Alena didn’t fault him, as much as she sometimes wished to. The Etari weren’t popular around Landow, and years of insults and distrust weren’t easily undone. Jace wasn’t the type to bully the occasional Etari trader who came through town, but he wouldn’t speak to them unless necessary, and he did his best to act as though they didn’t exist.
Now, though, he needed to learn that which he had disdained for years. His ignorance probably wasn’t a matter of life and death, in Alena’s estimation, but Jace attacked the problem as though he might die if his Etari wasn’t perfect.
From sunrise to sundown they worked on teaching Jace Etari customs. Most of the burden fell on Alena’s shoulders. Ligt’s imperial was surprisingly limited, and his desire even more so. More than once he’d indicated his displeasure at bringing two imperials back into his land.
Jace’s efforts impressed her. Though it pained her to admit it, he learned faster than she had on her own journey into Etar. It had taken her a few weeks to fully accept Etar as her new home, so she’d lacked motivation. If not for Azaleth—
She had to cut that thought off as quickly as it appeared.
If it was possible, years after his death, his memory stung worse than it did immediately after he’d died. Perhaps it was because she was returning to Etar, forced to face their family once again. But that wasn’t all.
The young Etari warrior had loved her, and she hadn’t realized her own feelings until it was too late. Though a fair number of suitors had approached her in Landow, she denied them all, telling herself they would tie her to a city that grew smaller by the day.
True, perhaps. But he’d been part of the reason, too.
The easiest solution was not to think about him. For two years she’d tried daily not to, and she’d gotten better, until the day Ligt appeared at her door.
Her brother’s uncoordinated attempts provided welcome relief from her memories. She smiled. “Your motions are correct, but you’re not relaxing into it. It comes across almost like sarcasm, the way you perform the motion.”
Jace shook his head. “It doesn’t feel like it should be this hard. Why can’t one motion mean one thing? Why does their language have to be so backwards?”
“Our own language does the same,” Alena pointed out. “If I say, ‘Oh, stop!’ like this,” she laughed and pretended to pull away from him, “it’s far different from saying, ‘Stop!’” She yelled the final word. “It’s the same word, but context and delivery matters. Does that make sense?”
Jace nodded. “Sure, but those are words, not gestures.”
“It’s all language. Your stance, tone, and words are all parts of the whole.”
Jace rolled his eyes, but Alena saw that he at least understood what she meant. A hint of a smile played across her lips. Without knowing, he proved her point. “Comfort will come with practice. I think most Etari will understand your attempts. They were generous with my own mistakes. Just try not to appear threatening.”
That, she thought, might be the more difficult problem. On the road, she saw her brother in a new light, one she hadn’t paid much attention to in Landow. In her absence, Jace had achieved his goal of becoming a warrior, and a strong one at that. She remembered him as a child, diligently practicing every form he learned, the calluses on his palms thick even at a young age. Those years of dedication hadn’t been wasted. He didn’t puff out his chest like a tavern brawler, but danger rolled off him in waves. The Etari, sensitive to such posturing, might perceive him as more of a threat than he intended.
But that was a problem to be faced another day.
The sun was near its midpoint when they reached the Etari border, delineated by the Alna River. Here the river ran wide and slow, and Ligt went to find a ferryman to bring them across. The crossing was one of several that the Etari permitted.
While they waited for Ligt to return, Alena studied the river and the land beyond. Something about it felt different to her, a sensation she couldn’t quite identify. Curious, she closed her eyes and dropped into a soulwalk.
She’d first experienced the state when fighting a soulwalker outside Landow. And while Jace trained with a sword, she sharpened her own abilities, pushing them at night among the rooftops of the city.
A vast web of life revealed itself to her, ghostly strands that ran through the whole world. Soulwalking opened the mind to other planes of existence and revealed the connections that bound them together. Alena tended to see them as threads, though she suspected that was only her mind’s interpretation of a more complex experience.
She knew she’d grown stronger, but she didn’t know how much. At times, she almost wished to meet another Lolani soulwalker. Then she could once again test her ability. But the Etari thought her affinity shameful, few imperials even knew of mental affinities, and the Falari didn’t train affinities at all.
The exploration of her affinity was a lonely one.
In the immediate vicinity, a few threads glowed brighter than others. One was a thread she had tied between her and Jace. Jace knew of it, and it allowed her a small connection to him at all times. Two others led to her parents back in Landow. And a final led to Brandt, brighter and stronger than the others.
Her perception didn’t stretch to the Etari border, so she tapped into the gatestone embedded near her navel. The web expanded, and then she saw it.
Alena gasped softly.
It was beautiful, a working of a scale and intricacy beyond her wildest imagining.
On the other side of the Alna, a translucent wall rose before her. Gossamer threads of infinite complexity intertwined in a pattern Alena could almost
