Threads That Bind (Threads That Bind, #1)

by Kika Hatzopoulou

“Phobetor, he and him,” the younger man next to him said. “Together, we will dream of fears.”

“Phantasos, he and him,” said the boy sitting cross-legged on the sofa. “Together, we...

chernobog-born, a descendant of the Rossk twin gods of darkness and light, the man could set invisible borders around an area. Supposedly, if you attempted to cross a chernobog-born’s border, your mind became hazy, your vision blurred, and a darkness enveloped you, leading you back into the marked area.

keres-born. The peculiar red mist that clouded the Silts, that coalesced over the carnage on the school rooftop, that had slipped into Isobel’s mouth—Io could see it because Bianca could. It was a material manifestation of Bianca’s keres-born powers, like a moira-born’s Quilt or a fury-born’s whip. The Keres appeared in the ancient epics that survived the Collapse of the old world as the spirits presiding over violent deaths. They flew over battlefields, swooping down to rip out the hearts of wounded soldiers and carry their souls to the underworld. The reclusive people of the north city-nation of Jhorr had a similar myth: the Valkyries, fabled female warriors. Their descendants were feared as much as cutters or the phobos-born, and they were almost always unregistered.

her eyes blazed scarlet. She had been wearing dark glasses that day to hide the keres-born powers mirrored in her irises.

“Someone had been influencing the fury-born for months,” Clio went on. “They had been picking other-born leaders off one by one across the city-nations. There were hardly any of us left anymore. You knew they had to be stopped. You agreed to play your part!”

The wraiths came from the line of Furies. It clicked into place now, why Horatio Long had been sent to kill them. If the Moonset Riots had been an insidious scheme to end the line of Furies, then it made sense that the Nine’s premonitions would render the women a threat, no matter how weak their lineage might be.