The ballroom is too stunning to have been a prison. The floor still sparkles with flecks of multicolored light through the stained glass windows.
Still, even though I’m confident Zora is gone, that I failed her one last time, Blaise convinced me to come back. To collect the tapestries at least.
“To honor her many lives,” is what Blaise had said.
So here we are.
They line the far wall, tapestries of black, woven with Zora’s story in multicolor fabric. I’ve never really looked at them closely. Even when I believed Gunter was weaving the tapestries for me, I couldn’t bear a glance at them. Not when it was my fault my sister was being held captive.
Now it’s my fault she’s dead, and you would think that would make me want to look less. It does, in a way. But I feel it’s my duty. That even if it hurts, I owe her to look.
I owe my sister that—seeing her.
“You know,” Blaise says, slipping her hand through mine, “when I was trying to change your ending, the Fabric kept altering the color of the thread. Like the Fates themselves were controlling it. Like they wanted to be the ones to write the ending.”
A knot swells in my throat. “Good to know they prefer me dead.”
Blaise frowns. “Maybe. I guess now that I think of it, I’m not sure how much of the story was the Fates, how much of it was what I rewrote, and how much was yours, Zora’s, and Farin’s.”
A pained smile tugs at my cheeks. “I suppose that is the age-old question—how much control do we have over our own fate? Who knew my wife was such a philosopher.”
Blaise tugs at my hand, and though my chest feels tight, we walk across the room to read the many stories of my sister. When we get halfway across the room, I stop, closing my eyes. “You go on ahead. Look first?” I ask.
It’s a silly thing to ask, because Blaise has already seen the tapestries.
Blaise squeezes my hand. “Of course.”
I wait as she patters to the other side of the room. Soon, her heart begins to race, her breath turning ragged.
No.
Something is wrong.
“Nox,” Blaise says, her pitch heightened. “I think you should look at this.”
I steel myself and join my wife, following to the portion of the first tapestry, where she’s pointing.
“This one’s changed,” she says. “I used to stare at these when I sat in here with your and Zora’s bodies.”
“You’re sure it’s different?” I ask.
“I’m telling you, I would have remembered this.”
That’s when I look.
Because woven into the tapestry, holding a child, is Zora.
Except she’s had twins.
And holding the second child is Farin.
“No.” The word slips from my mouth without my permission. “No,” I say again, this time more firmly. I take the tapestry by the hand, feeling the sudden urge to rip it to pieces. To pluck the story away, thread by thread, just like Blaise did with my deaths.
Blaise turns to me, her silky black hair framing her face as she knits her brow, and takes my hand, uncurling my fingers from the thick tapestry.
“Why don’t we look at the rest?” she asks.
My ears are buzzing with Zora’s screams as Farin shoved the knife through her gut.
No, he can’t…
But the next tapestry is the same. A different setting, this one a mountain cottage, but by the fire are Zora and Farin, grasping their children in their arms.
“They look happy,” says Blaise, and then she scoffs a bit. “Well, maybe not to begin with.” She points toward the top of the tapestry, where Zora is holding a knife to Farin’s throat.
The next tapestry tells the same story, and the next, until in dozens of realms, Zora and Farin are brought together, sometimes by sea, sometimes by land, sometimes by war, sometimes by wind.
But by the middle, they’re always together.
And by the end…
Well, the endings vary.
No matter what, Farin always finds her.
“But he’s a…” I stop myself, swallowing the word.
Blaise gives me a knowing look. “A monster?”
