Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter 43

~43~

Minutes before the destruction of Eldan City

The darkness was as deep as it had ever been.

It wrapped around Ryse's head, kissed the back of her neck, slipped between her clothes and her skin, flooded the cobblestone street and drowned the tall shadows of Temple Hill. The weight on her shoulders lit her muscles on fire.

Drip.

Drip.

There was nothing dripping, she was pretty sure. She and Ren had closed the wounds they'd opened. But she heard blood falling from her robe onto the stones all the same.

A gentle dragging followed her down the street.

She shuddered and shifted her weight. One of Tomenar's arms was wrapped over her shoulders, and Ren was supporting his other. Tomenar wasn't dead—or his body wasn't anyway—but what she'd done to him was monstrous.

The bond between soul and body is never to be tampered with...

The girl, Cara, was walking behind her. There was that. They'd saved her from Aegelden and Tomenar, whoever she was.

You're a big person, she'd said to Ryse as they limped through the gardens and over the back wall. Soon I will be too.

"Who goes there?" a voice boomed.

Ryse kept her eyes on the street, her feet plodding one after the other. Her body was exhausted. Her mind was slipping. She wanted to curl into a ball and just cry. So much soulweaving. So much struggling. Not long ago she'd been starving. And everything had gone wrong. There was no Twelve left to warn—not anymore. There was no one left to save them.

It had all been for nothing.

"I said, 'Who goes there?'"

She kept moving, not sure whether the voice was in her mind or the real world. The stones were dark and cold.

The sound of a sword ringing along a scabbard filled the boulevard, and she looked up.

A man stood in the street, a willowy girl in a very fine dress half hidden behind him. He wore the gray livery of House Galeni.

"Give way!" he shouted. He gestured with the sword. "Give way for Lady Misha Galeni!"

Ren shuffled to the other side of the street. Ryse went with him, staring at the man and the girl.

The girl's eyes were quick and alive, and they glittered in the dim light of the soulwoven street lamps.

Drip.

Drip.

Ryse shivered. Ren grunted. Tomenar's vacant breathing touched her neck in constant judgment. They moved past the girl and her guardian, who watched, who saw, who knew. She could feel it.

Cara's feet shuffled along behind.

At least there was that.

#

The dragon struck the city as they crossed the Brightwater on their way back to the slums.

It started with a clap of thunder, and then came a great wind and the scream, that scream she'd heard too many times. She followed the sound and saw a great gouge torn from the glittering gold of Temple Dome. A long, lizardlike shape perched atop its broken-egg silhouette and roared its hatred into the night.