Chapter 23 The Hunter’s Mercy
The silver tip of the harpoon shook in the air between us. I stood frozen in the green grass, my heart hammering against my ribs. This man had Solis’s face, his golden hair, and his broad shoulders, but his eyes were hard. They weren't full of the love I remembered. They were full of a hunter’s cold focus.
"I asked you a question," he growled. He stepped closer, the heavy boots crushing the grass. "Why do you have the Queen’s eyes? Only those touched by the Void carry that silver-white light."
I looked into the reflection of his polished harpoon. My eyes weren't black anymore, but they weren't blue either. They were a bright, haunting silver. The mark of the Weaver had changed. I wasn't the monster, but I wasn't the girl from the district anymore.
"My name is Eara," I whispered. My throat felt dry. "Solis, don't you know me? I’m the one who pushed you. I’m the one who saved you from the dragon."
He flinched at the name, but the weapon didn't drop. "Solis is the name of the Dead King. He died a hundred years ago when the Sun Palace fell. I am Kael, a Hunter of the Twin Skies. And I don’t take kindly to ghosts using dead names."
A hundred years? The vacuum hadn't just moved me; it had jumped through time again. The world had moved on, but I was still trapped in the same war.
"I'm not a ghost," I said, taking a step forward.
"Stay back!" Kael shouted. He pulled the trigger on his gauntlet, and a secondary silver wire hissed out, wrapping around my wrists before I could blink. The metal burned. It was blessed silver—meant to trap demons.
"You smell like the Void," Kael said, his voice dropping to a low hiss. "You smell like the thing that took my family. If you truly are Eara Veylin from the old stories, then you are the one who started the End."
"I didn't start it! I tried to stop it!" I struggled against the wires, but they tightened, digging into my skin. "Seraphine was the one! She’s still out there, Kael! If the sun and moon are in the sky together, it means the Loom is broken. The prison is open!"
Kael’s face went pale. He looked up at the sky, where the two orbs hung like silent judges. "The Two-Fold Sky is a blessing. It brought peace to the world after the Great Fire. If you’re saying it’s a prison, you’re speaking heresy."
"It's a lie!" I screamed. "The hunger is waiting! It’s inside the city!"
Before he could answer, the ground beneath us groaned. It wasn't an earthquake. It was a rhythmic thud, like a giant heart beating deep in the earth. The city in the distance, the one with the beautiful towers suddenly flickered. For a split second, the gold and white walls turned into black, rotting bone.
Kael stumbled, nearly dropping his harpoon. "What was that?"
"It’s waking up," I said, my voice shaking. "The city isn't a city, Kael. It’s the dragon. It’s the three-headed beast. It didn't die in the cathedral. It just grew."
Kael looked at me, then back at the flickering city. He saw it too, the black smoke rising from the towers that should have been pure. He reached down and sliced the silver wires from my wrists with a quick flick of a knife.
"If you're lying, I'll kill you myself," he said. "But if that thing is real, my sisters are inside those walls."
"We have to go now," I said.
We ran. Kael was fast, his long legs eating up the distance, but I felt a new power in my feet. The silver scar on my chest was humming, giving me a speed that didn't feel human. I wasn't a child, but I felt light, like I was made of wind.
As we reached the main gates of the city, we didn't find guards. We found statues. Thousands of people were standing in the streets, frozen in place. They weren't made of stone; they were covered in thin, translucent silk.
They were being cocooned.
"No," Kael whispered, running to a woman frozen near a fountain. "Lina? Lina, wake up!"
He tried to tear the silk away, but his hands passed right through it. The silk was made of ghost light.
"You can't touch it with steel," I said. I reached out and touched the silk. It felt like cold water. I pulled a single thread, and the entire cocoon unraveled, falling to the ground like melting ice.
The woman fell into Kael’s arms, gasping. "The Queen..." she wheezed. "The Queen said we were being perfected..."
"Which Queen?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"The one with the glass wings," the woman whispered before passing out.
I looked at Kael. He looked at me with a new kind of horror. "You said you weren't the monster."
"I'm not!" I shouted. "I'm standing right here! How can I be in the palace?"
"Maybe you aren't," a voice drifted down from the rooftops.
I looked up. It was Seraphine. She looked exactly as she had in the cathedral, a ghost made of red light. But she wasn't alone. Standing next to her was a woman who looked exactly like me. She had the black glass wings. She had the third eye.
It was the monster I had pulled out of myself. My own darkness had taken a shape of its own.
"Meet the Shadow-Weaver," Seraphine laughed. "While you were drifting in the void, Eara, I was busy building a new body for your hate. And she is so much more obedient than you ever were."
The Shadow-Eara raised her hand. A wave of black silk shot out, wrapping around Kael’s throat and lifting him high into the air.
"Kael!" I screamed.
The monster looked at me with my own eyes. "You wanted revenge, didn't you?" it asked. Its voice was a perfect copy of mine. "Let's start by killing the man who has the king's face."
The black silk began to tighten, the sound of Kael’s neck bones creaking filling the silent street.