Page 98 of Godslayer
Haryet is doing her trick. Her Spark trick. Her final act, in the final Choosing, which was toweave it.
The pointer finger of Haryet’s right hand is raised in the air and out of her fingertip comes…thread. She turned her spark into spools of glowing thread that night. Her entire dress was made of spark and no one knew until she lit up like a star on the stage andunraveled it.
It was quite a trick. And… I get it, it’s beautiful, but what does itmean?
I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me. What is she doing? I mean, dressmaking? It reminds me of Jasina Bell and her butterflies.
Wait—my heart pounds.
I hold up my pointer finger and draw a doodle in the air. The doodle glows, staying in place. Hangs there like art hung on a wall. Something very boring and simple, but it was special in its own way because I made it.
And then, in my mind’s eye, I see Jasina Bell turning her embroidered dress embellishments into spark butterflies.
Spark thread into spark dresses.
Spark doodles into art.
For some reason, I find this funny. Because… wow. What a sad,sadlittle talent I had! Hearts and flowers. That’s my claim to fame.
Regardless, I think I understand now. I think I know what spark does. I know what makes Haryet and I different. And why we have the heart sparks.
Spark is creation.
Haryet and I weren’t harvested for spark, we collected it inside ourselves over decades. And then, during the Choosings, we used it tomake things. Stupid things, maybe, butthingsnonetheless. And after… we walked through the God’s Tower doors, passing into another dimension.
And it was this passing through dimensions that warranted… atag. Something that identified us as being from Tau City.
It’s gross—it marks us like cattle, makes us a product.
But this marking, it wasn’t for the men or gods of the upper dimension cities.
It was for… the Source.
Something that would follow us.
A shard broken from the crystals in the cave.
And as soon as I think this word ‘shard’, the final answer slips into place.
The heart spark is a shard. A piece of the Source, but also here because we left our dimension and wandered into another one. And, I guess, that’s just not how it works.
If you come from the Source, you are part of the Source.
Forever.
Someonekeeps tabs on us. And while my guess might be wrong—perhaps it wasStaynkeeping tabs on us?
But it doesn’t fit.
Because Stayn doesn’t belonghere, in the seascape that holds the souls of the sacrificed.
Only spark does.
And only women were harvested for it.
My gaze wanders to where the Godships were, but aren’t there now. These others—all the other girls and women who came to me, begging to be seen—they are gone now. Lost. Remnants in the truest sense of the word.
They have no heart spark because they didn’t cross dimensions until they died, and had no spark when they died because the gods took it from them in the harvest.
