Page 61 of The Weaver

“I know it is hard. It will get better in time.”

She turned her face toward him. Her lips were so close to his mouth, so close to brushing over it, to kissing him. “It has been better with you.”

Trilling softly, he lifted his head and set his hands back into motion. “It is better for me too.”

“Please continue.” She gave his leg a gentle squeeze. “I want to know more.”

Again he was quiet, and she could almost feel him gathering his thoughts even as he plaited her hair. He spoke after a deep, slow breath. “I said my mother was a Fang. She served Queen Azunai, who was queen before Zurvashi. She was…big.” He chittered softly. “But gentle. Strong but kind. I see her in Ahnset. I did not like when my mother came to our den with hurts, and I always tried to help her. My hurts… They were so small, and hers were so big.

“I tried to hide them from her. But she saw. She knew. Always, she would help, and always so gently. She did not make me feel small, did not make me feel weak. She made me feel…safe. Made me feel worthy.

“I had only seen five years when my mother died in battle against the fireeyes. She was carried back to Takarahl, and I watched my father sew her shroud. I tried to help, wanted to, but he would not let me.

“I did not know why. We two were weavers, and it was the thread that bound us. I was sad. I knew he was sad also, but he was…changed. He strode with a cloud around him, a darkness. I told him stories as we wove, some I had heard from others, some I had made in my mind, hoping to make him chitter. I took better care in weaving so his hearts would smile. But he did not see. He could not.

“My broodbrothers and broodsisters became more kind inour sadness. We did not have our mother, and our father strode in darkness for a long time. His body was near, but his spirit was far. None of my brood siblings had any want to learn weaving. My sisters wanted to be like our mother, to be Fangs. The only time we saw my sire’s fire again was when they told him that. He shouted and growled and told them no, never, they would not follow our mother.”

“Oh, Rekosh.” Ahmya felt the pain in his words because it was the same as her own—pain that had been buried deep down, that she hadn’t been allowed to express. “My mother died when I was eight. I was young, like you. And I felt so very alone. My brother Hirohito is...”

Her heart squeezed as she remembered the passage of time. Hirohito was no longer alive. He’d died on Earth, long ago, while she’d slept aboard theSomnium.

“My brother was nine years older than me, so we were never close,” she continued. “He was protective and kind, but I was just his baby sister. And when our mother died, our father also changed. He was sad, but also harder too.”

Ahmya ran her palm up and down the upper segment of his leg. “Your father was hurting. Grief changes us, and it can blind us to the fact that other people are hurting too.”

“I know that now,” Rekosh said softly. “But as broodlings, we did not. It was his duty to see. His duty to protect and teach.”

The unspoken words hung in the air, as clear as anything Rekosh had said.

His father had failed.

And she couldn’t help but wonder if her father had failed her also. She felt horrible even considering it. No one was perfect, and her father had done his best, hadn’t he?

Yet she couldn’t help but feel like Yutaka Hayashi had failed his duty to his children when they’d needed him most.

Rekosh’s arm shifted behind Ahmya, and she heard his fingers tap the hard plate of his chest. “My sisters held theirwants close and quiet. They would talk to me in whispers, when the den was dark and our father slept, and tell me of their dreams. They wanted to honor our mother by doing as she had done. By serving the queen and protecting Takarahl.

“My brothers spoke of helping them. Of journeying into the Tangle together to face the enemies of Takarahl, of finding the vrix that killed our mother and slaying them. I did not have the same wants, but I made stories for them. Stories about them—about their journeys as warriors. Loshei’s brood, fighting for Takarahl, bringing honor to their mother.

“My stories brought them joy, and their joy was mine. Our sadness faded. If we did not have our father, we had each other.

“But two years after our mother died, sickness came to Takarahl.”

Dread filled Ahmya. She remained silent, staring ahead, as she listened.

“It stalked Suncrest Tunnel”—Rekosh extended a hand before her, long fingers splayed, and snapped it into a fist—“and grabbed every vrix it could. Many got sick. It made a smell… I do not have words for it in your language. A smell that would not leave, that went deep into all it touched, that made my insides twist. The sickness came into me first. Then it went into my sisters and brothers.

“I remember the wails echoing along the tunnel. Vrix crying out their agony, some until they had no voice left… They wailed in pain because of their illness, while others wailed in grief as their families and friends died, and long after the sickness passed, I still heard whispers of those wails.

“I remember the hurt all over my body, in my bones, my head, my insides. I was too hot and too cold. My throat was small, almost too small for air, and my thoughts… They drifted away like dead leaves on the wind.

“There were blankets and the green fire of spinewood sap, and my father was there, always with us, offering water and softwords. But it is all in pieces that do not fit. I do not know how many days I was so. Only that when I shed the sickness, I was weaker than ever, and many, many vrix had died. My brothers and sisters…”

Whatever more he’d been about to say caught in his throat, creating a deep, broken sound. His fingers faltered in her hair, and Ahmya felt a shudder course through him. Tears blurred her vision.

“I was the weakest, the smallest. I should not have lived. But the sickness took them. All of them. My father sewed their shrouds, one by one, and I did not try to help. I could not find strength to lift even a needle and thread. When he made the last stitch, he made a vow to the Eight. Never would he weave again. Never would he stitch again. Never would he sew another shroud.”

Vrix could not weep, but they were no strangers to sorrow. Rekosh’s body trembled with it, his voice overflowed with it, and it swept freely into Ahmya’s heart, flooding her chest. All that pain, all that grief, all that distance… To have lost his mother, his brothers and sisters, and then the single profound connection he’d shared with his father must’ve been devastating. She couldn’t imagine how a child would’ve taken it.

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