Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Eighteen

~18~

Seventy days before the destruction of Eldan City

A black wind broke over the back of Quay’s head. No stars shone in the night sky, no moon. Water lapped against a hull beneath him in the dark. He smelled the thick, salty scent of the ocean and the cloying smell of torches, distinguished land from sea only by two lines of fires hewn into the cliffs of the Bight of Densel.

The Bight was a place of flame and shadow. Squat watchforts known as the Dark Sisters stood athwart its mouth, and the searing fires of its lighthouse paths illuminated a narrow channel that meandered through a forest of jagged rocks jutting from its bottom. At the far end of the Bight lay the flickering lights of docks—the tentacles of the port of Densel, reaching out like a mother’s arms.

Quay had never been to the Bight before, but he could tell by the quick, quiet sureness of their movements that the sailors around him had.

And he knew by his calmness that the man behind him had seen all the sailors had and more.

Tytan Rhelp, the man’s name was. Captain of the Folly of Man, built like a wrestler and equipped with a thick beard and a golden smile. He wore rich green clothes and gold rings on every hand. Quay had found him haggling with a merchant on the waterfront in Mansend. The Folly of Man had been the only ship sailing for Eldan, toward the war the sailors knew was brewing there.

“Not long now,” Rhelp said. He smiled when he spoke, and he had a deep and reassuring voice, the kind used to leading. “Best go and get your things ready.” He stroked his beard. “And wake your mistress.”

Three golden Elds. That was what it had cost Quay to get himself and Ryse from Mansend to Densel. Enough to buy six months’ worth of food, in better circumstances. The prince had spent most of the journey seasick and feverish. He’d only grown able to stand once they left the towering, windswept seas of the Black Gulf and entered the quieter waters of the Bight.

He still felt weak. As the sailors tacked to take the ship around a rock, it canted to one side and Quay lost his balance. He staggered into a capstan and dug his fingers into the wood until his guts stopped churning.

He would be very glad to leave the ship.

A stairway into the darkness of the hold yawned on the other side of the capstan, and he stepped into its shadows, steadied himself against the wall, and lit a taper from a rack. The corridor below the stairs led him past a mess room and the open sleeping quarters of the sailors. He glimpsed two men sitting on their hammocks there, faces sweaty, eyes black and small in the twilight.

Quay and Ryse were the only passengers sailing on the Folly of Man. Few people were crossing the Black Gulf; rumors were running wild that the Eldanians would sail for Menatar any day.

But they haven’t sailed, he told himself. Not yet. We might still save them from it.

By presenting himself to whoever was in charge of the fleet in Densel, he might be able to stop the war preparations for weeks.

He opened the door at the end of the corridor and stepped into the musty darkness of his and Ryse’s bunkroom. The ship creaked as it slipped around another rock, but he heard nothing else. Ryse was a quiet sleeper.

“Ryse,” he called into the darkness. She stirred in the bottom bunk. “We’re almost there. Wake up.”

He set the taper in a sconce on the wall—it didn’t illuminate much—and squatted before his bunk, fumbling underneath it for his sea chest. He didn’t feel like himself. On the water, his voice never bore the air of command he could lend it on land. It was weak, quavering, as unsteady as his stomach. On the waves, he was no real Prince of Eldan.