Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Twelve

~12~

Eighty-nine days before the destruction of Emeth’il

Memories clustered at the edges of Tsu’min’s consciousness like children begging for attention.

He did his best to ignore them.

A barge floated on the moonlit waters of the Deru, waiting to start him on his journey to the furrowed slopes of the volcano Ole’guash’ma. The rest of the na’oth’na would already be there, searching for the three souls—always belonging to living people, because Yenor wanted the world to sacrifice to save itself—around which they would create the body of the white dragon.

They had made a promise, all of them.

He wore the familiar traveling clothes of his people—blue trousers, vest and shirt, black shoulder wrap. Sailors bustled around the barge’s silhouette, loading crates and checking lists and preparing for departure. They were to leave imminently.

“Your name is Eraic.”

He raised his head. The daughter of Len and Lena Heramsun, sent along to chronicle the days to come, stood between him and the barge. She was tall for her people, and strongly built. Her nose sported a small piercing.

“Eraic a’Soulth. The half-blood. Who came here with Mi’ame Greatheart in the time of Eraestus and Meneldite. Whose love was said to light the sky.”

She looked barely out of her childhood. She wore leather trousers and a dark vest of linen that left her arms bare. Gold bracelets encircled her wrists. A heavy cloak flapped from her shoulders. Behind her, a few dozen Aleani milled about, loading the barge.

Tsu’min took a deep, angry breath.

It wasn’t her place to stir memories of Mi’ame in him. No one left in all of Guedin had the right to do that.

Still, if anyone was going to, it would be an Aleani.

Aleana had hosted Tsu’min and Mi’ame during the height of its power, and after the War of Sherduan shattered the region, the survivors had taken things they wanted to remember and ascribed them to him and Mi’ame to give them weight. In their tales he’d grown into a legend.

Not even Eraic a’Soulth could have lived up to those stories.

Tsu’min Nar’oth could do nothing but disappoint.

So Tsu’min had to deal with Maegan Heramsun, a child standing under the moon who thought she was talking to a story. A girl who had no idea the weight of the memories she was invoking. He watched her, and he grew angry, and he made to move past her.

She blocked his way. “The stories say you were filled with joy. That your eyes showed kindness and wisdom and caring.”

He didn’t speak. Instead, he let his eyes meet hers. Someday she would learn that the longer a person lived, the heavier the memories they dragged around became. When Tsu’min had called himself Eraic a’Soulth, he hadn’t learned how to hurt.

That had been a long time ago.

He pushed past Len Heramsun’s child onto the wooden planking of the barge, found his way to a bench and sat down, bunching his wrap around him and staring into the night. The sailors moved quickly, silent shapes in the darkness. He stared past them at the twinkling, diamond profusion of the stars and searched for peace.

“What happened to you?” Maegan asked.

He turned and saw her climbing onto the barge. She stood far from him, with a look in her eyes that swam between sympathy and curiosity.