Yara Silk's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Yara was folding a scarf at her stall the next morning when the sky went dark over her roof. Wind kicked the hanging garments sideways. Rain hit the moss on the stall top and hissed. Customers scattered. One woman screamed. Yara held the scarf against her chest and looked up. A woman stepped out of the cloud. Her hair was white and lifting on its own. Her dress crackled with small lines of lightning. Her bare feet did not quite touch the ground. Yara knew her from a pattern she had woven six months ago: the storm goddess who tore the roof off a shrine because a priest kept her son waiting. Breeze. Mother of the wind god. "You," Breeze said. "You wove Mirth honest. I heard it in the wind." Yara set the scarf down. Her hands were already shaking. "I have a husband," Breeze said. "He lies about where he sleeps. Weave him. I want him at my loom telling me true, the way that trickster told you." She smiled. It was not friendly. "Or I tell every god from here to the sea what you can do. Your stall burns by evening. Your hut with it." Yara looked at the small crowd gathered at a safe distance. Priests. Merchants. A boy with a bucket. If Breeze spoke, they all heard. If Breeze spoke, gods came. Gods with worse tempers than a storm. "I cannot weave a god I have not watched," Yara said. "Then watch fast." "I need him here. In front of me. Talking. An hour, maybe two." Breeze's smile shrank. "He will not come for me. He runs when he sees my cloud." "Then I cannot help you." The lightning at Breeze's wrists brightened. Yara's shuttle rattled on the counter. She kept her voice flat. "Burn the stall," Yara said. "You still do not have him. You only have a dead weaver and a story other gods will want to test. They will come for me the way you came. And none of them will get what they want either, because none of them can bring me the one they are angry at." Breeze stared. The rain thinned. The lightning at her sleeves dimmed to a flicker. "Bring him yourself," Yara said. "Then I weave." Breeze stepped back into her cloud. "I will bring him." The cloud lifted. "Do not be gone when I return." The sky cleared. The crowd stayed where it was, staring at Yara, not the sky. A priest in the back had his mouth open. A merchant was already whispering to the boy beside him. Yara sat down on her stool. She had bought time. She had also just been named in front of thirty witnesses as the weaver who could hold a god honest. By nightfall, half the market would know. By tomorrow, the gods would. Breeze would not be the last one at her counter.