The Legacy of Lord Regret: Strange Threads: Book 1 (5 page)

‘I must go to Braston.’

Even as she said it, she realised she did not have the strength. She was hungry, tired, and her head felt full of dead leaves.
She had intended to threadwalk – a rare skill possessed by only the most powerful of threaders – but did not think she could
summon the necessary concentration.

‘What do you need, my lady?’ Harren asked. ‘We could have some of the temple guards accompany you, or –’

‘I need nothing,’ said Yalenna, ‘though I thank you for the offer. I do not think, however, that I can leave this very instant.
I should perhaps spend the night, take some food and rest.’

‘You shall have everything you require,’ said Arah. ‘Though if you would like to stay a little longer, maybe even address
our acolytes? I know it would mean so much to them – your memory is a great source of pride for the temple.’

‘No, no.’ Yalenna shook her head, Arah’s request making her stomach turn. Earnest faces, looking to her for wisdom?
What could I say to them when I’ve no idea what’s going on?

She would not leave Arah with nothing, however, she decided. Although not one to use her powers lightly, she did not think
that a little more threading would greatly affect whatever was happening in the wider world. She reached to touch Arah’s hand,
and the girl tensed, but did not withdraw. Yalenna shaped a blessing for her, and released it into her pattern.

May you know your own strength
.

‘There,’ she said warmly, finding there was still joy in giving. ‘You are blessed, Priestess Arah.’

Harren watched intently, and for a moment his face softened, revealing a certain fondness for his young leader. Yalenna found
herself forgiving his reservations – perhaps she would have reacted the same way had some long dead person appeared on her
temple floor for no apparent reason.

‘And you, friend Harren,’ she said, blowing him a little something too.

May birds never release their contents on your head
.

Harren’s eyebrows shot up – he had no way of knowing what she had given him, but seemed quite pleased nonetheless. ‘Why,’
he said, ‘thank you. But, my lady, I would council you to be judicious in using your magic.’

‘It hardly matters now,’ said Yalenna. ‘I cannot stop the blessings that spring from me. The most I can do is shape them to
my choosing.’

Harren nodded. ‘But you are exhausted, my lady. Perhaps it’s time for you to rest?’

‘In good time. First you must tell me more about what has happened in Aorn, in my absence.’

The Temple of Storms was built on the very edge of a vast expanse of desert, where runs of grass sent hopeful expeditions
out into the sand. It was as peaceful a place as Yalenna remembered, where threaders who specialised in
working with the elements devoted themselves to living in harmony with the Spell. For a moment she looked back at the bulbous
white buildings, imagining her life as it might have been had she continued on as Priestess. She would have taught acolytes
to wrestle the wind, channel the sun, send rain where it was needed – to work always with the Spell, using its gifts for the
betterment of humanity. It would have been a worthwhile existence, and long finished with by now. Instead, Mergan – her old
master from the threading school at Althala – had turned up shortly after she’d been made Priestess, and asked her to accompany
him in ridding the world of Regret. How things had changed for her that day.

‘I can make my own way from here,’ Yalenna said, turning to her companions.

Arah looked crestfallen, but Harren was more stoic. He had proven a reliable font of recent history, speaking to her well
into the previous night – until she’d
had
to lie down and black out – although it seemed that, on the whole, little had changed while she had been gone.

‘I wish I could stay,’ she told Arah. ‘Really, I do.’ She clasped the girl’s shoulders, and kissed her on the brow.

‘The artisans did a good job,’ said Harren, ‘of capturing your beauty, my lady.’

Yalenna smiled. ‘You know where I travel to,’ she said, ‘if you need to send me word.’

She left them to travel eastwards across the patchwork of sand and grass, towards more fertile land. She wanted
to be free of onlookers, and walked until there were trees between her and the temple. Kneeling in the shade, she tried to
clear her mind, but struggled to focus. She found herself returning again and again to the same intrusive memory, ancient
by the world’s standards, yet vivid to her …

On the roof of Regret’s Spire, the mad lord’s unseeing eyes seemed to watch her as his red mop rustled about his head.

Yalenna could not quite believe that he was dead, though she and the other Wardens, now spread out around her, had fought
so hard to make him just that. He had been bent on breaking the world, for lunatic reasons he would take to his grave, and
they had stopped him – so why did she feel so despondent in victory?

‘Up, Yalenna,’ came Karrak’s voice. She raised her head to see the raven-haired prince extending a hand towards her, soft
concern in his eyes. Above him the Wound was open, its edges red-ragged and pulsing. Exposed beyond lay that which should
not be seen, the workings of the Spell itself, like giant multicoloured veins made up of tightly woven smaller threads. Here
and there these threads were frayed, akin to the split fibres of a rope, where they had been torn at, and stolen from, by
Regret.

How had he mustered such audacity? Even as mad as he had been, surely any mind would tremble, any ego falter, in the face
of such monumental thievery?

‘Don’t let his magic fester,’ said Karrak, helping her to her feet. She shook herself, as if she could so easily discard the
lingering bleakness Regret had left her with.

A cold wind blew through the great valley, reaching them on the Spire roof. It carried the sound of battle from the southern
end, where the Pass between mountains into the Dale was heavily fortified against the armies of Aorn.

‘Someone should tell our people,’ Yalenna said, clutching Karrak’s arm to steady herself, ‘that they need not fight anymore.
The Unwoven too, for their master is no more.’

‘Regret’s minions may carry his stain for life,’ said Karrak dourly. ‘The best to be hoped for is that they won’t pass it
on to their children. Or that they won’t live to have any.’

Yalenna stared out at the distant figures. Had she been naive enough to hope that Regret’s demise would change them back into
the folk they had been before?

‘Wardens,’ called Mergan. The grey-haired threader was standing in the centre of the roof, the others scattered about him
in varying degrees of dazedness. Salarkis was on his knees, weeping softly. Despirrow stared off at nothing, his once-proud
robes now dirty and crumpled. Little Jillan was biting her lip so hard she drew blood. Braston leaned heavily on his sword,
as if it were all that kept him standing.

‘Pull yourselves together,’ said Mergan. ‘Our task is not complete. We must attempt to heal the Wound.’

Despirrow shot him a worried look. ‘But how? Only Regret knew how to manipulate the threads of the Great Spell.’

‘We must try as best we can,’ said Mergan. ‘You can see where threads have been torn out – they must be rewoven into their
rightful places.’

‘But where,’ said Braston, ‘have they gone?’

Suddenly from Regret’s corpse, a series of strange bundles rose. They were unlike any human threads Yalenna had seen before,
and failed to fade away like the rest of Regret had. Spilled loose from his disappeared framework, they drifted outwards,
gaining speed.

‘Mergan,’ she gasped, pointing.

Mergan spun about as something like a lattice of string hit him in the head, and flew backwards off his heels. Nearby a blue
tentacled thing whizzed along the stones, and Yalenna flinched as it leapt upwards, but it did not leap at her. Instead, it
wrapped itself around Jillan’s leg, whose eyes blanked as it sunk in, and she buckled to the ground. Everywhere pieces of
pattern whizzed, and Yalenna stumbled as Karrak suddenly pulled away from her.

‘Don’t let them enter you!’ he cried, but a moment later he shuddered as a black curl planted in his chest, worming its way
inwards.

Yalenna had not seen whatever it was that found her, but something had, that was certain. She remembered a perplexing kind
of pain as her pattern was invaded, which quickly led to blurriness. Then Mergan was beside her, croaking something. She tried
to pay attention.

‘Salarkis,’ he said.

She followed his gaze, and lost a breath as she took in her comrade’s new body.

‘What happened?’ said Salarkis, gazing upon his stony hands. ‘My word. I feel as if I can finally do it! All those failed
lessons Mergan, but I think I can finally threadwalk!’

He grinned, revealing sharp teeth like those of an animal, and the next moment began to unspool. He was threadwalking, faster
and more easily than Yalenna had ever seen.

‘Stop!’ said Mergan. ‘We need to stay together! We need to understand what has happened to us.’

Salarkis, however, disappeared. Beyond where he had stood, Forger tittered in amazement.

Braston, on his feet, was stooping over Jillan, who was trying to hide her face.

‘Jillan?’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Don’t look at me!’ she cried, with a strange gurgle. Shielding her mouth from view, she dashed to the Spire stairs, and down.

‘Wait!’ cried Mergan. ‘Jillan!’

Jillan did not turn back.

Yalenna, who could feel herself changed as well, began to see the blessings wafting from her, though she did not yet understand
what they were. Fearfully she looked to Karrak for support, and found his eyes cold and steely.

‘Karrak?’

But he was not truly himself anymore. He was the man who would become known as the Lord of Crows, and she
would learn that his appetite was ever for war, to feed the skies with the bodies of the slain. In the coming days he would
kill his father and brother, take the crown of Ander for himself, and raise legions bent on turning all into his slaves. People
would look towards his growing empire as they would a terrible storm on the horizon, though Yalenna did not know so in those
moments, in which she only sought comfort from a friend.

None of them had been the same after that day. With no other place to go, the threads Regret had stolen from the Spell made
the Wardens their new homes. Five of the eight were touched by violent, chaotic aspects, their patterns twisted in terrible
ways that drove them insane and filled them with malice. It was the beginning of a new conflict, which would last until only
Yalenna and Braston were left standing.

She remembered how, upon killing another Warden – Forger had been the first – she and Braston had remained on guard, expecting
Forger’s Spell-born bundle of threads to rush upon them out of the rest of his fading pattern. They had planned to deflect
it as best they could, in the hope that it would somehow join the rest of him in slipping behind the veil. The bundle, however,
had never come. They had assumed that it had done what they wanted, thus coming to believe that murder of their owners was
the best way of restoring stolen threads to the Spell. And, in the end, knowing that she and Braston were corrupted also,
Yalenna had convinced him the only way to close the Wound for good would be to end their own lives.

Yet here she was. And every time she tried clearing her mind, Regret’s eyes stared back at her.

‘Damn you,’ she whispered. ‘Get out.’

No one had bothered to at the time, but now she imagined herself running a palm over the dead man’s eyes to close them.

What had really happened to the threads of dead Wardens? They obviously had not sunk under the veil, else she would not now
be back, and breathing out blessings into the bargain. Had the threads gone so deep that they had faded from perception, yet
somehow not been able to make the final crossing? If that were the case, why had they behaved so differently on the Spire
roof?

The Great Spell, she knew, did not function under a set of rules – at least none that anyone had ever been able to ascertain.
It was a fluid, changeable force, and perhaps over the years it had tried different ways to retrieve what had been taken from
it. She had a vision of her own Spell-stolen threads straining to pass through the veil, like something too big to fit through
a sieve, while the ones that she had been born with – the ones that were really
her
– wavered beyond it, still attached and anchored, wanting to disperse in death and yet not able, until the Spell somehow
reversed the flow, and spat her back out in entirety.