Soulwoven: Exile

Chapter Fourteen

~14~

Eighty-four days before the destruction of Nutharion City

Dil sat with one leg crossed beneath her on a pillow-strewn bed. The walls of Lena Heramsun’s home stood around her, dyed a grainy purple by light reflecting off the city outside the windows. Dil’s head ached. She missed the mountains and the fresh air already.

Though not as much as she missed Cole.

She lay back down and stretched her arms and legs so that they covered as much of the bed as possible. Through an open window, she listened to rain fall over Du Fenlan. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d slept alone every night.

But that had been before the past two weeks. Now it was hard to fall asleep without him next to her. She was always wondering where he was, what he was doing, whether he needed her.

She thought she knew what he was up to. Leramis and Ryse were due to leave at dawn. Cole was probably talking to Quay about what to do next, where to go, what the plan was, and what had happened to Litnig.

I should be with them, she thought.

She didn’t know why Cole had left her out. Truth be told, it hurt. She was as smart as any of them. They should’ve asked for her help. She’d thought they would, and being left out stung.

Dil sat up again, ran her fingers through her hair, and sighed. Outside, the light faded as a ribbon of cloud covered the stars and the sliver of moon hanging over the northern sky.

It only hurts because you’re still worried about being left behind, she told herself. How many times has Cole shown you that he’s not going to let that happen? He jumped off a ship for you, in the middle of the ocean.

The thought didn’t make her feel any better. She was starting to feel reliant on him, and it rankled.

The sweet smell of bread baking two floors below her wafted in through the open window. She massaged her legs nervously.

Who are you without him? Do you even remember?

Dil rubbed her eyes. She’d just about given up on sleeping for the night, she realized. She just wanted the sun to come up and the day to begin.

I’m Dilanthia Lonecliff, she told herself, and I’m just tired, that’s all.

Footsteps echoed in the hall leading to her room. A second later, there was a knock at the door.

Her back stiffened. Cole never knocked. He just entered.

“Yes?” she called.

“Mhay I cuhm ihn?”

Zahayr’s quiet, hoarse voice. In the hallway.

“Of course,” she responded.

Zahayr stumbled in and stood by the door. He wore simple black clothes in the style of the Aleani. Where his feathered cloak was, she didn’t know.

He looked exhausted.

“I have had mhore duh-rheems,” he rasped. He leaned on the stone mantel of the room’s empty fireplace. The gauzy curtains at the window reached for him, like ghostly fingers in the wind.

“More mud puddles?” Dil asked. She forced a smile, but the joke felt hollow.

Zahayr shook his head. “Nho. Bhig things. S-heerious things.”

The smile fell from Dil’s face. She swallowed.

Zahayr spoke.

“I have s-heen the S-hleeper en a waste-lhand.” Zahayr’s fingers tightened on the mantel. He opened his jaw and moved it to the side, as if it was sore. “S-heen yhor puh-rince en dharkness. The bhrother of the S-leeper en p-ain.”

Zahayr rubbed his throat. His hand trembled.

Dil’s stomach twisted in knots. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him say so many words at once before. “Do you need water, Zahayr? Or tea? I could—”

Zahayr shook his head. He gave his throat another rub, then swallowed again. Strain filled his eyes. As though whatever he’d experienced in his dreams was eating at him. Like turning the images into words was sucking away his strength.

“S-heen yhu, Whaker. Falling in the duh-ark-ness. Standing befuh-or the draghon. Prho-tecting the S-leeper’s bhrother.”

Zahayr fell silent. A bird chirped outside the window, and Dil caught a flash of movement in the gray sky. Her mouth felt dry and ashy.

Words from the campfire echoed in her mind.

“Zahayr,” she asked, “why do you call me the Waker?”

He glanced away from her. He started to push away from the mantel, then seemed to change his mind. His legs looked wobbly.

“Zahayr…”

“Yhu will wuh-ake the whorld.”

“‘Wake’ it?”

Zahayr nodded. Dil frowned.

“What does that mean?”

He gazed out the window, then across the room to the far wall. Anywhere but at her.

“Yhu will wuh-ake ets st-hrength.”

Zahayr stepped toward the window and stumbled.

Dil’s frown deepened. “You need to sleep,” she said. She’d seen him this way once on the trail, after he’d been up all night with his prophesies. In the end, the other Quiet Ones had carried him on their backs for the better part of the day.

Zahayr shook his head. He leaned heavily on the door, then on the wall.

“Thehr es one muh-orr question yhu mhust ahsk.”

His face broke out in sweat. His knees buckled, and Dil slid from the bed and grabbed him under the armpits before he could fall. His body felt surprisingly light.

There was a stone bench near the window, and she helped him to it and laid him down. The sweat on his face shone in what little light fell through the casement. His eyes were shot with blood around the edges.

Dil squatted next to him and placed a hand on his forehead. It felt feverish.

“How?” she asked. “How will I wake the world, Zahayr?”

He reminded her of her grandfather, lying burned and dying in the underwater cave in the Forest of Lurathen. His lips were as bloodless, his body as twitchy.

He stared at the ceiling and panted.

“Whith yhour life.”

The prophecy felt like the calling of a deep, dark bell. An icy feeling ran down her neck and settled in her chest. Her heart tightened with every beat, as if a smith were hammering iron bands around it.

“Zahayr, what—”

But his eyes had closed, and his chest was rising and falling with the deep breaths of sleep.