Morrell watched her silently. To one side, she noticed the woman who’d caught her arm earlier hugging a man Morrell presumed was her husband; he was tall with a dark, full beard anyway.
She shifted to her next patient, the woman with the spindle stuck through her palm.
“It hardly hurts anymore,” the woman said. “I think I’ve grown numb to the pain.”
“Why didn’t Freesia see to this?” Morrell said in exasperation. “It’s certainly more serious than many of these other wounds we’ve looked at in the last hour.”
“I don’t think she noticed me.”
Morrell sank into a crouch at the woman’s side. “If I yank the spindle out, it will hurt.”
“That’s what I assumed.”
Morrell examined the wound again, turning her hand this way and that. She didn’t want to yank it out. The woman had already suffered enough after being forced to wait so long.
You do what you can with the abilities you have.
She glanced up at the woman. “Don’t move, no matter what happens.”
Before the woman could respond, she called on the aurora, clasping the woman’s hand between both of her own, the length of the spindle laced through her fingers on either side. Then, sinking herself into the rhythm of the woman’s body and at the same time into the wood of the spindle, she severed the spike near the entry wound. The top portion fell away with a clatter, the bottom sliding from the wound cleanly. The woman tried to jerk back in surprise, but Morrell held on tightly, already working on the gaping hole. Blood started to flow immediately, but warmth enfolded her hands as she knit flesh and tendon and muscle back together again.
The energy drain wasn’t as high as she’d expected, but she still slumped backward as she let the woman’s hand go. When she dragged her head up, the woman was holding her hand in front of her in awe. The hole was gone, visible only as a slightly pink circle of new flesh.
She turned to Morrell. “Thank you,” she whispered, then stood unsteadily—the healing drained the patient as much as it did Morrell—and drifted toward the door, running her fingers over her palm in wonder.
“Good job,” Freesia said, coming up to rub Morrell’s shoulders from behind. “I knew you’d handle it. If we’d tried, it would have been . . . messy. We’re almost done here. Why don’t you go rest in your rooms?”
She rose to her feet, Freesia stepping back. “I think I will, thanks. If you’re certain you don’t need me here?”
“Cerrin and I can handle everyone else.”
She caught Cerrin’s scowl from across the room but decided to ignore it.
“Then I’ll go.”
Picking up her things stowed in the small room stocked with jars and pots and bottles of medicinal herbs and unguents and oils, she stepped out onto the streets of the outer city, Drayden shadowing her. She turned toward the temple, but not to return to her room.
Her father might be away, and Janis may have decided to stay in the Hollow, but she still had others she could talk to, such as Cory and Hernande. And she needed to talk to someone.
“It’s slipping again!” Marcus shouted from across the open space of the pit.
Kara growled in frustration, sensing the crystal Marcus held wavering. The others connected to the Nexus—Iscivius, Irmona, Okata, and Carter—tensed. She didn’t need to see their faces, she could feel the tightening of muscles and the gritting of teeth through her connection to the ley. It had grown since the Shattering, since she’d been forced to submerge herself in the ley on a daily basis. She’d grown attuned to it, and to those who were connected to it.
Drawing in a ragged breath, she called out, “Let it go,” her voice calm, revealing nothing of the turmoil she felt in her chest, in her gut. For a moment, a nearly uncontrollable urge to cry washed through her from head to toe. She shuddered with it, then suppressed it as Marcus let the crystal pane swing back into its original stable position.
Before her, white ley light fountained up from the well beneath. She let the motion of the ley—like water, even though it wasn’t liquid—soothe her. The others began to gather, returning from their positions around the well. The crystals had been reset and wouldn’t waver unless there was a surge from the ley lines.
“It’s simply not holding,” Marcus said with a shake of his head. “It should—I can see why that configuration would be stable—but it isn’t. I don’t know why.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Iscivius asked.
Kara stiffened. She wasn’t certain why Iscivius and Irmona’s attitudes had suddenly shifted a week ago, but she didn’t trust it. They were still abrasive and cold to both Kara and Marcus and a few of the others, like Okata, but they’d begun offering up suggestions during their brief stints in the pit.
It galled Kara that many of their thoughts and comments were useful.
“What’s obvious?”
“The configuration isn’t holding because part of it is missing. We need another crystal, one that could be inserted into the Nexus beneath the others, to act as . . . as an anchor for the rest.”
“But we don’t have another crystal,” Okata objected, “and only the Primes knew how to make them.”
Iscivius began to sneer but caught himself. “Lecrucius made these six, true,” he said, “but he needed our help. Both Marcus and I worked with him extensively.”
“You more so than I,” Marcus muttered.
Iscivius bowed his head in acknowledgment. “True. As Father’s Son, you had other duties.”
A hidden barb of resentment laced the words, but from what Marcus had told her, Kara knew it was true. Marcus had often been sent to Tumbor or Erenthrall; Iscivius had stayed behind. And he’d ingratiated himself into Lecrucius’ favor while he was here, undermining Marcus’ power at every opportunity.
“Could you recreate them based on what you saw?” Kara asked, her voice cracking with exhaustion.
“I can try.”
“You have to try,” Irmona said sharply, her gaze falling on Kara. “You’ve been playing with the crystals for weeks now and you’ve gotten nowhere. We spent the last two days repeating positions that you tried the week before! At some point you must admit defeat, Kara.”
Marcus, Okata, and the younger Carter all bristled at her tone, but Kara raised a hand to halt them.
“She’s right. We have been repeating configurations.” She turned to stare at the sheets of ley and the hovering crystals. “We’ve maximized the crystals we have. And there are no more known ley lines to tap into to augment their power. That means we either need to expand the crystals in the Nexus . . . or we need to accept that we’ve reached our threshold and hope it’s enough to bring down the distortion over Tumbor.” She didn’t want to mention the option of having the mentors from the University hold the crystal in an unnatural state yet, not when they hadn’t figured out how to keep their folds of the Tapestry fixed without a mentor continually maintaining it.
Iscivius and Irmona shared a hooded glance. The others stirred, although Kara noted no one disagreed with her. They were more nervous about her reaction than an attempt to bring down the distortion.
She bowed her head. “What do you need?”
“Sand,” Iscivius said instantly. “The finest sand we can find. And a barrel of cold water. It will have to be done here, in the pit, since we’ll use the ley itself as a forge. Lecrucius handled most of the forging himself, with either myself or Marcus as backup, but I won’t have enough strength to do what needs to be done alone. I’ll need at least two other Wielders, perhaps three.”
“You’ll have all of us,” Kara said, indicating everyone currently in the pit. “Gather what you need.”
Iscivius’ eyebrows rose. “Right now?”
“Why not?”
He glanced around at the others. “Okata and Carter, get a barrel down here and fill it with water. Irmo
na and I will find the sand.”
All four of them moved toward the stairs, Okata and Carter first, Iscivius and Irmona behind. Irmona said something to Iscivius, her glance toward Marcus and Kara scathing, but whatever Iscivius said in response, it placated her.
“You know we can’t trust them,” Marcus said, “no matter how helpful they’ve been recently.”
“That’s why we’re staying. You’ll need to make certain he’s doing what he says he’s doing, based on what you know.”
“I don’t know much. As Iscivius said, I was there mostly as backup. Lecrucius didn’t allow me to see much of what he was doing.”
“How much more would he have shown Iscivius?”
Marcus shrugged. “He’d maneuvered himself close to Lecrucius, with the intent to gain more power. He helped him with four of the six crystals. I was only here for two of them. I certainly don’t know enough to even try on my own.”
Okata had returned, hauling a huge empty half-barrel over one shoulder, his muscles standing out with the strain. Kara often forgot that he was Gorrani, that he trained with his sword on a regular basis. Carter came behind, two pails of water sloshing as he descended the stairs.
“Where does he want the barrel?” Okata asked.
“Over here,” Marcus said, shifting away to show Okata where to place it. “This is where Lecrucius put it anyway.”
Okata hefted it off from his shoulder with a grunt and set it down with a solid thud, wiping sweat from his forehead. Carter waited until he stepped back before dumping the two buckets into it. The young Wielder stared into the barrel glumly. “It’s going to be many more trips to the well.”
Okata gripped him by the shoulder and tugged him back toward the stairs.
As they continued to fill the barrel—and wait for Iscivius and Irmona to return with the sand—Kara focused on the Nexus. She sensed Marcus on the ley, watching her as he supervised Okata and Carter, but she didn’t reach out to touch the crystals. Instead, she considered how the Nexus would have to change if another crystal were introduced. The pulses of ley arching up from below, where the ley lines merged before being manipulated and sent back out along different lines, were rhythmic, drawing her into their flows. She allowed herself to be absorbed by them, coasting on their eddies. In her mind, she placed the crystal where Iscivius had suggested, beneath the other six, to serve as an anchor, each crystal pushing against the others, seeking a balance determined by the pressures of the ley. She could see how the seventh could work as Iscivius described, could see how the flow would shift into a new pattern. But would it augment the strength of the ley, or diminish it? Would it allow her to push the crystals into the configuration she wanted?
She couldn’t tell. They would have to try it and see.
But was that the only possibility for the seventh crystal? What if she placed it there, adjusted the others slightly . . .
Marcus touched her lightly on the arm. “They’re back.”
Behind, Iscivius stood over a sack with a frown, sand cupped in one hand, seeping through his fingers in a stream. A second sack sat next to his feet. The others hovered around him, Okata and Carter near the barrel of water, Irmona off to one side with her own frown of disapproval. But Iscivius’ was focused on the sand; Irmona’s was on Iscivius himself.
“Is it fine enough?” Okata asked.
“It will have to do.” Iscivius dumped what remained in his hand into the sack.
“What do you need us to do?” Kara let none of her apprehension over giving control to Iscivius leak into her voice.
Iscivius glanced around at the others, then straightened. “Okata and Irmona, stand there and there. You’ll be removed from the creation of the crystal. If anything happens, you’re to make certain the Nexus remains stable. Carter, stay by the barrel. Help Okata and Irmona if necessary. You two,” he said, facing Kara and Marcus. “You’ll be my support. Stand behind me. Watch me, both with your eyes and using the ley. Bolster me if I falter.”
No one responded, everyone merely shifting into their new positions. Iscivius edged closer to the pit, carrying the two sacks he and Irmona had brought with them, one in each hand. Kara reached for the ley, felt Iscivius and Marcus do the same. Iscivius began folding the ley inside the pit into layers, pulling the edges up and over into the center, circling around the sides, as if he were kneading and punching down bread dough. Kara had never seen anyone in any of the nodes in Erenthrall working the ley in such a way, had never even considered it. She glanced toward Marcus with a tight-lipped question, but he gave a curt nod. This was what Lecrucius had done.
She turned back just in time to see Iscivius throw the two sacks of sand into the pit, into the center of the bowl of ley he continued to knead.
The fiber sacks were instantly incinerated, the sand falling free, organic impurities caught in the grains incinerated as well. Heavier grains fell through the bowl—Iscivius still feverishly folding layer upon layer from the sides to the center—the lighter, finer pieces caught up in the motion and carried along with the ley. Kara gasped as she realized why the sand needed to be so fine; any coarser and it would all simply fall away into the bottom of the pit.
But then her attention caught on what was happening inside the ley bowl, unconsciously taking a step forward for a better view, Marcus’ hand holding her back. Iscivius began accelerating the kneading motion, ley leaping from the edges of the bowl outward and up, then driving down toward the center, carrying grains of sand with it. As it accelerated, it grew hotter. Or rather, the grains of sand grew hotter, agitated by the quickening motion. Fascinated, Kara shoved Marcus’ warning hand aside and stepped forward, next to Iscivius. The Wielder’s attention didn’t break, his concentration as focused and intense as the flaring ley. The sheets were rising and falling so swiftly now they were beginning to blur, but Kara could sense the sand beginning to solidify at the center, where the force and pressure of the motion was greatest. Like sand being heated to form glass in a kiln, the grains were beginning to cling to one another, merging into a new structure.
The ley flared, not with instability but with blinding light. Iscivius’ hand shot out and latched onto Kara’s lower arm, and through the contact she felt him shuddering. Sweat beaded his brow, began to trickle down his face. It already stained his clothes beneath his armpits, across his chest. He uttered an inarticulate growl, his hand tightening into a claw, fingers digging painfully into Kara’s muscles.
“He’s struggling to hold the flow!” Marcus shouted, suddenly at Iscivius’ other side. “We need to help him! If the process falters now, it will fail!”
Without thought, Kara stretched out and connected with Iscivius, pouring her own strength into him, using herself as a conduit for the energy of the ley. A second flow joined hers from Marcus’ direction and together the two of them steadied him. His shuddering eased, but his attention never left the pit, never left the blazing white inferno of the ley, now a pyre in the shape of a teardrop that reached toward the obsidian roof overhead. Kara couldn’t see the individual folds any longer, but she could sense them as the entire structure spun and shifted in upon itself a hundred times per breath. And still the crystal at its center continued to grow, to smooth out, a specific shape forming, with defined edges, clear planar surfaces.
Iscivius began to tremble again, even with Kara and Marcus bracing him. His jaw clenched, muscles tightening, but the tremble escalated into a shudder that traveled through his entire body. His arms began to flail, Marcus catching his arm on the right to steady him. He began to heave, his breath a ragged, wet rasp. Irmona shrieked something behind them, but Kara ignored it as Iscivius began shifting the intense construct toward the edge of the pit, toward the barrel of water. Okata and Carter, both on that side, drew back and away, arms raised to shield their eyes.
Kara had begun to clutch at Iscivius’ arm to hold him upright when his strength finally gave out. With a
cry, he collapsed, Kara and Marcus barely catching his dead weight before letting him slip to the floor. The teardrop shape flared once and then the ley, freed from Iscivius’ manipulations, cascaded down in a sheet, like water suddenly released from an upended bucket. The crystal Kara couldn’t see dropped with it.
The ley struck the barrel, dissolving its wooden frame at the same instant the white-hot crystal hit the cold water within. A hissing thunderclap reverberated throughout the chamber, jolting Kara back in surprise. Ears echoing, she heard the others crying out in shock as well, the sound muted.
Then Irmona shoved her aside, screaming something about intentionally killing Iscivius while he was trying to help them, as the ley from the construct flowed across the pit’s stone floor and back into the well. Marcus scrambled up from where he’d fallen, moving toward where a damp section of stone, round metal braces, and a towering column of steam marked where the barrel had been. Irmona rolled Iscivius onto his back and leaned over him, still cursing and screeching. Then she slapped him.
The Wielder didn’t rouse.
Irmona turned on her, eyes filled with hatred. “You killed him.”
Ignoring Marcus and the others, Kara lurched forward, kneeling at Iscivius’ side, her heart a hard stone in her throat. She snatched Iscivius by the chin and turned him toward her, before exhaling sharply.
“He’s not dead. He’s still breathing. He’s simply unconscious.”
Before Irmona could respond, she stood and stalked toward Marcus, Okata, and Carter, all three of them kneeling or standing over the same section of stone. As she approached, Marcus leaned forward and gathered something up off the floor, his motions careful and precise. He rose to his feet and spun, holding a thick, flat pane of glass before him. Except it wasn’t glass. It was too clear, too smooth, without a ripple or bubble in its surface or a single fleck of impurity. Held at the right angle, Kara would never even know it was there.
“What do we do with it now?” Okata asked, voice gruff with grudging respect.
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