Soulwoven: Exile (Soulwoven #2) Read online

  If she warmed up.

  When she got to Cole, she wrapped her arms around him.

  They didn’t speak. It was too cold and too miserable to speak.

  Huddling together and being out of the wind helped with the cold, but not enough. The warmth was still bleeding out of her. She rubbed her hands up and down Cole’s back. He mimicked her; for all his strengths, he didn’t know much about being cold and alone with no building to duck into.

  Ten minutes later, her arms were getting sore from rubbing, and Cole was still shivering. His teeth began to chatter.

  “Is there anything else―we could try?” he stammered.

  Dil’s legs were starting to shiver too. She gave up rubbing Cole’s back and rolled to face the entrance to their little hollow. It was pretty narrow at the top, but the wind and the rain were so strong they were still getting in. Every few seconds, a gust swept aross her face. Her clothes were soaked too. They were good sturdy wool, but they were stealing the heat from her body anyway.

  There was one thing left to try.

  She rolled over again, looked at Cole, and took a deep breath.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  Cole stared at her. For a second, he even stopped shivering.

  But only for a second.

  “Like we did outside of Du Fenlan, Cole. It’ll help.”

  Slowly, he nodded, and then he began to fumble with his trousers.

  Dil turned her back to give him a little privacy and pulled off her shirt and pants. When she was done, she piled them up in the space at the top of the hollow. Soaking wet, they formed a pretty good windbreak.

  She stopped when she got to her underclothes.

  Dil wore a light, sleeveless shirt and shorts of thin wool underneath her pants and jerkin. Outside of Du Fenlan, she hadn’t needed to remove them to warm up.

  But this was different. It was colder. She was wetter. There was no sun to warm her skin, and she had no wood and spark to make a fire.

  “I’m going to take off all my clothes, Cole,” she said.

  Her heartbeat quickened. She looked over her shoulder at Cole and saw that he was down to his smallshorts as well and still shivering. The muscles twitched and jumped under his skin.

  “I want you to do the same,” she said.

  Cole swallowed. “I—”

  And then he took a deep breath, and he nodded again.

  She turned back around, eased her smallshirt over her head, placed it onto the windbreak. Cole reached over her and deposited his smallshorts as well. She tugged hers off and added them to the pile.

  Neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved. Dil just lay there on the moss, feeling a little warmer already, and wondered what to do. Their clothes filled up most of the entrance to the hollow. Only a little light and wind and water leaked through at the top.

  Without the sound of the wind, it was quiet enough in the hollow that she could hear her heart.

  It was thudding hard.

  Dil wrapped her arms over her chest and tucked her hands into her armpits, and then, slowly and carefully, she wriggled backward until her back touched Cole’s front.

  She had to. That was the whole point of the thing—to let their bodies warm each other.

  But still.

  Cole didn’t move. He lay behind her, limp as a fish, shaking.

  Her back started to feel warmer right away.

  And if her back was warming up, then his front would be too.

  “Put your arms around me,” she said.

  “Dil—”

  “Just do it. It’ll help.”

  Cole wrapped his arms around her. His breath felt warm and fast on the back of her neck.

  “Put your back close to the rock, but not all the way against it,” she said. The trick was to keep air trapped against your skin. A little layer of air was all you needed, if your body could heat it up and keep it that way.

  Cole slid backward and tugged her with him. It was an awkward, rumbly crawl.

  When they finally got settled again, she felt him against her for the first time.

  His breath hissed sharply near her ear, and his arms tightened.

  Is that it? she wondered. Is that really what that feels like? Is that what all the fuss is about?

  “I can’t—sorry, Dil, but I can’t—”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Really, it’s fine.”

  They lay there for a while, hearts pounding. She was acutely aware of the way his body felt against her: tense as the string of a drawn bow, shivering occasionally, getting warmer. Her fear of the cold faded. Cole shivered less often. The tension went out of his arms, and what had felt like the terrified clutch of a frightened cat became a soft, familiar embrace.

  In the quiet left by the fear’s departure, Dil found an unexpected euphoria. They were alive. Together. Naked. She felt as if she was standing above a deep pool, and she wondered whether to jump.

  Cole cleared his throat. “I, ah—this isn’t exactly how I imagined this happening.”

  She laughed. “Me neither.”

  “Is, um—I guess since the clothes were your idea, you probably don’t mind.”

  Dil shook her head. She could still feel him, down against her legs. “No, I don’t mind. It feels nice.”

  Cole’s heart sped up. Yenor’s eye, she liked being close enough to feel that.

  “Nice,” he said. “Yeah.” His voice held a smile.

  There was more to do. An endless landscape to explore. Dangers and treasures alike. The hollow was far from comfortable, but there was no one else around. The Second River was with them. Dil wasn’t sure she wanted or needed anything more than that.

  “There are other nice things too,” she said.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Cole looked damp, a little scared, a little excited. Just like her.

  Dil twisted until she could kiss him. His arms tightened. She kissed him harder.

  Outside the hollow, the storm howled. Inside, it was damp and cold and sharp.

  But she and Cole were alive. So very alive.

  And in spite of all that was wrong in the world, there was much that was very right.

  THREE

  Ninety-seven days before the destruction of Nutharion City

  Litnig felt like a wretched, hollow coward.

  Salty water covered his face. It trickled down his forehead and collected on the wisps of hair that clung to the back of his neck. He lay in a net, hanging from the prow of the Skellup where he could be alone. The sky loomed gray and cold in front of him. The sea hung dark and foaming below. A drop of water leaped onto his chin, and he scrubbed a hand over the stubble and patchy hair that was growing there.

  He hadn’t shaved since Cole’s death.

  Disappearance, he reminded himself. They hadn’t been far from the rocks. They could’ve made it.

  Or maybe he was just afraid to face the truth.

  Either way, Litnig had nearly torn the head from the captain’s shoulders when he refused to turn into the storm and rescue Cole and Dil. He remembered shouting in the rain, blood pounding hot in his veins, spittle flying from his lips as he held the struggling Aleani in the air by his collar.

  Until Quay grabbed his arm and yelled, How many more, Litnig? How many lost at sea before you’re satisfied?

  Since then, Litnig had spoken to no one.

  He was scared to. Every time he caught someone watching him, whether it was the bitter Aleani or the endless-eyed Tsu’min or Leramis and Ryse, shifting and suspicious in the tattered robes of their orders, he filled with shame. They knew what he was, and he saw the judgment in their eyes when they looked at him.

  Duennin. Monster. Inhuman. Unnatural. Madman. Murderer.

  He put his face in his hands and swayed between fear and anger, tears and rage, the desire to drown himself and the desire to break the world that was breaking him.

  What am I becoming? he wo
ndered. Cole had compared him to their father, but it wasn’t his adopted father whose boots he was afraid he might be climbing into.

  It was his birth father’s. The Duennin’s.

  Litnig hadn’t returned to the dream since Sherdu’il. The desire to search for answers there was stuck deep in his chest, caught between the bright coals of his anger and the dark waters of his fear.

  The Skellup crashed through the waves in a singsong, lurching motion. It had escaped the storm without losing more than a piece of sail here and a bit of rope there. The Aleani had refused to go back and look for Cole and Dil though, even once it had become safe to do so.

  Litnig thought of his hands on the Aleani captain and wondered if that too was his fault.

  Behind him, the dinner bell rang. He ignored it. He would eat the scraps when everyone else had gone. He was too scared of what he might see in their faces to eat alongside them.

  They left a plate for him anyway.

  ***

  That night, he reclined in his net under a thick wool blanket.

  A bright, sky-filling galaxy of stars glittered before him, beautiful and unorganized, not clogged by constellations, telling him nothing and letting him enjoy the peace of a calm, cold, open sky. The wind was blowing from the ship’s aft, and it was quiet beneath the prow. Litnig leaned against the hull and let himself relax. His blanket was warm and snug. The wind touched his face with whispered kisses. The sea flowed by. Soon the ship would reach Du Nath. He could see other vessels in the starlight and the bright orange twinkle of settlements on shore.

  Litnig closed his eyes, just to rest for a moment. Not to sleep.

  When he opened them, the dream had finally found him.

  It hadn’t changed. The disc opened up in a wide gray circle covered in tiny stone ridges. The three pillars stood in a triangle around its middle, dark statues chained sleeping to their faces. The black-and-purple clouds swirled beyond everything, stirred into motion where the dark statues’ white counterparts had disappeared in Sherdu’il.

  At the heart of the disc, three other statues lay asleep. One human. One Sh’ma. One Aleani. Their clothes and bodies strobed a glowing white and a deep black in a way that was entrancing and sickening at the same time. Somehow those three statues—those three souls—had come together and created his father. And then, after his father had died, they’d come into his heart.

  Litnig shivered, and then he dug his fingers into his palms and walked between them.

  Enough, he told himself. You’ve run from this long enough.

  When they’d explained his past to him—Duennin, born to burn the world—he’d run from it as far and as hard as he could.

  But he couldn’t keep running forever. He had to understand what he might be turning into.

  And, if he could, master it.

  His father’s human soul lay on its back with its hands folded over its abdomen. Its stony face looked peaceful, as if it was meditating more than sleeping. Litnig squatted by its feet and touched its shin.

  There was a crackling shift in the energy of the disc. Litnig felt a sliding sensation, as though his inner world’s center of gravity had shifted. The human soul sat up and looked at him. Its eyes were a deep, penetrating black.

  Do not be afraid, said its voice in his head.

  As if anything that simple was ever easy.

  The soul crossed its legs and watched him expectantly. It had smooth skin and wore a ballooning pair of pants and an open vest. Its hair was long and pinned back by a headband, and beads dangled from braids along the right side of its scalp. Intricate, crisscrossing bracelets wrapped around its wrists, and it had a symbol tattooed upon its breastbone—three teardrops in a triangular pattern, swirling together inside a circle. As Litnig watched, the symbol faded.

  He sat down.

  Being Kain Eshati changed me, the soul explained. It used its hands freely when it spoke, like an old man telling a story before a fire. Some of what you see is him. Some of what you see is me as I was before I became him. But all of it is mine.

  Litnig trailed a hand over the disc. The ridges felt warm and alive. What am I? he asked.

  It was unsettling to voice the question. As if he was betraying the memory of his mother and his brother by admitting that what the Duennin had told him was true.

  The soul smiled. A good question. When three souls share a body, each changes and something new is created—a unifying force with a will of its own. You are that force.

  Litnig’s mind wandered through the memories of the white statues—the bright parts of his souls, the ones he’d spent half a year trying to understand. The images—sharp flashes of key moments in their lives—had always felt as though they belonged to him.

  You may make that your greatest strength or your greatest weakness, his father continued. You may listen to one will over the others. You may thrive or you may go mad. The decision cannot be postponed or avoided. It is forced upon each of us at every moment of every day.

  Litnig frowned. His father-soul’s face shifted, from high-cheeked and narrow-nosed to low-browed and sunken-eyed.

  Then what have I chosen so far?

  He didn’t mean to ask the question out loud, or whatever passed for out loud in the dream, but the soul seemed to pick up on it anyway.

  Its stone lips cracked into a smile.

  Sanity, mostly. And goodness. You have listened, I think, to all three of your souls, though perhaps to the human and the Sh’ma more than to the Aleani. You are doing well.

  Litnig breathed. Breathing made sense, felt the same no matter where he was—no matter what he was.

  It is wise to think of such things. The soul leaned forward. Its clothes shifted, and then it was ensconced in an Eldanian greatcoat. A beard stubbled out from its jaw.

  It didn’t seem to notice. Its eyes focused on something beyond Litnig. Its face wrinkled, as if it had tasted a sour melon. You have a lot to learn, Litnig. Your brother will have gone to Duenel to free our people.

  Cole’s face flashed through Litnig’s mind.

  Not that brother. My other son. Eshan. He will return to shake the world. What he will do beyond that, I cannot guess.

  The soul’s clothes rippled again. It closed its eyes. Its shoulders slumped.

  It is difficult for me to remain here, it said. I can’t teach you all you need to know. But if you want to learn, follow the sound of your heart.

  The thing that had once been Litnig’s father reached forward, grasped him by the shoulder, and pulled his forehead over to meet its own. The walker’s stone skin was warm and smooth, and packed full of love and fear—for its sons and its people and the world.

  The other souls woke and climbed to their feet. Their light filled Litnig’s mind, his eyes, his lungs, his world. Their voices melded.

  You will know it when you hear it, they said.

  Then they were gone.

  Litnig stood alone at the heart of the disc.

  He stared at the darkness surrounding him. The statues on the pillars woke and stared back, their eyes red with rage.

  He wondered what his father meant, and whether if he heard the sound of his heart, he would have the courage to follow it.

  FOUR

  Ninety-seven days before the destruction of Nutharion City

  Flames leaped from a pile of brush and driftwood in front of Cole. Two rocks, one sharp and black and one round and gray, lay at his sides. His hands were raw from gripping them, and his arms were sore from knocking them together. Fine grains of metallic sand wormed their way between his toes, suspended themselves in the mess of hair on top of his head, and clung to every inch of him. His dripping-wet clothes were laid out on the sand.

  He wondered what Yenor had in store for him next.

  It had taken three days to reach the shore. Three days of waiting until Dil found the right soul to channel and then struggling through the choppy tides between the rocks. Three days of drinking stale rainwater from pools and eating tiny crabs an
d seaweed above the thrashing, violent sea. Three days of wet clothes and three nights pressed next to Dil’s body.

  He ran a hand over his face. Those nights—those nights had been wonderful and terrifying. The warnings of his mother and the leering grins of his friends had warred in his mind with the soft, warm reality of Dil and her body and her breath and her desires.

  What’s going to happen to us? he wondered. Out here, alone in the wilderness?

  He knew more or less where they were, and it wasn’t a comforting thought. The easternmost Aleani villages lay hundreds of miles west of them. East and south there was nothing but wasteland. There was a chance they could make the trek through the foothills and mountains of Aleana unaided—Dil was good at that kind of thing—but he couldn’t help but worry. The mountains on the horizon looked big and sharp, and he’d never climbed anything without following a path before. Wandering around with no food, no shelter, and no weapons but his knife and her Wilderleng-ing wouldn’t make for an ideal first try.

  We’ll grow up fast, I guess.

  Dil, hugging her knees to her chest across the fire, seemed more comfortable than he was. She flashed a brief smile and picked at some sand between her toes.

  Cole held his hands in front of the flames and let the fire heat his palms. His skin was dry and cracking from being wet and salty for too long, but at least he was finally warm. He smiled. Yenor’s eye, it felt good to be warm.

  He heard a loud crack in the woods.

  The smile fell from his face.

  A deer, he thought while his heart hammered. Or a squirrel. Something harmless, something small.

  But when he heard another crack, it didn’t sound small and harmless at all.

  He rose and grabbed his knife from the sand. The woods stood dark and unknowable in front of him, a wall of long-needled trees stretching from shadow to shadow.

  His knife shone in the firelight, and he stood naked and small before the wild and waited.

  He heard another crack. Then a rustle. On the other side of the fire, Dil crouched with her eyes wide and golden, her ears pricked forward, her hands curled like claws.