“Asador,” she whispered.
Carth glanced over. “What was that?”
Lucy continued to dig, diving deeper into the man’s thoughts, trying to grasp what he knew, and the longer she searched, the clearer it became that he knew Alera.
Not only did he know her, but he had worked with her.
There was something else, though it was difficult for her to reach, as if he were blocking her still.
This attempt was different than what he had done with the shadows. This was more like how she had been blocked from Sliding into the Floating Palace before. So as before, she pushed, forcing her way beyond the restrictions this man held around his mind. Whether it was tied to heartstone or something else, she wasn’t entirely sure.
Heartstone.
She made her way over to him. He lay there, looking up at her, and she grabbed at his earring. He tried to pull back, but she tore it free, ripping it out of his ear. She was probably more ruthless than she needed to be, but at the same time, she wanted to see if it might be responsible for blocking her.
As soon as she removed the earring, she continued to focus on Reading him, but there remained a barrier in place.
She looked at his hands and found a similar ring, pulling it off his finger. She stuffed both the earring and the ring into her pocket.
As she attempted to Read him again, she found it much easier, and his thoughts flooded into her mind. She rifled through them, feeling no remorse about doing so. There were images of Alera, of metals, and of a cage.
“You worked with Alera on forming the…”
Lucy couldn’t finish. Other images came to mind, including that of a slender rod. On one end was a strange metal, and with the right trigger, the metal would burst forward, and it would attack.
That was what had struck her.
“You?” she said.
“What is it?” Carth asked.
“He’s the one who created a weapon that did this to me,” she said, reaching to the back of her head. It had been a while since she had touched the metal implant. It continued to bury itself beneath her skin, and soon would leave no sign that it had ever been there. How was that even possible?
The man started to smile. “You were the test subject?” He started to laugh, lying there, no fear in his eyes. “I had often wondered what happened with the device. It was one of our greatest inventions. We thought it would be effective, but we never knew quite how effective.” His grin widened. “Seeing how quickly you Read me, I can only imagine it has augmented that ability of yours. What of your other abilities?”
She shook her head. Anger swelled within her. It took everything within her power to force that anger down. It served no purpose other than to give him what he wanted. She wasn’t about to lose control. “Why?”
“Why? If you can Read me as well as it seems you can, you should understand why.” He glanced over to Carth. “It’s because of her.”
“She serves the C’than.”
“Only in name.”
“Obviously I serve the C’than far better than you ever did,” Carth said.
“And yet you would frequently abandon your commitment to the C’than. You allowed them to gain power.”
“I allowed nothing.”
The man still lay in place, almost seeming to enjoy his position, as if he had no care other than the fact that they had come here.
Lucy forced her gaze away, looking around. There had to be a reason for his presence here, didn’t there? Why would he be in this place, by himself, unless…?
“There has to be some reason he’s here,” she said.
“I’m sure there is,” Carth said. “Most likely, he thought this would be a safe place to continue to work.”
“You know him?”
“No, but I know those like him. The C’than have always had researchers, men and women of considerable intellect who would try to apply in a new way.”
“Not researchers. Engineers,” the man said with a sneer. “And you speak of us as if you have no use for us, yet so much of what you have accomplished is because of what we have shown you.”
“So much of what I have accomplished is because of me,” Carth said. She crouched down next to the man, getting close to him. Shadows swirled around her, and she leaned in. “You could have been so much more.”
“What makes you think I haven’t been more?” the man said.
“You betray our heritage.”
“I betray it no more than you ever did, Carthenne Rel.” He looked up at her, smiling. “You might have tried to hide what you’ve become, but you have failed. You have allowed yourself to be influenced by those who should never have had any influence.”
“And you have used your knowledge in a way that is no different than the Ai’thol.”
“We have to stop the Ai’thol,” the man said.
“In that, we agree.”
“You don’t even understand what he’s doing, do you?”
“What part don’t I understand?” Carth asked. “Is it the part where he’s trying to acquire the power of the Elder Stones? Is it the part where he’s been using Lareth—at least, those who look enough like Lareth—as a way to erode trust? Is it that he continues to march forward, gaining followers, making some believe that he’s a spiritual force rather than a man simply seeking power?” With each question, shadows continued to swirl around Carth, and they reached the man, but they went no further. Carth spun them around him, far more agitated than Lucy had seen her before.
Surprisingly, she could Read fear within the man as Carth questioned him. He might try to give off the appearance of fearlessness, but having Carth this close to him, with her power swirling around him, made him nervous. He feared not only her shadows but her connection to the Flame. More than that, he feared what she would do. The others like him feared as well, which was why they had come here… and other places like this.
“This is what you’ve been looking for,” Lucy said, looking up at Carth.
The other woman turned briefly, meeting her eyes. “I suspected we would find something like this.”
“Why?”
“Because Alera couldn’t have been acting alone. She was skilled, but she didn’t have the necessary engineering abilities to create the prison they used on Lareth.” Carth glanced down at the man. “And you should know that Lareth is no longer a prisoner.”
“Lareth was never the goal. He was simply a means to an end.”
“You would use the one person they fear the most?”
“Do you really believe they fear any one person?” The engineer shook his head, staring at Carth. “They don’t fear Lareth. They respect him. They recognize that he has power they need to be careful with, but they view him no differently than they view you, Rel.”
“I can assure you that they fear me,” Carth said, danger dripping from her voice.
The man looked up at her. “That is why you have never served the C’than the way you claim.”
“Because I’m willing to take action?”
“Because you are willing to disrupt the balance.” He glanced from Carth to Lucy. “Don’t let her teach you that way. The C’than aren’t about open fighting. The C’than are about understanding, maintaining the balance, ensuring that—”
Carth leaned toward him, shadows swirling around him, violence radiating from her. “You don’t get to lecture me about what the C’than are about. I have seen the C’than misuse their role before, and I was brought into the C’than by Ras himself.”
At the mention of that name, the man began to tremble even more. For some reason, he feared Ras even more than he feared Carth.
Who was Ras?
Lucy delved into his mind, but the fear radiating from him made Reading him difficult. She surged through it, searching for an explanation, a way to dig into his thoughts, but she couldn’t uncover anything. It was buried beneath the layers of emotion.
“How many others were working with him?” Carth asked.
&n
bsp; Lucy tried digging into his mind again, but all she was able to pick up on was his fear. That radiated most strongly from him, surging to the forefront of his mind. Even as Lucy tried to dig past that overwhelming fear, she wasn’t able to do so. It was trapped there, and as she strained against it, she found that there was a limit to what she could Read.
Then again, Lucy had always known there were limits to what she could Read. Most of the time, those limits came from how well she could Read, but in this case, they came from the challenge of digging past the other issues. He wasn’t actively trying to block her, but he didn’t need to. Even without an active barrier, she wasn’t able to push past the fear rolling through him.
Could he be using that as a way to escape her Reading him? Was it possible that he knew exactly what he was doing?
She didn’t think that was likely. More likely, and a better way of preventing getting Read, would be to force other thoughts to the forefront of his mind, to add simple imagery, to do what she had done when she had been trapped. But even then, that hadn’t been successful. They had known what she was trying to do, and they had managed to overcome it.
Lucy tried a different attempt, focusing on the way he was trapping his memories. Was there anything she could do that would be tied to Sliding? There had to be something, didn’t there? She had used Reading in order to Slide; could she do something similar, but in reverse?
Even if she could, she wasn’t sure it would be safe. She doubted there was any way to dip into his mind that wouldn’t cause problems for her.
As she focused, she strained against the barrier that he held, whether intentional or not. This time, she thought about Sliding, though she did so in a way that was different than how she would normally Slide, focusing instead on traveling between places in his mind.
As she prepared to Slide, she hesitated.
The idea of doing that terrified her more than attempting to Slide back onto the ship without any help.
“Lucy.”
She looked over, and Carth was watching her, shadows drifting around the man. She shifted the nature of the shadows, and they solidified, concealing him completely from Lucy. A hint of light surrounded him, a combination of shadows and fire that surprised Lucy.
“Can you Read him?”
“When you mentioned the name Ras, he became scared.”
“And?”
“And I can’t get past that emotion now. It’s almost as if it’s all-consuming, and it terrifies him. Who is he?”
“Do you remember when I told you I had a mentor who taught me how to play Tsatsun?”
Lucy nodded. “That was Ras?”
“He was my first introduction to the C’than. Well, perhaps not my first, but he was the one who showed me that there was considerable power within the C’than. I was never able to reach that power as well as I would have liked when I was training with Ras. It wasn’t until I left him that I began to understand how my power works and how it’s different from others’.”
“Why is he afraid of him?”
“Because Ras leads the C’than.”
“Where is he?”
“That is a great question. Typically, Ras finds me.”
“Does he view you as not serving the C’than as well as you should be?”
Carth shook her head. “Ras knows that I serve as well as I can, but he recognizes that I have my own particular way of doing so. How could I not, after everything he taught me?”
“We came here to find him, didn’t we?”
“Ras?”
Lucy shook her head. “No. This man. That’s why you brought us here, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been looking for evidence of the rest of the C’than who were involved. I knew it couldn’t just be Alera, but in every stronghold that we’ve visited, there hasn’t been any sign of them. I had begun to think that perhaps I was mistaken, but then the rumors began to spread.”
“What sort of rumors?”
“Rumors of activity in places where there should not be.”
“How were you able to uncover these rumors?”
Carth smiled at her. “You think that I have no talents?”
“It’s not that. I know that you have talent. It’s just that, without being able to Slide, I don’t see how you were able to get word from other places.”
“That’s part of my network, Lucy.”
Carth turned her attention back to the man, and the shadows began to retreat, along with the flash of light that had been there. It exposed the man again, and he stared up at Carth, his eyes wide, and sweat dripping from his brow.
“How many are with you?”
“You can’t hope to find all of us.”
“You don’t think I can?”
“I think you will find that knowing the depths of the C’than involvement will be difficult.”
Lucy attempted to probe into his mind again, thinking that if she could reach through the barriers that his emotional state created, she might better understand the secrets he kept from them. And yet, the more that she tried, she continued to reach resistance that stemmed from the fear he felt.
That couldn’t be coincidental. It had to be intentional, and she was certain that if nothing else, this man knew exactly what he was doing and how he was blocking her from Reading him.
Worse, it was effective. She hated that there was no way for her to push past the barriers he created in his mind, to dig deeper, but she also hated that she felt compelled to keep pushing.
“I will find all the C’than involved, and I will ensure that any future involvement with the Ai’thol is stopped before there’s a chance for real danger to occur.”
The other man only stared at her. “You may think you will find the C’than involved, but the Ai’thol have proven that they are far more capable than even the C’than.”
“Is that why you have sided with them?”
“I’ve sided with no one. All we’ve done is—”
Carth lunged toward him, shadows swirling around him. They swept toward him, circling his face, and his eyes began to bulge. He was unable to complete his sentence.
Carth let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know that we’re going to get anything more from him.”
“So you’ll just kill him?”
Carth frowned, shaking her head. “No. But I can’t leave him here, either.”
“Where would you suggest taking him?”
“There’s a place I have access to, but I’m not sure that will be enough either.”
“Why can’t we just take him with us to the ship?”
“If the others realize that the C’than have been infiltrated to this extent, they will lose faith in them. The Binders know that I have been a part of the C’than for many years.”
Lucy studied Carth for a moment. “It’s more than that, isn’t it? It has more to do with you.”
Carth met her gaze for a moment. “Perhaps it does. I was gone for long enough that it raises suspicion. I worry that my absence created an opportunity that someone like this might use to convince others of my inability—and untrustworthiness.”
“Do you really think you lost so much in the time you’ve been gone?”
“I know I have,” Carth said. “You saw it with Rayen.”
Lucy shook her head. “I didn’t see anything with Rayen.”
“Rayen believed that I’d lost my faith.” Carth smiled to herself. “Not that I would blame her. I was gone long enough, and my absence was mysterious enough, that she took hold of the Binders, at least as well as she could. Coordinating like that was never Rayen’s strength. Unfortunately, she found maintaining stability difficult.”
“I thought Rayen had managed to lead the Binders in your absence.”
“Rayen managed to lead part of the Binders, though the organization is simply too large for her to manage by herself. As much as she might have wanted to lead them, she simply wasn’t capable.”
Lucy stared at her, trying to decide if this was Carth implic
ating Rayen in a way that suggested she was somehow less than what she was believed to be, or whether it was merely a statement of fact.
“That still doesn’t give me an idea of where we should bring him.”
“How much further do you think you can Slide us?”
“Distance isn’t the issue. I’m more concerned about the return.”
“Do you not have the ability to focus on Daniel Elvraeth?”
“I do, and I have been, but depending on where we Slide next, I run the risk of losing my connection to him.”
It was difficult for her to hold on to that connection, and yet, she knew that she needed to. She maintained it as much as she could, holding on to Daniel Elvraeth, and thankful that her time around him had granted her that ability. Eventually, she worried that if she weren’t careful, she would lose that connection altogether.
“Can you find this place?”
Carth allowed Lucy to Read her again, entering her mind, and as she did, she found a vision that reminded her of the C’than strongholds. This was the first place they had visited, the island off the coast.
“Will it be enough to hold him?”
“The C’than there are faithful. They will ensure that he remains bound.”
“What happens if we find more?”
Carth smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, I suspect that we will find more.”
“And then what?”
“Then we purge the C’than.”
Lucy turned her attention to the engineer, staring at him. “Why is this so important to you?”
“Because it has to do with the C’than.”
“I understand that, but why are the C’than so important to you? What is it that you think they’ll need to do?”
Carth took a deep breath, and the shadows continued to swirl around her. “Unfortunately, I fear that the C’than might be all that will prevent the Ai’thol from succeeding. To do that, they must be intact.”
They Slid, emerging near an enormous tower, the island swelling with waves all around. The water crashing sent spray streaking up to her, and though she tried to ignore it, the power of it was almost too much for her.
Carth glanced over at her, holding on to the engineer. “You won’t be able to go any closer.”
Shadows Within the Flame (The Elder Stones Saga Book 2) Page 34