Morrell gasped. “Why would he do that?”
“Because some people have no common sense,” Freesia said. “When he came in, he specifically asked for you. I sent him to see what you would do. And you handled him perfectly. Better than I would have. He’d probably have a scar if I’d stitched him up.”
She caught Morrell’s shocked expression and laughed, cupping the back of Morrell’s head briefly with one hand. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I vowed not to harm. I never said anything about leaving behind reminders of stupidity. Now, I believe someone is here to speak with you. We’re not too busy right now, so go. We can handle it for a while. But come back when you’re done. We still have work to do.”
She moved off after a warning look at Hernande. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Morrell.
“She’s teaching me new techniques,” she sighed. “Things Logan hadn’t gotten around to yet, or that Logan didn’t know.”
“I see.” He led her down the row of cots, out into the outer rooms, and into the street. Drayden followed them at a discreet distance. Morrell had gotten used to him trailing her around, his presence more obvious when her father was away. She blinked up at the mild sunlight, half blocked by clouds. The large bank of a storm loomed off to the northeast, bearing down on them, flashes of lightning occasionally brightening it from within. The gusting wind pushing through the streets of the outer city smelled of rain, and the people in the tent city that began at the far end of the street were rushing to drag possessions inside and tie down loose flaps. Those on their own street were sprinting for shelter.
“That’s moving in faster than I thought,” Hernande said in irritation. “We’d better head to the temple.”
They didn’t make it, a crack of thunder rumbling through the city a moment before the deluge began. They dashed down the last section of street and plowed through the lowest tier’s door with a gasp, dripping cold water onto the stone floor, Drayden shaking himself like a wet dog. Shivering, Hernande led her and Drayden to the temple’s kitchens, setting her down before one of the ley heating stones to dry off and warm up as he went to harass the cook into handing over some fresh bread. The kitchen staff worked around them, the noise of rattling pots and pans, barked orders, and thudding cleavers almost overriding the growls of thunder from overhead.
Morrell bit into her slice of bread with abandon, relishing its warmth as she continued to shiver from being drenched. It must have just come from the ovens. The only thing that would have made it better was if Hernande had stopped to find some butter or honey.
“Not where I’d expected to have this conversation, but it will do,” Hernande said between his own more conservative bites.
Morrell paused, suddenly wary. “Conversation about what?”
“About what happened months ago with Cory.”
Morrell couldn’t hide her surprise. “Cory?”
“Yes, Cory. Remember the quake that caused the partial collapse of the ceiling in the node chamber in the caves near the Hollow?”
“Cory’s leg was trapped under the boulder. The Wielders managed to move the boulder, and I healed his leg.”
“I don’t think they moved the boulder. I think you dealt with it.”
Morrell stopped chewing. The bread suddenly tasted like a mouthful of dried bitterbane herb. She swallowed it with a painful grimace and said quietly, “That’s impossible. The boulder was huge.”
“I agree. Far too large for the Wielders to handle, even though there were half a dozen of them trying. It’s been nagging me since I first walked into that chamber and saw where Cory had been caught.”
“If you don’t think they could move it, then how could I have—”
“I didn’t say you’d moved it. I think you . . . reshaped it, so that the indentation Cory’s leg was caught in was large enough he could be pulled free.”
She grew still, Hernande remaining silent. She recalled that moment, an echo of the fear and desperation to help Cory washing through her again with a shudder. She’d touched Cory’s leg to see how badly damaged it was, had felt the stone around it that held it trapped. She remembered pushing at the stone with her mind as the others strained to shove it aside.
“Is it that far of a stretch?” Hernande said softly. “We know the auroral lights are transformative. Look at what they did to the Wolves. And we know your talent is associated with the auroral lights. We can see them when you’re working. If the lights can warp buildings and humans alike, why couldn’t you?”
“But I don’t feel the stone,” Morrell protested, “not like I can feel what’s wrong with my patients or the Wolves when I heal them.” Which wasn’t exactly true. She could feel the stone around her, just not in the same way she felt people when she touched them.
“I wouldn’t expect you to feel the stone,” Hernande said. “It’s stone. It doesn’t have blood or tissue or tendons. It doesn’t have a specific base state, a ‘healthy’ norm. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be molded. Even the Wielders learned to reshape stone for their own purposes. They used it to build many of the buildings in Erenthrall in some of the inner districts, like the Amber Tower.” His brow creased in sudden thought and his hand drifted up to his beard. “I wonder if they were using some form of the auroral lights and didn’t realize it? Maybe there’s a connection between the ley and the aurora, just as there’s a connection between the ley and the Tapestry . . .”
Morrell took another bite of her bread, aware of Hernande’s tendency to drift off onto tangents. She stared into the soft glow of the heating stone. Had she saved Cory by reshaping the stone? She didn’t know. It had been too chaotic. And afterward, the exhaustion from healing him had claimed her.
But now that Hernande had forced her to think about it . . . was “healing” a stone any different than healing a fractured or broken bone?
“Here,” Hernande said, startling her out of her thoughts.
She held out her free hand, and he dropped a stone into it. It was smooth, like a river stone, a speckled gray in color, but it had been cracked, the seam of the crack not quite stretching from one side to the other.
“See if you can heal it.”
She popped the last of her bread into her mouth and cradled the stone in both hands as she chewed. Once she swallowed, she said hesitantly, “I’m not certain I’ll be able to call up the aurora. It doesn’t usually come unless I’m touching someone’s skin.”
“Try.”
Concentrating, she willed the aurora to appear, picturing it threading around her fingers as it had earlier that day, but nothing happened. No wisps of color weaving across her hand. No prickling in her skin. Her shoulders tensed with the effort, her jaw clenched.
She exhaled sharply, unaware she’d been holding her breath, and shook her head. “It’s no use. It’s not coming.”
“Hmm.” Hernande eyed her critically, the end of his beard stuck in his mouth. “Perhaps you’re trying too hard.”
“What do you mean?”
He shifted, so that they were facing each other, and reached down to cup her hands in his.
“I mean you’re trying to call it forth. But is that what you do when you’re healing someone?”
“Not exactly. I don’t really think about it. The aurora usually just appears when I’m examining the wound or infection or whatever.”
“Then that is what you must do here.”
“I don’t understand.”
He tapped her hands with his fingers. “Look at the stone.”
She glanced down at it.
“Don’t think of it as a stone,” Hernande said, his voice soft and soothing. “Think of it as you would a patient. Look at the fissure in the stone like you would a wound. Think of how the stone should appear, smoothed by the waters of the river, its surface unblemished. The crack is a flaw. It shouldn’t be there. It needs to be healed.”
Morrell fel
t herself sinking into his voice as it washed over her, and a moment later felt herself sinking into the stone as well. It wasn’t the same as with patients. There, the flow of blood, of life, grabbed her and pulled her down into itself, like a river current dragging her into its embrace. Here there was no flow, no current. But she sank into the stone’s surface nonetheless. It was more difficult—there was more resistance—but the texture of the stone became rougher and she could sense subtle differences in the composition of the stone, flecks of blockier crystals that gave it its mottled appearance, a vein of something softer threaded through one side—
And the crack. She could trace out its depth, could feel the weaknesses in the stone around it. If she tapped the stone right there with a small hammer, it would shatter into a hundred pieces.
As soon as she felt the fissure and realized it was a flaw, her fingers began prickling. She gasped as the aurora appeared, shimmering around both her and Hernande’s clasped hands and the stone. Hernande stilled.
“Good,” he said. If he were concerned about the aurora that flickered around his hands, it didn’t color his voice. “Now, see if you can fix the crack.”
Before he’d finished speaking, she felt the warmth rush from her hands into the stone as it had earlier with the woman’s hand and her fractured bones. As it heated in her palm, she gasped, jerking back, the stone dropping to the floor. It rattled around the kitchen’s flagstones as Hernande reached out to steady her, and Drayden lurched forward with a warning growl.
“Are you all right?” Hernande asked.
She sucked in a steadying breath, then exhaled heavily. “It grew warm.”
“Did it burn you?”
“It wasn’t that hot. It just startled me.”
Drayden backed down, and Hernande searched the floor until he found the stone again. He picked it up and held it a long moment before looking at Morrell with a curious expression on his face.
He handed the stone to her without a word.
The crack was gone, the surface returned to its original smoothness. An unexpected thrill of satisfaction tickled through her, and she smiled even as a wave of exhaustion hit. It was heavier than before, when she’d healed the woman’s wrist, but it wasn’t enough to smother her excitement. “I did it.”
Hernande smiled. “I knew you could.” Then his smile faltered. “But we should probably keep this between ourselves for now. No need to draw further attention to yourself.”
Morrell thought of Freesia’s assistant Cerrin, who already resented her, and those like the man who’d cut himself simply so he could have her heal him. “I won’t say anything.”
Hernande retrieved the stone. “I’ve kept you long enough. Freesia will be furious if I don’t get you back soon.”
With a guilty start, Morrell suddenly realized she didn’t know how long she’d been away from the hospital. She leaped up out of her seat. “She was going to go over the medicinal herbs used for fevers, to compare with what I’d learned from Logan!”
She dashed for the kitchen door, not waiting for Hernande to rise. Drayden trotted at her heels. The University mentor shouted after her, “We’ll talk about this more later!”
Then the kitchen fell behind as she raced through the temple toward the outer city . . . and whatever punishment Freesia decided was appropriate for returning so late.
Hernande watched her and Drayden’s hasty retreat, then stared down at the stone in his hand.
Closing his fingers around it in a fist, he left the kitchens and began searching for Kara. He found her where he expected to find her: in the pit of the node.
Enforcers halted him inside the entrance to the Needle after his mad dash through the rain across the stellae garden. They sent a runner down into the node as he shook himself off, a Wielder—Artras—returning to escort him down. The elderly Wielder smiled when she saw him and ushered him forward, brushing the wisps of her hair away from her face.
“I don’t know why they don’t simply decree that you and Cory and the other University students and mentors have access to the node,” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “It seems like the logical thing to do.”
As they descended the steps, the black stone of the Needle pulsing with threads of ley around them, Hernande answered, “It has little to do with logic. There’s always been animosity between the Wielders and the University, if not outright suspicion and hatred.”
“That was in Erenthrall. And between the Primes and the University, not the Wielders. Both of them had their secrets and guarded them closely. We can’t afford secrets anymore.”
“No, I suppose not.” But then Hernande halted.
They’d descended into the pit, the black stone of the outer Needle dropping away, replaced by much older river stones as the stairwell opened up. The chamber was far larger than Hernande remembered from the last time he’d been here. The stairs circled around the outer wall to the floor of the chamber, which stretched from the wall toward a large opening in the center of the room. White ley light washed up from the opening, tendrils of ley stretching up from below and cascading down in an elegant dance. A half dozen Wielders surrounded the pit, Kara among them, most with their arms stretched forward as they manipulated the ley, or so Hernande assumed. He couldn’t feel the ley itself—those at the University studied the Tapestry—but he could see the looks of concentration on the Wielders’ faces. Kara gave out orders, directing their efforts, her voice echoing through the chamber.
Artras gave him a moment, then tugged on his sleeve, drawing him downward. He picked out six crystal panes hovering over the pit, all canted at odd but precise angles. As he watched, one of those panes shifted, swinging on an unseen axis, Kara muttering, “Careful . . . careful . . . good. Now hold it there. Steady. Everyone, get ready. Marcus, I want you to release it.”
“It’s not going to remain in place,” Marcus said, his forehead beaded with sweat. “There’s too much ley coming down the Farrade line.”
“Then be ready to catch it. We don’t need another cascade effect like the last time. It would take us days to reset everything.”
Marcus grimaced, but nodded. “I’m ready.”
“On my mark, then. Everyone, control your own crystals; don’t worry about the others. One, two, three, mark.”
Marcus stepped back, arms lowering, as everyone else tensed. Hernande kept his eyes locked on the pane that had shifted. It remained where it floated for one breath, two—
And then it began to tilt. Kara swore and one of the other Wielders cried out as Marcus’ arms snapped back up, as if he were attempting to catch the crystal. And he did, somehow, for the pane slowed and halted.
Kara shook her head in disgust, glancing to the side and catching sight of Hernande and Artras. “That’s enough for today. Return the prisms to their previous configuration and take a break. We’ll regroup tomorrow.”
Many of the Wielders exhaled in relief, a tension in the room dissipating as Kara turned her back on the ley and approached them, her expression taut with worry.
It appeared his little talk with her had not allowed her to relax.
“Progress?” he asked.
She waved a hand dismissively. “Not much. We’ve been trying different configurations for days now. None of them are stable enough to hold on their own, and I don’t want to have Wielders down here constantly keeping them in place. Monitoring them and making subtle adjustments when they drift out of place is one thing. Constant control of their placement is entirely different. If we’re going to attempt healing the distortion over Tumbor, I want this Nexus to be stable and channeling more ley than it is now.”
“Perhaps the mentors could be of help? We’ve been meaning to work more closely together, now that we think there’s a connection between the ley and the Tapestry.”
“I know, and I’ve been meaning to sit down with you and Jerrain and discuss it. I’ve ju
st been too focused on repairing the ley network.”
“Maybe we can find a way to keep the crystals in place without active help from a Wielder. In Erenthrall, the mentors created constructs to help channel the ley. I’m certain something similar can be done here with those prisms.”
“We’ll find the time—”
“It’s been a month, Kara.”
She bowed her head, then looked back up with a weary grin. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll meet with you tomorrow. But I doubt that’s why you dragged yourself all the way down here. What do you need?”
“Actually, I have something to show you.” He glanced meaningfully at Artras, who caught the look with a small start and raised eyebrows.
“I’ll see if Marcus and the others need any help,” she said.
After she’d wandered toward the pit, Hernande produced the stone he’d given to Morrell to “heal” and dropped it into Kara’s hands.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A stone.”
Kara gave him a dry look. “I realize that. Why is it important?”
“Because less than an hour ago, it had a crack running through it. I gave it to Morrell. She fixed it.”
Kara’s eyes widened in disbelief. “She fixed it?”
“She called on the aurora, as we’ve seen her do when she heals someone, and she sealed up the crack. I can’t even tell where it was anymore.”
Kara examined the stone carefully, rolling it around in her hands before shaking her head. “Neither can I.”
“And there’s more. Not only did she fix the crack, she changed the shape of the stone as well. It’s more rounded than it was before. I don’t even think she realizes she did it. She was too focused on the crack itself.”
Kara stared at him a long moment, then tossed the stone upward, catching it, and then handing it back to him. “What does it mean?”
Hernande shrugged. “I’m not entirely certain yet. But she’s more powerful than she realizes. More powerful than any of us realize.”
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