The Sky Weaver

Prologue

Eighteen Years Previous

Skye was only a child the first time she watched them put a traitor on trial. She saw them take the man’s hands. Saw the blood run swift and dark over the stone altar as the soldier wiped his blade clean, like a storm sweeping over a sapphire sea.

Skye remembers the way the severed hands twitched like crushed spiders dying on their backs, thin legs curling inward. Remembers the way the enemy stared at the stumps of his arms as the blood ran down to his elbows.

Remembers how he screamed.

That was a lifetime ago. Tonight, they’ll put another traitor on trial. Skye is waiting in her cell. Because it won’t be an enemy’s hands they take this time—it will be Skye’s hands. And she has only herself to blame.

Be a good girl. Keep your head down. Remember your place.

These were the words she lived by once. The lessons instilled in her since birth.

That was before she met Crow. A boy from the shadows undid all her lessons. He undid everything.

Crow. Like a swallowed thorn, the name stings her lips and tongue and throat.

How could she be so naïve?

Skye will tell you how. She will weave you a tapestry while there’s still time. It will be her last weaving. Because once the moon rises and they come for her, Skye will weave no more.

You can’t weave without hands.

One

Eris had never met a lock she couldn’t pick.

Lifting the oil lamp, she peered into the keyhole, her wheat-gold hair hidden beneath a stolen morion. Its steel brim kept slipping forward, impeding her vision, and Eris had to shove it back in order to see what she was doing.

The wards inside the lock were old, and from the look of them, made by a locksmith who had cut all possible corners. Any other night, Eris would have craved the challenge of a more complicated lock. Tonight, though, she thanked the stars. Any heartbeat now, a soldat would round the corner. When they did, Eris needed to be on the other side of this door.

The lock clicked open. Eris didn’t let out her breath. Just slid her pin back into her hair, rose to her feet, and wrapped her slender fingers around the brass knob, turning slowly so as not to make a sound.

She glanced back over her shoulder. The hall lay empty. So Eris pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Holding up the lamp, its orange glow alighted on a simple desk made of dark, scuffed wood. An inkwell, a stack of white parchment, and a knife for breaking wax seals were neatly arranged on top.

Eris shut the door gently behind her. Her gaze lifted from the desk to the object hanging on the wall: a tapestry woven of blue and purple threads. The very thing she’d come for.

Eris knew this tapestry by heart. It depicted a faceless woman sitting at her loom. In one hand, she held a silver knife curved like the moon. In the other, she held a spindle. And on her head sat a crown of stars.

Skyweaver.

The god of souls.

But it wasn’t just the image that was familiar. It was the threads themselves—the particular shade of blue. The thickness of the wool and how tightly it was spun. The signature way it was woven.

The moment Eris glimpsed it from the hall two days ago, she nearly stumbled. Every morning for years, this tapestry stared down at her from stone walls flanked on either side by the sacred looms of the scrin—a temple devoted to the Skyweaver.

What was it doing here, in the dragon king’s palace, all the way across the sea?

Someone must have stolen it, she thought.

So Eris decided to steal it back.

She had some time, after all. Her captain—a heartless man named Jemsin—was currently meeting with the empress of the Star Isles. It was why he sent Eris here, to steal a jewel from the dragon king’s treasury. Not because he needed the money. No. He needed Eris out of sight while the empress and her Hounds came aboard his ship—for his sake as much as hers. If it was ever found out that Jemsin harbored the very criminal the empress had been hunting these seven long years, it would mean death for both Eris and her captain.

But Eris had already stolen the king’s jewel. And she still had a day before needing to report to Jemsin’s protégé. She had some time to waste.

So here she was, wasting it.

Eris pushed herself away from the closed door and set the oil lamp down on the dark wood of the desk. The moment her gaze lifted to Skyweaver, there was that sharp shock she’d felt two days ago. Memories of warmth, friendship, and belonging flooded her . . . quickly followed by feelings of terror, grief, and betrayal.

She narrowed her eyes.

I’m not doing this for you, she told the god as she reached to untie the tapestry from where it hung on the wall. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a traitor and a fraud. She kept her voice low, knowing the security had been doubled since the king’s jewel went missing two nights ago. I’m doing this for the ones you betrayed.

Eris no longer believed in Skyweaver, god of souls. But the one who’d woven this tapestry believed in her—and he’d died for that belief. So, lifting it down from the wall, Eris rolled it up tight, then tucked it carefully under her arm. As she did, she plucked the gray, spiny scarp thistle from the pocket of her stolen uniform. Careful not to prick herself on its thorns—which were poisonous—she set it down on the desk.

In some ways, the signature was more for Eris than the ones she stole from. A way of proving to herself that she did, in fact, exist. She might live an invisible life, but she was still here. Still alive.

The scarp thistle was proof.

With the tapestry still under her arm, and her signature there on the commandant’s desk, Eris reached for her spindle. It was time to go. She would take this tapestry and put it with the rest of her loot. Then she’d head for the Sea Mistress and wait for her summons.

But before she could pull the spindle free of its pouch, a voice behind her broke the quiet.

Who let you in here?

The voice was low and gruff and it made Eris freeze—except for her right hand. Her fingers tightened around the smooth, worn wood of her spindle, slowly drawing it out.

I asked a simple question, soldier.

Soldier.

Eris had forgotten she was in disguise tonight. With the heightened security, it was easier moving through the palace dressed like a guard.

So Eris turned. A soldat stood in the doorway. He hadn’t quite stepped into the room, clearly startled by the sight of her, but he wore the same uniform she did: a steel morion on his head and the dragon king’s crest across his shirt. The only difference was that a saber hung from his hip, while a woven pouch hung from hers.

Eris hated soldiers.

I was sent to remove this ratty old thing, she lied, nodding her chin toward the tapestry of the god of souls, rolled up beneath her arm. She winked as she said, Apparently our commandant isn’t exactly the pious type.

Her wink had the desired effect. The soldat relaxed. He smiled then, leaning against the door, seemingly about to remark on the commandant’s piety or lack thereof, when something on the desk caught his eye.

Eris watched his face go blank, then light up with recognition. Looking where he looked, she silently cursed herself.

The scarp thistle.

You . . . you’re the Death Dancer.

He didn’t wait for her to confirm it. Just drew his weapon.

Time to go.

Eris gripped the spindle hard in her hand as she crouched down. As the soldat stumbled into the room, she pressed the spindle’s edge to the mosaicked floor and drew a straight line.

The line glowed silver. The mist rose.

The soldat lurched toward her, calling for help and alerting the other soldats nearby.

But by the time he rounded the desk, Eris was already stepping into the mist, and beyond it.

By the time he reached for her, Eris was already gone.

When the mists receded heartbeats later, Eris was not where she should be.

Instead of being Across—surrounded by stars and darkness—she was surrounded by walls. A dark hallway spread before her, lit every few paces by flickering torchlight. Beneath her feet lay that same mosaicked pattern as the room she’d just left. And it smelled like mint and lime.

She was still in the palace.

Eris gritted her teeth in annoyance.

It happened sometimes. If she was concentrating harder on the place she was trying to leave rather than the place she was trying to get to, the spindle would get confused and blunder up the crossing.

Eris was just about to curse the godsforsaken splinter of wood when something slammed into her from behind, hurtling her forward and causing her to drop the spindle altogether.

Kozu’s balls! She spun, watching the spindle roll toward two black leather boots with silver buckles polished to a shine. A hand reached down, picking it up, and as the newcomer rose, so did Eris’s gaze.

The young woman before her was dressed like a palace guard. Only instead of the king’s crest, a flame-like flower blazed across her shirt. She wore no morion, and tucked into her belt were five throwing knives.

Apologies, soldier. The young woman’s voice was hard and commanding. The voice of someone used to giving orders—and used to her orders being obeyed. I didn’t see you there.

Eris’s gaze snapped to eyes as cold and blue as sapphires. The torchlight made it impossible not to notice the girl’s strong cheekbones or ink-black hair braided away from her face.

Eris knew who this was.

The commandant.

This young woman before her was not only cousin to the king—and therefore royalty—she held that same king’s army in her fist.

A dark memory flickered in Eris’s mind of another cold commander. Fear pooled in her belly. She shook the memory off, stepping back. But the sharp sliver of it lodged in her chest, reminding Eris of who she was. That she needed to leave this place.

Now.

Except her spindle was currently in the commandant’s hand.

The young woman’s gaze moved over Eris quickly and dismissively. It made Eris stiffen. She should have been glad the commandant found nothing of interest in the girl standing before her. Eris wanted—no, needed—to be invisible.

For some reason, though, that indifferent glance rankled her.

The commandant’s lips parted, as if she were about to say something, when a shout echoed from down the hall, interrupting. Making them both turn.

More and more voices joined the first. The soldat Eris had just left was alerting the entire palace to the thief in their midst.

It was an alarm.

Eris waited for the truth to dawn on the commandant’s face the way it had with the soldat. But the commandant was no longer looking at Eris, only frowning in the direction of the alarm.

That Death Dancer. Her eyes were sharp with ire. If he thinks he can steal from the king without consequence, he has no idea who he’s dealing with.

Eris should have kept her mouth shut. This commandant had her spindle, after all. Her only escape.

But Eris couldn’t help herself.

"How do you know it’s a he?"

The commandant looked straight at her then. Eris shivered under that cold gaze. Stupid, she thought, even as she stared into the girl’s eyes. What a stupid thing to say.

The commandant studied her as the alarm grew louder in the distance. On her face Eris could clearly see the need to respond to the alarm warring with . . . what? Wariness? Suspicion?

Any moment now, she’s going to figure it out, draw her weapon, and arrest me.

But the commandant did none of those things. Instead, she held out the spindle, her eyes seeing Eris now, taking all of her in. You dropped this, she said.

Eris swallowed, staring at the elegantly carved spindle lying on that callused palm.

Is this a trick?

When Eris reached to take it, though, the commandant’s hand fell away. She turned on her heel. Come on. Let’s see what that cocky bastard has done this time. . . .

Concentrating on the alarm now, the commandant failed to notice that Eris didn’t follow.

The moment she strode away, Eris crouched down to draw a silver line across the floor.

Cocky? she thought, working quickly.

It felt like a challenge.

She shook her head. She couldn’t let herself get distracted this time. She needed to pour all of her focus into her destination.

As Eris finished drawing the line, the air grew thick and damp. The mist billowed up. But the sound of those diminishing footsteps drew her attention back. Eris paused, watching the commandant turn the corner. Watching her disappear from view.

Eris rose to her feet. Before putting Firgaard and the palace and that girl out of her mind, she thought: I’ll show her just how cocky I can be.

And then she stepped across.

Two

Ever since the door to the king’s treasury was found open and a bright red ruby missing, Safire hadn’t been able to sleep.

Someone had walked the halls of her palace, slipped past every single one of her guards, entered a locked door, and stolen the very ruby King Dax intended to give the scrublands tomorrow. One that would be sold and the profits divided to help remedy the starvation caused by the blight—one known as the White Harvest. Years ago, it had spread like wildfire through the scrublands, destroying all their crops, cutting off their main sources of food. Every season, farmers would try again, but the blight would only infect the new harvests, driving the people further and further to the brink of starvation.

Safire knew things were getting worse, but it wasn’t until Queen Roa returned from her last visit home that Safire realized how dire the situation really was. Roa’s father was now bedridden. Unbeknownst to her family, he’d been going without food for some time now, so that those less fortunate than him could eat. But it wasn’t only Roa’s father who was at risk of starvation—her best friend, Lirabel, was also chronically malnourished due to her pregnancy. The physician told Roa if they couldn’t get access to substantially more food, and quickly, Lirabel would lose the baby.

When Roa returned to Firgaard, even Safire had seen the change in her. She looked exhausted and frail. At meals, Dax cast worried glances her way whenever she refused to eat—because how could she, when her loved ones were starving to death?

They needed a permanent solution, and quickly.

Dax planned to sell the ruby in the royal treasury—a jewel that once belonged to their great-grandmother—and use the profits to buy meat and vegetables and grain to supplement the weekly rations Firgaard was already sending, in hopes of keeping starvation at bay.

The fact that someone had stolen the jewel without a second thought? It was intolerable. Unforgivable.

It made Safire tremble with fury.

There was only one clue left behind: an ugly gray thistle. Safire had never seen anything like it, with its stem littered with thorns, some as long as her smallest finger and nearly half as thick. So she showed it to the palace physician.

A scarp thistle, he told her. It grows on the scarps of the Star Isles. A single thorn carries enough poison to make a person sleep for days.

More than both of these things, though, it was the mark of a criminal. A thief known as the Death Dancer because he walked through walls, was uncatchable, and constantly eluded death. He’d been haunting the halls (and treasuries) of barons and kings for years.

Well, thought Safire that day, he won’t elude me.

So she’d doubled the guards and started patrolling the palace herself.

Now, two days later, she stood staring down at a second scarp thistle. Only this one lay on her own desk, behind her own locked door.

As the soldats in the room around her whispered to themselves, all of them watching their commandant, Safire’s eyes lifted to the wall beyond it.

This morning, a tapestry hung on that wall. It had been a gift from Asha, her cousin. The tapestry was gone now. The plaster wall stripped bare.

The thistle on her desk told her the thief had taken it.

Why?

Safire’s eyes narrowed. She understood the king’s ruby. It was worth more money than most people saw in a lifetime. But a ratty old tapestry? What could possibly be the value in that?

Unless, thought Safire, he’s trying to taunt me.

And then, suddenly, that young soldat’s lilting voice rang through her mind.

How do you know it’s a he?

Safire’s stomach twisted.

She’d been in such a hurry, she’d thought nothing of the girl’s morion—which, now that she was thinking about it, was far too big for her and shielded half her face.

But there were other things, too.

The soldat carried no weapon, and she spoke with an unfamiliar accent. Safire had never heard a lilting voice quite like hers. It was almost . . . lyrical.

Not to mention that rolled-up bundle tucked beneath her arm.

Safire froze, thinking back to that bundle. The old, fraying threads. The considerable size.

It was a tapestry.

Her tapestry.

The one Asha had given her.

Safire sank down in her chair. That thieving bastard.

Safire tripled the guards. She stopped leaving the palace and remained on patrol through the night. The next day, despite her vigilance, the king’s seal went missing from Safire’s drawer. The day after that, Safire left her rooms only to return and find every single one of her uniforms gone. And in their place? Scarp thistles.

It was enough to make a person lose her mind.

Safire now had a collection of the gray thistles sitting in a glass jar on the windowsill of her bedroom. When she was feeling particularly broody, she would lock herself in and glare at them for hours, trying to think of a solution to this infuriating problem.

I don’t think she’s a threat, said Asha as she picked out a rock lodged in Kozu’s claw. The First Dragon stood over her like a shadow while Safire lay in the warm grass beside them, staring up at the indigo sky.

Where they sat, the former hunting paths ended in a scrubby field surrounded by forest. To the north, a huge round tent was pitched, and between them and the tent several dragons prowled, all of them being trained by hopeful riders. Safire could hear the clicked commands from where she stood.

These were the dragon fields. Asha hoped to build a school here—one that would simultaneously preserve the old stories while repairing the damaged relationship between draksors and dragons.

A thief who can walk through the palace halls completely undetected doesn’t sound like a threat to you? Safire asked, her hands cradling her head.

Asha set Kozu’s foot down, thought about it, then shook her head. This one doesn’t.

Safire sat up and crossed her legs. Please explain.

Kozu—an enormous black dragon with a scar through one eye—nudged Asha’s hip with his snout, as if to tell her something. But whatever passed between them was a mystery to Safire.

She sounds . . . bored, said Asha, rubbing the First Dragon’s scaly neck. "Like she’s tired of being the cleverest person in the room. What if she’s provoking you because she needs a challenge?"

Safire frowned at this. Do you think I should give her one?

Asha left Kozu and came to sit in the grass. Her black gaze held Safire’s. "Can you? Right now she seems three steps ahead of you."

Safire bristled at this.

Seeing it, Asha leaned forward. "All you need is to get one step ahead."

Propping her elbow on her knee, Safire rested her chin on her fist. And how do you propose I do that?

In the rising heat, Asha began undoing the brass buttons of her scarlet flight jacket. Dax had it sewn especially for Asha, to mark her as his Namsara. As Asha shrugged it off, the buttons flashed in the sun and Safire leaned in, squinting, to find that each brass orb was impressed with the image of a flame-like seven-petaled flower—the namsara, Asha’s namesake.

These are the things you know about her, Asha said, laying her new jacket down beside her, then ticking fingers off her burned hand as she spoke. "She’s brash—there’s no room in the palace she won’t break into. She steals things that have monetary value—the ruby, Dax’s seal. And she steals things that are valuable only to you—like the tapestry I gave you and your uniforms."

Asha leaned back, planting her palms on the red-brown earth beneath her. So, she said thoughtfully, looking out over the dragon fields, what is the brashest, most valuable thing she could possibly steal from the king’s commandant?

They both fell silent, thinking.

Safire didn’t have any valuables—other than maybe her throwing knives, which were a gift from Asha. She might have royal blood running through her veins, but there had been nothing royal about her upbringing. Safire didn’t like to think about the time before the revolt, when she was kept out of sight, forbidden to touch or even stand near her cousins, taunted and abused while the palace staff looked the other way.

Just as she was shaking off the memories, a sound issued from across the field.

It was a series of quiet, nervous clicks familiar to both Safire and Asha, who looked up. Across the grassy plain, away from the commotion of the dragons and their riders, a tall, thin boy with coppery hair and freckled skin made his way toward them.

Torwin.

Several paces behind Torwin walked an ivory-scaled dragon with one broken horn. He stepped warily, casting his gaze ahead and behind, looking like he would bolt at the slightest irregular movement. Safire knew this dragon. His name was Sorrow.

Several weeks ago, while Asha and Torwin were collecting old stories in Firefall—a city west of Darmoor—they’d found this half-starved creature chained in the courtyard of a wealthy home, with an iron muzzle locked around his jaws. He’d been severely abused by the children of the house, who were keeping him as a pet.

As a result, Sorrow let very few people get close. He stayed deep in the Rift mountains and never came near the city. Asha didn’t think he’d ever pair with a rider, because he was so mistrustful of humans. A few had tried, but the bond that normally formed in first flight never took.

As Torwin stepped toward the two cousins, then sat down in the dirt next to them, Sorrow crept toward Kozu, whose hulking black form was curled in the sun, soaking up the warmth. Sorrow’s ivory scales were a sharp contrast to Kozu’s obsidian.

Everything’s packed, said Torwin. He held a large knife in his hands, its silver sheath embossed with intricate star patterns. If we leave at dawn, we should arrive before sundown.

Despite having just returned from Firefall, Asha and Torwin were flying to the Star Isles tomorrow. The reason for their trip was currently gripped in Torwin’s hands: the Skyweaver’s knife.

The weapon had saved Roa’s sister a few weeks previous, and Roa now wanted it returned to where it came from. She believed it was too dangerous an artifact to keep here in Firgaard. So Asha and Torwin had gone through the accounts of the last man who’d bought it—one of Firgaard’s wealthiest barons—and tracked down its history to a place called the scrin.

If Roa wasn’t so insistent, I’d drop this thing to the bottom of the sea and be done with it, said Torwin, sliding the blade out of the sheath just enough to reveal the silver-blue blade concealed within. He shivered. Looking up, he squinted through the sunlight. Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Safire?

Come? To an archipelago known for its monsters, tempests, and ship wreckers? Safire wrinkled her nose, thinking of the treacherous waters of the Silver Sea. I think I’ll pass. Besides, Roa and Dax will be joining you in a few days.

The empress of the Isles—a fearsome woman named Leandra who was rumored to be deathless—wanted to present the new dragon king and queen with a gift. One that Leandra hoped would help the dire situation in the scrublands. As Dax’s Namsara, Asha had been invited to the empress’s citadel, too, but she’d turned down the invitation.

I don’t have the time or the interest in rubbing shoulders with foreign monarchs, Asha told Safire when the invite came. That’s Dax’s role.

Someone has to be the responsible one, Safire said. Someone has to stay behind to ensure this city doesn’t fall apart.

Those were her official reasons for remaining in the capital. But as she spoke them, she thought of the criminal prowling through the palace like it was her own personal playground.

Safire would never leave Firgaard at the Death Dancer’s mercy.

Torwin, as if sensing her thoughts, said, Caught that thief of yours yet?

Sighing, Safire fell back into the grass. No.

That was why she was here on the dragon fields. The king’s commandant was running from her own failure. She’d hoped to have the Death Dancer locked in a cell by now. Instead, the criminal continued to elude her.

Sometimes she felt a . . . presence. In the middle of the day or the night. In the palace or in the street. Watching her. Trailing her. But when she turned, knife in hand, all she found was shadows. Sometimes, when she entered a room, she couldn’t shake the sense that her thief had been there just a heartbeat before. It felt as though they were playing a game of cat and mouse.

Only Safire wasn’t sure who was the cat and who was the mouse.

She needed to catch this Death Dancer. She wanted to see the look in the thief’s eyes when she locked her up for good.

Once she did, she could go back to sleeping through the night.

Saf’s beginning to believe the rumors are true, said Asha.

Torwin shot her a look. Rumors?

"They say the Death Dancer is uncatchable, Asha explained. That she’s half god, half shadow."

Safire