Page 92 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

I was falling.I was falling so fast I couldn’t grab onto anything. It was almost as bad as it was the last time I Threadwalked—almost—but at least now, I was expecting it.

Threads flew by, smears of silver. I managed to grab one of them, hurling myself onto it so awkwardly that it hit my stomach and knocked the wind out of me. Then I hauled myself to my feet.

Everything stilled. The other threads faded into the background, millions of possibilities yet to be explored. The sky was a velvet night, calm and star-speckled.

I focused on the thought of Atrius’s fleet, bending the thread before me toward it.

Show it to me,I whispered into the night, and began walking along the thread.

The mists rolled in thick. The stars disappeared beneath the fog. I was disoriented, the thread wobbly beneath me, but I just kept walking.

And walking.

And walking.

My brow furrowed. I should have felt something by now.

But nothing. Nothing but mists.

Perhaps seering on the fleet wasn’t enough. Perhaps I needed to go farther.

Veratas. Show me Veratas.

The mists grew suddenly, brutally cold. Goosebumps rose over my skin. Shivers racked my body. I braced, but kept walking.

A figure appeared in the mist, far ahead of me.

Atrius’s cousin, maybe?

My steps quickened. The figure was walking, too, though much slower than I was. When I got within a few paces, close enough to make out their presence, I stopped short.

“Sightmother?”

Her back was to me, and the mist obscured her. But even in this intangible dream world, I would recognize the Sightmother anywhere. I briefly considered the possibility that she was actuallyinthis Threadwalk with me—shared Threadwalks were possible, though rare and very difficult. But this version of her… she was silent, ephemeral, like a ghost.

A knot twisted in my stomach, disconcerted by her presence here, even if I didn’t know why.

In a few long strides, I caught up to her. She walked beside my thread in steady, even paces. She wore her red blindfold, the ribbon unusually long, fluttering behind her—a lone shock of color in a world of misty grey, except for?—

My attention fell to her bare feet, and the crimson, bloody footprints they left behind her.

The sense of looming dread rose.

What could this mean? That the Sightmother was in danger?

But before I could push the vision deeper, her head snapped toward me.

She didn’t speak. But her hands reached out, cupped together as if to pass something to me. I opened mine?—

—And gasped in pain.

Scalding liquid burned my skin. I tried to jerk my hands away, but the Sightmother grabbed them and forced my palms up—forced them open to receive the fresh, bubbling-hot blood.

And then, she was gone.

With a strangled cry, I lowered my hands to let the blood fall away, flecks of it splashing onto my feet. Weaver, ithurt, like even the remnants ate through my skin second by second.

A path through the mist opened before me. There were no intersections in the threads now. Only one path forward. Inevitability.

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