Soulwoven

Chapter Twenty-Four

~24~

Some time later, Cole Jin became aware that he was standing on a vast plain. The soil was barren and muddy, and marred by unruly clods of earth like it had been churned beneath thousands of frantic feet. His daggers were in his hands, and he was fighting with the strength and speed of a dozen men, cutting through a horde of shadowy man-sized shapes that bled away like chalk in the rain when he touched them.

He was searching for something, or someone, and he felt vaguely sick to his stomach.

Cole’s feet shot out from beneath him, and he was ripped out of the melee and into the air. He dangled upside-down for a moment above the field. His arms flailed in the wide, clear sky.

There was a bright flash below.

The field cleared. The sun shot in a long arc from west to east and turned the sky from blue to red to purple to black. The stars speckled the sky and then faded. Cole thought for a moment that he saw three comets swirling together around an empty space in the firmament, surrounded by a circle of luminous dots.

The sun rose again. People gathered around a wide, deep hole in the ground. Several figures in black forced their way through the crowd, carrying biers upon which bodies rested under white shrouds.

Cole’s awareness floated closer to the shrouded figures on the biers. At times there were four, at others five or six. Some of them seemed to fade in and out of existence as he approached, but three were fixed. He could see the contours of their faces.

He knew what he’d lost, and he plunged toward the earth with his heart screaming.

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up. A campfire sputtered smoke into his eyes. The shadowy mountains were just where he’d left them that afternoon. The sand of the beach was soft and cool beneath him, and a carpet of stars covered the sky beyond the smoke.

Cole turned his back to the flames, took deep breaths, and told himself that it had just been a dream.

The smoke changed direction, and Cole faced the fire again. His brother sat on the other side of the flames, staring into the coals. He looked as if he hadn’t even noticed Cole wake up.

Dil, still fast asleep beside Cole, rubbed against his leg. He could feel her breathing.

The panic that had wrenched him awake melted and was replaced by something different, something new. When he looked at Dil—at the way her hair curled around her face, at the downy fuzz on her arms, at the curve of her nose and her neck—he felt like he was on the cusp of some new world of plenty and happiness, and that she would take him there if he could just hold on.

A gust of wind froze the sweat on his neck, and he shivered and lay down beside her again. She nuzzled into his chest. Her breathing calmed his. The fire warmed his skin, and he began to feel tired again.

Before he gave himself up to sleep a second time, Cole wrapped both arms around her. A warm, calm feeling spread from his chest over his whole body.

She wriggled closer to him, and he closed his eyes and felt her fingers wrap around his own.

#

Dilanthia Lonecliff hunted lions beneath an amber sky in a forest of violet spruce. A carpet of fragrant needles flew by beneath her feet. She leaped streams, tore through and over bushes, ran with the spirit of a tiger in her soul and a spear in her hand.

The cats she chased were beautiful creatures—one as black as sable and the other white as snow. Solid knots of muscle undulated like dancing ropes beneath their shining coats. She wasn’t sure where she was, or why she was hunting them, or even whether she was going to kill them when she caught up. She hoped not.