Celestia Threadwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

By the next morning, Celestia's hands would not close. The composite thread had chewed through her palms overnight. Every time she gripped the spindle, the green fibers cut back into the same raw grooves, and the moth-silk stuck to the blood and pulled the skin open again. She had spun for an hour past dawn. She had laid four inches of bridge thread. Then the spindle slipped, and she sat on the stone with her hands turned up, shaking. Lysander landed beside her and looked at her palms. He did not touch them. "Stop," he said. "I can't stop. The child is still there." "You'll lose the hands." He turned toward the tree line and whistled twice, high and short. "I sent for a healer yesterday. She's close." The healer came through the ferns a moment later, golden robe dragging, pointed hat tipped back. Aurelia Goldenwing knelt on the stone and set down her bag. She lifted Celestia's right hand and turned it to the light. "Torn to the second layer," Aurelia said. "Both palms. You spin again today, you scar shut. You lose the grip for good." "How long?" "Six days wrapped. No spindle. No thread." Celestia looked across the chasm. The child on the far cliff was sitting now, knees pulled up. Six days was six days the gap would keep widening. Six days of thread she would not spin. "I don't have six days," Celestia said. "Then you don't have hands." Aurelia opened a tin of pale salve and began to work it into the wounds. She did not look up. "Pick." A rustle behind them. Lyra Threadwing stepped out from the ferns, green hair tucked behind her ears, her own patched robe knotted at the waist. She was the apprentice weaver who had spun composite thread through the blight, the one whose small successes she still did not trust. She held her hands behind her back like a child brought to a door she had not knocked on. "I heard," Lyra said. "From Lysander. I can spin it. The composite. I've done it before." "Bridge thread is heavier," Celestia said. "The twist is different. It fights you." "Show me the twist. I'll practice on scrap until I get it. Then I spin while you heal." Celestia studied her. Lyra's hands were steady. Her own were not. "Sit," Celestia said. "Bring the spindle here. I'll teach you the twist from the ground." Aurelia wrapped the first palm in linen and tied it off tight. Lysander went to the shed and came back with the spindle and a coil of green stem and silver silk. Celestia guided Lyra's fingers through the first turn, then the second, talking through wrapped hands. By noon, Lyra had spun a clean inch of bridge thread. Celestia sat back against the stone, hands bound, and watched someone else spin her bridge.