by Jeff Seymour
Cole looked back at the woods. As he focused, he began to hear quiet shuffling sounds. His heart beat faster.
Be small, he thought. Whatever you are, please be small.
He saw the eyes.
They glowed pale yellow in sets of two at about the height of his chin, catching the light from the fire. They didn’t shine like Dil’s. They looked dull, sunken, and dour.
Lost One eyes. The eyes of the monsters who’d tried to kill him and the others months before.
Cole swallowed and tightened his grip on his knife. The eyes moved forward. He spotted three pairs, four, seven, ten—too many to fight. Way too many to fight.
“Dil,” he whispered. “Run.”
He began to make out the Lost Ones around the edge of the firelight. Their skin was pale and scaling. Their lips were purple and so thin they barely existed, their hair the white of albinos.
“I mean it. Run,” he said. “I’ll figure something out. Just go, please.”
Light glinted off a rectangular blade being held by the Lost One closest to him. The weapon was about as wide as his hand, and it jutted straight forward from a long, S-shaped wooden handle. The others stopped approaching, and the Lost One with the weapon continued alone, padding softly onto the sand.
Dil still hadn’t moved, but at least she was farther from the Lost Ones than Cole was.
Come on! he wanted to shout. Why won’t you run?
The Lost One stopped about twenty feet away and held its strange sword in front of it.
“Dil—” Cole began again.
And then the Lost One spoke.
“Wuh-hayyyyt.”
Cole swallowed his words. The Lost Ones they’d fought before hadn’t spoken. They’d never given him reason to believe they were anything more than vicious, mindless killers.
These Lost Ones knew Eldanian.
Does that change anything? Does it matter if they speak? Or what they speak?
Sweat trickled down the side of his face. The Lost One’s eyes gleamed. When it talked, its voice was low and rasping. It held one hand toward him, palm out, then crouched and laid its sword on the sand.
Dil was still hunched by the fire. Her nostrils flared. Behind whatever soul she was channeling, she looked confused.
The Lost One took its fingers from its sword and straightened up. Moving slowly, like Cole and Dil were feral cats it was trying not to spook, it extended a hand toward its cohorts.
Cole tensed. He couldn’t see behind it into the shadows, couldn’t see what the other Lost Ones were handing to it. Maybe a blowgun, or a club, or a dagger.
That wouldn’t make sense, said a part of his brain, but he didn’t listen to it. He drew his arm back to throw his knife.
The Lost One saw and spun to face him again, hands open.
Beads of sweat ran down its face.
It’s as afraid as you are, Cole told himself.
But his brain couldn’t move fast enough to figure out why.
He breathed. In and out. Behind the Lost Ones, the wild groaned and popped like a living thing.
“What do you want?” Cole asked. He wanted his voice to sound threatening and brave, but it came out high and desperate.
The Lost One stared at him. It took long, deep breaths. Its mouth hung slightly open. “Wuh-eee heh-elllp yuh-huu.” It pronounced each syllable slowly and separately.
Cole’s eyes shot to Dil again. She looked wild in the firelight, her eyes scanning the darkness behind the Lost One on the beach.
“What?” Cole asked.
The Lost One swallowed, winced as if in pain, and placed a hand on its chest. “Wuh-eee,” it wheezed, “heh-elllp—” it extended its hand toward him and Dil, “—yuh-huu.”
Cole saw what the Lost One behind it was holding. What it had been reaching for when he’d stopped it.
Clothes. Simple, fraying, homemade clothes. Trousers and tunics. Two of each.
You’re being an idiot, said his mind. You’re acting like a frightened, stupid child.
He gestured with the knife.
“Her first. Toss them to her.”
The Lost One carrying the clothes did as he asked. Dil looked up at Cole, then put the fire between her and the Lost Ones while she pulled the shirt and pants on. The Lost One held the second set toward Cole and extended its arms.
Cole shook his head.
“I’m fine,” he spat. He didn’t want to put down his knife. Not until he understood what was happening. “Why do you want to help us?”
The Lost One speaking to him took another deep breath and another swallow. “Wuh-hun deh-reeemss uhf yuh-huu. Yuh-huu ahrr chuh-ho-szenn.” It breathed again, then swallowed. “Yuh-huu ahrr th-huh suh-luheep-err.” It nodded toward Dil. “Sh-hee ess th-huh wayyyk-err.”
Cole’s heart hammered. He had no idea what that meant and no idea what to do next.
You have to trust them, said his mind. It’s your best chance of survival.
But if he was wrong—
He remembered the blood, the screaming, the terrible shouts and yells and the flashing of steel. He saw the spear going into Litnig’s back and the Lost One giant trying to spit him, over and over again. He’d thought he was going to die.
Bile crept up the back of his throat, and he swallowed it.
There was a rustle among the Lost Ones. Heads snapped up and turned toward the forest.
A Lost One taller than the rest, long legged and wiry, strode out of the trees. Its hair flashed with streaks of gray between shades of white. Its face looked young behind the scaling. It wore a cloak of white and black feathers, and its shirt was sleeveless. Muscles rippled visibly beneath its skin.
Its eyes looked hard and unafraid. It pushed beyond the Lost One Cole had been speaking to and began crossing the sand.
“Hey!” Cole shouted, but the Lost One ignored him. Cole widened his feet and cursed under his breath. If he killed it, the others would pounce on him.
Trust, said his mind. You have to trust.
The Lost One walked on, and the sounds of the wild beat unrelentingly against Cole’s senses.
A few feet from Cole, the Lost One stopped and placed a hand on its chest.
“Mhy name es Zahayr,” it rasped. “I lheed theese.” It gestured to the other Lost Ones, then opened its mouth wide and twisted its jaw to the left. Its Eldanian was much better than the first’s had been. Cole heard a loud click from the Lost One’s jaw and watched it grimace. “Yhu nheed our huh-elp.”
Cole didn’t move. The Lost One’s eyes reminded him of Quay’s.
“Plhease,” it said. “Whe are n-ot monhsters.”
The words plucked at something in Cole’s heart, but he shoved the emotion away. Another Lost One took a step forward. Cole saw the flash of metal at its hip and pivoted so that his knife pointed its direction. The Lost One froze and took a step backward, palms out.
“Cole, stop,” Dil said. She circled the fire and laid a hand on his arm.
He didn’t move. Again, he saw the spear, the blood, the steel—
Dil pushed past him. He tried to say something to stop her, but when he opened his mouth, the shout stuck in his throat. His knife trembled.
Oh no, oh please, oh Yenor, don’t let them—
Dil walked past the Lost One who called himself Zahayr.
Cole watched. Dil’s shoulders and neck were taut as a sail under wind. She took the clothes and turned her back quickly, as though she was glad to be walking away.
But the Lost Ones didn’t touch her.
They rustled again, as if a silent murmur had passed between them. And once again the hair on the back of Cole’s neck stood up. Their leader didn’t move as Dil passed. He kept his eyes fixed on Cole’s and smiled.
Dil reached Cole and pressed the clothes against his chest. They felt coarse and itchy but warm. Dil put a hand on his knife arm and tugged it down. He resisted.
“Cole…” she said, increasing her pressure.
“Dil, we can’t just—”
“Look at me.”
He did. The fire crackled at her back. Its light caught the frizz at the edges of her hair and bathed her in an orange halo. The clothes the Lost Ones had given her were too big. They hung loosely from her body and draped over her hands.
Her fingers rested lightly on Cole’s arm. There was pain on her face—deep, old pain.
They spoke at the same time.
“We can’t be afraid just because—”
“Dil, we—”
“Cole.”
She closed her eyes, then opened them again.
When he saw how they glowed, he understood.
“We can’t be afraid of them just because they’re not like us, all right?”
Cole looked back at the Lost Ones. Most of them were staring at him with some degree of trepidation. But not Zahayr. Zahayr hadn’t moved. Zahayr was watching him as if it was a foregone conclusion that he’d give in.
As if he had no choice.
Cole looked at Dil and the pain on her face.
Trust, said his mind again.
To her this mattered. To her this was worth dying for.
He let the hand holding his knife fall.
“All right,” he whispered. He buried his face in her wet, salty hair. His body shook, and he realized just how afraid he was. The clothes the Lost Ones had given her scraped across his chest.
He remembered a story she’d told him of fire and flight and a mob and its hatred—a memory he hated for the fear it had put in her and loved because without it, she would never have become the person he knew.
“All right,” he said again.
“Thank you,” Dil whispered in his ear.
She hugged him. He put on the clothes he’d been given.
And then the two of them faced the unknown and began to talk.
FIVE
Ninety-five days before the destruction of Eldan City
Ryse’s heart hurt.
The sun shone high and hot, battled by a cool breeze off the mountains. A cloud of noise and dust filled the air, and she found herself pressed between Quay and Leramis in a surging sea of brightly dressed Aleani.
All she wanted was to go back to Eldan City and crawl to the only home she’d ever had.
Old, pitted flagstones warmed Ryse’s feet. To her right, the coal-blue waters of the River Deru sparkled. A green, throne-shaped peak the Aleani called the Fencircht scraped the belly of the sky on her left, at the heart of Du Fenlan. She remembered looking at it in the darkness and barely seeing it months before, when she’d run her legs off to find someone who’d soulwoven like Leramis.
That was the start of it, she thought. She’d left everyone behind to find him. She’d betrayed their trust, and she’d hurt Litnig.
It feels like so long ago. She scratched her hairline, and her hand came away wet with sweat.
Keep peace with those around you, and Yenor will keep peace with you.
She’d broken that commandment and hurt those closest to her.
And now two of them were dead.
She felt cold and alone, especially at night. It had taken four days of sailing from Patch’s Fingers to reach the bustling Aleani port of Du Nath and three more to be poled up the cool blue flow of the River Deru. Ryse had kept her distance from the others, but she’d also kept an eye on Litnig. Even if she’d hurt him so badly he didn’t want her near him anymore, she was all he had left now.
Because of me. Because I betrayed him, and because of what that made him do.
Ryse swallowed. The lump in her chest grew heavier every time she thought about what’d happened at sea. The guilt wasn’t fully justified—on some level she knew that it was despair welling up and changing shapes, trying to convince her that there was something she could’ve done differently to make everything better—but that didn’t make it any lighter.
Leramis wrung his hands as he walked. Quay had said nothing of Cole’s death, but his face had grown gray and unwell. There were bags beneath his eyes.
She wondered if they felt guilty as well.
I should never have left, she thought. Only the Temple could face Sherduan. Only the Temple could possibly protect the world. Ryse had been stupid and arrogant to put herself above it.
I should’ve stayed and found someone to listen to me. Jen could’ve helped me. If I hadn’t lied to the Twelve, they would’ve trusted me.
People had died. Cole. Dil. Len. Good people who’d never been meant to oppose a force like Sherduan. The kind of people she’d sworn to protect.
An Aleani guard in polished silver armor walked stiffly next to Ryse, a white plume jutting from her helmet. Five more just like her surrounded the rest of the group. Ryse suspected they were being taken to see Alphaestus and Ereldite, but she couldn’t be sure. Their destination had been decided in a hurried conversation at the city’s northern wall, by Quay and a squat, poleaxe-bearing Aleani who walked briskly ahead of them barking orders.
Ryse felt terribly, awfully alone.
She trudged through the broad, hot sweep of Du Fenlan’s lower city for half a mile or so before the street began to climb. The footway grew steep and difficult. To her right and her left, wooden platforms carrying animals and carts jerked shakily up and down the mountain on tracks. She’d seen the donkeys that operated them turning enormous wheels at top and bottom during her first visit to the city. She wondered what their lives were like—how it would feel to wake up every morning and eat, then spend all day in mindless labor, then be rubbed down and fed again and put to sleep at night.
They’re animals, she reminded herself, but somehow that life sounded nice.
A marketplace a hundred yards wide and several times as long waited atop the hill. A horde of merchants called to Ryse and her companions in the harsh, biting sounds of Aleani, and then their little group left the market’s noise and dust and passed into the upper city proper.
When Ryse had last seen the upper city, it had reminded her of Temple Complex. The air had smelled of incense and cut stone. The streets had been full of bright people speaking of important things. The broad, rose-colored dome of the Aleani palace had thrust commandingly from the green peak above, as though it was the head of a stone goddess watching the city.
Now the upper city seemed empty and colorless, as if the life had been washed out of it.
Ryse wondered if she looked like that too.
A hawk called high in the air. Leramis craned his head to look for it and nearly collided with one of their guards as they wheeled left. Ryse felt a hand on her arm and looked into the face of the female Aleani. Behind the silver visor of her helm, the guard looked tight-lipped and sad. Her fingers gripped Ryse harder than was necessary.
Something’s wrong here, Ryse thought. Her eyes went to Quay, but the prince said nothing. He walked with his head down and his hands at his sides.
The broad dome of the Aleani palace passed out of view. Ryse let herself be swept between the gray-roofed homes of the Aleani elite toward the northwest shoulder of the mountain. The streets grew narrower, shaded, quiet and calm. She passed open streams flowing in cut-stone channels and climbed out of the upper city toward a group of domed buildings on the Fencircht’s northern ridge. Her escort stayed close, though she took her hand from Ryse’s arm.
Soon they were well above the city.
Ryse breathed hard. In front of her, a large rotunda had been cut into the side of the mountain. Its roof was paved in shining obsidian, and a small flagstone terrace occupied the space before it. Between its columns, a wide entrance led into a shaded chamber. Windows peeked out of the ridge’s green skin above, dotted with vines blooming in lavender and white.
A gloved hand pressed into Ryse’s back, and she stepped between two columns and into the space within the mountain.
It was cooler, at least. Water poured into brass basins from two marble mouths in the room’s far wall. Leafy plants sat in urns of copper. Brown, white, blue, and black tiles in geometric designs covered the floor,
and pale purple flowers grew in bunches on the walls. Stairs to the right and left rose up to a balcony that ringed the dome and seemed to lead to rooms beyond. In the center of the rotunda sat what looked like a large fire pit, and beyond it on the far wall a low, backless chair stood empty on a three-step dais.
Ryse’s skin cooled in the drafty air. The Aleani next to her shifted her weight from foot to foot. The captain of the escort disappeared up the stairs.
Moments later, he returned with a dark-skinned female Aleani. Her hair, tied in beaded dreadlocks that fell to her waist, was the deep brown of lacquered wood. She wore a flowing violet robe and swayed gently as she walked.
The guard led her down the steps toward Ryse and the others.
“Line up,” Quay whispered, and Ryse stepped up beside Leramis. She wanted to ask what was happening, but the guards were too close. The escort fanned out behind them and knelt. The captain paused at the foot of the stairs.
The Aleani in purple continued forward until she was standing in front of Quay. She was nearly as tall as he was. Her lips were full, her irises so dark a brown they were almost black. She presented her hands to him and stared into his eyes.
The prince inclined his head and kissed her hand, and the woman let her gaze linger on him for a moment before moving down the line. Her fingers were soft and smelled of almond; Ryse was the last to kiss them. She looked up as she did and saw the woman’s eyes bearing down on her.
She’s judging, Ryse thought. What’s she judging?
As Ryse’s lips left her fingers, the Aleani woman turned her broad back and walked to the seat at the edge of the chamber.
For nearly a minute, no one spoke. The woman sat with two fingers to her temple and watched them. Ryse watched back. Her legs were stiffening after the climb, and the tiredness of months of travel and stress were settling into her bones. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d slept a full night in a bed, safe and indoors.
Here, she realized. It’s been since we were here in Du Fenlan.
She felt as if she was in a dream. The escort, the colors, the scents, the strange underground complex. She was tired and thirsty and heartsick. All she wanted was rest.