Threaded Fate

Hurry home, hurry home, little children, hurry home. The rains came down hard, enough to erase the blood and footprints hurried feet left in the ground. It swallowed the path beneath Vindhler's feet, flattened the grass along the hillside, and turned the red earth into a slick, treacherous thing. Water ran between the stones in thin silver streams. The trees bent beneath the weight of the storm, their branches clawing at one another whenever the wind changed direction. From somewhere behind her, an arrow whizzed past her head, a thunk sound echoing in her ears as the pointed tip buried itself into the tree in front of her, she remembered polishing those exact edges just that morning, shaking off the memories Vindhler ran faster. Her wedding dress was torn at the knees. The white fabric clung to her thighs, heavy with rain and mud, and the long sleeves caught on thorn bushes whenever she strayed too close to the trees. Her veil was gone. Her hair had loosened from its braids, sticking to her cheeks and the blood at the corner of her mouth. She could no longer feel the soles of her feet. She ran anyway. The forest smelled of wet bark, crushed leaves, and the sharp, metallic scent of blood. Lightning split the sky, exposing the hillside in a flash of bone-white light. For that single instant, she saw them. Hunters. They emerged between the trees in a long, dark line, their lanterns swinging beneath the rain. Their cloaks concealed their bodies, but the lightning caught the polished ends of their staffs and the pale gleam of symbols carved into their masks. They moving too quickly. She stumbled over a root and caught herself against a tree. Pain shot through her ankle. She pressed a hand to the trunk, sucking in air, and looked back. Another flash of lightning. Another glimpse of the hunters. And then she saw the faces beneath their hoods . Her grandmother. Her father. Her sisters. The woman who had taught her to braid her hair. The little girl who followed her around the courtyard and begged to be carried whenever she grew tired. And him. Her betrothed. The boy who had been promised to her when she was thirteen. The boy who had sat beside her beneath the old fig tree when neither of them wanted to attend their lessons. The boy who knew how she took her tea and how she liked her bread burned at the edges. The boy whose hand she had expected to hold beneath the moon tonight. He was carrying a staff. She stared at it. Then at him. The rain ran into her eyes. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, but she could not stop looking. He had given her a white flower that morning. She had tucked it into her hair before the ceremony. She wondered whether it was still there. "Why?" Her voice was so small that the storm swallowed it. Nobody answered. She took a step backward. Her father did not move. Her grandmother's face was unreadable. One of her sisters was crying, but she kept her staff raised. Vindhler looked from one face to another, searching for something familiar enough to make sense of what was happening. A warning. An explanation. A sign that this was some terrible misunderstanding. Anything. "Please." Her betrothed took a step forward. She flinched. He stopped. For a moment, she thought he might lower his staff. He didn't. She remembered being thirteen, standing in the courtyard while the elders spoke about their future as though the matter had already been settled by the stars. She remembered the embarrassed smile he had given her afterward. At least, he had said, we already know each other. She had laughed. She had been eighteen this morning. She had looked forward to tonight. Now she was standing in the rain, surrounded by people who knew every part of her life, and she could not understand why they wanted her dead. How was she supposed to fight them? Her father had taught her to hold a blade. Her grandmother had taught her to listen to the wind. Her sisters had held her when she cried. She had spent years making herself stronger because she never wanted the people she loved to sacrifice themselves for her. She had imagined monsters. Armies. Curses. Things she could strike down without hesitation. She had never imagined this. A horn sounded again. The hunters spread across the hillside. Her grandmother raised her staff. Vindhler stepped backward. Her heel found no ground. She turned her head. The cliff opened beneath her. It was an old wound in the landscape, a sheer drop into a darkness so complete that even the lightning seemed reluctant to enter it. Far below, the storm disappeared into a depth she could not measure. There was a shimmer somewhere beyond the darkness. A thin, distant light. She couldn't tell whether it was a reflection or something real. Behind her, the people she loved began advancing. Vindhler laughed. The sound frightened her more than the hunters did. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to slow her breathing. Her heart hammered against her palm. "All right," she whispered. Her betrothed said her name. She looked at him. For the first time that night, she saw something in his face that resembled pain. It almost made her stay. Almost. But he still held the staff. And her grandmother was still advancing. And her father, who had once given up his magic to protect his family, was standing among the people hunting his daughter. Whatever explanation they had, whatever danger they believed she represented, nobody had thought she deserved to hear it. They had made their decision. She would make hers. "All right, since you're going to kill me," she said, her voice trembling beneath the rain, "I'd rather jump into nothingness than let you pe." Someone screamed her name. She didn't wait to hear who. She turned. And jumped. The wind struck her face. The cliff disappeared. The darkness opened. For one terrible instant, she thought she was falling. Then the world went silent. There was no rain. No thunder. No hunters. No pain. Only a thin, shimmering light, suspended in the darkness like a thread stretched between two distant hands. Vindhler reached for it. Something touched her fingers. Something warm. Something that felt, impossibly, like a hand reaching back. A voice whispered: "I found you." Her eyes opened.