Soulwoven

Chapter Thirty-Two

~32~

The air bit frigid and crisp on Leramis Hentworth’s arms. Stars filled the heavens like a thousand thousand dandelion seeds. The waters of the North Sea caught and reflected their light as it swelled and withdrew below the Rokwet’s keel. The oily scent of the ship’s lamps permeated the air.

Leramis struggled for peace. He sat near the Rokwet’s bow and listened to the ship slash through the black waves below. He took long, slow breaths. He imagined a field of light—

But he could not fall into it.

The others were belowdecks, displaced, disgruntled, displeased at his presence. They would not stay down for long. He had seen greenness in their faces before the sun had even set.

When he had seen their faces at all.

Easy friendship had been one price he’d paid to assume the mantle of the necromancer and spend his life guarding something worthwhile instead of peddling the lies of the Temple. He’d thought he had come to terms with that. Every necromancer gave something up when she or he joined the order—family, friends, a normal life. In return, each gained purpose and a closer connection to Yenor than any of the priesthoods of the world could offer.

Leramis needed that purpose. He was not made for simple things.

You will do great things, if you find the courage to seize them.

The Temple had shown him that he had power. Power enough to make the soulweavers who’d taught him nervous. Power enough to shake the foundations of the world, Rhan had once told him. Strength like that was not simply given. Strength like that required a purpose. One greater than that of redeeming an ancient name. One greater than that of family, or children, or love.

Or happiness.

Or so he told himself. The sails flapped above. One Aleani sailor called to another and laughed. The ship’s wheel turned. The hull creaked. The sails filled out again.

With Ryse in front of it, a childish, hopeful part of Leramis’s heart he’d thought long conquered had awoken. Dreams he had tried hard to bury had resurfaced.

I am sending you to Prince Quay for a reason.

The cold wind blew over Leramis’s shoulders. He shivered. He saw the breath of Yenor in the events playing out before him, and that frightened him. His god had brought him and Ryse together once, as teenagers, when they had needed each other. They had helped one another through the trials of the Academy. Leramis had learned new heights of understanding and compassion, and, briefly, what it meant to truly, selflessly love.

And now Yenor had brought them together again.

There are no coincidences. Only the illusion thereof.

Leramis’s heartbeat quickened and slowed, quickened and slowed. There were other illusions too. The fact that he could see only one purpose behind his reunion with Ryse troubled him.

And yet a voice inside him whispered, Perhaps—perhaps—

Footsteps thumped up the steps behind him. Someone lunged over the rail to Leramis’s left and retched. The necromancer turned to face the sound.

The shadow that bent over the railing was short. Perhaps Len, perhaps Cole. Whoever it was, he was losing most of his dinner. A second silhouette appeared from the stairs that led belowdecks. It moved slowly and softly toward the first. The retching on the rail stopped. The retcher let fly a string of curses.

Cole.

The second shadow (Dil, he told himself) approached him tenderly and placed a hand on his back. Leramis heard caring, comforting murmuring.

A pang shot through his heart. It refused to listen as he denied its existence. It grew stronger as he told it it was just a phantasm, an emotion tied to an illusion that would distract him from his purpose in life.

I miss that.

It was a simple admission, and it complicated everything he had come to be.

His brow trembled. Two years prior, alone in the cold mud beyond the wall that separated Eldan from the White Forest, he had knelt and sworn his life to Yenor. He had offered everything he was for the greater good. He had given up the small niche of happiness he had almost carved for himself as a Temple soulweaver and asked to be pointed by Yenor as one would point an arrow. A sense of peace had filled him. He had walked south, and in time, he had met Rhan.

For the first time since, he felt directionless.

Cole retched again. Dil didn’t flinch.

Leramis turned from the scene and faced the open sea once more.

Peace, he told himself. A conflicted heart could not tell illusion from truth.

And without truth, he was nothing.

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