Nyx Whisperwind's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Nyx Whisperwind wanted to trick the old gods of the Frostveil into calling her the greatest trickster in the realm. But the old gods kept smiling at her like they already knew her best trick, and would not say what it was. Nyx, small and quick in her cat shape, hated that smile more than anything. She had pulled many threads from reality without looking. One thing she pulled was still out there, wearing whatever shape found it first. The gods claimed they knew what that thing had become. Until she learned it too, they held her. So Nyx went to the one person who kept broken stories in boxes. Saraphillia lived in a fortress on a mountain, and she was hunting a map that showed where old tales changed shape. Nyx slipped through her window as a cat, then stood up as a girl. Saraphillia did not look up from her shelf. "You pulled something. Now it owns you." "The gods say they know what it became," Nyx said. "I don't." "Then you already lost." Saraphillia lifted a lime-green box down. A plush thing sat inside, fanged and grinning. It smelled of the puzzle-pieces of reality Nyx had torn loose long ago. "This found your thread first. It's been wearing your leftover shape ever since." Nyx stared at the grinning creature. She had stopped watching what found the pulled thing. Now it grinned back at her like it had waited. "The gods know because they watched," Saraphillia said. "You didn't." Marigold Thistledown stepped in from the hall. She ran a hidden trade network, and she measured everything by what it cost. She looked at the grinning plush, then at Nyx. "So the gods hold a secret over you. Fine. Take the secret from them first." "They won't tell me," Nyx said. "They don't have to." Marigold set both hands flat on the table. "You already know the shape now. You're the only one who does besides them. A secret only holds you while they're the only ones who own it." Nyx understood. The gods' power was not knowing. It was being the only ones who knew. She reached into the box and lifted the grinning creature out. It weighed nothing, and it was hers. The next dawn, Nyx walked to the frost-cracked stones where the old gods sat and smiled. She held the plush up high. "You know what I pulled," she said. "So do I now. It became this. A grinning imp that wears my leftover shape." She grinned back at them, wider. "Your secret is old news." The gods' smiles slipped. For the first time, they looked at her like she had surprised them. One of them leaned forward. "Clever," it said. "But now you carry the thing. And it is hungry for a truer shape than yours." Nyx's arms shook. The imp's grin split wider. It had stopped being plush. Its black eyes fixed on her borrowed girl-face, and it wanted it.