Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter 27

~27~

Thirty-six days before the destruction of Eldan City

Ryse's trial went by so fast that later, she could barely recall it. She retained a few hazy images of the great golden interior of the Dome of Yenor in Eldan City, lit by flickering orange flame and bright yellow soulweaving. A tribunal of the Twelve, staring down from their bench with cold eyes and stone hearts. Darkness seen through the pupil of an enormous fresco of the Eye of Yenor. Watching her. Judging her. She screamed her warnings, but no one listened.

During the first week of her imprisonment in a vermin-infested cell beneath Temple Complex, she thought about escape. But they watched her, and a hooded soulweaver from Division Nine was never far from her, always ready to strike if she attempted to run.

By the end of the second week, she was beginning to understand what hunger and weakness were, and her thoughts of escape had been largely replaced by thoughts of food.

By the end of the first month, they stopped guarding her. There was little left to guard.

#

A drop of water wormed a line down Ryse's face. The stubble where her hair had once been itched furiously. Cold chains chafed her wrists and ankles.

The darkness around her swam with demons.

She saw no light. Knew nothing but blackness and touch and sound. Her mind faded in and out of hallucinations. Some days she fell asleep and couldn't wake up. Others she thought she was running through the fields outside Eldan City. Sometimes she relived every moment of the things that had happened onboard the Folly of Man, as if they were happening again and the devils in the darkness were as real as the metal on her skin.

And some days she was keenly, painfully aware of exactly where she was: imprisoned beneath Temple Complex, in the care of Division Nine.

They don't understand, she whispered to the darkness. The words didn't come out aloud, but she felt them, scurrying across the surface of her mind like mice.

Footsteps echoed in the dungeon, and she scrunched back against the wall. Her legs began to shake.

Footsteps. It starts with footsteps. It's Quay, only it's not. Yenor, please...

She remembered where she was.

Only Division Nine walked in the dungeons beneath the Temple. Only Division Nine, in their hooded, faceless robes, came to feed her a ladle of something awful and give her the cup of water that had been her daily ration for—

For how long?

She didn't know. But the footsteps drew nearer. Voices floated through the darkness, along with something bright that made her wince. She heard other sounds. The rustling of chains, whimpering, moans.

The others.

The prisoners she'd seen when they brought her down. People who were chained like her—heretical or traitorous or other things that didn't matter. She'd forgotten about them.

Yenor, she prayed. Her chin flopped against her chest, and her eyes closed to shut out the approaching light. Yenor, help me remember them.

Yenor was there in the darkness. It was from darkness that Yenor had been born, and from darkness that Zhe had brought forth the world. It was Hir home.

And in the darkness, Yenor gave Ryse strength.

"You are sure?" said a voice.

Metal squealed in front of her. Her head wobbled up. A man and a boy passed through a door in the bars that blocked in her cell. The man wore a robe of snowy white. The boy was shrouded in a sleeveless, hooded robe of dark gray. The light came from the man's hand.