The Language of Souls

by Lena Goldfinch

  Under a blessedly hot Torrani sun, Solena crossed the city with Rundan, her eyes constantly searching the crowded streets for her grandfather and for Theta, but seeing neither of them. As she wove through her people, she felt strangely like a visitor. Everything was familiar, but even though a slight strain she’d been unaware of before relaxed and a small voice whispered, I’m home; I’m back, she was also acutely aware, for the first time, of how dark her people were, with their dark hair and dark eyes, like hers. In contrast, even though she knew better, Rundan almost looked the part of a hostile Odenian soldier, so pale and strong in his golden chest armor, leading an impossibly large warhorse, with bundles of wild tymia lashed to its sides.

  The expression on Rundan’s face was especially forbidding today, and whenever she glanced at him she felt a little hitch in her chest. She wasn’t sure if it was nervousness from escorting him through her city, past all those curious eyes, past turning heads, and the roar of excited chatter, or if it was something else. Something that had more to do with never being able to see Rundan again. Never having him smile as his eyes rested on her.

  She already missed his smile. All during their journey from Oden, he’d worn the same mask of indifference he wore now. Of course she knew why: she’d wounded his honor. But what he had offered was impossible. Even now, it hurt to think about. And she desperately missed the closeness they had once shared.

  As they passed through the marketplace in the town center, more of her people stopped and gaped at them. A few of them threw questions out at her, and though her face heated at their curious looks, she didn’t pause to answer, nor could she bear to ask the one question she most wanted to know.

  “Solena!” Theta ran toward her, somehow flying through the parting crowd, and threw her arms around Solena. She stepped back a little, her hands still clasping Solena’s arms. “You’re back!” she cried happily. “You came...back.” Theta’s voice faltered to a stop as she caught sight of Rundan looming over them, with the horse posed behind him, its nostrils flaring. Together they looked like bronze statues dropped onto the stone pavers of the crowded market, with wide-eyed shoppers edging past them, their baskets of goods balanced on their shoulders.

  Solena drank in the vision of her friend. In a cool white linen day dress, Theta looked the same as always, which Solena found unexpectedly comforting in a world where it felt like everything had changed. She saw a slim black cord around Theta’s neck and a molten pendant dangling from it.

  “You’re wearing my circlet,” Solena said, her throat closing with emotion.

  “I haven’t taken it off, not even once.” Theta slid her hands down Solena’s arms and gave her fingers a bone-crushing squeeze. “Who’s that?” she whispered, as if Rundan were indeed a statue and couldn’t see or hear her. Her eyes were bright with interest.

  “It’s a long story,” Solena told her, suddenly aware of just how tired she was. Her journey had seemed endless and her feet hurt. And now that she was finally home, she had to find Grandpeer. She opened her mouth to ask Theta how he was, but she couldn’t form the words. “I promise I’ll tell you everything,” she said instead. “Later.”

  Theta nodded, releasing Solena’s hand after one last squeeze. “I’m glad you’re back. I was so worried.”

  “Me too.” Solena grinned at her friend. She tugged Rundan forward and rushed, as fast as she could, to her grandfather’s place of meditation on the rocks. When she saw his familiar stooped frame settled on one of the boulders there, she muffled a sob. He was alive. She climbed toward him, her eyes combing him for signs of health. His skin looked like it had been stretched tight over his cheekbones, so thin it was nearly transparent. She bit her lip, alarmed at the sight. He looked older and more frail, but, at the same time, so reassuringly familiar.

  “Grandpeer!” Solena embraced him carefully. “I was so worried.” She buried her face into the shoulder of his ceremonial robes and clung to him. “I have your tymia. I found it.”

  “You’ve returned, Solena child.” He gave a great sigh. “You’ve finally returned.”

  For a moment, they just held each other, then Grandpeer gently pulled away and cast a quick frown on Rundan, who stood behind them at a short distance, looking so noble, so distressingly impenetrable, in his molded plate of chest armor. His face was remote and expressionless as it had been since the day she’d rejected his offer.

  As Grandpeer leveled a questioning gaze on her, Solena wrestled to find the words to explain Rundan’s presence. She couldn’t find a single one, nor could she begin to tell her grandfather—Benito de Scipio, The Great Prophet of Torrani, teacher of the ancient law—about her recent, possibly forbidden method of healing.

  “You were gone so long. I was afraid you’d never come back,” Grandpeer said, his voice thick with emotion. A round of hacking coughs shook his wasted frame. After composing himself, he faced Rundan and, to her shock, spoke to her former captor in what sounded, to Solena’s untrained ears, like fluent Odenian. They exchanged names, she could understand that at least, and many other words. As he listened to Rundan, her grandfather’s face grew sober.

  “Is this true?” Grandpeer asked, switching smoothly to Torrani. He pointed with a long crooked forefinger at the votif tied at Solena’s waist and waited for her answer.

  “I h-had to, to save him from death,” she stammered.

  “Solena.” Her grandfather passed a hand over his grayed face. He looked even sicker now, if that were possible. “What have you done?”

  “We must speak in the ancient tongue, Grandpeer”—Solena spoke quickly, hoping to turn her grandfather’s thoughts from her actions—“so we may all understand.”

  Grandpeer narrowed his eyes, his knowing gaze promising her that he’d remember what she’d done. With all the poise of the Great Prophet of Torrani, he flattened his robes over his chest and, with a lifted brow, turned his attention to Rundan. “You know the ancient tongue?

  “Since I was a young boy,” Rundan answered in the ancient language of the scrolls, his words as always somewhat clipped and wonderfully exotic to Solena’s ears.

  “Interesting.... Solena we will speak of this, but first let’s go home.”

  With Rundan’s help to support him, Grandpeer ushered them home. As soon as they arrived, he handed them over to Nangi, giving her instructions to prepare baths for them and give them clothes and food. As the housekeeper led Rundan away, Solena stayed behind for a moment, watching through tear-blurred eyes as her grandfather called a youth to take care of Rundan’s horse. She didn’t trail after the housekeeper until Grandpeer offered her one very small, very grave smile. Then he disappeared into the chamber of ancient texts, closing the door behind him.

  Five

  MANY HOURS LATER, Solena stood before her grandfather in that same chamber. She clenched her fists at her sides, and though she couldn’t stop the little trembles that shook her deep within, she was determined to defend what she’d done. Rundan stood beside her, his face set in the same mask that shut her out, as gravely silent as the proud falcon emblazed on his chest armor.

  She remembered his offer to be her servant and how she’d refused. But what no one knew, what she could never confess, was the fleeting temptation to accept, if only to see his face every day.

  So many times on their journey she’d wanted to speak to him, to say something, anything, to ease the rising tension between them, but words had failed her.

  In the end, they’d trekked along in silence, until it seemed the only things they had in common were the food they ate, the warmth of the campfire, and the nyka hide they shared at night.

  What he’d asked was impossible. They couldn’t have lived the way—

  “By the texts, I have been informed....” Grandpeer’s words filtered through Solena’s unhappy thoughts, capturing her attention. As always, when he spoke the ancient tongue, his words came as fluidly as one born to it. He paused to sip noisily from his second cup of steeped tymia leaves. Already, color f
illed his cheeks and he paced the chamber as if unable to stand still.

  Solena allowed a sigh of pleasure to fall from her lips. The cold, exhausting days of her journey passed through her mind in an instant. They were nothing to her now. All she’d endured was worth every moment to see Grandpeer like this. He’d need many more cups of tea, of course, and just as many days of rest before he returned to his full strength. Later he’d regret this bout of energy, for he’d grow weary come evening, but she couldn’t bring herself to make him sit.

  “If a man should take a sheep from another man,” her grandfather intoned, “does the law not require he return two sheep as payment? In the spirit of twofold, then, this soldier should pay back a double portion in embers—”

  “But he’d die!” Solena stepped between Rundan and her grandfather.

  “Or,” Grandpeer continued forcefully, “he can pay back what is due in service. In this case, he’d serve the length of his life.”

  “But I don’t want a servant.” The image of Rundan enslaved his whole life sickened Solena. “Besides, the story of the sheep doesn’t apply. Rundan didn’t take anything. What I gave was a gift.”

  “But with his consent."

  Solena glanced at Rundan's set face, at his steadfastly closed lips. Evidently, he didn’t intend to defend himself or place the blame on her. Even now he was protecting her. She swallowed and faced her grandfather, even more determined to free Rundan. “He never knew. Not until he woke up and by then it was too late.”

  “Oh, Solena.” Grandpeer sighed. A wealth of meaning was imparted in his pained glance, not disapproval exactly, but perhaps a trace of resignation. It hurt to think he was disappointed in her. “Sometimes I think you care too much.”

  “I can only do what I’m compelled to do,” she protested. “What I feel here.” She placed one hand lightly over her heart. “Beyond laws, beyond words.”

  “Then do we never ask permission?” he asked incredulously.

  She hesitated.

  “Think, Solena. Does the Most High force us to believe?”

  She shook her head, confused, yet filled with a dawning sense of revelation that left her slightly winded. Before now, she’d felt so passionately that everyone should welcome her healing. But even the Most High, who knew all things, didn’t force people to have faith. There was so much she didn’t know. How would she ever know when to forge ahead and when to hold back? It called for wisdom, perhaps more than she had. She bowed her head, troubled with a sea of doubts.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be a healer,” she whispered.

  Grandpeer shook his head. With a lift of his brows, he asked, “What else would you be?”

  The question stopped her. What else could she be? Being a healer was all she’d ever wanted, but it terrified her too. What if she wasn’t good enough? She obviously couldn’t follow the rules, at least not this one.

  “I don’t know.” Solena shrugged helplessly.

  “Precisely. You were meant to be a healer. It couldn’t be more obvious. But perhaps what you need most is faith...” He gestured to the mark on her arm, the symbol of faith and healing.

  “I do have faith,” Solena said slowly, looking back on the days of her journey. She’d leaned on her faith even when the worst happened, when her strength failed or her heart grew weak.

  Grandpeer nodded, wearing a look of pride that chased away some of her worry. “And you are a healer. You always have been.”

  “Well, then, as a healer," she said slowly, encouraged by his obvious approval, “I chose to give embers to Rundan, so he wouldn’t die. Right or wrong, it was a gift. Mine and mine alone.”

  “Even so, my child, it wasn’t yours to give.”

  “Not mine?”

  “You’re too young to make such a decision,” Grandpeer amended.

  Yet she hadn’t been too young to cross the Pirellens. She hadn’t been too young to venture into Oden, a hostile place if ever there was one, and bring back his wild tymia. The words threatened to trip off Solena’s tongue, but she held them back.

  “Am I not old enough to marry, to have a home of my own and, someday, children?” she said instead. Many Torrani women married on their nineteenth birthday for good luck. Solena could be nineteen by now. She was at least eighteen, and hadn’t Aria and Lidia married their husbands at eighteen? No one had blinked or said they were too young.

  Benito gave her a slow considering nod. “It is as you say. But, you’re not a married woman. You live under my roof.”

  Solena bowed her head. What he said was true and she had no wish to deny it. Hadn’t she lived with the prophet of Torrani most of her life? Her respect for him was too great to ignore. She thought of what he’d said before: Rundan had embers that didn’t belong to him, so he owed a life of service. But she wanted so much more for her brave soldier, a full, happy life. How else would he ever heal from the suffering of losing his family? Yet it wasn’t for her to decide; she was too young.

  Solena lifted her head. “Grandpeer...” She began slowly, selecting each word with care. “Did you not say I was ‘too young’ to make the decision I made?”

  “Yes.” His eyes grew wary.

  “And, while I’m under your roof, isn’t everything I own yours?”

  “Ye-es,” he answered slowly, watching her with a guarded expression.

  “Then, isn’t it also true that Rundan owes you and not me”—Solena carefully schooled her face to show no emotion—“for I’m too young?” She delivered her words and waited in breathless hope for his response.

  Benito frowned into his tea. “You speak with unexpected wisdom, my child.” He frowned too at Rundan, as if weighing him with a glance. “But what use do I have for a servant?”

  None! Solena almost broke into a smile, but held it in. “Then release him,” she said. “He could make a life for himself, a full life, wherever he chooses.”

  It hurt to imagine Rundan gone. She’d never again feel his warm breath against her neck at night. She’d never feel his arm wrapped protectively around her, his fingers unconsciously tucked under her ribs as he slept. Somehow she’d have to overcome this weakness of hers, Solena told herself firmly. Somehow. She could immerse herself in texts of healing. And fish in the warm sea. And...

  Her shoulders sagged. It all sounded so empty. She’d now have a healing practice to occupy her time, of course, and that would fill her with a spirit of usefulness and meaning, but there’d always be something missing. That something was tall and brave and good-hearted, and his presence loomed over her, like one of the towering trees of his famous forests.

  “Solena, child, have you considered what will happen to you if this—this youth leaves Torrani?” Her grandfather waved vaguely at Rundan. “He’d take his votif too and, with it, the very essence of your soul.” A great sigh escaped him, as if brought up from the depths of his being. “There, I’ve confessed my deepest concern.”

  “But isn’t my fate for the Great One to determine?”

  “Of course, but we have the law. A debt is owed.”

  “I’ll stay and repay my debt.” Unable to bear his respectful silence any longer, Rundan stepped forward. “I’ll remain in Torrani all my life as your servant if you wish.”

  Even if he had to stand by and watch Solena marry another someday and have many dark-haired, tihara-skinned babies. Rundan squeezed his eyes shut for an instant. He’d die a little every day, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her being harmed by his leaving.

  “I don’t need a soldier.” The prophet stood a little straighter now and each breath seemed to come stronger than the last. His face had a glow that had been absent the first time Rundan had seen him on the cliffs. Solena’s medicine seemed to have brought the old man new life. In turn, her face and the softer set of her shoulders showed her great relief.

  She looked lovely, in fact. Instead of the leathers of a boy, she now wore a filmy white day dress that left her arms and ankles pleasantly bare. Over that, she wore a long white v
est that was so thin you could see through it. The fabric pooled softly on the floor behind her, giving the impression that she was floating ever so slightly above the earth, like a messenger of paradise, with mountain mists trailing after her. Or something. She looked the same as ever and yet different. More...distracting, for sure. And more something else. It was a puzzle he could happily spend weeks trying to solve.

  “I’m not a soldier,” Rundan corrected the prophet absently.

  “But what of your armor?”

  “I was a scout for my father’s army. I’m well-suited to seeing things from a great distance and being silent on my feet....” Rundan’s voice trailed off. They seemed like such puny skills now.

  “A scout?” The prophet frowned. “I’ve no use for a scout. Where do I need to go that I haven’t been a thousand times? Are you an excellent carpenter, perhaps, or a skilled metal smith?”

  “No-o.” Never had Rundan felt more unworthy. At least for his father, he’d been able to serve as a scout and he’d been good at what he’d done.

  “A pity.” The prophet stared reflectively out the window. As if the clear Torrani skies could offer him answers.

  “He speaks the ancient tongue.” Solena took a stance by Rundan’s side, so close he could feel her elbow brush against his. “He’s studied the ancient texts.”

  Rundan lifted his head in surprise. No one had ever been proud of this particular skill before. It had annoyed his father and amused the other soldiers. Though his mother had spoken up to let Rundan continue his studies, even she had never truly understood his interest in “those musty old scrolls.”