Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter 36

~36~

Seven hours before the destruction of Nutharion City

Litnig remembered the spider city. The round, seven-layered monstrosity of stone and wood looked little different from the northwest in the early autumn than it had from the southeast in the spring. He stood upon a bright highway, the river Stormkettle churning deep red with mud beside him. The morning sun, low in the western sky, warmed his shoulders. The golden plains of Nutharion shimmered, waving with heavy corn ready for harvest.

There were no farmers in the fields.

Nutharion felt abandoned, and Litnig wondered why.

The men and women he encountered on the road were moving away from the city. They kept their distance, stared as if they wanted to know where he'd come from and where he was going.

He wondered much the same of them.

Fourteen days had passed since he'd left Du Fenlan. He'd avoided the tunnels and walked the longer, more difficult route over the browning, docile mountains instead. Raest Heramsun had given him directions and a map. Zahayr Nuhwandrahess had given him a blessing. The road had given him blisters.

Litnig passed into the long footprint of Nutharion City without flinching. His brother would be waiting there, at the heart of the spider. So would Dil, the Magister Pyell, and his future.

The weight of his sword hugged his shoulder. His shadow preceded him.

My future, he thought idly. His boots scuffed little stones along the highway. Since encountering a last party of fleeing merchants near dawn, he'd seen no one.

I should be afraid.

The sun climbed toward its zenith.

And though Litnig and his shadow walked through a land pregnant with fear, he didn't feel frightened at all.

#

Dil woke from a long, tepid nap with a sudden twist of panic. Someone was shouting in the parlor she shared with Cole. She tried to stand, and her sheets tangled around her legs and sent her tumbling to the floor.

Cole, she thought, kicking free of the sheets and rolling to her feet. He was screaming. I'm sure of it. I heard—

And then she heard the sound again.

In the room that joined their suites, Cole was shouting, but it wasn't in pain or terror. There was a note in his voice that Dil hadn't heard in a long time.

Joy.

She took a deep breath and straightened her tunic. She'd fallen asleep in her own clothes; it was a day with no meetings scheduled, and she'd convinced Tyaeva to let her wear them as long as she wasn't going to leave the suite.

Through a window near the door, she saw that the city was painfully bright in the afternoon sun.

Why would Cole—?

Before she could even finish the question, she knew.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and walked from her shaded bedchamber into the dazzling whiteness of the parlor.

Within it, Cole was standing next to an overturned chair and a smashed glass of orange juice, clutching a smiling, shaggy traveler with both hands, laughing and crying and shouting and pounding him on the back.

The traveler looked over Cole's shoulder and smiled at Dil. He was bigger than she remembered. The hilt of what looked like a very large sword poked up above his right shoulder.