Soulwoven

Chapter Forty

~40~

Cole passed under the high, rustling canopy of the Forest of Lurathen. His feet felt slow and awkward under the weight in his arms. The pale light of the moon disappeared. Dil’s back grew ghostly gray in the shadows.

And he shambled onward.

Soon, he was breathing hard. Sticks and rocks and streams passed by underfoot. His arms got sore. His hands ached. The brush didn’t seem to touch him. Or Dil. Or Alain. He felt as if he wasn’t moving at all—as if a world of shadows and sound was turning slowly around him, instead.

Alain’s breath grew more labored. The old man’s flesh had cooled beneath Cole’s hands, but the oozing of his wounds had kept up. The reddish-yellow fluid that was leaking from them was hardening on Cole’s skin.

Dil shuffled along ahead of him in silence. Sometimes, when they rested, he could hear her breathing as hard as he was.

It wasn’t all that hard not to think about what was happening. Nothing seemed real. Cole half expected to wake up on the floor in Alain’s cabin at any moment.

That moment never came.

He lurched into a small clearing, and suddenly the world was more than just shadows and sound. A round patch of grass glowed green in the moonlight before him. Three hummocks within it encircled a pool of glassy, black water. The space was ringed by a dense wall of brambles and tightly spaced birch trees. The air smelled of leaves and sharp mint.

Dil slowed down ahead of him.

Don’t think, Cole told himself. His back ached. His shoulders and forearms were solid, fiery knots. Help Alain, then go back to the others. Those were the real concerns. He could figure out what was happening and why after it was all over.

Dil stepped into the water with her grandfather’s legs still tucked tightly under her arms. The pool’s mirrorlike surface broke into a cascade of ripples that shimmered from one end of it to the other. Little flickers of captured moonlight raced around the edges of the water and collided, annihilating or augmenting each other in chaotic, sparkling clashes.

Cole followed Dil into the pool.

The water was lukewarm and silky, and it clung to his body as if it was made of something much more viscous than the output of a spring. Dil walked in up to her shoulders. Cole went in to his chest. Alain floated motionlessly between them.

Cole couldn’t see the cave that the old man had spoken of. There was nothing around the pool but grass. There was nowhere else to go.

The water played around his legs, and he stood and watched Dil.

Her chin was tucked tight against her chest. Her lips quivered. She left her grandfather’s feet floating in the pool and bobbed back toward Cole. Her hand trailed along her Alain’s side.

She reached Cole and stood close enough to him that he could feel the heat of her body through the water. Her arm slipped around his waist. She laid her head against his chest.

“Dil—” he began.

But he didn’t know what to say.

She clutched his shirt.

“In a second,” she said, “you’re going to feel like you’re not yourself anymore—like your body is different. It won’t be. You’re still you. Remember that.”

She took his hand.

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. “Please.”

And his whole world changed.