Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Eight

~8~

Ninety-two days before the destruction of Nutharion City

The drums pounded.

So did Litnig’s heart.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the woman.

A room of pale stone stood snowy with moonlight around him, still warm with the day’s heat though it was getting close to morning already. The air smelled of clean, crisp linen. Beside him, ghostlike curtains floated over an open door to a balcony that overlooked Du Fenlan. The drums came from there, somewhere across the city. The faintest hint of pipes sailed on the wind along with them. Orange lights twinkled in the distance.

He made the mistake of moving, and his head swam deep from the wine.

The woman had been on his mind all evening. The wine had been a very misguided attempt to purge his memories of her and of Len at the same time.

He’d seen her while walking through the bazaar that led to the upper city. She’d been tall, stocky and athletic, her hair silver tinged with blue and her eyes a misty gray like his. A silver leotard had clung to her body, and a tripartite plumed headdress had bobbed atop her head. A gymnast with some troupe of performers, he’d thought. She’d been balancing on her forearms when he passed her, her back bent, her legs swaying over her head, a blue ball balanced perfectly between her feet.

Litnig had stared at her. She’d looked back and smiled.

And he’d heard his heart, just like he’d been told he would. It had beat faster and louder, even as the escort swept him past her, even as the woman’s eyes left his and he lost sight of her in the crowd.

His heart was still thumping, and the drums outside were keeping time with it.

I don’t belong here, Litnig thought.

Close on the idea’s heels came the question that had plagued him since the beach: Do I leave now? Is it time?

Can I do it?

He sat up and placed his head in his hands. The world slid from right to left and back again. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night in weeks. He’d seen his reflection that afternoon—sallow, red-eyed, less and less every day like the boy he’d once been. He fell back against his pillows and dug his knuckles into the sides of his head. His father’s—

Not my father. Kain.

—Kain’s words echoed in his head. The stuffiness of Len’s house threatened to smother him. His brother was gone. He had no good reasons to stay with the others. Not with Ryse who looked at him like he was a monster. Not with Leramis who’d stolen her from him. Not with Tsu’min, who’d never cared for any of them, and not with Quay either. They didn’t need him. Didn’t want him. Wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

You don’t look yourself in the eye, said his heart, but he ignored it.

The breeze ruffled over him, and his skin prickled. He looked over the city and listened to his heart and the drums, shut his eyes and wanted to scream.

A moment later his feet landed on the smooth tile of the floor, and he stood and braced one arm against the stone wall. The sheets fell away from his body and left him naked except for his undergarments. He staggered to a brass basin in the corner and splashed water onto his face.

Time to go, said his mind.

Questions like Where? seemed irrelevant.

Len’s house was silent and still as Litnig left his room. He felt, for one mad moment, as though he was inside Len’s dead body and the Aleani was watching him, steering him, exiling him for being what he was.