Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Sixteen

~16~

Sixty-four days before the sack of Death’s Head

“I was wrong, you know.”

The sky lit up with stripes of red and pink and yellow and orange as the sun sank into Gulf of Teeth. Soon it would be dark and cold, and Leramis would be lonely in the hold of the Aleani clipper ship Fetuan Mir once more.

He had grown to dislike the nights. The summer solstice had passed, and every day there was a little less light in the world. He felt claustrophobic.

The night before, he’d tried to do something about that.

Following the steps of an old ritual, Leramis had stood in the darkness of the ship’s hold, dragging a razor over his scalp. It was a meditation, and one of the reasons the necromancers kept their heads shorn. The scrape of the blade peeled off layers of guilt, of doubt, of fear and denial and self-delusion, until all that was left was the bald, cold core of a person.

At his core, Leramis had discovered he had things to finish with Ryse before they said goodbye.

Each breath of wind planted a cool kiss on the top of his head. His hair was growing back already, and he felt all the emotions he’d stripped off returning with it.

“About what?” Ryse asked. She stood a few feet away from him, her hair tied back but still fiery and wind-tossed in the sunset light. Not so close that he could touch her, but not so far that they couldn’t speak. Comfortably, safely distant.

She’d grown softer toward him after they left Du Fenlan. He wondered if she’d done some thinking of her own and come to some of the same conclusions he had.

“About us,” he said.

She turned to look at him. Sadness swam in her eyes, along with maybe, like the dots of indigo that speckled her irises, a little bit of forgiveness.

The Fetuan Mir sliced through waves that extended as far as Leramis could see, but that wouldn’t last. They were only a day or so out from Mansend, where he and Ryse would part ways for what was likely to be the last time.

Leramis held Ryse’s gaze. For the first time in months, he felt comfortable next to her.

It’s cruel, he thought, for us to make peace only when we’re parting.

But in his heart of hearts, he was grateful to be making peace with Ryse at all.

“I thought—” He swallowed. The sun continued to dip beneath the waves, and the colors in the sky shifted inexorably toward black.

“I thought Yenor had brought us back into each other’s lives because we were meant to be together. I thought there was some new road I was being directed to, one that ran between happiness and service. I thought you’d show it to me.”

Her eyes cooled. She crossed her arms and stood with most of her weight on one foot.

“I guess that might’ve been a little arrogant,” he said.

He couldn’t read her face. Couldn’t guess her thoughts. Once, when their hearts had beat so close together he’d felt like they were puppies in the same basket, that had seemed impossible.

“You want to hear what I think now?”

“Leramis—”

“I think Yenor brought us together in the first place so that we’d stick together over the last few months. So that you’d run to me in Du Fenlan, and I’d follow you to the White Forest and beyond. So that you’d save my life on the Rokwet and I’d save Litnig’s in turn. So that, together, we could keep everyone safe in Eldan City and the Estmarsh.”