When the island princes crossed the Amber Sea for a visit, the day always became brighter for the mainland peoples. But this visit was even more important than usual—the princes were of age now. All of the girls whispered in the streets, planning how to snare them.
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Twenty-four hours to weave garments fit for a queen. Arachne’s hands shook as a guard shoved her into the small weaving room and slammed the door shut behind her. She looked up at the massive heap of purple chaff just ahead, covering the shadowed floor in front of her.
This is what I get.
An entire universe lies between us now. And I just want to touch him, one last time.
I sit in the window of my berth. We’ve been drifting through space for six months; the panorama of stars beyond is the same as it’s been for most of that time. We survived because we fled.
Kyle yelled as a tendril of vine lifted him off his feet, whirled him through the air, and deposited him in a breathless heap on the ground.
Gritting his teeth, he sprang back up and raised his axe. The vines drew back, their long cords moving like fingers, preparing for another assault.
It’s the same every night.
I wake up in a house not my own, in a dark bedroom, and through a doorway, I hear the sound of someone screaming.
Then there’s always silence.
The first couple of nights I chalked it up to a recurring nightmare of some kind, especially because once I closed my eyes,
The stars are my guide.
It isn’t their light that I follow so much as their song. Every night, I wait for them to come out, to paint the ocean waves. Water laps against my boat, and I follow the path laid out by the celestial chorus.
This should be easy. I am an assassin. He is my target.
Why is this not easy?
Turn around.
I stand in the shadows at the corner of the muddy alley, staring at him. He stands with his back toward me in the dark doorway of a wooden building. The alley drips with sparse raindrops.
I stroke the strings of my finntler as I set it up under the burning lights of the spaceport overhead.
I reckon the best way to describe a finntler is it’s mighty like a xylophone, ‘cept with strings. That and it’s my life on a table. I’m just a boy, but most cain’t mimic the way I play. Travelers passin’ by throw coins. A few stop to listen to the music; my regulars clap along, whoopin’ and cheerin’ as I finish.
What a nightmare—the squealing brakes, the shouts, the crash.
It was enough to jolt Jenny out of bed and out the door in record time. She wasn’t sure what drew her to the old mansion, only that she had to go.
Leo had always hated that place.
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