Soulwoven (11 page)

Ryse pursed her lips and looked to the others for help.

Dil released the soulweaver’s hand. Her eyes flicked desperately from side to side. “I—I can help you, I promise. I won’t slow you down. I can—I can—” She looked almost panicked. Cole could see the whites of her eyes. Her hair billowed out on a burst of wind. One of her hands curled into a clawlike fist and back again while the other stayed glued to her stomach.

You can what?
he
wanted to ask.

“I can shoot,” she said finally. “I can shoot, and track, and hunt…” But her head drooped as she spoke. It wasn’t what she’d wanted to say. Cole was sure of it. There was something else that she could do.
Something bigger.

And she didn’t want to tell them what.

Cole stared at her, her shoulders slumped, her
hand across her gut
, her eyes on her feet, and wondered what it was. Wondered why she wouldn’t tell them.

And as he stared, Quay acted.

“Show me,” the prince said, and Dil removed the bow from her back. She was fast. It took her just a few seconds to bend and string it, then to pluck an arrow from the quiver at her waist.

She nocked the arrow, took a deep breath, and winced as she straightened. “See that knothole?” she asked.

It took Cole a second to find it. It was a tiny circle in the center of a tree on the other side of the camp. Quay nodded. Dil licked her lips. Her arms shook slightly. She drew, held her aim, loosed—

And missed.

Not just the knothole, but the whole tree. Her arrow clattered harmlessly into the woods.

Quay turned back to her, and she grew as bright as a summer tomato.

“No, wait, I’m sorry, I just—” Her hands trembled. She dug her fingers into her quiver for another arrow.

Cole recognized the fear on her face. This was something she wanted but was afraid of. A chance she was smart enough to know wouldn’t come a second time, but that she wasn’t fully ready for. And when it counted, the worst of her was showing instead of the best.

He watched her draw again in the sunset and remembered a time he’d nearly lost a hand trying to pick a man’s pocket in Thieves’ Rise. Six times, he’d tried. Six times, he’d failed. On the seventh, his friends had held him back.

She missed again, and she was fumbling for a third arrow when Len spoke.

“Enough, girl.”
The Aleani shook his head and crossed his arms. “Too young,” he said. His tone wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t gentle either. “She does not belong.”

The sun was behind Dil’s back, and she had hunched over as though her stomach was cramping. Cole watched her sicken as Len spoke, saw each word twist into her like a screw. She looked crestfallen, hopeless.

Cole stepped between Quay and Len.

The prince was frowning. His shoulders looked tense, and his fingers hadn’t left his arms.

Probably still undecided,
Cole thought.
Probably stuck wondering whether it’s more important to go west quickly or not run the risk of taking her along.

Quay stared at him, and Cole knew his opinion was desired, knew Quay was looking for a reason to take her.

Good,
he thought.
Look at me. Listen to me.

“Am I too young too?” he asked quietly. He heard Len shift behind him. He could guess what the Aleani thought, but his question had been for Quay.

“How many people do you know who would try a shot like that? Or offer to get us over Harlunn’s wall?” Cole spoke slowly, carefully, turned his palms upward and played his cards one by one, never breaking eye contact with Quay. The prince
owed
him one. Cole had left his friends, his home, his life, just because Quay had asked him to. He’d asked for nothing yet in return. A little trust wasn’t too large a favor.

“You seemed to want any help you could get in Eldan City, Quay,” he said with a quick nod at Len. “Is this so much worse?”

Quay didn’t move. The sun slipped slowly toward the horizon, and one of the tents flapped aimlessly behind him in the breeze. The leaves left a low susurrus in the air as the branches that held them bent and flexed.

The prince held eye contact with Cole, and his face grew deadly serious. When he turned back to Dil, the message was clear:

This is your doing, Cole. Be it upon your head.

“What about your parents, Miss Lonecliff?” the prince asked.

But her parents were dead, she told them. And yes, she was sure this was what she wanted to do, and thank you so much for the opportunity and she wouldn’t let them down. She straightened up a little, practically tripped over
herself
with gratitude and smiles. Cole watched the others relax. Litnig’s frown abated. So, eventually, did Len’s. Dil said something to Ryse, and the older girl smiled and patted her gently on the back. Cole could feel the tension bleeding out of the air like mud from a shirt in a washtub.

So Dil wasn’t the best with the bow. She was kind, and she was warm, and she was innocent, and above all else, she was earnest.

Her warmest smile was saved for him. He didn’t get it until the others had moved off, and it was just him and her standing awkwardly in the grass with the sun on the horizon and the trees rustling in the breeze. The grass tickled his legs. He caught the rich, fruity scent of elderflower on the air.

He would never forget that, he thought. Not to the end of his days.

Dil looked at him, and the smile he’d been waiting for turned the whole world two shades brighter. He watched her face flush and return to normal and said nothing, just stood in the warm wind breathing in the elderflowers.

Eventually, Dil extended her hand, and he gripped it lightly. He felt a strong pulse under the sweat of her skin. Her fingers, callused where they would touch a bowstring, squeezed slightly against his, and he drew in a deep, contented breath. The reddening sun shone across his face through pale green leaves. The earth was soft beneath his feet.

Dil shook his hand and pulled the windblown hair out of her face.

“Thank you,” she said, and he waved it off.

She squeezed his hand harder.
“No, really.
Thank you.”

He met her eyes. They were golden and dusky in the setting sun. She didn’t flinch.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and she smiled again.

ELEVEN

Moonherb was a small, parsley-like plant that grew close to the ground and blossomed into clouds of round white flowers. It liked dark places, like the roots of trees or the rotting undersides of old logs.

As the sun rose on the tenth of Openmonth, Dilanthia Lonecliff squatted in a copse of trees and stuffed handfuls of it into a pouch on her belt.

She plucked it all and crammed a full head into her mouth to chew. It was bitter, and it stung her gums, but it would make her cramps subside, and she would chew it all bloody day if she had to.

“I have the worst luck,” she muttered. It had been nerves more than cramps that had made her miss her shots the day before, but the cramps hadn’t helped. Someday, she’d show the cityfolk what she could do with a bow.

She was going to have plenty of time to.

The copse was wet with dew and soft with moss. The first hints of light had just appeared in the sky to the west, and soon, the sun would be shining on Harlunn’s wall. Its stones would shimmer like water.

Dil had never crossed the wall, but she knew a way over it. It was easy to find, if you knew where to look.

She’d slept in the camp of the cityfolk the previous night, after a quick trip home to retrieve her pack. The night had been cold and crisp, and the morning was still so, but she’d been warm in the tent with the soulweaver.

Her name’s Ryse,
she reminded herself.

The older girl had been friendly, kind,
understanding
. They all had, in the end.
Even the Aleani.

Dil’s stomach fluttered under the cramps, and the dew left cold streaks on her legs as she strode back toward the tents.

Finally, she was leaving Lurathen.

The grass rustled around her thighs as she crossed from the trees back into camp. She spotted Cole standing over a smoky fire in the predawn light, watching the edge of the glade. As she came out of it, he turned quickly away and slipped in the wet grass.

In spite of the moonherb filling her mouth, she laughed.

She had the cityfolk out of camp by dawn, just as Lurathen was beginning to rise. With the five of them strung out behind her like ducklings, she walked through the quiet, wide-avenued outskirts of town and up a path cut into the steep, dirt-clad face of Woodguide Hill. Her cramps diminished into a dull ache. Her body warmed as her muscles woke up with the walking. It was going to be a good day. She could feel it.

Two hours after sunrise, she stopped at the top of the hill to check on the party’s progress. She’d been so pleased all morning that her cheeks were beginning to ache from smiling, but as she looked out from the top of the hill, she caught a glimpse of the sun rising over the valley of Lurathen and sobered.

The faded roofs and lazy smoke of the city looked like a painting, all smudges and faded colors and motes of dust suspended in yellow light. Looking back at the nest of streets and houses that had dominated her entire life, she hesitated. Harlunn’s wall glimmered in the sunlight. Easthill and the Waterfront spat dark smoke skyward from their workshops and foundries. Wallwalk and The Gate crawled with people, and dozens of long pennants snapped in the wind atop the tall keeps of Redpath and Graydawn.

A part of her whispered,
This
place will never be the same for you.

Absentmindedly, Dil reached for a round pendant of gray stone that hung from her neck. She rubbed her thumb over a groove hollowed out in one side of it, traced its spidery network of scars and scratches with her fingers.

She was still holding it when the first of the cityfolk reached the top of the hill. His face was covered in sweat, his chest heaving, his tongue practically lolling from his mouth. He flopped down hard on his pack next to her, rolled over so he faced the sky, and said something. She nodded without really paying attention. Her heart was growing heavier as the sun rose.

The city boy got louder.

“Dil?
What’s that?”

She blushed and looked down at a sweaty Cole Jin. He was pointing at her necklace.

“A gift,” she said, and she tucked it back into her shirt. It felt heavy and cool against her skin, her anchor in times of turmoil.

Cole shucked his pack off and stood. He took a deep breath, then reached for his toes and stretched.
“From—?”

“My grandfather,” she said curtly. Cole straightened and rubbed his head. The sun flashed through his hair.

And then words fell out of her mouth before she had time to think about whether she should say them.

“He raised me.”

A moment’s pause.

“Is he—?” Cole let the question hang half-spoken in the warming air, but she could guess what it was.

“Alive?” she asked.

He nodded dumbly.

“Yes. He’ll understand.”

I think,
she added to herself. Her eyes drifted east to the hills and cliffs outside of town, to home, and a pang of regret flared briefly in her heart. It had been her grandfather who’d filled her head with stories of the outside world, and it was his travels that had lit a fire in her to pursue her own. But still—

Be careful of strangers,
he’d told her, lean and savage long ago in the deep shadows of home.
Do not let them learn—

“
—what you are,”
her mind finished.

Her eyes flicked back to Cole. He was resting on his pack with his hands tented over his stomach and a happy smile on his face. She wouldn’t have told the others about her grandfather, but Cole, somehow, she trusted. He was young, like her. He was the runt of his pack, like her. And he’d stuck up for her, looked out for her. Not many people had done that in her life. She ran her fingers over the pendant again.

A moment of quiet passed, and she heard Cole sigh contentedly. The sweat on his face glistened in the rising sun. His hair was stuck to his forehead.

She smiled.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.

His head bobbed in agreement.

“This is my spot,” she said. “When I was a kid, I came up here almost every morning.”

She looked back over the city and felt a queasy twinge of homesickness.

Remember this,
she told herself.
Remember this sunrise, forever.

Comfortable silence hung in the air. The sun crept higher by inches. The wall shimmered and shone.

Cole, still lying down, craned his head toward her and shaded his eyes with one hand. “If you don’t mind, how, ah—”

He stopped. His mouth hung half-open, and his face had frozen in an awkward,
oops
sort of expression, as if he wished he hadn’t said anything. He had the tone of polite terror people always did when they asked about her parents.

Her heart went cold. An unpleasant memory stirred, full of fire and anger and flight.

“I lost them in the riots ten years ago,” she said.

The shamefaced look of apology that wrapped Cole’s face was enough to soften her heart without him saying a word. The memory blew away like a nightmare on the morning breeze. She breathed easy, squatted down and laid a hand on his shoulder. His skin was warm and wet beneath the cloth of his shirt.

“Don’t worry about it, all right?” she said.

He nodded, and she stretched her arms and went to walk the path ahead.

***

Cole’s pride stung. His heart pounded. He was sure his cheeks were bright red, though he could no longer say whether it was from the walk or from talking to Dil.

Stupid, stupid, stupid,
he told himself.

He’d felt out of his element ever since he’d left Eldan City. There, he knew the rules, knew the streets, knew the air and the sounds and the smells and the sights. He was used to feeling quick on his feet, being able to put two and two together faster than anyone else around him.