Sacrifice

Another contraction made Skyweaver cry out. Pushing away from the empress’s table, she rose to her feet, stumbling. Leandra turned to look and saw what Skyweaver had worked so hard to keep hidden: a belly swollen with child.

Accusation darkened her eyes.

Skyweaver fled, needing to escape her true enemy.

Needing to set the Shadow God free.

Her servant, Day, helped her climb the steps of her tower. But halfway to her weaving room, Skyweaver collapsed in the pains of labor. She could go no farther. So Day lifted her into his arms and carried her.

Inside the weaving room, he set her down and barred the door, trapping them both inside.

The baby came, wailing and beating its fists. As it did, Skyweaver gave it what was left of her immortality.

In the world beyond, the wind rose. The rain pummeled the panes. The sea raged.

The god of tides was coming.

Day looked below to find Leandra approaching the tower with an army at her back.

“I know a place you can hide her,” he said, taking the baby and swaddling it in a blanket. “But we must go now.”

He held the child out to Skyweaver. But the god of souls only gazed at her newborn with sorrow in her eyes.

She did not take her baby. Instead, she lifted her weaving knife and held it out to Day. “Keep Eris safe. Until I find you.”

Far below, Leandra’s soldiers broke down the tower door. Their footsteps echoed up the stairs.

Skyweaver went to her weaving bench and picked up the spindle there.

“The key to your escape,” she whispered. Taking her servant out into the hall, she drew the spindle across the floor. In its wake, a silver line shimmered delicately on the floorboards. On one side stood the door to her weaving room. On the other . . . a world of mist and starlight.

Day looked from the mist to the god he served.

Skyweaver looked to her daughter, seeing a life she might have had. I could still have it, she thought. She would fight for that life—and for her daughter. She would defeat Leandra just as she defeated the Shadow God.

The soldiers’ footsteps were close now. As their shouts got louder, the baby started to wail.

Skyweaver kissed her daughter’s brow. She tucked the spindle into the blanket swaddling her, then turned to face the enemy on the stairs.

“Come with us,” Day begged.

Skyweaver shook her head. “I must end this,” she said as Leandra appeared before her, as cold and ruthless as the sea. “I will find you when it’s done. Now go!”

With no other choice before him, Day obeyed. Clutching the child in one hand and Skyweaver’s knife in the other, he stepped across the shimmering line and into the mist.

Leaving his god behind.