The Woven Crown (Completed)

Chapter 26

Ryla doze off sometime early in the morning, but it couldn't have been long, because when she awoke, the same gray light trickled in from the window. Killian's eyes were open and he looked down at her as she stirred beneath his arm.

"I think we should get going if we're going to try and make it to a farm by tonight." Ryla nodded and sat up, untangling herself from his arm. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to busy herself with gathering their things together.

Killian got up to help too, but she avoided his eyes. Had she crossed a line? It had felt different last night with the storm raging on outside and the corpse of a valkrin they'd killed just below the stairs. Staying close to one another had felt right. But now, with morning here and their travels to continue, she felt awkward. She hoped she hadn't just made the journey harder than it needed to be.

As she checked that her dagger was securely in her sheath for the third time, Killian took her hand and turned her palm over. He put the last piece of bread and cheese in it.

"Breakfast. For the road." He didn't take his hand away until Ryla finally looked up at him. A smile broke over his face that warmed Ryla to her toes.

"We made it."

"We made it," Ryla answered. She hoped they would be able to say the same thing whenever they met up with the Caravan again.

With their gear stowed away and their cloaks still a little damp from yesterday's storm, they carefully tip-toed over the carcass of the valkrin. Ryla tried not to look at it. They stepped over too, the remaining pieces of the door. Outside, the storm had subsided, but swirling gray clouds overhead did nothing to cheer them up. Ryla looked in awe at the town as they picked their way through it in the morning light.

The place looked like it had been ravaged by much worse storms than last night's. Most buildings were nothing but rubble. The structures left standing seemed to be only held upright by a thread. Except for the deceptive sound of a door made jostling back and forth on its hinges from the wind, nothing in the town told of life, past or present.

An eerie feeling followed them as they made their way past the gates. It didn't feel right to talk above a whisper and the back of Ryla's neck burned beneath her hood, as if invisible eyes bore into it. The wind pushed at them aggressively, swirling dust into their eyes. Where once there were rolling meadows of land for grazing, a desert of churning dust existed. She began to wonder if this place had ever had any life at all.

It was a steep walk through the meadow. When they reached the crest of a hill, Killian stopped her and said, "Look." He pointed out towards the town. No, not the town, Ryla thought, but beyond. The land continued for another hundred yards or so and then broke off into a huge expanse of blue. The sea.

"We're at the coast?" Ryla asked, breathless. She'd never been near the sea before.

"No, that's not the sea. It's the Tapestry. Look again, closer."

Ryla understood what he meant. She shut her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the threads, and then opened them. What she saw dazzled her into stillness. A great iridescent wall rose up behind the town and into the sky, disappearing into the clouds. She could feel rather than see the millions upon millions of threads woven together by countless people. People like her.

She also saw the illusion built into the threads that made it look like a cliff dropping down into the water. Though she tried, she couldn't see what was truly on the other side. Why the illusion, she wondered.

"To keep common-born from wandering into it," Killian said, reading her thoughts. "I didn't realize I had taken us this close to the Tapestry." He sounded disappointed in himself.