Soulwoven Read Free

days. He remembered bloody noses. Bloody ears. Black eyes. Bruised ribs.
    The memories always came after his father hit him.
    The cobblestone thoroughfare outside his house was deserted, but the orange light of candles flickered from the second-story windows of a few white-plastered houses. He thought he heard children crying. The memories of his life faded away. The image of a black-scaled dragon’s head filled his mind, and he remembered a scream, a horrible, ear-shattering scream, and the feeling that the world was ripping apart and he was ripping with it.
    He pulled his collar up.
    Just a dream, he told himself, but he didn’t believe it.
    The moon broke through the clouds. The wind shifted, replaced the fetid stench of the slums with the scent of clean, wet earth and stone, and Eldan City shone bright and glistening in front of him. The three hills that framed it rose prominently from the sprawl of houses in the river valleys below them, shadowed sentinels glittering with yellow lights. Friendly, open, full of life.
    Cole took a deep breath and followed his brother toward the river. It would be good to have a walk, get his mind off his nightmare. It might even be good to see Ryse, if she could get off her newfound high horse long enough to talk with them.
    The craggy shadows of the city stretched before him, silhouettes clustered along the rivers and reaching up the hills. He smiled. He’d spent much of his life in those shadows. They’d been the father he’d always wanted. They’d let him grow.
    A mile or two ahead, across the rush of the River Eld, the white pillars and golden dome of the Temple of Eldan glittered atop the blackened shapes of Temple Hill. “Welcoming sinners and the pious alike,” its white-and-black-robed priests told anyone who would listen.
    Cole had never put much stock in them either.
    At the bottom of Temple Hill, the iron gates and moss-covered stones of the Old Temple stood in cold, stark contrast to the garish dome above them. The Old Temple had been built smaller than the New, with a peaked roof and the stories of the Book of Yenor carved in relief upon its gables. It was thousands of years older than the complex above it and got more attention from one-penny storytellers than priests. He remembered going there with Litnig and his mother when he was a kid, to hear the tales of Eldan’s great triumphs in the name of Yenor. The place, in his mind, was one of sunny afternoons and pleasant naps.
    It was there that Ryse Lethien stood watch at night.
    The city was unusually quiet—no rats, no owls, no cats chasing one another in the cool shadows. The festival poles were still, their ribbons hanging limply at their sides. The bonfires had burned down to cold piles of black ash. Neither Cole nor his brother broke the silence. They passed the gold-painted wooden figurines of the Fishbridge and crossed over the broad silver stroke of the Eld into Temple Hill without meeting a soul.
    Cole’s toes got wetter and colder, and he wrapped a scarf around his ears. Temple Hill was always quiet at night, but at least it was safe. Nobody much wanted to risk mugging a soulweaver by accident. He’d seen that happen once. The woman’s scream, as soulwoven fire engulfed the hand holding her knife, had been as high as a child’s.
    It wasn’t until the darkened gates of the Old Temple grew almost close enough to spit on that Cole spotted even the slightest hint of life.
    It was a much slighter hint than he was comfortable with.
    Two people lay on the temple steps, their bodies at odd angles, bent in ways that would be uncomfortable at best and painful at worst. They wore the white sash of the temple across their chests. There was a liquid, sticky darkness underneath them, almost black in the moon’s white glow.
    The guards, he thought. Posted outside, just in case. His stomach jumped into his throat.
    Litnig quickened his pace. Cole slowed down, tried to push away his memories of sunshine and story and