Soulwoven (10 page)

It was still true.

Cole fell into line and slouched toward the mishmash of whitewashed houses and brown streets that formed the city of Lurathen. It looked about half the size of Eldan City at the most, and it lay in a river valley between the hill Cole stood upon and a larger one to the north. From the top of the latter hill, a great forest stretched to one horizon. Opposite it, the river turned and ran south along the edge of the massive wall that marked the western border of Eldan. The water gleamed in the rising sun.

Cole missed his mother. When he’d been a child, she’d taken him to see the Eldwater every year at sunrise on the summer solstice. The muddy flow had turned red as a snake. He’d loved it.

His mind tried to take him back through a parade of memories, and he pushed them away.

Quiet. I’m leaving all that,
he told himself.

A breeze whistled over his head.

The wall beyond the city was twice as high as the buildings below it and made of some stone that lent it an otherworldly sea-green color. It was rumored to be even thicker than the walls around Eldan City, but from his perch atop the hill, Cole could still see over it into the country beyond.
Into Nutharion.

It looked no different than the hill he stood upon.

He shook his head, and he wondered, really, whether he was leaving anything at all.

An hour and a half later, Cole was walking with his brother under the watchful presence of the wall in the streets of West Lurathen. The others were waiting with Quay in a shady glen outside of town, safely hidden from the road. Litnig was buying supplies, and Cole was supposed to find a guide into Nutharion.

With rumors of a war on.
In a city he’d never been to before.

He smirked. When he’d asked Quay if the prince wanted him to find Eld the Dragonslayer while he was at it, all he’d gotten in return was a glare.

The sun flashed over the turquoise hulk of the wall above him. Birds whistled mindlessly from somewhere in the thatch-roofed houses nearby. And Cole hiked his pack up a little higher on his back and pressed on through the hot, dusty alleys of Lurathen.

He’d figure something out. He always did. And even if it wasn’t exactly what Quay was hoping for, the prince would put up with it.

He always did.

Lurathen was a far cry from Eldan City. Its dirt streets spat up dust that clung to Cole’s clothes, and instead of drains and sewers it had a system of deep gutters filled with vile-smelling brown muck. Big beams crossed and recrossed the white facades of its buildings, and its roofs were made of wooden shingles or thatch. Carts creaked as they passed around him. Their drivers whistled and clicked and called to horses and mules. The city shimmered in the heat, but it didn’t stink like Eldan City, even near the gutters.

Its people, Eldan’s westerners, were different too. Lighter skinned than Cole was used to, dark browed and hook nosed and grinning. They looked at him and smiled when they passed, and even the shadiest of them had nothing useful to tell him. Every time he asked about Nutharion and the border, no matter how furtive his question, all he got was a history lesson.

It was under the brightly colored awning of a fruit merchant, while Litnig was engaged in an intense debate with the proprietor over the merit of his springmelons, that Cole finally struck paydirt.

He had just finished with his sixth yawning lesson on the structural merits of Harlunn’s wall when he felt a light whisper on his ear.

“If you want a way through the border, you’re in the wrong place, friend. The Waterfront will be your best bet, or Woodguide Hill.”

The whisperer’s breath was warm and soft and sweet. Cole took a deep breath, stuck his hands in his pockets, and turned calmly around.

He found a girl close to his age, slightly shorter than he was and dressed in the tan leather leggings and jerkin of a hunter. Her hair was the color of dark, hard wood. She wore an olive cloak. Her face was smooth and bright, and she looked rugged, vital in a way most of the girls he’d known in Eldan City didn’t.

She also wore a wide smile and a mischievous look in eyes just one shade darker than golden. She’d gotten him, and they both knew it.

“Tried,” he lied.
“Nothing but hicks and charlatans.”

She leaned forward and smirked, as if to say,
Who
do you think you’re kidding?
and
he felt a little skewered, a little off-balance. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to.

Out loud, she said, “You’re from Eldan City, aren’t you?”

His chest swelled. Darn right he was from Eldan City.
The
City.
The only one in the world that deserved the title.

The girl tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I could get you over the wall,” she said, casually trailing one hand over a passel of gooseberries on a table.
“For the right price.”

Her eyes twinkled. Cole wiggled his toes against the worn insides of his boots and had the unpleasant feeling that he was about to get bargained out of them.

The girl pulled back and looked at him, head to toe, like she was appraising one of the melons that Litnig was still arguing about. Cole looked back. She was lithe, pretty,
a
little dangerous.
And her eyes.
That off-gold color was like wet wheat in the summer sun.

She noticed his gaze and flushed. Her arms crossed over her chest. She twisted her body a little to one side, and the smile left her face.

He frowned. Plenty of girls in Eldan City had pulled that kind of crap with him. Flirted, simpered, tried to get him to chase them and then do what they wanted. He’d learned pretty quickly to run the other way as fast as he could.

But this girl seemed different. It was in the eyes, maybe. Or the muscles around them and the way they were tensing with concern. With her it seemed real.
Like she was genuinely embarrassed, not just playing at it.

And that was kind of strange to see.

She continued to stand that way, watching him, and he remembered what he was doing.
The heart dragons.
The dead in Eldan City.
His nightmare and the feeling of his soul being torn in two.
As the girl curled inward, he wondered whether he should try to drag her into all that. Whether it might not be better just to walk away and let someone else take the risk of helping him.

He cleared his throat. The red in the girl’s cheeks faded. She didn’t look away.

And her eyes—he just couldn’t get over her eyes. Nobody in Eldan City had eyes like that. There was
a wildness
behind them.

“Who’s this, Cole?”

His brother’s voice.
Behind him.
Cole opened his mouth to reply, but the girl stepped around him and offered her hand to Litnig.
“Dilanthia Lonecliff, friend.
Huntress and guide.”

Litnig moved a pale yellow melon to one arm and frowned. “How old are you, Dilanthia?”

The girl hesitated. It looked to Cole like she bit the inside of her lip and then realized that doing so wouldn’t help her look any older.

“Seventeen,” she said at last. She smiled again, but it was weaker, forced. “And call me Dil.”

Litnig looked unconvinced, and Cole took another glance at the girl and saw what his brother was getting at. She
did
look young.
But not that young.
Not too much younger than he was. And in all honesty that youth was better for them. It meant that she might not ask too many questions, or know the right questions to ask. That she probably wouldn’t be looking for a missing prince, especially if she spent most of her time in the woods.

And there were her eyes to consider too.

He knew hardly anything about her. Against his better judgment, he’d fooled around with some of the girls in his neighborhood before, even kissed a couple, and he’d learned enough to see that this one could become the best thing that had ever happened to him or the worst or nothing at all. The girl behind the golden eyes might be nothing like the girl he hoped she was. There was every chance he’d never see her again after she took them over the wall.

But his heart was beating hard, and he wanted to find out why.

So he knelt under the awning of a fruit merchant and took the girl’s hand as a courtier might.

“Dil,” he said, “we would be honored if you would accompany us to the rest of our party, where we might discuss terms of employment.”

Her hand was soft and cool in his fingers. His mind gave up trying to stop him and lost itself in the moment, in the thrill, in the tiniest movements of her face.

She squeezed his hand. Her golden eyes lit up. Her lips split into a smile just the size and shape he’d been hoping to see.

“I’d love to,” she said quietly.

Cole stood up, letting his hand linger on hers as he did. He ignored the angry look in his brother’s eyes. It was
his
job to find the guide. Let his brother worry about the nine-tailed, twisting melons.

The girl picked up a bow and quiver from the merchant. As they ducked out from the awning and into the hot world beyond, Cole could still see his brother scowling.

Two hours later, the sun was low in the sky and a surprisingly balmy breeze ruffled seas of waist-high, pale-green grass southeast of Lurathen. The party’s camp was hidden in a fold between two hills, where a stream ran into a copse of trees a half-mile south of the highroad. Cole whistled loudly as he approached with Litnig and Dil, and one by one, the others emerged from their colony of small white tents and peered at them. He watched their faces. Saw their expressions go from hopeful to
confused
when they spotted Dil. Saw their eyes land back on him with an accusing bend.

“This is Dilanthia Lonecliff,” he said when they’d gotten close. “And she can get us over the wall.”

In an instant, he watched confusion become full-fledged, condescending disapproval. His face grew hot. Of course they thought he’d screwed it up. Of course they thought he’d brought back a worthless guide.
Of course, of course, of course.
Quay’s eyes focused on him and didn’t move. There was angry, disappointed silence.

“May we have a moment?” Quay grunted.

Dil’s arm brushed against Cole’s as she stepped into the grass. He dug his fingernails into his palms.

Once she was out of earshot, Quay crossed his arms.

“Explain.”

And Cole did.
All the reasons why she was the right choice.
His trouble finding a guide, her youth and all that meant, the unlikelihood of her recognizing Quay—

“And I trust her, Quay. She just
fits
.”

The prince’s eyes left him and settled on Dil. She was facing the sunset in the high grass with the wind in her hair, her bow hanging lightly from her back, her quiver at her waist. The trees rustled above her. From behind, when Cole couldn’t see the youth of her face, she looked more like a guide than ever.

But her arms were crossed over her stomach, and her shoulders were a little hunched. Cole frowned. She’d gotten quieter as they’d neared the camp. He hoped she was all right.

“She’s the best you could find?” Quay asked.

“She’s
all
I could find.”

There was a moment of quiet. Then Ryse ventured, “It’s only for a day, my prince.”

The others said nothing, and in the end, Quay nodded.

Cole brushed past him without a word and walked toward the setting sun.

As he got closer to Dil, he found her changed. Her skin was pale, her eyes wet and shining. Her arms were wrapped tightly over her stomach. She reminded him more of a deer than a huntress.

He cleared his throat, and she turned. Her face hung colorless and drawn for a moment, and then she smiled weakly and walked toward him, one arm still holding her gut.

In that moment, he doubted her.

“You all right?” he asked, and she nodded.

When they returned, Quay was blunt, as always.

“We can offer you forty silver undercoins—” he began, but the girl shook her head. Quay’s face grew darker, and Cole winced. He got the sense he was going to get an earful later on.

“How much?”
Quay asked.

The girl took a deep breath. Grasshoppers hummed in the field around them. The sun shone bright and clear, and Cole saw a flash of the deer in her eyes again.

“Take me with you.”

Quay’s color lightened, but his frown grew deeper. Litnig looked at Cole like he’d somehow planned the whole thing. Like he’d known her price and kept it a secret. Cole flushed. It was Litnig’s fault he’d forgotten to ask anyway. His brother’s challenge had forced him to make a move before he was ready to.

“Dilanthia, that is one price that we cannot pay,” Ryse said.

The soulweaver made eye contact with Quay, but the prince said nothing. He simply stared at Dil while Ryse continued to speak. His fingers, Cole noticed, were gripping the sides of his arms.

He’s nervous,
Cole thought, but Ryse was speaking again.

“Our way is dangerous. We travel from Nutharion into
Aleana,
and from there to Du Fenlan. Then, if we must, back across Guedin to the White Forest itself.”

Dil’s face paled further, and Cole’s heart sank. Ryse was going to scare her off. She was going to make her run away, and dammit, the longer Dil stood there, the more he saw of her, the more he
was
sure she was the right guide. She’d come to him out of the blue—

“We have many enemies. We could face them at any time.”

And she was the best thing they were likely to find in a shithole like Lurathen—

“Given the risks, I’m sure you can understand—”

And Dil surprised him.

“No,” she said. The woodgirl reached out and covered one of Ryse’s hands
in her own
. Her eyes were as wide as a catfish’s. Her face glistened with sweat. She looked from one to the next of them in succession.

When her gaze landed on Cole, he couldn’t read what lay behind the fear.

“No, you have to take me! You have to!”