My name was Lavenia Lihl, and I was one thing above all else.
I was a goddamn liar.
The metal around my finger splintered apart like a flimsy bit of bark peeled into strips, the pieces scattering to the path to be left behind. It had finally happened. The thing my mother feared the most in life. I had lost control. I had made the biggest mistake of all.
And for that, I would be punished.
2
Fated
The pathway was made of cobblestones packed tightly and unevenly together, but I navigated them easily, skipping over the wagon grooves, small potholes, and cracks as though I had carved them into the ground with my own hands. Magic flooded me, making it all seem easy, filling me with strength and confidence.
I felt invincible.
I followed the path through the winding hills and ridges until I reached the Steps of Atonement—a great big staircase of rough rainstone covering a distance of almost two miles. The stone was muddier in its unpolished form, the crystal blue colour barely whispering to the surface beneath a cloudy white film. The steps were walled in by white marble, with pillars every half a mile supporting great big statues. The statues at the very beginning were of a Vold man and woman in marble warrior garb, their swords crossed high over the entrance to the steps. Further up the steps were a Skjebre pair, and then a Sjel pair, an Eloi pair, and a Sinn pair.
Everyone had to climb the Steps of Atonement to reach the crossroads, which led to both Hearthenge—the heart of our civilisation—and Breakwater Ridge, where the stewards made their home in the mountains. I had barely cleared ten of the steps before the surge of energy and magic began to trickle out of me. My breath started to labour, my legs to grow wobbly, slowing my pace. My vision blurred as I looked up, trying to see the top of the steps. A hot, sharp pain fissured through my chest, temporarily hobbling me. I stumbled to the side, but managed to catch myself before I fell.
I paused only a moment to catch my breath and allow my equilibrium to return to normal before I forced myself back into a jog. This time, I moved without magic. My limbs became heavier, my movements suddenly clumsy and wooden. I had walked the Steps of Atonement every single day since I could remember, but I had never once attempted to run up them—there were simply too many. My legs began to burn, my lungs threatening to burst, but fear filled me as completely as the Vold magic had fled from me, and I knew I couldn’t stop. I was propelled by the feeling that no matter how hard and fast I ran, I would never be able to escape what had just transpired.
The sun had fully breached the sky by the time I reached the top, the great big orb clawing over the mountains to my back and casting my shadow forward. I turned away from the road that would lead to the city of Hearthenge, a single-minded determination driving me through the forest that would take me home. Rough, pale stones took the beating of my footsteps as I ran, a low rock wall enclosing the pathway. The trees immediately blocked out the sunlight, the air turning cold. I watched as mist puffed out from my mouth, the temperature dropping further. Fear shot through me afresh, and I jerked to a stop, spinning around to confront the empty path behind me.
“I know you’re there.” I spoke to the cold forest, wiping my trembling palms on my pants before balling them up into fists and spinning back to face the other direction.
Suddenly, he was there. Swathed in darkness and frost, his cowl hiding everything but those dark, deep blue eyes. He didn’t look like he had been chasing me. He wasn’t out of breath. I stumbled back a step. His hand shot out, catching my wrist. He tugged gently, and I fell forward as though enchanted. His power had wrapped around me, drowning my fight in fear again.
I was close enough to make out his features: a long, straight nose; firm, unyielding lips. His hair was dark silver—like frosted slate or liquid steel. It was an odd, metallic sort of colour, unlike white or grey. I found myself transfixed by the lure of it beneath his cowl. He wasn’t typically handsome, but there was something graceful about his face. There was an evenness to his generous features, a kind of symmetry that would have made him seem captivating if he hadn’t been so utterly terrifying. It was not at all the face I had expected. I had expected something brutish. A misshapen giant’s face. It was commonly known that the more magic a sectorian possessed, the more it deformed them. The Weaver didn’t have a single visible deformity.
“You cannot run from me,” he warned in the same rough voice. “You cannot run from your fate.” His hand tightened on my wrist, his head lowering until I could feel the weight of his stare bearing me down into the pathway. “And most importantly of all: you cannot run from the debt you now owe.”
His free hand moved to cup my face, a strangely tender gesture, though the speed of it had me wincing away from him. His mouth twisted in a slight smile, dark with intention and amusement at my expense. The skin high on my left cheek, just to the outside of my eye, began to sting. I flinched away again, but he held tight, and the sting turned to a burn.
He was gifting me the Weaver’s mark. A silver circle, inked magically upon the skin. A permanent fixture. An unending, unbreakable curse. Soon, everyone would see it upon my face and know of the deal thrust upon me. A mortal debt for a whisper of what might be. They would know that I had traded anything and everything of value in my pathetic life for a taste of the unknown … except that my life wasn’t invaluable or pathetic. I had a slumbering power. A terrible secret that would kill me to reveal, and it was the only thing I had to offer the Weaver, the only thing of value that he could demand of me.
“Your fate has been heard by the water,” the Weaver muttered, his velvet eyes crawling from his mark to meet my horrified gaze. “It will be there in the tears you cry, in the rain that falls, in the cup at your table. Every time you breathe, you breathe it into being. When you wish to hear it in full, you need only ask.”
“And in return?” I ground out. There was no escaping this deal. He had already marked me. He had already chosen my fate and damned me to it. All that was left was to know exactly how I would be forced to repay the debt … and how I might be able to escape it.
As for my chosen fate: I didn’t want a word of it. A life lived in fear of a prophesied death was no life at all. I still remembered the girl with the silver circle below her eye. She had worn a white dress that contrasted shockingly with her raven hair. She had been stunningly beautiful, even with the mottled, dark rash covering her skin. Her magic mutation. That was all we knew about her. That, and the fact that she had jumped right off the edge of Breakwater Canyon. She smashed her head on the rocks, and it had been too dangerous to climb down and retrieve her body. We were forced to stare out our windows and watch the crows feasting on her corpse until she was gone.
The questions were hushed, at first. People were terrified to inquire about the business of the Weaver … and then the questions stopped altogether. Silenced like a flame deprived of oxygen, withering away into nothing. I had gathered the courage to ask my mother what had caused the girl to fling her life away, but I had received nothing more than a blank stare in return. Out of necessity, people had forgotten all about her.
“What have you to offer?” The Weaver smiled as he asked the words, those stern lips stretching over straight white teeth. It was the kind of smile that belonged to a beast in the wild. A question asked only for the sake of cruelty. “Your wealth?” He released my face, plucking at the neckline of my top. “Your body?” He ducked his head lower still, but there was no spark of interest in his eyes. Only a cruel wisdom. “Your power?” he taunted.