Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) (16 page)

The city’s dead,
he thought.
Rotting like an unmourned tomb.

It was hard to imagine that ten million people had once lived here. Each of the empty buildings had housed hundreds of them, till the day when fire fell from the sky.

Damus felt the approach of melancholy and its ugly sister despair. It might’ve been the trauma of Nahel’s death. Or the Tower Graves really were cursed. The pervasive smell of old cinders didn’t help.

“Where are you?” Damus asked his absent and sole surviving friend. It was a vain gesture. He might wander the city till he died without finding Xander.
Nahel didn’t consider my vastly inferior tracking prowess before dying. That’s just like him.

Wind gusted from the northwest, concentrated by the artificial canyons. It carried a scent that Damus knew all too well from Avalon’s war with the baals—the stench of burned corpses.

Fitting ambience for this venue.

Fitting, but somehow wrong. The fire was decades gone, and the last of Ostrith’s residents with it. Yet the musky tang on the air seemed more indicative of a pyre only weeks; not years, old. Even curioser were the faint floral undertones
. Like roses thrown on a blacksmith’s forge.

“Perhaps Ostrith’s not as dead as it seems,” Damus thought aloud. He recalled Nahel saying that Xander’s scent was obscured by a smell that seemed out of place. In that burned out husk of a city, a rose’s perfume fit the bill nicely.

A memory came to Damus’ mind. His fight with the
Isnashi
had blurred his memory of the place, but hadn’t a ghostly floral scent lingered within the cell in the cliff? Not only that; there’d been hints of metal and leather heated almost to the point of burning.

The Gen’s resolve wavered, but his own rebuke to Nahel echoed in his thoughts.
What if it has him?

Damus climbed onto the rubble-filled street.
I’ve got too many unanswered questions to quit now,
he thought as he trudged into the wind.

Xander found Astlin’s claims of poverty baffling, but she was right about dinner. To him meal time meant baking bread over a campfire and slaughtering chickens—or a calf on festival days. By contrast, the substance she called “lamb and barley stew” only imitated real food’s taste and aroma, much as his father’s etchings were pale ghosts of living cities like Salorien.

Xander pushed his chair back from the small kitchen table. “I am honored to have broken bread with you.”

Nadia giggled when he patted his full belly. Astlin frowned at her, and the younger girl covered her mouth.

“Don’t mention it,” said Astlin. “Thanks for seeing us home.”

Xander stood. Habit almost made him reach for his spear before he recalled losing it.

In the pranaphage’s lair.
An echo of the dread he’d felt under Teran Nazim returned to haunt him.

Astlin didn’t hide the concern in her voice. “Are you okay?”

“I am better,” he said—unconvincingly, to judge by Astlin’s expression. “It’s time for me to leave.”

Astlin rose and stood in his path. “Wait,” she said with something like fear. “I mean, it’s after dark.” She glanced over her shoulder at the living room window, which now resembled an obsidian sheet filtering the glow of bleary city lights.

Though her plea tempted him more strongly than he’d have thought, tradition pressed its claim on Xander’s heart. “It is improper for me to stay. I’ve faced worse than street crime.”

Astlin stepped aside, but she rested a hand on her little sister’s shoulder. “You can fend for yourself. I’m not so sure about us.”

The acute awareness dawned on Xander of two girls huddled against the night in their absent family’s dwelling. Unbearable loneliness washed over him, leaving shame in its wake. He almost recanted then, but for a single nagging doubt.
We are hardly more than strangers. Why would she have me stay?
His hands felt the firm swell of his stomach again.
She can’t wish that I share her bed.

“I’ll sleep with Nadia tonight,” Astlin said, as if answering his silent objection.

Xander glanced at the couch. “As long as we have separate rooms…”

“You can have my bed.” The corners of Astlin’s lips hinted at her smile’s return. “But only after you wash all that dust and dried muck off.”

Lying snug in Astlin’s room; wearing her father’s cotton shirt and shorts, Xander had to admit that his misgivings had been unfounded. His belly was full despite his offended palate, and he lay in a warm bed instead of shivering on the hard ground.

To say nothing of the precious indulgence of a bath!

Meeting Astlin was a godsend.
Her kindness cast doubt on his father’s judgment of city dwellers as heartless scavengers.

Xander thought of his friends. Were they braving the dark streets of Salorien, or had the gate sent them elsewhere? Wrapped in spicy-sweet scented blankets, he felt stirrings of guilt.

Something bright stabbed Xander’s eyes—two blue points glowing in the dark. He had the odd notion that they were eyes. But his vision cleared, and he saw a pair of stars shining through a break in the clouds outside the window.

Xander gazed at the sky and wondered which of the lights was his own sun. On Mithgar, all one could see of Keth was a bright red star; not a living sphere. But looks could deceive.

This place is strange, but not wholly wanting for hospitality. Perhaps Mithgar’s people could take refuge here.

The clouds hid the heavens again, leaving Xander with a partial view of Salorien’s skyline. He’d feared that the city’s noise would disturb his rest. Instead, the hum of distant voices and machinery joined in chorus, lulling him to sleep.

Szodrin descended the dais and closed the gate. A thin layer of dust coated the console, except for the main screen.

Someone was here recently.

The readout displayed a transit log. The last operator had probably learned little. Every field was blank, including the current location. Still, Szodrin had no doubt that the perversely grand space around him was a Guild house.

Szodrin seated himself on the steps and tended his wounds. His tan jacket’s right side was stained red-brown, and he winced as his black shirt peeled away from the gash under his arm. A field dressing would help, but infection could still avenge Ruthven.

Szodrin did what he could for the wound. Except for the gate, the Guild hall was sealed off from the ether, so he walked the half mile to the exit.

This was the Guild’s fortress. Now it’s their empty tomb.

The doors gave on a vast dark pavement reeking of ruin.

Ostrith.

The Night Gen stepped through the door and into a nexic rogue wave. At first he suspected a ship—the lost
Kerioth
or his own
Ashlam
. But a nexus-runner gave off a steady hum. This pulse was erratic. It seemed to crest somewhere amid the distant towers.

What could wield nexism like that? Szodrin guessed that a higher order being like a demon would be powerful enough. His stomach lurched at the thought of Hazeroth lurking nearby. He took comfort in knowing that if Shaiel had summoned his Blade to official business, Hazeroth was probably at the
Irminsul
.

Consolation became unease when Szodrin realized that if Shaiel’s Blade was miles away in the north, then something unknown yet possibly as dangerous was loose in Ostrith.

Szodrin knew where the mark would lead before he saw Xander’s cord cutting through the ethereal skyline. He willed himself across the square and sprinted into the ruins toward the source of the waves.

Xander rose at dawn to find the house empty. A note on the kitchen table preempted his questions.

Walked Nadia to school before work. Back by four.

Make yourself at home.

—Astlin

Though he’d woken intent on finding his friends, hunger delayed Xander’s search. Checking the cupboards turned up a box of cold cereal. The crunchy flakes proved far preferable to the previous night’s meal. Their sweetness exceeded anything he’d ever tasted, so he limited himself to one helping for fear of Kethan softness.

Xander set his bowl in the steel wash basin and strode toward the apartment’s front door. On his way through the living room, something struck him as odd. He scanned the row of portraits and saw that Neriad’s image was missing. He was debating whether to leave Astlin a note about it when another sight caught his eye. Pre-Cataclysm books commanded outrageous sums on Mithgar, yet dozens of volumes lined a nearby shelf.

Xander skimmed the titles. Several had lurid covers that made him feel flushed. These he quickly re-shelved in favor of a well-thumbed volume on Ebrim Arkwright. Astlin’s name, spelled with childish block letters, adorned the inside cover. Before he realized it, he’d reclined on the couch to read.

Ebrim Kirth is rightly hailed as Mithgar’s favorite son, but his last known descendants lived on Keth. The heated dispute between Kirth’s heirs and Mithgar’s merchant houses over rights to the Wheel led to the Guild’s founding.

The feeling of being watched made Xander drop the book. Nahel stood over him, his throat a bloody ruin. The malakh didn’t speak, but his amber eyes held sorrow beyond words.

Xander leapt to his feet. “What happened!? Who did this to you?”

“It’s alright. Calm down.”

Astlin knelt beside Xander, who still lay on the couch. Holding his clenched fist with one hand, she caressed his face with the other. Her expression held deep concern.

With an effort, Xander broke eye contact with Astlin. Looking past her to where Nahel had stood, he saw no one.

“Where did he go?”

“It’s just me,” she said. “I heard you cry out from the stairs. You were lying there thrashing when I came in.”

“I had a nightmare?” Xander relaxed his arm. “I am sorry I frightened you.”

“Don’t be.” Astlin folded his hand against his chest. “You’ve been through so much.”

Xander sat up and scrubbed a hand through the stubble on his scalp. “I meant to search for my friends. I must have dozed off.”

Astlin seated herself beside him. “Something’s troubling you. Tell me.”

Such improper
nearness
should have mortified Xander. Instead he felt comfort unknown since early childhood. “Why are you being so kind?”

“Are most people unkind to you?”

“I am shunned by my own clan. You don’t even know me.”

“I know you’re brave and loyal and gentle.” Moisture rimmed Astlin’s eyes, making them seem to glow.

A deep, nameless urge moved Xander to deny such praise. “I have killed before—betrayed those dear to me. Don’t delude yourself.”

A wounded look froze on Astlin’s face. She stood and hurried across the room.

Bolting to his feet, Xander called after her. “Please wait. I only wish to protect you.”

Astlin paused but didn’t look back. “I’m sorry.” She retreated to her room and slammed the door.

The boy’s silver cord had vanished among nexic waves that flashed like lightning. Szodrin wended through a maze of blackened spires, brooding over the pervasive charred stench. A fallen tower blocked the road ahead, diverting him down an alley that ended at a steep rubble mound. Szodrin ascended the loose slope. He reached the top, and something large tackled him.