Jace’s voice brought her back to her body. She could have gotten lost in that wall for ages. How was such a working possible? It made the impossible stonework hidden in the mountains outside Landow look like child’s play in comparison.
She tightened her grip on the reins of her horse. The sight before her was wondrous. But it was another mystery to which she foresaw no easy answers. That wall was a soulworking, but the Etari despised any mental affinity.
Yet they relied on it to guard their border.
Alena remembered the first time she had crossed into Etar. Something about it had felt different, she remembered. But she hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
That wall explained the feeling, and it explained how the Etari always knew when someone crossed their border without permission.
And now she understood the importance of an Etari welcome. Alena remembered her own, remembered feeling like it was more than it seemed. Sooni, at least, had given her that impression.
She filed all her questions away as Ligt returned, signing that he had found a ferryman.
They rode their horses down to the bank, following Ligt’s lead.
The river crossing was uneventful, and Alena didn’t even bother trying to soulwalk. The wall had clearly been on the other side of the Alna, and when they dismounted on the opposite bank she didn’t feel any different.
She stopped the party before they had taken more than a few steps on the other shore. She wanted to see with her own senses how this wall worked. Ligt and Jace obliged her as she settled herself and extended her senses. The invisible wall flared to life not more than fifteen paces away. This close, the tapestry was even more mesmerizing. The threads which built the thin barrier shone with prismatic brilliance, ever shifting.
“Ligt, would you go first? Thirty paces.”
The Etari trader walked through the wall, which parted before him like a spiderweb cut by a knife. But in less than a heartbeat the wall had reformed, the gentle movement of the threads closing the wound. Alena frowned. There had been interactions between Ligt and the wall, but they were too subtle for her to track.
She considered asking him to walk back and forth a few times but didn’t want to press her luck. He already indulged her.
“Jace.”
When her brother walked through the wall, she couldn’t miss the change. Ligt’s passage made the threads flow like liquid, parting and reforming around him. To her senses, her brother’s passage ripped the threads apart like an angry child tearing a blanket by hand. Alena flinched away from the sight. To destroy such a beautiful weaving seemed a crime.
As she watched, the wound healed. Not as smoothly as when Ligt passed, but Alena guessed the wall repaired itself within thirty heartbeats.
The threads Jace walked through clung to him. Alena felt their echoes clearly.
Now she knew how the Etari could keep their borders so safe. Not only could they detect intrusions, they could always find an intruder once in their land.
Did they even know this was a soulworking? Alena guessed not. Their dislike of mental affinities was well-established. But at the very least, someone in each family knew how to track the broken threads.
Only one test remained.
Alena walked toward the wall, hand outstretched. When her hand touched, she felt nothing at all.
The threads parted for her like water.
Her welcome still held.
She was still Etari, at least in the eyes of this soulworking. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding onto. Though not a complete answer to the worries that plagued her, it indicated a hopeful outcome.
“Did you feel anything?” she asked Jace.
Her brother shook his head. “The air seems different somehow, but that’s about it.”
Her own experience long before hadn’t been much different. Still, she’d hoped for more. With one last look at the barrier, Alena dropped from her soulwalk. Remaining in that space for too long exhausted her.
They resumed their journey. They traveled southwest, to an ultimate destination Ligt refused to share.
Late in the afternoon, a group of riders approached them. They rode at speed.
Their posture, even from a distance, worried Alena. In the back of her mind she remembered that Jace had broken the barrier and he had no welcome to these lands. More than once she had soulwalked and seen the threads clinging to him as vigorously as they had when he first tore the barrier.
Her fears were confirmed as the horses surrounded them. Four riders circled about fifteen paces away, and two riders had a stone spinning in the air next to them. They came prepared to fight.
Alena let Ligt handle the discussion.
Ligt made the hand sign for peace, but it only settled the riders a bit. Their leader stopped her horse while the others continued circling. “Why do you bring an outsider, trader?” she asked in Etari.
Alena didn’t like the sound of that. Etari culture was separated along several lines, but those who chose to become warriors and defend the land often looked upon the traders with some amount of disdain. Alena heard the attitude in the tone of the question.
Ligt took no offense. “The woman has been summoned by Sooni.”
The commander of the group barely reacted, but Alena noticed the riders falter for a moment. They were expecting her arrival?
“She’s the one?” the commander asked.
Yes, Ligt hand signed.
“And the other?”
“Her brother. He insisted on protecting her,” Ligt explained. Alena almost smiled at the condescending attitude in their guide’s voice. Ligt really didn’t like Jace.
“He has no welcome,” the commander pointed out.
“It was not mine to give,” Ligt answered.
“Alena, what are they saying?” Jace asked. “I don’t like their tone.”
Alena grimaced. Jace might not speak their language, but the Etari knew enough imperial to understand him.
“We’re deciding whether or not to kill you,” the commander answered, in imperial.
Jace drew his sword.
In response, the riders circled a bit further away. Alena now saw three riders had stones spinning.
Alena wasn’t worried for her own life. She had welcome and the
