Soulwoven

by Jeff Seymour

  Litnig’s little brother turned to face him. Cole’s face was taut and sallow. His eyes were red and puffy. His hair was disheveled and unwashed.

  Litnig’s throat closed up. His chest constricted. He gasped and sputtered.

  A hand cradled his head. Another pressed gently on his chest. “Easy, Lit,” Cole said. “Easy…”

  Litnig let himself be laid back down and tried to whisper that he was sorry. He didn’t know for what, or when it had happened. But he was sorry. And he was so, so tired.

  Before he knew it, he was asleep again.

  The next time Litnig opened his eyes, it was afternoon. His brother was sitting awake beside him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

  “You awake?” Cole asked, and Litnig nodded. He felt better than he had before, but still weak, still feverish, still out of breath.

  “What happened?” he whispered. His voice was quiet and rasping. It hurt to talk.

  Cole rubbed a hand over his face and exhaled softly.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Cole asked. Litnig told him about the heart dragons, and the scream, and the wall of flames rushing toward him.

  Cole nodded. “That was Ryse. She melted the wall and pulled you out of it, but when we got down there you were just—” His voice broke. His eyes watered, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Just lying in her arms, and her eyes were white and her hands were shaking and there were tears in her eyes and she was screaming.”

  Litnig took long, slow breaths.

  “You were dead, Lit. Dead weight in my arms. Not breathing, not moving, no pulse. And that—that thrice-damned necromancer, bleeding like a pig, he ripped you out of her arms, started pushing on your chest and ordering us around like he knew anything about you. Like he cared.” Tears hung in Cole’s eyes.

  Litnig felt very, very tired. His head was hot. His limbs were heavy.

  “Necromancer?” he whispered.

  Cole wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “Not the one you fought. The other one. Ryse knows him. Or knew him. I don’t know the details, and I don’t care.”

  Litnig closed his eyes. Ryse. Ryse and a necromancer…

  “We’re getting out of here, Lit.”

  Cole’s voice was strained, and Litnig opened his eyes and saw his brother as he hadn’t seen him since they were kids. Cole was rocking back and forth on the edge of his seat and wringing his hands. His face was red. His eyes were wet.

  “I told Quay to go fuck himself. Told him I was taking you home, and Dil too. Told him we’d got him this far and he could go the rest of the way on his own, because I wasn’t going to lose you, or her, or anybody—”

  Litnig shook his head.

  Cole swallowed hard, and the pain, the hurt, the betrayal in his eyes seared Litnig’s heart like coalfire.

  “You too?” Cole whispered. His eyes closed.

  Litnig focused on breathing, on staying awake, on trying to clear his head so that he could talk to his brother.

  “I wish…” he rasped. Cole would need to hear that. “I wish I could.”

  Cole’s eyes opened again. “Then just—”

  Litnig shook his head, and Cole trailed off.

  The sun shone bright and gentle beyond the room. The air felt pleasantly cool on Litnig’s face. The sheets were soft, the mattress welcoming, the pillows fluffed.

  His heart pattered fearfully nonetheless.

  Once he spoke, there’d be no turning back. Once he let it out, his secret would grow legs and become real. Even if Cole told no one about the dream, the others would see the change in him, see his confusion and his fear, and they’d ask themselves where it had all come from.

  A gentle breeze whisked across the stones in the hallway.

  “Cole,” Litnig whispered, “I’ve been dreaming.”

  Cole blinked and frowned, and Litnig saw the So what? on his face plain as the descending sun.

  So he closed his eyes and kept talking.

  “There’s a disc, and three pillars, and these things made out of light…”

  Twenty minutes later, Litnig was sitting up and nibbling on a piece of potato bread while Cole stared at the stained-glass windows with his thinking face on.

  “And you think,” Cole said, “you think—”

  “I don’t think anything,” Litnig grunted around the bread. A tray with bread, milk, and a bowl of barley-and-bacon soup on it sat on a table near his bed. He’d had some of the soup and some of the milk, and they felt thick and pleasant in his stomach. His throat hurt a little less. “I just—”

  Footsteps resonated in the hallway, and Litnig shut his mouth.

  Ryse was walking toward him. Her hair flashed red-gold in the spotted sun. Her robe had been mended.

  She looked strong again, and for that, if nothing else, Litnig was happy.

  She was a half step ahead of Quay and a skinny young man robed in black. The robed man’s head was shaved. His face was hard and angular. His eyes glittered intelligently.

  The necromancer, Litnig thought, and by then they’d reached his bed.

  Ryse kissed her fingers and pressed them to his forehead. “How do you feel?” she asked. Her voice was warm and welcoming, but there was a strained tenor to it, like she was seething about something and trying not to let it show. Like she was trying to act normal for his benefit.

  To him, that felt even more wrong than having a necromancer at the foot of his bed.

  “Been worse,” he rasped, and she tousled his hair and smiled the smile he loved more than he should have. The knot in his stomach dissolved into pleasant warmth. The sun caught her hair and lit it on fire. He felt warm, and cared for, and happy.

  And then Quay said, “This is Leramis Hentworth. He and Ryse saved your life.”

  It was like someone had turned off the sun. The warmth of Ryse’s smile slammed shut in a heartbeat. Her teeth ground together. Litnig could read the words she longed to shout but couldn’t because Quay was Prince of Eldan.

  They weren’t kind.

  Litnig studied Quay and the necromancer. There was a similarity to the way they held themselves—an unconscious arrogance that set them apart. He disliked it immediately.

  The necromancer extended his hand. Litnig took it coldly. He pressed Leramis Hentworth’s fingers and met his eyes and said nothing.

  It was Quay who broke the silence.

  “Leramis will accompany us when we sail for the White Forest. He has information about those who are breaking the heart dragons. We will bring him to my father, if we can.”

  Litnig nearly choked on his own spit. The memory of a snarling face rushed back to him. He coughed sudden and hard, and Ryse and Cole started rubbing his back.

  He looked up at Quay feverishly. “I have information too,” he said. “The necromancer’s name was Soren Goldguard.”

  “We know,” the prince said. There were bags under his eyes. His cheeks had a sickly cast to them. “He has three companions. We know their names as well.”

  Another bout of coughing wracked Litnig’s body. He lay down against the pillows when it was finished and took a deep, ragged breath.

  “There are some things,” Quay said, “that you should know before we move on…”

  …and he talked of necromancers and betrayals and strategems, of the whole world being distracted while danger built in an unscrutinized corner. He spoke of isolation, and conspiracy, and scapegoats, and Litnig tried to listen and take it all in. He tried to understand why the necromancers weren’t to blame, why they weren’t evil, why everything he’d ever known about them was a lie.

  But it wouldn’t take in his mind.

  He saw only the anger on Ryse’s face and the pain on his brother’s.

  And he knew that somehow, things had gone very wrong.

  THIRTY

  Len stood at a table in the center of a circular stone chamber. The wet freshness of a mountain morning filled the air. Small windows set around the chamber�
�s roof let in the rays of the rising sun. When the light struck the motes of dust in the air, they glittered like the gold in a pawnbroker’s smile.

  The room sat atop the fenuanspach and looked down over the rest of the Aleani palace and the capital below. No decorations hung on its walls. It was a good place to think in. A good place to rule from.

  On a dais at the head of the table were two ornately carved thrones. One had been crafted of white jade and the other of green. Obsidian, ruby, topaz, and sapphire inlays glittered in their arms and legs.

  An old, sun-kissed male Aleani sat upon the green jade throne. He wore a crown of gold set with gems that matched the inlays of his seat. His eyes moved hawklike from subject to subject. He had a broad chest and looked strong enough to sport with a bear.

  An Aleani closer to Len in age sat upon the white throne. Her hair was pulled into a long chocolate braid. She wore a circlet that matched the crown of the king to the last detail.

  Though her face was beginning to crease, she had once been quite beautiful. Len had played with her in the house of his father, listened to stories with her at the foot of his mother, learned to fight, learned to listen, learned to speak—

  “You trust these children, Len Heramsun?” rumbled the Aleani on the jade throne. When Len had last lived in Aleana, the king’s name had been Yon, and he had been the Speaker for Clan Phaeon.

  That had been thirty years in the past. Before Len’s renunciation of the right to rule.

  Yon’s words were spoken in the tongue of Len’s forefathers. The sound of them reminded him of rocks tumbling along a brook in summer snowmelt.

  It had been too long since Len had lived on his own land, spoken his own language, eaten his own food and drunk his own drink.

  He wondered how long it might be before he returned.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Yon grunted. The old Aleani rolled his head from right to left, buried his chin in one hand, and let his ample beard spill over it toward the floor. It had been Yon, with his gravelly personality and disdain for politics, who had overruled the Council of Speakers and agreed to aid Prince Quay. Yon Phaeon had become King Alphaestus only because Len Heramsun had not.

  And it was well known that Yon Phaeon did not forget his debts.

  Chesa Heramsun, Queen Ereldite, Len’s younger sister, owed her throne to Len as well, but she had always been less pleased with the gift.

  Throughout the three-day hearing of the Council of Speakers over the heart dragons and the overtures from Eldan, she had sat arrow straight and frowning on her throne. Len had stood at her side in the uniform of a royal guard and watched. Rath Phaeon had thundered. Sedra Derimsun had rolled her eyes and made cutting remarks. Orin Sherinsdottir had kept largely quiet.

  And Lena Heramsun had argued circles around them all.

  Just the thought made his throat close up.

  His wife. For three days, he had watched his wife. Her dark skin had shone. Her hair had caught the light and glowed the strong mahogany he loved so well. Her eyes had been bright, and her body had moved with strength and grace beneath the purple robes of his clan. She had held her own against the clan heads and Yon and even Chesa herself—laughed and shouted, shown anger and happiness, beauty and terribleness.

  Len would owe his sister for that for the rest of his life.

  “Len,” Chesa said. Her voice was as cold as her eyes. “You must promise us to return.”

  Len closed his right hand into a fist, pressed it to his heart, and bowed his head.

  “Ha, fenuan,” he said. “Alebch.”

  Chesa rose languorously from her throne and swayed down the three steps that led from the dais to the table. She stopped atop the last, held Len’s temples, and kissed his forehead softly.

  “Alek sindt Yenorertyal,” she said.

  There had been bad blood between them after he had walked away from his responsibilities and forced her to the throne and his wife into the position of clan head.

  The years seemed to have washed much of it away. He kissed her hand.

  “Ha,” he said again. Yon Phaeon stood and echoed Chesa’s blessing.

  Go with God’s grace, they told him.

  And he would.

  When Len exited the throne room, Lena was waiting for him.

  She stood beside a bench of gray stone. Her arms were crossed over her chest. A sour expression clouded her broad face.

  Len was wearing the guardsman’s helm Chesa had given him, but still, he stopped short. Colored banners crisscrossed the vaulted ceiling that ran the length of the hall beyond his wife. Skylights filled the corridor with the brightness of the spring day. The birds that nested in them bustled with song.

  “Speak not,” Lena said in Aleani. There was fire in her eyes. Brimstone in her shoulders. Thunder in the thick northern accent of her voice. “Walk with me,” she said, and he did.

  It was easy. There were other Aleani in the hall, but they did not look twice at them. They did not recognize him. They did not notice. They did not know.

  His wife did.

  For a long time, they walked in silence. They strode out of the great hall and into the maze of smaller passageways, courtyards, and gardens that spread over the highest level of the fenuanspach. They passed courtiers, servants, soldiers, and guards. The sun lit their path. When they crossed the breezeways and gardens, the wind pulled at their clothes and the scents of flowers filled their nostrils.

  Len did not speak. It was enough to walk with his wife again for the first time in thirty years and pretend that such things were normal.

  Lena, for her part, said nothing either.

  They reached a high, remote balcony that overlooked Du Fenlan. It lay far from prying eyes and overeager ears. Len remembered it. They had spoken upon it before.

  Lena leaned one hip against the stone railing that circled the balcony.

  “Did you think I would not notice?” she asked. Her brows were stormy and low, the way they got when he had slighted her.

  He pulled the stifling helmet from his head.

  “I only hoped,” he said, and he bowed.

  The calls of hawks pierced the sky. The wind whistled over his ears. His wife’s robe of office fluttered and snapped.

  Lena clucked.

  She tsked.

  And then her body was close to his and her arms were around him. His hands kneaded the soft skin of her back. Hers ran up and down his spine. She placed a soft, wet kiss upon his cheek, and he returned it threefold.

  “Why have you returned, dear heart?” she asked.

  Len shivered. He took a moment to bask in the feeling of her hair on his face, her hands on his back, and the heavy heartbeat he could feel through her robe.

  “D’Orin,” he replied at last. “The way to D’Orin brings me through.”

  Lena’s chin hung on his shoulder. She stroked one of his dreadlocks, and he buried his face in hers. They smelled of rose. It was the scent she had worn on their wedding night, long ago. He clutched her tighter.

  “Let him go, Len Heramsun,” she said. Her cheek pressed against his. “It is past time.”

  He could see the city over her shoulder—the rich expanse of the Clanhalls below the palace; the wide plaza of the cherdtspach beyond that; the steep drop down to the river and the sprawling districts on its other side farther still.

  Somewhere in that city walked his children. They had grown up without him, were perhaps already married, already having children of their own. He had pursued D’Orin Threi for most of their lives.

  Lena was right. It was past time to let him go.

  But in his mind, the monster still leered in the darkness.

  Can you keep a secret?

  He did not get the chance to explain his thoughts to Lena.

  When he lowered his eyes without speaking, she tensed and pushed him away.

  “Brechuab al, Len Heramsun!” she spat. “Your children need you! Your clan needs you! Your people need you!”

  “
Lena—”

  “And you remain away for what? These humans? These children?”

  “The heart dragons—”

  “There are others who would bear that burden, Len Heramsun! Your son, your daughter!”

  “And what would they do when they came face to face with D’Orin?”

  “More than you think!”

  Lena opened her hands. He watched them tense and relax, watched her eyes burn with her frustration. “Suluan al, Len, at least take them with you!”

  Len stopped to think. The sun filled his eyes. His tongue felt hot, and his ears, and his cheeks.

  Raest would be forty years old already. Maegan thirty-two.

  There had been a few moments in Len’s life when he had been aware of making decisions that would change his destiny. The day he had announced his engagement to Lena. The day he had taken the position of Clan Head. The day he had given it up to hunt D’Orin Threi.

  His wife leaned forward with the anger of thirty long years in her veins. He saw the pain behind her fury, the plea behind her command, and he knew that he stood at another of the great crossroads of his life—that she was offering him a chance to leave the lonely path upon which he walked.

  But he could not do it.

  Can you keep a secret?

  He lowered his head.

  “Lena—” he began, but before he could finish, she had stormed past him and into the palace beyond.

  Len Heramsun stood alone on a high balcony, looking over the city in which he could have been king. His wife’s footsteps receded into the palace.

  He gripped the stone railing and roared his frustration to the mountains.

  And when he had finished, he put the guardsman’s helm back on and walked inside.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Quay felt like a wrung-out rag.

  He wiped a droplet of spray from his nose only to feel it replaced by another. The cold, clear drips ran together and fell onto warm planks of cedar below his feet. He stood on the foredeck of a narrow river galley with green floodplains beaming bright on either side of him.