“Brothers. I have a special job that only you can do.” The crew had made it back to the safety of Breeze Haven. Mac assured Cira that the necromancer was nowhere within his current view which apparently encompassed the entire shadow well’s reach. He could not see in detail within the depths, but tracking a soul he had already witnessed first-hand was not difficult.

“Do you see this?” Cira continued, holding up a punch bowl full of blue jelly. “When you wake up, I need the two of you to continuously pour water into this.”

It was a given that everyone was going to bed after such a long and exhausting day, so Cira appended her instruction thusly.

“Depending on whether I wake up beneath the sun or moon, we will either conduct a lesson beneath the mana well or enchant the Cascades of the Eastern Reach. Prepare for either.”

Cira needed Tawny’s half-reluctant help to get down the stairs and ended up having to relinquish her father’s orichalcum needle for the girl to figure out how to let her into her own bedchamber. Whether or not Cira trusted the unfortunately best student of the lot, she could at least trust a few of her other students completely. Shores and Jimbo seemed reliable enough to keep Breeze Haven in order, let alone James.

Where was he? I swore I saw him… but I guess I’ll think about that tomorrow.

Cira was taken completely off guard by the sudden lapse in spiritual integrity and existential wherewithal which threatened to erase her from the waking world among many other places, but she somehow ended up in bed.

___

The moment the brothers Eros and Lero received the ominous punch bowl of cerulean jelly, they knew the Lord Afar gazed upon them with no less than the utmost expectance. Despite the Saint’s confident words, her voice had grown weaker ever since she fought off the necromancer. It was clear by the time they left the tombs, that she was fighting to stay conscious, yet she deemed this task important enough to dole out before retiring. They didn’t dare go to bed yet themselves.

I always thought it was funny that our savior was supposed to be some farm animal… Eros thought, But now I understand the truth of our Lost Lamb. It was only an analogy. She’s just a child born of the sky, destined to deliver us through the nights. Our fate is to arrive at relentless ruin, and the only one who can shatter such an eventuality is the one born to defy destiny itself. Knowing that person was finally here, I would still prefer she didn’t destroy herself so frivolously.

What life did she live before her first rebirth on Fount Salt? Eros often wondered as much, but he couldn’t let his mind get too preoccupied, lest he stifle the rebirth she was currently working towards. If she would ever free these skies of disaster, Eros need only heed her. That was the meaning of the Final Sky. The Lost Lamb’s will had always been meant to supersede the Far Prophet’s divinations.

Lero and his brother desperately poured all the water they could muster into the punchbowl she left behind and forgot about their misgivings for the time being. She always put her whole being into… whatever she seemed to do, so the brothers thought it was only right they did the same with this cerulean jelly.

___

Her best student? What a disgrace. To learn magic from such a pitiful, disgraceful girl. Her ego was far beyond inflated and at this point there was nothing I could say about it.

Despite my irritation, she either beat or one-upped me every step of the way. To a degree in which the best I could hope to be was a useful helper. If I hadn’t made such remarkable progress through her scarce, half-assed moments of imparted wisdom, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger for this crazy person.

A girl with no aura somehow became the strongest sleeping power on the whole of Lost Cloud. Possibly even further. I never could have imagined the terrors that awaited us in the depths of this shadowy tomb, but she walked right past them with the nonchalance of an Earth Vein witch among a herd of trifling contract mages.

When I was a kid, Mother always told me about the Goddess of the Raging Seas, but to think this absurd girl treated her as merely one extra-large sea slug of many others was the most infuriating part. As if even the most distant childhood dreams I’d long forgotten about were nothing. Then, in response to the astronomical disrespect, the embodiment of all the skies’ seas granted her a gift.

Why can’t I be chosen like that? That’s what I thought when I saw Jimbo and the others helping her without a second thought—and the whole damn sky was talking about her to boot. She supposedly took one of Earth Vein’s largest islands over without so much as even bothering with them until a witch offended her on her way out.

Those idiots preach of the Final Sky, and even the girl herself refutes it. But how can I possibly deny it? Their very teachings claimed the world is destined to certain doom, but a girl foretold who defies all nature and predestination appears. The prophecy is said to yearn for its own destruction, and this helpless girl who burns up her own existence to save a community of degenerate pirates can laugh in the face of an immortal necromancer vying to erase the entire Boreal just to prove a point? I had never met anyone who fit the bill, but…

Was it our cruel fate to be master and student? Or was fate only cruel for the master? Perhaps it turned out I was chosen after all.

I had had the keys to the kingdom as far as it was concerned. The extravagant artificing needle she left behind opened every door on this strange island she called Breeze Haven. Any other day, I would take whatever wasn’t bolted down. One could rival Earth Vein’s wealth with only two bags stuffed full of knickknacks from the living room, but at some point, maybe I realized there was something of greater value to be gained by simply staying here as long as possible.

While the master of the house slumbered peacefully, I opened each door I could, one after the next. Most of them were full of strange things I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t abate my curiosity.

___

My father was a master artificer, yet everything he crafted paled in comparison to half the things which adorned the wondrous Saint’s home. I found a drawer stuffed full of needles crafted from mana crystal without a trace of impurities. It’s said that mana crystals reached their full potential anywhere below four percent aethereal impurity—it’s usually implied that the lowest which can be created artificially is around two percent. Less impurities than that was considered a remarkable geological discovery.

Past that, her artifacts were beyond comprehension. There was no end to the inspiration that could be found in simply observing her creations for a few moments. That poor fellow Rocky possessed undoubtable talent but was so averse to anything the Saint had done thus far for some reason. I don’t understand him, but I can only do my part.

Never in my life had I seen such a large piece of stellar quartz, and not even five minutes later did my old friend Reverand Shores walk in the door. The last time I had even seen a specimen prior, he was there. As if fate had come together before my eyes, how could I refuse his pleas?

Decades spent gathering my wealth, and my children were all grown now. They don’t need me anymore. Marino became a merchant but my daughters each forged their own path, so what else do I carry on for? There were lifetimes over to enjoy the novelty of curios I discovered over the years, but even that grew to bore me. Knowing nothing but the discovery, it was difficult to let go… But I’m glad I held out as long as I did.

That stellar quarts should have given me wealth enough to allow my children’s grandchildren and generations beyond to enjoy the opportunities these vast skies offer, but what was it worth if those same skies should fall?

Captain Shores had always been an honest kid, reliable if nothing else, but he wasn’t always the brightest. Part of me truly believed he was leading me to an imposter, but turned out, I intruded upon a sacred time of recovery for the one I ought to revere, yet she accepted me all the same. The decrepit, old, spent and useless shell of a man that I am, she still let me join her struggle.

My Lady apparently overexerted herself during their expedition and went straight to bed, but I regret nothing. The exalted forge was the only place I needed to be until the exalted one rose again.

Like the mythical phoenix who was said to only show its face every few centuries, I knew that girl would return burning with life. I’ve seen this island crumble from afar for years now under that pompous Wick’s rule, but finally, these skies would see a positive change for the first time in what felt like far longer.

While my Lady slumbers, I have to work hard. She thought she knew my talent, but that was the extent of my abilities in the past. Now that I’ve been revitalized with newfound purpose, I will make sure she praises me come morning.

___

When I awoke, I was alone. The couch I came to on was unnaturally comfortable, and I ended up sleeping for half the day at least. Perhaps I managed a couple more hours, but eventually I could no longer remain in that state. It was like sleeping off a bad hangover, but eventually I realized that everything of recent memory had really happened.

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As I stood up, there was a strange painting on the wall of a young girl with windblown hair. Getting closer, I swore that it was moving, but her face only smiled back at me when I got closer.

That strange fellow, Rocky, said that everyone had left on an expedition to some tomb I had no knowledge of and went straight to sleep upon return. My new employer specifically had to be carried to bed, I heard. According to the rock mage who was relatively well-known around Hangman’s Cove, the things whoever remained awake said of their adventure below was complete nonsense.

Only when I went out to the lawn did I start to see what was going on with my own eyes.

Everything was black beyond the garden. Whatever this place was, it felt like a haven within these skies. Toil and strife, all was fair game on the winds or within the Cloud, but this place was a rare well of peace. There was a clear barrier protecting us from the encroaching darkness, and presumably most else. I started to question what I had been doing in Wick’s bedchambers all these years.

Maybe it was a life of being used and receiving nothing but my base survival from it, but that girl was more beautiful than any I had ever seen, and far more free. I was blinded. Something about the way her unkempt hair, shaped by the relentless breeze of the open air beyond this tower’s walls, still held the lustrous sheen of the late day sun. Many royal consorts possessed otherworldly allure, but the moment I met Cira’s verdant green eyes, I froze.

As long as I had lived in Captain Wick’s bedchambers, nothing had ever been so out of place. There wasn’t a second where I didn’t think this was incredibly bad news for my long-time employer, to see the most worldly of all beauties standing before me, but there was nothing I wanted less than to oppose her. Luckily, once she was done being startled by my meager form, it turned out she was even kinder than she looked.

She never said what she was hiring me for, but immediately ransacked that creep Georgio’s locker for robes and demanded I put them on. They were warm while the world remained bluntly cold in contrast to her light. I tried to warn them that Wick had moved the armory and nobody listened…

Except for her…

There was no discussion of compensation, and she was absent now. In a place as grand as this, I would expect all the doors to be locked, but somehow, they all opened at the turn of a knob.

One such door I discovered extended far beyond the bounds of how much space should even be allowed on this island, and boundless halls of books invited me in like a warm hearth. The pirates were all sleeping, or getting drunk at the dinner table upstairs, though some of them were missing. Regardless, none really deemed to bother me—some even treated me with an uncomfortable level of respect in passing.

For the first time in a long time, it seemed nobody wanted to make my life difficult. The last time someone bothered me was for breakfast—not to be prepared but to be eaten. Could it be, I had found a moment to catch my breath at a crossroads through which I may step freely? An unprecedented opportunity revealed itself here and now in the form of presumably any book I could ever want to read. How could I pass that up? If there was something I could do besides warm a bed, this had to be fate.

___

Stupid girl.

The Cursed Skies got their name for a reason. A very good one.

The art of curses itself was in the decline. Naturally, something which only wreaked havoc was despised by the masses. It was not difficult to snuff out, either. Your standard curse could be defeated by meager willpower, so long as the plot was discovered. The soul was resilient, after all, so all it needed was targeted desire to survive.

Things changed greatly in humanity’s favor when alchemy or even sometimes sorcery was involved. A vast majority of curse wielders could be thwarted in a variety of ways, but willful desire was really all it took to survive a common curse.

Of course, not all curses were equal. The Cursed Skies were ruled by none other than the eponymous Cursed Sovereign. He went by many other names, but I only heard stories. While curses were meant to harm the victim at personal expense, they only seemed to make him stronger. That stupid old man had me locked up for far too long, only to accompany him there. What an irritating future I have found myself in.

I have to ask myself why.

Sure, I consumed souls, but compared to my brothers and sisters, I was rather moderate. Kingdoms could easily fall before me with plentiful targeted willpower, but it’s not like any did.

That bastard Gazen was present at one of the most critical turning points of my life—the moment I was forced to consume the cerulean soulweaver—a battle which actually saved him a lot of work, not that he believed me.

Nonetheless, I still found myself imprisoned. It’s not like my kind valued little brothers in the same way humans did, but I was still quite offended at the result of my efforts in good will. It’s like the fraud sage thought all crystal spiders were the same just because we’re spiders made of crystal. And outrageously, perhaps I was worse because I ate one of my own! So unbelievably presumptuous, I was left with no choice but to be grumpy and obstinate when the chosen one grew old enough to bother me.

“If you’re as innocent as you say, you will have more freedom than you ever hoped for one day!”

“My daughter will surely appreciate your abilities, eventually.”

“You’ll be dead in ten-thousand years—I guarantee it. What if I could offer you two or three more at the expense of a couple decades of your time?”

A couple decades turned into ten, and I spent many of them in regret for letting him sweet-talk me into compliance. I still can’t say whether I’d have won or lost that fight, but once the bell jar dropped, my fate was sealed. How the hell did he know how long I would live anyway? Was that one of his stratagems?

That old man was also the shittiest salesmen I had ever met. There were multiple, mind you. My siblings were senseless, but I could move around with the countless other spiders which humans paid no mind to if I simply picked my dinner carefully. Perhaps I had never feared my own mortality before I met that charismatic lout, because growing consistently beyond the scope and concern of any given society or group of people always struck me as the best path. There was no reason to rush or do anything that would draw attention like my foolish kin.

Why did I ever decide to stop my brother’s rampage or help this arrogant old man in the end? It was personal gain. Beyond what I stood to gain from eating my brother, I always intended to kill Gazen and steal his vessel. Human vessels were supposed to be the best for their vast potential, but somehow, I ended up in a dark, sealed room for years and years.

I watched that strange young girl be pilfered from the primordial master of the Cursed Skies, and I watched that old man become dust as consequence. Never had I thought the course of my life could be stuffed into a box, or that another could influence the eventuality of the skies, but I waited, and I witnessed.

Of course I will take this girl’s vessel one day, but none can temper it better than herself. Across this long, long, life, nothing has brought me greater joy than witnessing this child grow, for better or worse. Yes, yes, it is to my benefit, but the view has been quite exciting lately.

As a spider of the soulweaver lineage, destiny was something to be witnessed, revered, and gently guided only when the threads do allow. We do not craft souls from nothing, nor do we alter their trajectory at a whim. Naturally, removing one here or there may cause a thread to snap or reroute at a moment’s notice, but just as Cira complained, removing many wasn’t wise. Something the girl refused to acknowledge was that there were those who would take notice. That’s how I ended up here in the first place.

My kind weaves a complex tapestry—at least we strive to. The first square of a quilt can pave the way for the most beautiful of artworks or the most deranged of futures. Of course, we can only contribute to each woven block in minor ways. With only eight legs, how can we possibly hope to craft anything conforming to our will when we can’t even grasp it directly?

Yet a maimed young girl defied it all and pushed herself into the future despite the odds. I don’t know the driving force behind her will, but there were hints of it within Gazen’s ramblings. He knew that she would make ripples in the sky one day, though he couldn’t imagine what those ripples would be. While the crumbling sage had finally found a fitting place to die, he always said that would be his greatest regret.

As one who observes or extinguishes the fate of one specimen at a time, I could feel it too. The canvas remained blank as long as I could recall. No stretch of scrying could change that. Not one of my legs felt a response from the vast web of fate when I peered into that child’s soul, despite its constant shifting in her wake.

For all intents and purposes, she was just a cheerful little girl who wanted nothing more than to become like her father. An absurd sight after seeing the state she was in when she arrived. It was like the past she’d suffered faded away in the light of the many dawns she was offered.

Despite how miraculous that man was, I never saw an inkling of change on the path. No matter how many absurdities he pulled from somewhere the sun neglected to shine, fate seemed equipped to conform like a stone dropped into the river.

But the girl. As if she weren’t even following the path, it simply changed without warning. At seemingly nothing. At the same time, Gazen’s fate changed by leaps and bounds at so little as her asking to stop at the next island for fresh-squeezed juice.

It was the day that man died that I knew her destiny was truly great.

I could only pick and pull at a single thread, gingerly guiding it in the direction I hoped it would catch. In a single day, it all converged, and the web was broken in an instant. What before rested on a loom seemed to form briskly upon each passing breeze, at least as far as my eyes could yet see.

Years and years of solitude seared into distinct resentment, but somehow, that girl staved off the boredom in the end. Once she was on her own, the web I stood upon became a vast sea—sometimes calm, sometimes rippling into distant horizons beyond my sight.

The silvery one seemed to be a good influence as Cira may not have broken into the Archive anytime soon without someone to impress. Just the other day it seemed, she was digging up muddy riverbanks for worms with her bare hands, ruining a dress Gazen spent days on as he could only watch with a pained smile, but my myriad eyes eclipsed at the sight of her ascending from the salt to craft the world around her.

A city rose and heavy rain fell. Anything susceptible to the withering of time turned to dust in a blaze of light and all that remained reshaped the island by her desire.

Desire was something I’ve seen a great deal of in my time. Gazen’s was absurd and at times incomprehensible, but it seemed he always knew this girl would make great strides, long before she was even born. There was apparently a time he thought his own footprints would shape the sky, but it was always her as long as I knew him.

To take her body now would be a simple matter if I sacrificed my original form. Primordial demons have existed since the dawn of the sky’s creation, but the soulweaver lineage has roots far deeper. Even if our power pales in comparison, we have our pride.

Oh yes, this vessel will one day be the greatest that history has ever seen. Even if it takes a thousand years, somehow I think this stupid girl wouldn’t mind her body being repurposed if it meant saving the life of that silver-haired one or another she cared about deeply. All it would take was a convincing enough argument on her deathbed. Time is but I tool with which I can bide my time until this girl guides me to the fate I’ve always deserved. There’s no doubt in my mind.