Soulwoven

by Jeff Seymour

  Quay reached for a short sword the Sh’ma had on its belt.

  “We might be able to heal him,” said Leramis.

  Quay paused with his hand on the hilt of the sword. His arm screamed and throbbed.

  The Sh’ma continued to whisper in its own language.

  “It’s a soulweaver?” Quay asked. His heart thundered.

  “Yes.”

  “How powerful?”

  There was a moment’s pause. The Sh’ma drew one labored breath after another on the soggy ground. The pines to the east rustled restlessly. The reeds near the water shivered. The last drops of the Estmarsh dribbled one by one from Quay’s nose, face, and clothes.

  He felt the eyes of the others upon him. Felt their judgment. He had made mistakes that had gotten people killed.

  “Powerful enough,” Leramis said. “It would be hard if he resisted.”

  Quay looked into the unfocused eyes of the Sh’ma.

  He couldn’t take the risk.

  I’m sorry, he thought.

  He placed the point of the sword over the Sh’ma’s breast, took a deep breath, and pushed.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Dil’s heart had raced for a day, and not because of exertion.

  An ocean of pine trees sprinkled the air around her with the scents of vanilla and recent rain. A carpet of orange needles crunched demurely beneath her feet. The terrain was rolling, gouged with ravines, and well drained. It wasn’t the easiest walking, but compared to the Estmarsh, it was nothing.

  Dil’s heart was pounding because Quay had killed the Sh’ma.

  He’d been helpless and in pain, and the prince had stabbed him through the heart.

  Dil stumbled over a root and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She hadn’t slept. Her arms tingled. Her chest felt tight. If she closed her eyes, she saw the Sh’ma jerk as Quay plunged the sword into his chest, watched the blood pour from his mouth, heard the crackling of his dying breaths.

  The prince had killed him because he was afraid of him.

  What would he do to me?

  She tried to force the words from her head and focus on finding the easiest path up a small rise ahead of her. She was as safe as she could be heading for the White Forest. No one with her knew what she was.

  Except for Cole.

  She stole a worried glance behind her. Cole was wrapped in the same silence that had separated them for days.

  Please, she thought. She knew he was hurting, but she couldn’t stop the wish. Please let today be the day he wakes up—the day he sees I’m afraid.

  He didn’t so much as look at her.

  He’d hardly spoken to her since they’d left Eldan City. He mumbled thanks when she offered condolences and smiled sadly at her from time to time, and occasionally he touched her lightly on the shoulder or the cheek, but the warmth had faded from his hands and his eyes and his lips. He was always quick to turn away, to roll over, to put his back between him and her.

  She’d never felt so alone.

  No, she reminded herself. Not never.

  Old memories washed over her—her parents shouting, fingers pointing, furniture crashing to the floor. Someone pounded, pounded, pounded at the door.

  Her older sister, face gray in the candlelight, listened and tensed and then grabbed her hand and pulled her out a window into a cold night of smoke and embers. The streets tore at her bare feet. A mob of angry men and women saw them, chased them, hurled rocks and insults—

  Animal!

  —hurt them—

  Get it! Get them!

  —grabbed her sister—

  RUN!

  —and she had to bite, had to scratch, had to run from them over and under and through a thousand shadowed anythings while her nightshirt tore and she sought darkness as fast as her small feet would carry her.

  Because she had golden eyes. Because of what that meant.

  This is nothing compared to that, she told herself as the needles rustled, and it was true.

  But it wasn’t easy.

  And they were being followed.

  She hadn’t been sure about it at first. A whiff of something strange had spiced the air. A snap had sounded slightly out of place behind and to her right. The signs of pursuit weren’t things a human would’ve noticed. Nor an Aleani. Nor a Sh’ma.

  Only a Wilderleng, she thought. She heard another snap behind her. It was all she could do not to turn and look for what had caused it.

  In her past, her grandfather’s leathery face lectured her. The River you see is separate from theirs but attuned to it, as we are separate from the souls of our River but attuned to them. You must never open yourself to the Second River around those who are attuned to the First. You will cause ripples, they will see them, and they will know what you are. They will fear you, and they will hate you, and then they will destroy you.

  But she’d opened herself to the Second River in Eldan City, when she’d been trying to save Cole’s life. And neither Leramis nor Ryse had noticed.

  A sweet odor trickled through the air, bearing just a hint of soap. It was a lot like the scent of the Sh’ma whom Quay had killed, except that it didn’t mask the sickening smell of fear.

  It had to be another Sh’ma, following them.

  And they were in its territory.

  A shiver twisted its way down Dil’s back. The grave they’d dug for the blue-haired Sh’ma had been shallow. If he’d had a friend, someone who would be looking for him—

  Her chest constricted further. Their pursuer was moving fast and light. They wouldn’t outdistance it. It would be watching. It would be cautious. If she told the others her suspicions, it would notice, and then she didn’t know what it would do.

  It was upwind of them, however. And that meant there was a chance that she could catch it off guard.

  If she knew where it was.

  If she knew exactly where it was.

  A bead of sweat rolled from her armpit down her ribs. She glanced backward. Ryse and Leramis were descending into a ravine behind her, at least twenty feet away.

  Please, she thought. Don’t open your eyes.

  She paused, laid her hand on the cool, rough trunk of a pine, and opened herself to the Second River.

  A stream of golden spheres, each with a face she could see in her mind, flowed calmly around the red-brown trunks surrounding her. The River drifted over the carpet of fallen needles. It soared through the sea of green branches. It filled her with warmth and tranquility.

  It felt like home.

  In the River, she was with friends. In the River, nothing judged her. There was only pine tree, and rose bush, and tallgrass, and salmon, and albatross, and alecat, and yellowjacket, and mountain wolf.

  Mountain wolf.

  She focused on its long gray face and filled her lungs with the piney scent of the eastern woods. Her heart dreamed of running on all fours, of scenting ten thousand fiery colors on the air, and of leaves and needles crunching under long-clawed paws.

  The wolf strayed from the River and wandered toward her. Its yellow breath met that of her soul.

  It passed into her, and she changed.

  Her ears pricked forward. Her shoulders slumped. Her knees bent. The footsteps of her companions crashed through the forest behind her like thunder. The rustling of their pelts, the clanking of their second backs and long claws, and all their too-loud sounds filled her mind with bright, searing noise.

  She heard other things too: a squirrel rushing up a tree twenty yards to her left; the gurgling of a small stream nearly half a mile away; and quiet footsteps, moving in a pattern that sounded almost like wind over the leaves, a hundred feet behind and to the right.

  Her nose twitched. The wind blew over her from the southeast. She smelled her perfumed prey so clearly its outline shone bright blue in her mind.

  She knew exactly where it was.

  Her bow was on her back. She wouldn’t be able to reach it without alerting her prey, but she could reach the knife at her waist, and wi
th the strength of her second soul she could throw it and disable the thing, or kill it if she wanted. She only had to wait until she had a clear line—

  “Stop,” said a voice in pure, accentless Eldanian.

  It was a whisper on the wind, spoken so low it could only be addressed to her.

  “I see you. What you are. What you’re thinking of doing. Stop. You’ll gain nothing by it.”

  Her heart froze. The wolf balked at her fear, and she felt it start to slip away from her. Desperately, she tried to hold on to its strength.

  But she couldn’t. It turned its back on her and flowed away into the River.

  And then she was just Dilanthia Lonecliff again. The world grew dull and scentless. The outline of the Sh’ma disappeared.

  Her mouth went dry. Her hands curled into claws. She whirled to face the trees in which she’d smelled the Sh’ma.

  The others gathered around her.

  “Dil?” someone asked. “Is something wrong?”

  But she had no time for the question. She watched the forest with her hand on her knife, her weight on the balls of her feet, her ears pricked, her nostrils flared. The Sh’ma had recognized the echoes she made in the First River when she touched the Second.

  They will fear you…

  Her heart hammered. She didn’t know what to do.

  They will hate you…

  If the Sh’ma told the others, if it cost her their trust, their respect, their friendship—

  They will destroy you…

  Other souls floated by her, but she saw none that she could use. There was only mouse, pine tree, birchweevil, gray squirrel, earthworm, swallow.

  A tall, black-booted Sh’ma stepped out from behind a tree, not thirty feet away.

  Dil’s arm began to move.

  The Sh’ma looked male. His hair was spiky and orange, and it glowed in the afternoon light. His ears were pierced. Baggy trousers ballooned around his legs. An olive green, shawl-like wrap covered his torso.

  He was speaking, but all she could think about were his dark, endless eyes and the way they looked at her and through her and what they knew about her.

  Her arm was still moving. Fast. Too fast.

  A shout tore from her mouth. She threw her knife with all the speed, all the strength, and all the desperation she could muster.

  The motion was perfect, the line straight. The Sh’ma didn’t move.

  No, her mind whispered. She had to flee, to get away and leave them all.

  Run! screamed her heart, but her legs wouldn’t respond.

  She didn’t see what became of the knife. She closed her eyes, and her cheeks grew hot and wet, and the thump of metal hitting flesh never came.

  Her legs turned to jelly. Cole’s hands caught her under her armpits.

  And then she was clinging to him, and words fell from her mouth too fast to count.

  FORTY-NINE

  Cole’s world smelled of damp needles and misty pines. His friends pressed close on either side of him. The sun broke through branches and high clouds and set golden motes of dust shimmering in the air.

  A Sh’ma that could move faster than a striking hawk stood several yards in front of him, holding a hunting knife disdainfully by the handle.

  But in that moment, all Cole cared about was Dil.

  Her face pressed against his shoulder. Her nails dug furrows in his shirt and skin. Her fingers clenched and tightened and squeezed.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” she shouted. “It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault! Don’t—don’t hurt—”

  Her words broke apart into sobs. Her legs dropped out from under her again, and Cole stood like a rock and held her up. Slowly, he began to grasp that the fear he’d seen in her eyes outside Lurathen was bursting forth all at once.

  But he had no idea what to do about it.

  “You’re Wilderleng,” the Sh’ma said.

  Cole put his hand on the back of Dil’s head and stroked her hair. Fresh tears washed over the scratches she’d given him.

  “Please,” she whispered, “don’t let them hurt me.”

  Cole pressed her closer to his chest.

  “You have nothing to fear from us,” Quay said. He was facing the Sh’ma. One of his hands rested heavily on his hip, as if he missed the feel of his swords there.

  Dil took a deep, shuddering breath.

  Quay glanced at Cole. Calm her down, his eyes said.

  And Cole, confused and numb, walked Dil back into the ravine they’d just crested.

  Needles and wet duff stuck to his boots. He kept an arm around Dil’s shoulders, and for the first time in days, he really saw her—how tired she looked, and how scared her eyes were. As they walked, her breathing softened. She held onto him with her fingertips, rather than her nails.

  But he could still feel the pain coursing through her with every beat of her small heart.

  You don’t deserve her, said his mind.

  Her hair glowed bright brown in the sunlight. It smelled like sweat, and dirt, and the wind, and water.

  Cole leaned into it and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  He would never forget the pain he’d felt. He’d left his mother without so much as a goodbye, and when he’d returned, he’d brought death to her doorstep. He didn’t think that he would ever get over that. He didn’t even know if he wanted to.

  But for two weeks, he’d treated Dil like a stranger, and she deserved much more than that.

  She stopped walking and pressed her forehead to his chest.

  “For what?” she whispered.

  Cole’s lips quivered. His chest tightened. He couldn’t breathe.

  The trees rustled. A brook babbled quietly at the ravine’s nadir. The world seemed suddenly so much bigger than he was—a vast, unfathomable network of people and stars and days and nights that had moved around him until he was walking under the right awning at the right moment to meet a girl who was nothing like him but so kind to him anyway, and his eyes were burning and his chest was bursting and his mother was dead—

  “It’s all right,” Dil whispered.

  —and he was leaning on her and crying, and crying, and crying, like he hadn’t even known he needed to.

  Time passed.

  Cole lifted his head from Dil’s shoulder and wiped his nose. She smiled at him. Her face was red and puffy.

  “I thought I was coming down here to comfort you,” he whispered. He tried to smile, but he just felt like crying again when he did.

  “You did,” she said. She rubbed the back of his head gently.

  And he learned that maybe sometimes she liked being the strong one too.

  He opened his mouth to say something, realized he didn’t know what to say, and just hugged her instead. He could hear the others talking, only a few yards away.

  “We should go back,” Dil mumbled.

  He stroked the edge of her shoulder blade with his thumb. She was right, but he didn’t want to. He felt empty and clean—whole again for the first time in weeks.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” She pulled away from him and started to walk up the hill, but she left her hand trailing behind her, waiting to be held. “I want to hear.”

  ***

  Litnig stood maybe three feet from the Sh’ma. His legs burned. His shoulders ached. He didn’t know whether to stand or to sit, to take his pack off or leave it on, whether he needed to be ready to fight or to talk.

  The trees hissed with every breath of wind above him. His hands and toes felt cold and clammy in the dampness of the afternoon air.

  He let his eyes fix on the Sh’ma once more.

  It moved slowly, when it moved at all. Mostly, it just stood still and wheedled the party’s story out of Quay without giving away anything of its own. The wrap that covered its torso faded unpredictably from olive into black or brown and back as it traveled over its body. Wiry cords of muscle stood out on its arms and torso. Its flame-colored hair seemed to glow even when the sun wasn’t shining on it.
A thin layer of red-brown stubble dotted its jawline.

  And its eyes—its eyes looked older than the temples in Eldan City and Du Fenlan, older than the walkers in Litnig’s dream, older than the memories that weren’t his. Its irises were a deep garnet red, and there was a vastness, a depth, and a universality to its pupils that reminded Litnig of the night sky. It was easy to feel swallowed by those eyes, easy to feel awed.

  Cole and Dil shushed up the hill over the forest floor.

  “Tsu’min was explaining why contacting his people would be a waste of time,” Quay said. The prince looked at Cole as he spoke.

  But it was the Sh’ma who replied. It looked down at Quay not just from a height, but from some position of perceived authority, as though it was lecturing a child.

  “Yes,” it said.

  There was anger in that “yes.” It flowed through the Sh’ma’s tight lips and darkened the word. Litnig could hear it, but he didn’t understand it.

  The memories of the Sh’ma in his dream floated before him.

  Blood. Fire. Screams. Death.

  “The Sh’ma Ith’a will not listen to you,” said the Sh’ma.

  The Sh’ma Ith’a, apparently, was the closest thing its people had to a king.

  Next to Litnig, Quay shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Will he listen to you?” the prince asked.

  “No.”

  The trees shivered. Needles crunched beneath Litnig’s feet. Cole coughed quietly.

  Quay stared at Tsu’min. Litnig stared at Quay. Tsu’min stared, somehow, at everyone.

  And Litnig grew sick of whatever game was being played. The heart dragons were breaking. His mother was dead. The dark walkers had gotten free in his dream, and he felt as if something terrible was happening inside of him. He needed to figure out what, before anything happened to anyone else he loved, and—

  “Will you help us?” asked Ryse.

  Silence.

  But a different silence.

  The Sh’ma didn’t move. The air didn’t move. Nothing moved, but little rivulets of unease trickled over Litnig’s skin, and the Sh’ma’s eyes pressed into his chest.

  “Help you?” the Sh’ma asked.