Page 18 of A Fate Unwoven
It had been weeks since he’d felt the strange pressure in his mind. Weeks since the twisting shadows that only he could see had crept into his vision. He’d thought he’d overcome them, that his meditation sessions with Iska had been helping.
“It isn’t your fault, you know,” Ioseph said softly. “None of this is your fault. We’ve been on the road for days, and you’re under a huge amount of stress. Not to mention you should have had years of training with your Fateweaver, learning to use the bond. It’s no wonder that it’s … fragile.” He paused, and Dimas heard him shifting closer, as if his proximity could chase away the monsters in Dimas’s mind. “It will get easier. Once …”
“Once my father and Lady Sefwyn die?” Dimas’s throat tightened.
Dimas’s relationship with his father was … strained. Still, the emperor was the only parent he had left. Lady Sefwyn had always been a distant, divine figure. Ironically, even then she’d treated him with more kindness than his father ever had.
And it was their deaths that would allow him to track his Fateweaver much more easily. The weaker they became, the stronger Dimas’s bond to his Fateweaver would grow, and once the Rite of Ascension was completed—once their bond had been magically enhanced—Dimas would be able to use the bond to find her whenever he wanted. Until then, only strong emotions seemed to trigger the shared visions between them. Anger. Fear.
Pain.
Dimas’s gaze settled on the horizon. The storm had settled hours ago, leaving a fresh blanket of snow in its wake. In the dim light, Dimas could just make out the edge of the forests that stretched across most of the Wilds, their twisted branches reaching toward him like claws.
A shiver ran down his spine. His mother had painted these woods. And as she’d painted, she’d told Dimas of the lush pine forests that had once covered so much of western Wyrecia, forests once so filled with wildlife that you could hear the song of larks at dawn and the howl of wolves at night. Forests that, as the decades passed and the infamous Furybringer, Lady Aalys, had risen to power, had withered and died.
The Furybringer was long gone from Wyrecia, and tales of her reign were the most forbidden of all, but the empress had insisted it a vital part of her son’s history.
“You need to know what can happen when an emperor fails to bond with his Fateweaver,” she’d explained. “If that kind of power is left unchecked, it will destroy us all.”
He’d thought of that moment a lot since his fifteenth namesday. Since the vision he’d been waiting for all his life had not come. Had his mother known, somehow, that the rumors about her son were true? That he would be forsaken by the very goddess who had blessed his bloodline all those centuries ago?
Dimas took a deep breath, trying to fight off the darkness flickering at the edges of his vision. He refused to believe this was his fate. Næbya was simply testing him. He just had to prove he was worthy.
He let out a breath. Slid his sword from its sheath. “I’m going to try to use the connection again.”
“Dimas—”
“Just a small cut,” Dimas promised. “The pain should be enough to trigger the bond. To … let me see Lenora again.” All of his lessons had taught him that if an emperor was injured, it would trigger the connection between him and his Fateweaver. It was a long shot, given how unpredictable their connection had been so far, but … he had to try.
“And if she resists you again?” Ioseph asked, and Dimas knew he was thinking about theotherlessons Dimas had sat through. Lessons that warned of what would happen if a Fateweaver rejected the divine bond with the empire’s rightful ruler. The Fateweaver would descend into madness, driven insane by her power until it consumed her.
And the reigning emperor alongside her.
“I have to do something, ’Seph.” He thought of the young guard’s lifeless face. The blood staining his cloak. If the same people who had killed Aldryn had gone after Milos’s unit…
He slid off his glove. Placed the cold steel of his blade against his palm.
“Wait.” Ioseph stepped in front of him, eyes softening. “If you’re adamant about doing this, at least use my blade. You’ll cut your fingers off with that thing.”
“Ah.” Dimas’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, alright.”
He slid his sword back into its sheath and took the dagger Ioseph offered him without another word, his heart fluttering at the reassuring smile his best friend offered him. The gesture gave him the strength to slide the edge of the blade along his flesh. A single, long line from one edge to the other. Blood welled, the same deep crimson as the blood at the guard’s throat, and nausea churned in Dimas’s stomach as pain exploded along his arm. He forced himself to close his eyes. To focus on the unnatural silence of the Wilds after a storm. It was nothing like the stone prayer rooms he was used to, but it would have to do.
He let himself drift into the darkness of his mind. Waited for the familiar flicker of Lenora’s surroundings to come into view. A heartbeat passed. And then another. Frustration flared to life in Dimas’s chest.Come on.
He thought he saw a flicker of his Fateweaver’s stern face. Of snow and frost-covered trees and the hazy shape of a large town in the distance. And then there was pressure in his head. The taste of copperon his tongue and shadows twisting behind his eyes. She was fighting him again, pushing against the bond with a will of iron. If he could just get her totalkto him, he could make her understand the consequences of what she was doing—
“Dimas.” Ioseph’s voice sounded distant. He was vaguely aware of hands on his shoulders. Of something warm and wet dribbling from his nose. “Dimas!”
The weak link he’d managed to make with Lenora severed. Dimas stumbled, his breath coming out in short, sharp bursts. Only Ioseph’s hands on his arms kept him from falling to his knees.
Shame burned his cheeks. He couldn’t look at Ioseph as the soldier held him steady, giving him time to collect himself. It was only when Dimas pulled away, his legs finally stable enough to hold him up, that Ioseph spoke.
“We’ll find her,” he said, but the certainty that had shone in his words just minutes earlier now seemed weaker.
Dimas couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t standhimself.But he made himself nod. Made himself wipe the blood from his nose and stand up a little straighter. They would wait here until Milos returned with his Fateweaver, and then—
Something moved in the distance. A lone figure stumbling through the snow. Ioseph saw it at the same moment Dimas did, and the soldier drew his sword, his body moving to shield his prince. But as the figure drew closer, as the ebony of his uniform and the silver pin at his breast became clear, Ioseph lowered his weapon.
