The White Thread: Chapter II
Suncloth.
II: Suncloth
This was the last thing Mathis needed tonight.
He avoided looking at Brother Eli sitting on the carpet with his legs crossed, barefoot, and savoring a bite from a cherry tart the innkeeper included as a gift. The humble meal Mathis had requested looked better than he’d hoped: fresh slices of golden-brown toast slathered in apple butter, pan-fried eggs off the finest cast iron, and slices of snow apples he guessed were farmed directly from the orchards less than ten miles away, all organized on a polished silver tray that probably cost more solvas than everything the innkeeper owned. Combined.
Days ago, he would have sawed off his own leg for a meal like this. Tonight, not even the homemade apple butter made his hunger stir.
While Brother Eli ate in patient silence, Mathis turned his attention to the surroundings of where he’d stay for the night, a room that seemed beyond the Drunken Dolphin’s standards. It was simple enough to allow him sleep when it would take him, and small enough to keep the dreams at bay. Hopefully. Peeling paper on the drywall. A dusty wardrobe big enough for one noblewoman’s extravagant closet. A tiny window fit for a mouse and its offspring.
He hoped Petra would avoid visiting him in a space this cramped. He couldn’t handle another visit from her on a day like this.
“How the hell did you find me?” Mathis asked.
“It was rather easy, I’m afraid,” said Brother Eli, turning to Mathis with a sudden glower that didn’t match his politeness. “Some kind strangers started reporting sightings of a man of your stature, with a dark green cloak that looked like it’d never been washed. Fingerless gloves with a certain symbol embossed into it. Typical signs I knew rather well.”
He grabbed a terribly folded piece of cloth on the tray and wiped his hands, his disinterest not at all convincing. “It was only natural for me to assume it could be you. I’m in Siskfall guiding our oldest apprentices on their pilgrimage. It will be time for their ascension, soon.”
For a moment, his expression turned into something clouded. The look did not suit him.
Mathis snorted. “‘Course it was easy for you.”
Brother Eli folded up the cloth and placed it back on the tray, each movement more price than the last. “You must be careful with how you appear. Verythians pay attention.”
“To avoid people like you?” Mathis smiled cruelly. “You don’t say.”
“Don’t insult me, Mathis,” Brother Eli sighed. “I’m only here to talk.”
Exhaustion loomed over Mathis, a feeling he hadn’t allowed while sailing for three weeks from Belsaros’s blistering bay. The little sleep he got was from stolen moments in the ship’s belly, far away from the foul-smelling whores and fishermen waiting to trade from overseas. For the amount of solvas it cost to travel on that damned boat, he’d hoped for company that didn’t carry the scent of the ocean on their flesh.
“You have that look on you,” said Brother Eli. “You know the one.”
Mathis decided to brush past the comment and glare him up and down, one eyebrow raised. “Not donning the suncloth today, are you? Seems blasphemous to your Reverend. She too busy buffing her cunt to do your dirty work?”
“You can’t still be angry.” Brother Eli stood up, long and lean and frail as Mathis remembered. His eyes were so young and furious somehow, in a face that ranged between thirty-five and forty. It had been so long since they last saw each other that Mathis didn’t know how old this man was.
“You may as well be a stranger to me now, Brother,” Mathis said. Eli’s lips pursed, though he said nothing. Mathis wished he didn’t relish that expression. “I don’t need your help. Never have. Never will. I’m here for reasons that don’t concern you.”
“You are in the Verythian Isles, Mathis. Think it does concern me.”
“Oh, and are you the sovereign of the Isles, now?” Mathis smirked. “Forgive me for being unaware! I didn’t realize the suncloths owned every nook and cranny of these drowning islands. They’re not even isles, not really. No proper rulers. Strange politics. A lot simpler in Belsaros, if you remember.”
“We lived here most of our lives,” said Brother Eli.
“Until we became men.”
“When we became men, we lost our way, didn’t we?”
“That’s how you see it.”
Eli threw his hands in the air. “Time and time again, we argue over nothing.”
He folded his arms, now standing and looking pathetically small in his everyday robes. The hood would never conceal his identity, not truly. Any resident of Siskfall would recognize a White Dawn Brother, even without the white robes that defined their name. A flash of gold in the dark, a ripple of white under any untouched sky, and you knew you were in the presence of a suncloth whether you wanted to be or not.
“I remember you being a little shit,” Mathis said.
“I remember you pushing me to do things I’m embarrassed to admit now.”
Brother Eli straightened his neck. He locked eyes with Mathis like two angry bulls, then sighed. Tiredness washed over him. A pang tightened in Mathis’s chest. He ignored it.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Mathis. I came here to talk.”
Brother Eli glanced down at his hands. Absentmindedly, his right hand skimmed along the knuckles of his left, as if searching for purchase. Hair-thin scars ran in rivulets up and down his long brown fingers. No rings, Mathis noted.
What a fool. He’d risked too much to see him tonight.
“I don’t want to talk,” Mathis said, “I’m looking for someone—”
“I know.” Brother Eli’s eyes darkened. An unknown emotion clouded him, a look that shot a spear of fright deep into Mathis’s chest. “I know who it is, as well.”
“No. I don’t believe you.” Mathis’s lip curled. “You can’t know.”
“I need you to stop looking for him.” Brother Eli drew in a breath. “This isn’t an easy ask, I know. Please. I know you want to keep on this… mission, if you want to call it that. I know you better than anyone.”
“You knew me better than anyone. Before Petra. She—”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” Brother Eli shut his eyes tight. The air thickened with silence, a memory neither dared to tread. “I am… I am so sorry, Mathis. I’d forgotten.”
Mathis rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn it all. Not your fault.”
He found a spot of mold on the wall to force his attention. His shoulders ached. His leg muscles yearned for a bath. His head was throbbing. Whether from drink or annoyance with this man who dared walk back into his life, he wasn’t sure. He wished for sleep. He wished for a dreamless night alone. The thought of talking to this walking phantom any longer made his blood simmer. “Best thing for you is to get out, Eli. Pretend you never saw me.”
“I told you, you need to call me—”
“Don’t you dare take that from me, too.”
It happened too quickly. In one moment, Mathis was on sitting on the bed, watching the moldy spot on the wall do absolutely nothing. In the next, he had Eli’s throat in his hand, the other’s body smacked against the stone wall that separated them from the uproarious guests flouncing up and down the Drunken Dolphin’s halls.
If anyone were to spot the man for daring to attack a man of the White Dawn, they would have him dragged out of the inn in chains and tossed into the capitol’s Tower of Judgment, where he would wait for the axe to fall on his head. If anyone were to spot him with both hands set free of his gloves, he would be dragged to the Iron Pyres and burned alive by those furious sylphium flames.
Deep black tattoos snaked up and down his right arm. Pulsing blue and red energy flashed beneath his skin like eels glowing in the ocean depths. What should have been a human hand wrapped in flesh was instead a contraption of thickened bone, rippling tissue, and currents of unknown power circling every knuckle like rings wrought from a forge gone horribly, wonderfully wrong.
Within his cage of a hand, Brother Eli’s neck would—
“Please,” Brother Eli whispered, “Mathis. My brother. My friend. I beg you.”
Trembling, Brother Eli’s slender hand wrapped around Mathis’s wrist.
Mathis blinked. All at once, the haze snapped into focus. Tears pricked Eli’s eyes.
A moment eclipsed Mathis that threatened his knees to buckle. He saw him, if only for a moment. A true moment. Ten years young. Throwing a ball to him in the outskirts that bordered the Redwilds. Playing with wooden figurines in the dark alleys they called home, pretending to be warriors fighting off the cruel Dragon Guard that clubbed them bloody.
Mathis stepped back. He grabbed his cloak and threw it over his shoulders. He grabbed his glove and shoved it back on. Perspiration trailed down his neck.
His heart slammed against his ribcage. Of course, it was. This wouldn’t have happened if it remained calm. Steady, like Zoya always taught him, even when she knew so little. The current was only now beginning to subside. He would need to count. Yes, of course. Count. Recall. Count. Recall. Count. Recall.
Beat by beat. Beat by beat. Beat by beat.
“You still suffer with it, then?” Brother Eli asked, as if he were about to laugh. “I had hoped you would’ve let go of this… this ailment. This curse.”
“Have me burned, then.” Mathis’s gaze swept across the floor. He needed something to focus on. Anything. “Have me burned. Preach about it. Tell everyone the story of how you sent Mathis the Heartrender to death for being the bloody way he was. Watch the children laugh about it. Listen to the mothers cry about it.”
“We both know that’s not true, my friend.” Brother Eli shook his head. “I’ll need to forget I ever saw this.”
“Good. I’ll forget I ever knew you.”
Brother Eli flinched. “Your words always cut the deepest.”
“You can’t stop me from searching.” Mathis watched him with cold anger. “I’ll find him. I’ll stop what’s written. I know what’s going to happen, Eli. It won’t be good. You know it, and that alone frightens me. And you—you won’t tell me a damn thing, will you?”
A silent look. A tightened jaw. A look Mathis understood all too well.
His fists loosened. A dreadful weight settled in his chest.
“Should’ve known.”
“Stop this search, Mathis.” Brother Eli stepped forward. Closer to the man who revealed himself a monster. “I won’t tell the Reverend if you agree to put an end to this…. delusion.”
“You will have to kill me to stop it.” Mathis grinned. “We both know who would win.”
“You would never hurt me on purpose.”
“Sure the watchmen would love to hear that story. ‘Beloved man of the White Dawn, butchered by an angry drunken outsider who showed his scimitar in a public place. Might as well give him the skewering penalty!’”
“It never had to be this way.”
“You’re right.” Mathis’s eyes darkened. “It didn’t.”
The Drunken Dolphin was a lively visit that night. Unusually, no one ventured through those doors after whispers spread of a Brother of the White Dawn passing its threshold. Only wayfarers, fish traders, and lowborns from the remaining corners of the broken Medallion’s kingdoms sought refuge in those putrid rooms and terrible ale.
The rumors spun into an untamable thread within hours. Some said the dear, loyal White Dawn Brother left the inn in a rush, fretfully saying his goodbyes to the barkeep and his tender guests with the deep bows and gracious waves only a man of his cloth would do. Others claimed he descended slowly from atop every creaky step of the stairwell, ignored every inquiring hello, took a handful of coins as a donation on his way out the door, and disappeared into the starless night in robes whiter than snow and emblazoned with more gold than the dead emperor’s crown.
Only the outsider knew.
He knew the man had come to him donned in brown robes too large for his frail stature. He knew the man had refused to take a horse to travel miles and miles from the nearest sanctuary where his apprentices were surely waiting for him. He knew the man was terrified to reveal the scars from where his own ink-black tattoos once lain upon his forearms. He knew the man had stormed out of his room and vanished into the night. He knew he saw tears.
He knew when the man he once called his brother had gone, he would go another long night of sleep, festered with dreams that made him scream and throw himself against the wall and sob into his pillows while the woman he loved taunted him from beyond.