking him in a death grip. Together, the two monsters tumbled over the side of the boat, hitting the dark water with a massive, oily splash.
The iron dough around my purple bone claw completely shattered.
CRACK.
I fell to my hands and knees, my purple fingers digging into the deck. The cutlass wound in my side felt like a hot iron rod was being pushed through my belly, but I forced myself to stand. I ran to the edge of the boat, my single black-stained wing flaring wide to keep my balance on the tilting wood.
Down in the black water, the blue fire was still burning. Through the glowing foam, I could see them. The Emperor and my father were tearing at each other's flesh, their silver and blue lights mixing into a sick, purple cloud. They were sinking fast, heading straight for the wide-open mouth of the deep trench.
Suddenly, a cold, wet hand grabbed my ankle.
SLURP.
I gasped, looking down. It wasn't the Emperor, and it wasn't my father.
It was the clone. The perfect me in the white uniform. She hadn't drifted away. Her split waist was held together by a thick knot of silver wires, and her face was completely melted on one side, showing the dull gray iron underneath. Her silver eyes were fixed on my chest, right where my purple core was pulsing behind my ribs.
"The... the stitch... must... balance..." the clone mumbled, her sweet voice now sounding like a broken music box.
Before I could raise my bone claw to smash her head, she pulled down with a violent, robotic strength.
My good boot slipped on the wet iron deck. I lost my balance, my hands flying out into the empty air as I went over the railing.
"Aria!" Kael screamed from the cabin door, reaching out with his free hand, but he was too far away.
I hit the freezing water with a deafening SMACK.
The dark sea rushed into my ears and nose, blinding my good eye. The clone didn't let go of my ankle. She swam down with a frantic, mechanical speed, her silver needle-fingers digging through my boot and biting straight into my bone. She was dragging me deeper and deeper, right into the middle of the purple cloud where the Emperor and my father were still fighting.
I thrashed wildly, my single black wing beating the heavy current, but the water was too thick. The purple fire inside my chest was fading, the cold ocean drinking my magic like a sponge.
Through the dark bubbles, a giant, solid shadow rose up from the bottom of the trench.
It wasn't a white tentacle, and it wasn't a submarine. It was a massive, rusted iron wheel, a hundred feet wide, covered in millions of sharp silver needles that were spinning at a blinding speed. The Master Loom had come up from the graveyard to feed.
The spinning wheel gave a loud, underwater roar that made my skull fracture with pain. A massive, freezing whirlpool of silver thread shot out from the center of the wheel, wrapping around the clone, the Emperor, my father, and my own waist, binding all four of us together in a single, tight knot.
We weren't drowning anymore. The silver thread was pulling us straight into the center of the spinning iron teeth, and right in the middle of the wheel, a giant, rusted steel door was slowly sliding open, revealing a bottomless pit of pure, blinding white fire.