Chapter 28 The Sky-Cutter
The blue beam hit the cottage with the force of a falling mountain. Dust exploded into the air, and the wooden beams groaned as they were ripped upward. I grabbed the boy, throwing my body over him as the floor vanished beneath us. We weren't falling; we were being pulled toward the giant ship in the sky.
"Hold on!" I screamed, but the wind swallowed my voice.
The man at the railing, the one with my father’s face, didn't move. He watched us rise like we were just fish in a net. His eyes were cold, silver circles that didn't show a single spark of humanity.
We slammed onto the deck of the bone ship. The wood was cold and smooth, carved from the ribs of a dragon that must have been miles long. I scrambled to my feet, pushing the boy behind me. My shoulder throbbed with pain, but the black ink in my veins was humming again. It wanted to strike.
"Who are you?" I demanded. My voice was a rasp, my throat raw from the dust. "You’re not my father. You’re not the Weaver. What are you?"
The man stepped away from the railing. His movements were too smooth, like water flowing over stone. "I am the Collector, Eara. I am the one who picks up the pieces when a world breaks. You’ve broken three of them now. That’s a very impressive record."
"I was trying to save them!" I yelled.
"Save them?" The Collector laughed, and it sounded like dry leaves skittering on a grave. "You’ve turned the king into a toddler. You’ve turned the Weaver into a monster. And you’ve let the Hunger out of its cage. You aren't a savior, Eara. You’re a virus."
He raised a hand, and the silver ship groaned. Below us, I could see the Weaver District shrinking. People were running in the streets, looking like tiny ants. Then, I saw him, my father. He was standing in the middle of the road, pointing his knife at the sky, screaming for the hunters.
"He doesn't even know me," I whispered. A tear tracked through the dirt on my face. "He wants to kill me."
"Because you don't belong here," the collector said. He walked toward me, and a pair of silver shackles grew out of the deck, snapping around my ankles before I could jump. "This is a world without a Weaver. A world where the Sun never rose to power. It was a perfect, quiet misery until you brought that boy here."
He looked at Solis. The boy was huddled against my leg, his golden eyes wide with terror.
"The boy is a leak," the Collector said. "His light is spilling into this dark world. If I don't remove him, the Shadow-King will find a way in. He’s already sniffing at the edges of this sky."
"Leave him alone!" I struggled against the shackles. The silver bit into my skin, burning like white fire. "Take me instead! I’m the one with the power!"
"Oh, I’m taking you too," the Collector smiled. He reached out and gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. "But not to kill you. I’m going to put you back in the Loom. You’re going to be the thread that holds the next world together. You’ll weave a billion lives, and you’ll never live a single one of them."
"No!"
I looked at Solis. He wasn't just a child. He was the only piece of my true home left. If I let them take him, everything I had suffered, the resets, the deaths, and the betrayal, was for nothing.
I won't be a battery, I thought. I won't be a slave to your pattern.
I didn't look for the black ink this time. I looked for the gold. I looked for the memory of the man Solis used to be. I closed my eyes and reached out through the silver shackles, trying to find the boy's light.
"Solis," I whispered. "Remember."
"I don't know who that is!" the boy sobbed.
"Yes, you do! Remember the dragon! Remember the cathedral! Remember the girl who didn't let go!"
The collector sneered. "He’s a five-year-old, Eara. He doesn't have memories. He hasn't."
Suddenly, a pulse of pure, blinding gold light exploded from the boy. It wasn't the soft glow of a child. It was the roar of the sun. The Collector was thrown backward, his silver face cracking like a mirror.
The ship tilted sharply. The bone ribs groaned and snapped.
The boy stood up. He was still small, but his eyes weren't scared anymore. They were molten gold. He looked at his own hands, then at the Collector.
"Eara is right," the boy said. His voice was deeper, vibrating with a power that shook the deck. "I remember the cage. And I remember you."
He didn't use a knife. He just pointed a finger at the collector. A beam of golden fire shot out, melting the silver railing and sending the man screaming into the clouds below.
But the ship was falling. The blue beam had turned red, and the bone-deck was dissolving into ash.
"We have to jump!" I shouted, the shackles finally shattering under the heat.
I grabbed the boy and ran for the edge. But as I looked down, I didn't see the city. I saw a giant, black mouth opening in the middle of the sky.
It wasn't a hole. It was a face.
Seraphine’s face. She had grown so large she was eating the horizon. Her eyes were two red moons, and her teeth were mountains of black glass.
"You can't run from your own shadow, Eara!" her voice thundered, shaking the very air in my lungs.
The ship plunged straight into her open mouth.
I felt the darkness swallow us. But just before the light vanished, I felt a hand grab my collar. It wasn't the boy. It was someone else. Someone heavy and strong.
I looked up through the smoke.
It was Kael. He was covered in blood, his silver armor shredded, but he was grinning like a madman. He was holding a giant harpoon that was glowing with a strange, green light.
"Took me long enough to find the right thread," he shouted over the roar of the wind.
He didn't pull us to safety. He pointed the harpoon at my chest.
"The Queen told me you'd be here," he said. "She said if I kill you inside the Hunger, the world resets for real this time. No more Kings. No more Weavers. Just us."
He raised the weapon to strike.