The Weaver of Shattered Moons

CHAPTER FIVE

The Glass Treason

The bells didn't just ring; they screamed. The sound vibrated through the moon-glass walls, causing fine cracks to spider-web across the beautiful, cold surfaces of the chamber.

"The High Priests," Kaelen cursed, grabbing his silver mask from the floor. "They’ve felt the snap of the Void-Stitch. They’ll be here in minutes, and they won't come to congratulate us on your recovery, Alaric."

The Prince stood, his movements possessing a new, lethal grace. The violet in his eyes glowed brighter as he looked at the obsidian doors. "They won't come to congratulate me because they are the ones who put the stitch in my soul. Every 'healing' ritual, every 'blessing'—it was all a tether to keep me under their thumb."

He turned to Lyra, who was still on the floor, her fingers bleeding from the feedback of the magic. He reached down, his hand warm and solid as he pulled her to her feet. "Can you run, Seamstress?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Lyra breathed, tucking her bone needle into her bodice.

"None at all," Alaric said.

The doors burst open. Instead of the Royal Guard, men in robes of shimmering white silk poured in. Their faces were hidden behind hoods, and in their hands, they carried staves tipped with raw, unrefined shards of the moon. These were the Arbiters—the High Priests' personal executioners.

"The vessel is corrupted!" the lead Arbiter cried, raising his staff. "Purify the Prince! Kill the Weaver!"

A bolt of pure, freezing moonlight shot from the staff. Alaric didn't flinch. He stepped in front of Lyra and held out his hand. Instead of the shadows consuming him, the violet light from his eyes surged into his palm, forming a shield of solid light that shattered the bolt into harmless dust.

"Kaelen, the secret passage behind the lunar map," Alaric commanded. "Now!"

Kaelen moved with a blur of steel, cutting a path through the first wave of Arbiters. Lyra felt Alaric’s hand grip hers—his touch felt like a spark of lightning—as he pulled her toward a massive stone map of the shattered moon carved into the back wall.

"Press the Shard of the Sea of Storms," Alaric told her.

Lyra scanned the map, her eyes landing on a jagged piece of stone on the lower left. She pressed it, and with a heavy grind of stone on stone, the map swung inward, revealing a dark, narrow staircase that smelled of damp earth and old secrets.

"Go!" Alaric shoved her into the darkness just as a second wave of Arbiters entered the room, their staves glowing with a deadly, blinding heat.

As they descended into the bowels of the palace, the sounds of battle echoed above them. Lyra realized she was no longer just a thief from the Lowlands. She was a fugitive with a Prince whose soul was a weapon, and the only people who knew the truth were now hunting them to the ends of the earth.