He can release these souls. But if he does so, there will be nothing to stop the Emperor from gathering them in again.
Unless, he thinks, as his heart races, unless they are already claimed by someone else. Someone like him. At that thought his fingers begin to move, weaving an intricate cat’s cradle of red thread in his left hand. Striving to keep his legs steady, his heels on the edge of the pit now, the faint sense of stones sliding from under them. Stay balanced, a few seconds more. He presses the twisted bundle of threads to his chest, just above his heart. With his right hand, he reaches to the nearest glimmering soul, andpulls. He can feel its edges, cold as mountain ice against his skin. As he does, he releases all those little animal souls, that fistful of charge he’s been carrying with him. Scraps of mice and plants. A nothing, a child’s cantrip, but, if unexpected, enough. The energy detonates soundlessly inside the first bound soul. It jerks as if lightning struck and its connections unravel like torn wool, like a tugged fishing line, spiralling from one body to another, as the Emperor’s barbs are yanked out and cast off.
Freed of those barbs, the souls rush forth in confusion. To leave them in these contorted bodies would condemn them to madness. To set them free would place them back in the Emperor’s jaws. Gritting his teeth, Shroudweaver clenches his fists, and pulls the red thread holding the cat’s cradle that thrums against his chest.
The cradle unravels. As the threads spiral loose, Shroudweaver brings his left and right hands together, weaves silver to red, and pulls the unbound souls into his body.
The first soul binds to his heart like rain on glass. The second like sweat on skin. The third like lips on ice. The tenth, the twentieth, like flesh on marrow, like moss on the mountain, like bark on the tree.
The fiftieth, like an anchor to a lake. Like tides to the moon. Like the moon to the sun. He gasps, driven to his knees.
The hundredth like spring to winter. The thousandth like a child to its mother. The last few gather like the clouds that make the sea, and pour into him like the ocean.
He can feel them all within him, boiling through his veins, humming under his skin. When he speaks, his teeth shudder with a thousand voices. His limbs shake. His fingers dance. Absently, he knows the creatures have fallen. He can hear cheers wash over his sweating temples like a submerged bell. But he’s losing himself in this new sea. This ocean of voices and stolen lives.
For a moment, through closing eyes, he sees Shipwright’s shape. Her face registers confusion for a second, until he draws his hand to his temple, taps it. The effort almost kills him.
She nods, lifts a fist and drops it like a hammer. And then, mercifully, empty blackness.
When he wakes, he is back on the ship. Luss hangs in the distance, lit by the red of fire.
He tries to speak, but the words fall out of him in unspent pieces.
Above him on the deck he can hear the sounds of singing, laughter. Shipwright leans across, cradles his head, forces water between his lips.
‘What happened?’ His voice feels lonely, unechoed, almost a stranger’s.
She shakes her head. ‘We won, you idiot.’
He swallows, and she strokes his hair.
~the sea
~
~
~the ship
~
~returning
Twenty years later, she’s stroking his hair again – her hands a little more weathered, but still careful, gentle. His head rests on her shoulder as the song fades from the last few tables of drunkards and revellers. The bar is emptying out into the Hesper night, the patrons spilling into the streets to kick cats and swap spit. Cups are drained, bottles swilled. Swallowgut busies himself sweeping up the detritus, his voice a low litany of curses against the heartlessness of his regulars.
Dropdancer and Masthauler say their goodbyes, sway out tucked into the crooks of each other’s arms, bickering gently. Brimlicker shoots them a weary look, and ruffles Shroudweaver’s thin hair before pulling her hat low and her collar high against the unseasonable chill.
The night air sweeps in with the swinging of the door, hung with the first hint of the ice that must be building thousands of miles away on the edges of the Heron Halls. The cries of seabirds mingle with drunken laughter, fading out into the streets.
The band are among the last to leave, Fallon bowing over the fiddler’s flinching back, filling his ears with questions, his pockets with silver. He stoops awkwardly to Shroudweaver’s table as he passes, sets down some coins, and winks.
Shipwright raises a lazy hand to trail fondly along his shoulder as he goes and kisses Shroudweaver’s head. ‘Come on sleepy. We’ll stay here tonight. Too long a walk for those ghostly legs.’
He nods softly. ‘That’d be nice. I think. That took me back. More than I expected.’
She turns to him, the bones of her face picked clean by the lamplight. ‘Funny how a few lines can bring it all back, isn’t it?’
He nods again, because he isn’t sure what else to do.
