Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Six

~6~

Ninety-five days before the destruction of Eldan City

Quay sat at a long table. A brazier to his right cast an orange glow over a blue tablecloth, golden plates and chalices, bright steel cutlery, and the sorrow-ridden face of an Aleani woman in a purple silk robe. Half a white cheese threaded with veins of blue lay between the prince and Lena Heramsun. Wine filled a goblet in front of him—heady red stuff that was delicious and strong. He’d left it mostly untouched.

For a long time, they sat in silence.

The stories had already been told—everything Len had done since he’d left Du Fenlan. His heroism in Eldan City, his despondency after Soulth’il. And finally, recounted in a voice that smoldered with anger or shook with sadness by an increasingly drunk Litnig Jin, his last hour in the mountains of the dragon. The Aleani had borne the conversation stoically.

Quay had done the same, though the story had hurt him too.

Cole’s gone, said his brain. You told him he’d see Eldan City again, and you broke that promise. You broke all your promises.

The wine was tempting. He’d watched most of the people at the table sink into it, until one by one they’d staggered into the dark, dusty corridors of Heramsun House. In Aleana, it didn’t seem forbidden to drink heavily at a time like this.

The wine’s bouquet called to him. Oblivion and sleep and abdication of responsibility called to him.

You’ve failed them, said his doubts. You’ve failed them all. Let go. Stop trying.

But the world hung in peril, and someone had to decide how to save it.

So Quay remained at Lena’s table late into the night, while the braziers burned to keep the chill of the mountain at bay.

He knew without asking that she had stayed for the same reason.

She spent twenty minutes or so in silence after the others left. Her eyes, nearly black in the firelight, glittered and rested on things far above Quay, things the Prince of Eldan couldn’t see. He recalled sitting at a similarly long table and mourning his mother and brother, looking listlessly at luxurious objects while people who didn’t understand his loss offered useless condolences or tried to steer conversations to subjects that seemed utterly pointless with the ash of grief in his mouth.

He wouldn’t do the same to Lena Heramsun. He owed Len’s family much more than that.

“He died for you then,” Lena finally said. “But that is not your fault.”

She straightened. Her robe, a soft-looking thing pinned at her shoulder by an insignia in the shape of a cloven mountain, shifted over her skin like water as she moved. “You’ve barely touched your wine,” she said softly. Her accent was as thick and silky as the drink itself.

Quay ran his fingers over his goblet. It was warm from the touch of his hand and the glow of the braziers. The wine was warm too, but it seemed meant to be drunk that way.

“It has been months since I had wine to drink, Lena Heramsun,” he said.

She nodded, and a soft smile broke over her face. “You are wise for a human child then, Quay Eldani. Your friend Litnig could learn a great deal from you.”

The word child fell onto the table and lay there among the discarded food and flatware. Quay didn’t bother to respond to it. Len had called him that too, when he’d been angry with him.

But the mention of Litnig disturbed him.

Duennin, he thought. Duennin, but still Cole’s brother.

A shiver trickled down Quay’s back. Litnig had excused himself awkwardly after telling his story, lurched drunkenly toward the wrong hallway and been corrected and led off by the burly Raest Heramsun.

Without Cole, Quay thought, I have no one to watch him.

“I suppose so,” he said.

But he suspected it was he who had much to learn from Litnig. Pieces of the puzzle that had vexed him since his last visit to Eldan City were beginning to fall into place—why the heart dragons had been broken only when Litnig was near, why Litnig’s mother had been killed and the rest of them spared.

“Why do you think they let you go?” Lena asked.

Quay brought the wine to his lips. He took the time the drink bought him to compose an answer. The truth, that he thought they’d been allowed to live because their living served some purpose of the dragon’s, wasn’t a thing to be spoken aloud.

But when he set the goblet down and looked into Lena’s eyes, the lie he was about to tell—that they’d been lucky enough to escape during the confusion of the renegades turning on one another—died on his lips.

The prince said nothing, and Lena Heramsun leaned forward on her elbows, tented her fingers in front of her chin, and frowned.

“I know what you think, Quay Eldani,” she whispered. “I can see it in your eyes, your hands, your face.”

Quay remained silent. There was a draft in the hall, a cool breeze that blew up from somewhere within the underground chambers of the Heramsun complex and passed over him on its way to the mountain outside. It was enough, at times, to raise goose bumps on his skin. He wondered if that was intentional.

“Then you understand why I have not told you,” he said at last.

The frown evaporated, and Lena leaned back. She plucked a green grape from a platter to her left, then set it down and smiled.

“I do,” she said. “And as I said before, you are wise. There are those who would have you put to death. There are those who would take no chances.”

Quay glanced at the exits of the room.

But nothing came out of them other than the cold breath of the mountain.

“And you?” he asked.

Lena picked up the grape and popped it into her mouth. As she chewed, it was she who reached for her goblet and took a long drink.

“I will trust my husband’s judgment,” she said finally. “On this, if not in all things.” When she put the goblet down, it was empty, and there was wine on her lips and fire in her eyes.

“Tell me,” she said, “when you return to your father, what message will you bring? What can Aleana expect of Eldan?” She leaned forward and clasped her hands. Quay saw the muscles beneath the skin of her arms—saw her strength and was a little frightened by it. “And what would you have me do?”

The flames in the braziers flickered. The wine glinted soft and oily and red in the orange light. The tablecloth waved back and forth like a piece of torn sky in the breeze. Quay smelled the cheese, the grapes, the wine, the smoke, the thick musk of his own sweat floating up from beneath his collar.

“Dig in,” he said. “Dig deep, and help me draw out the Duennin who summoned the dragon.”