Soulwoven

Chapter Forty-Four

~44~

Ryse Lethien sat in bed on the second floor of the Jin family home.

The bed, and the room around it, were Litnig’s.

The window she’d snuck through two months before winked at her from the wall. The heavy, dark wardrobe she’d once hidden in from his mother stood sullen and unmoving in a corner. The hole he’d made in the thatch above his bed for her childhood treasures was still there. The spot beneath the window where she’d later given them to him and Cole was unchanged.

She sipped a cup of warm tea and wiggled her toes under Litnig’s blankets.

Litnig himself still hadn’t come by to see her. Neither had Quay. Len had made a brief appearance and asked to speak with her in the morning. Cole had stayed with her longer, but he’d seemed nervous and uncomfortable. He’d sat on the floor and refused to meet her eyes or speak beyond answering her questions.

And then he’d asked, “What did you see inside that tree?” and she had lied to him and said she didn’t remember.

After that, he’d stared for a long time at the wall, and then he’d stood up and made a flimsy excuse to leave.

She felt sick for lying to him.

But how could she tell him what his brother really was?

She touched the naked, stubbly space on her face where her eyebrows had once been. Her hair was singed, too, but things could have been much, much worse. It would have taken enormous power to weave a fireball the size of a house. Power that was arrayed against them. Power that for some reason had run away from them.

For some reason.

She knew the reason.

It had to be Litnig.

In the eyes of the Duennin, Ryse…

She still shivered when she thought of Reif’s words and the memories that went with them. Four of the six heart dragons were broken. The Duennin were real and walking the waking world beside her.

She felt very, very alone.

The Temple wouldn’t help her. She’d learned that on the night the Heart Dragons of Mennaia had been broken. She didn’t want to bear the burden of Litnig’s identity alone, but she had no one to share it with. Quay was cold, practical, and calculating—as likely to kill Litnig in his sleep as help her keep an eye on him. Cole wouldn’t believe her. Dil was too flighty, Len too self-absorbed.

And Litnig himself would break under the knowledge. He wanted to be a hero. She shuddered to think what hearing he was a monster might do to him.

That left only a necromancer who might understand without condemning, who might be able to watch impartially, and who might have the power to help her stop Litnig if he became one of the mindless killing machines from the legends.

But Leramis wasn’t there.

And she had promised Litnig that she wouldn’t tell him anything.

And he was the last person in the world she wanted to rely on.

She sipped her tea in silence.

Eventually, Dil knocked softly on the door and entered. The girl from Lurathen asked if Ryse needed anything, then went and sat on Cole’s bed, pulled out a piece of wood, and began to whittle.

Ryse envied her.

A lamp hung from the ceiling cast shadows that flickered and raced across the walls. Ryse lay down and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. She’d been sleeping for a week. She tossed and turned and dozed fitfully.