Soulwoven

Chapter Forty-Three

~43~

Len Heramsun sat in a green chair of faded velvet, watching the flames of a well-fed fire crackle in a warm hearth. A glass of smoky whisky rested on an end table next to him. His feet lay propped on a soft ottoman. The children were upstairs, asleep or on their way to it. The air was warm, pine-scented, and thick.

He allowed himself the brief luxury of closing his eyes and relaxing.

The night reminded him of a past of comfort and happiness. Of a time when his own children had slept upstairs, and he had sat comfortably in his parlor and talked long into the night with his wife, with his love, with his Lena—

“Lord Heramsun?”

His eyes snapped open. A slim, dark-haired human woman stood in front of him in a simple tan frock. Her face was pale. Her eyes were red and sunken. Her hands wrung together incessantly.

She was not his Lena.

“Mrs. Jin,” he grumbled, “I have asked you not to call me that.”

She nodded, hesitantly, and turned to poke the fire. It had been clear to him since he had been introduced to her that she was not accustomed to dealing with foreigners, nor even accustomed to dealing with adult males.

That afternoon, she had staggered wide-eyed out of her home like a necromancer’s puppet before her boys had even reached its door. She had thrown herself first upon Litnig and then upon Cole, wailing like a newborn the whole time. Only the sight of Quay’s face in the rain had shocked her into silence long enough for them to drag her inside.

The story her boys had told her was simple: Quay had been in danger, hounded by assassins. He had trusted Cole with his life, and Cole had trusted Litnig. They had been staying on the move to keep him safe. They were not going to be home for long, and she was to keep their visit secret, even from their father.

Torin Jin, luckily, was outside the city on business.

Lena Jin had bought the story with wide-eyed acceptance, but Len had seen in her narrow face the look of a woman shrewder than she let on who did not want to risk alienating her children—not when they had finally come home. Not when they would soon leave again.

A cough upstairs reminded him of Ryse. The girl was still incoherent, but Len had noticed marked improvement in her skin tone once she was warm and dry and indoors. Her fever might break that night, if they were lucky.

And if her fever breaks, perhaps she will tell us what she saw in that tree. And why Litnig will not speak, and she will not touch him.

“My boys.”

The words startled him. The dying echoes of them sang quietly in the air between him, the fire, and Lena Jin. There was a core of strength in them—one that spoke to a vein of iron running somewhere in the will of their speaker.

The woman stared at the fire and crumpled her dress in her hands.

“What are they really up to?”

Len rubbed his chin, reached across his body for the whisky, and took a sip. Her question was a harder one than he had expected it to be, but he answered it truthfully, as best he could.

“More than you can understand. More than I, perhaps, can understand.”

She blinked at him and collapsed into a chair.

He felt sorry for her. What she had been through over the past months—not knowing whether her children were safe or in danger, happy or sad, well-fed or starving—was a nightmarish burden to bear, and one they seemed not to appreciate.