Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Three

~3~

Ninety-seven days before the destruction of Nutharion City

Litnig felt like a wretched, hollow coward.

Salty water covered his face. It trickled down his forehead over his cheeks and collected on the wisps of hair that clung to the back of his neck. He lay in a net, hanging from the prow of the Skellup where he could be alone. The sky loomed gray and cold in front of him. The sea hung dark and foaming below.A drop of water leaped onto his chin, and he scrubbed a hand over the stubble and patchy hair that was growing there.

He hadn’t shaved since Cole’s death.

Disappearance, he reminded himself. They hadn’t been far from the rocks. They could’ve made it.

Or maybe he was just afraid to face the truth.

Either way, Litnig had nearly torn the head from the captain’s shoulders when he refused to turn into the storm and rescue Cole and Dil. He remembered shouting in the rain, blood pounding hot in his veins, spittle flying from his lips as he held the struggling Aleani in the air by his collar.

Until Quay grabbed his arm and yelled, How many more, Litnig? How many lost at sea before you’re satisfied?

Since then, Litnig had spoken to no one.

He was scared to. Every time he caught someone watching him, whether it was the bitter Aleani or the endless-eyed Tsu’min or Leramis and Ryse, shifting and suspicious in the tattered robes of their orders, he filled with shame. They knew what he was, and he saw the judgment in their eyes when they looked at him.

Duennin. Monster. Inhuman. Unnatural.Madman. Murderer.

He put his face in his hands and swayed between fear and anger, tears and rage, the desire to drown himself and the desire to break the world that was breaking him.

What am I becoming? he wondered. Cole had compared him to their father, but it wasn’t his adopted father whose boots he was afraid he might be climbing into.

It was his birth father’s. The Duennin’s.

Litnig hadn’t returned to the dream since Sherdu’il. The desire to search for answers there was stuck deep in his chest, caught between the bright coals of his anger and the dark waters of his fear.

The Skellup crashed through the waves in a singsong, lurching motion. It had escaped the storm without losing more than a piece of sail here and a bit of rope there. The Aleani had refused to go back and look for Cole and Dil though, even once it had become safe to do so.

Litnig thought of his hands on the Aleani captain and wondered if that too was his fault.

Behind him, the dinner bell rang. He ignored it. He would eat the scraps when everyone else had gone. He was too scared of what he might see in their faces to eat alongside them.

They left a plate for him anyway.

#

That night, he reclined in his net under a thick wool blanket.

A bright, sky-filling galaxy of stars glittered before him, beautiful and unorganized, not clogged by constellations, telling him nothing and letting him enjoy the peace of a calm, cold, open sky. The wind was blowing from the ship’s aft, and it was quiet beneath the prow. Litnig leaned against the hull and let himself relax. His blanket was warm and snug. The wind touched his face with whispered kisses. The sea flowed by. Soon the ship would reach Du Nath. He could see other vessels in the starlight and the bright-orange twinkle of settlements on shore.