Then Kara felt it. Her skin crawled, as if covered in a thousand ants. Except these ants weren’t prickling her flesh, they were seething underneath her skin. Her head snapped toward the southeast. At the same time, a spike of pain drove itself deep into her skull between her eyes. She groaned, mouth open as she bent forward. Someone near her—Okata she thought—cried out and collapsed to the ground. She could see him writhing in the dirt, shouting something in his own language, but a wash of jagged yellow light blinded her. Her forehead struck the earth, but the pressure continued. Her ears popped, and one of the horses screamed, shrill and panicked.
“What’s going on?” Riley—who stood right beside Kara—sounded as if he were a thousand yards away, muted and distant. “What’s happening?”
Kara ground her forehead into the dirt, trying to end the pain. Grit gouged into her flesh, a stone cutting into her skin. That pain was a breath of cool air compared to the white-hot ice pick inside her skull. It dug deeper, then deeper still—
And then it halted, as abrupt as Riley’s slicing of Tim’s throat.
She collapsed to one side. Something warm trickled down her forehead. Something else etched itself down her cheek and dripped off the bridge of her nose. She knew it was blood—her own blood. Moans surrounded her. It took her a moment to realize some of them were her own. Her chest ached. Her skull felt hollow. But the sensation of ants crawling beneath her skin had abated, ending as swiftly as the ice pick. All of it echoed through her body with a dull sense of familiarity, as if she’d experienced something similar before: an escalating sensation that cut off abruptly.
Except what she’d experienced before hadn’t been physical. It had been a sound.
She rolled back onto her forehead and knees, then lurched upright. All around her, the Wielders lay on the ground in various stages of pain or recovery—Okata apparently unconscious, Irmona on her back, staring up at the sky, Carter staggering to his feet, Iscivius on his knees, back ramrod straight. Only Marcus remained standing, staring off toward the southeast. The enforcers hadn’t been affected. Riley had stepped protectively to Marcus’ side.
Kara took all of this in with a swift glance, her attention riveted in the direction Marcus and Iscivius were staring.
Toward the piercing light that hovered above Tumbor.
That light had intensified to an eye-straining white that forced Kara to flinch away as soon as she looked at it directly. She blinked, the image of it burned into her vision.
Then, face still averted, she caught the flare. The ground around her was bathed with the pulse, everything eerily silent, just as it had been in Erenthrall when the distortion there quickened. Her skin tingled with remembered terror—the growls of the Wolves as they bore down upon her and Allan, Artras and the rest, the helplessness of her own exhaustion, the fear of being trapped. All of it washed through her as the white flare bled the color from the world. But then it died and she snapped her attention back toward Tumbor.
The white light that had hovered over the city like a tiny, vibrant sun since the Shattering imploded down to nothing in utter silence, paused, then suddenly exploded in a sheath of vibrant color. Arms of gold, fiery red, and deep purple expanded outward, reaching for the heavens and the earth at the same time, a whirlpool of exquisite beauty. The distortion grew and grew, larger than the one that had engulfed Erenthrall. But of course it was larger. There was no one in Tumbor attempting to halt the quickening, no Wielders attempting to control it—to heal it—like Kara, Artras, Dylan, and Nathen had tried to do. This distortion was unfettered.
It engulfed the horizon, reaching toward them. Everyone stood silent. But when it didn’t halt within a few breaths, some of the enforcers stepped back. One of them turned to Marcus and asked, “Will it stop? Should we run?”
“Where would you run to?”
But the distortion slowed and halted. A pulse of light coursed through the jagged threads of lightning that wove between the thick, colored bands of its arms, and then it set. A sphere ten times as wide as the one in Erenthrall. Kara shuddered to think of how much land it had captured, how many people. Everyone who had remained in Tumbor, for certain. It must have encompassed the city within moments. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would have stayed after what they’d seen happen to Erenthrall, but she knew after the initial shock of the Shattering, after they’d survived the winter, they would have drifted back into the familiar streets and buildings, even with the threat of the pulsing white light overhead. They would have convinced themselves that the danger had passed, that the distortion would have quickened by now if it were going to quicken at all. And some would have been driven to the streets in desperation, regardless of the danger.
All of them were trapped inside the fractured shards of the distortion now. Caught, like insects in amber.
Kara climbed to her feet, wincing as pain lanced through her skull when she bent her head forward. The world reeled for a moment, but she steadied herself. The tackiness of blood mixed with grit from the ground coated her forehead, but her hands were still bound behind her back, so she couldn’t wipe it away.
When she could focus again, she found Riley between her and Marcus, a knife in one hand. “I can barely stand, and you think I’ll attack someone?”
He began to respond, but Marcus put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Do what Iscivius ordered before the quickening. I doubt any of the Wielders are in any shape to resist you now.”
The enforcers loaded Aaron and Adder into the cart where Dylan’s body still slumped. They ignored Carter, except to force him to one side as three of them hefted Adder’s limp form into the wagon. Two others dragged Dylan down from the headboard. When they let him fall so that his head cracked into one of the crates, Aaron cried out in indignation and leaped into the back of the wagon, hunching over the Wielder protectively.
“Are you all right?”
“You didn’t seem to be affected by the quickening, Marcus. Why is that?”
“It felt like my entire body had seized up. My muscles were locked so tight I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. That’s the only reason I didn’t keel over or collapse like the rest of you. I didn’t react that way when the distortion over Erenthrall quickened.”
Weakness washed through Kara. She didn’t know if it was from the effects of the distortion or simply weariness with Marcus. “None of us did. But Tumbor’s distortion was significantly larger.”
“That could be the reason.” He was staring off into the distance, at where the orange-red-purple sphere cut off a significant chunk of their view to the south.
“Look at it! It’s ten times the size of the one in Erenthrall!”
“No need to get exasperated. I’m only thinking out loud.” He waved toward the distortion. “It’s farther away than it looks. Distances on the plains are deceiving.”
“And you think that makes a difference? It swallowed all that remained of Tumbor. It must have swallowed up ten miles or more in every direction outside of the city. If this is what happened in Tumbor after the distortion waited six months to quicken, what will happen in Farrade? In the cities to the north?” She staggered, Marcus reaching out to steady her without thought. “Gods, Marcus. We can’t even figure out how to fix the distortion in Erenthrall. How are we going to repair the one in Tumbor?”
Marcus’ face abruptly went blank. “Father will find a way.”
Kara stared at him, then pulled her arm from his grasp even though she was still feeling weak. She stepped back. “What happened to you, Marcus? You weren’t this deluded back in Erenthrall.”
“Back before the Purge, you mean? Before the Baron killed Ischua and executed all of those supposed Kormanley insurgents in the marketplaces across the city?” Kara flinched at the mention of Ischua. Marcus saw it and visibly controlled himself. “I’m not the one who’s deluded about what happened in Erenthrall. I haven’t been deluded since the
Purge.”
“Since Deirdre, you mean.”
“Since Deirdre, yes. Since she showed me what was really going on in Erenthrall with the Baron and the Prime Wielders, how they were controlling us with the ley.”
“I’m certain she showed you more than that.”
Marcus didn’t answer. Instead, he spun around and stalked off. “Iscivius! Are we ready to depart yet?”
One of the enforcers came up to Kara’s side and with a flick of his fingers motioned her toward the wagon where Aaron, Adder, and Dylan were already waiting, all but Aaron still unconscious. Kara allowed herself to be hefted up into the wagon beside Aaron, who now knelt next to Adder’s body.
“How is he?”
“He’s out cold. He probably has a concussion.”
Kara nudged Adder’s head to one side until she found the blood-matted hair where he’d been struck. A large lump had swollen up just beneath the base of his skull, the skin split. If they’d been in the Hollow, Logan would have likely already stitched it closed, but she couldn’t do anything about it here.
She let his head roll back, then steadied herself as the wagon lurched forward. The White Cloaks were shouting back and forth, the enforcers spreading out, although a quick glance verified that Iscivius had kept twice as many of the guards on the wagon as usual. Up ahead, the riders who’d accompanied Marcus waited, Marcus himself riding out ahead of the wagons to return to them.
When she settled back down into the wagon, she noted Aaron’s pale face.
“How are you doing?”
Aaron opened and closed his mouth a few times before any words escaped. “Everything happened so fast. The fight, running, Carter, and then Tim—”
She let Aaron lean into her for comfort, until he pulled back. He was staring at Carter.
“How could he do it? After everything that happened in Erenthrall, how could he turn on us?”
“He did what he felt he had to do.”
“He got Tim killed.”
“Yes, he did.”
“He nearly got Adder killed. If the White Cloaks hadn’t been interrupted—”
Kara nudged him, forced him to focus on her. “Yes, and he’ll have to live with that. You need to focus on us, not him. He made his choice. Now, what about Dylan?”
“He’s better off than Adder. They didn’t hit him as hard.” Through the part in Dylan’s hair, they could see the swelling where he’d been clubbed. It was higher up and to one side and the skin hadn’t been split. But it was an ugly red-purple in color.
Kara checked it as Aaron slumped back against the crates in the wagon. Then she looked Adder and Dylan over from head to toe as best she could while still bound. Aside from a few cuts and scrapes on Adder from the fight, and Dylan’s knee, they both appeared to be in relatively good shape.
She sat back, the wagon jostling beneath her as they continued down the roadway toward the Needle. Her mind drifted, returning to Tim, to the stark horror of seeing his throat slit in front of her. What had they done with him? Had they just left his body behind, by the side of the road?
“Is it really him?”
It took a moment before Kara realized it was Aaron who’d spoken, and then she couldn’t figure out who he meant.
“Is it really Marcus? The one they say caused the Shattering?”
Kara couldn’t answer for a long moment, the roiling mass of emotion Marcus’ name called up tightening her chest.
But finally she said, “Yes. It’s really him.”
Cory was limping toward the entrance to the caverns when he felt the world around him shudder. It was like a hard gust of wind coming from the south, rippling through reality in a wave, except that it didn’t bend the branches of the trees forward, or even set the leaves fluttering. Yet it compressed his chest. He gasped and leaned his weight against the makeshift walking stick he’d been using for the past two days, even though he didn’t really need it; his ankle was nearly whole again.
Ahead, no one bustling around the mouth of the cavern reacted to the strange shudder after it passed. They continued hauling supplies from the wagons into the rooms and tunnels beyond—the last of the supplies, from what Sophia said. All that was left was what remained to be harvested from the fields.
If they were given enough time to do any reaping.
Cory had decided that the shudder had been nothing but an aftereffect of his injury—a wave of dizziness from exertion—when Paul suddenly charged from the cavern’s entrance. “Where’s Logan?”
Someone responded, and the elderly leader of the Hollow scowled through his panic. “Drop that sack and get into the village! Drag Logan back here if you have to. Tell him something’s happened to the Wielders!”
Cory surged forward. He reached the cavern’s entrance a moment later, Paul now surrounded by babbling villagers. Paul held his hands up to keep everyone back then motioned him forward. Cory waded through the throng to his side.
“Everyone, go back to work. You heard Bryce’s last report. The raiders were last seen three days ago, and we haven’t seen them since. We need to get the caverns secured now!”
The group grumbled, but most began hauling sacks and barrels again.
Paul watched them until he was satisfied they were working, then focused on Cory. “Come with me. Most of them are in the main cavern with the stellae—”
He cut off as a flare of light passed overhead, like lightning. But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and this flare was brighter and held longer before dying. Everyone looked up, one or two shading their eyes, searching the heavens, including Paul.
“What in hells’ flames was that?”
“I don’t know.” But Cory could think of only one thing that would produce a flare of light like that. “I’ll investigate it later, if Bryce and Hernande haven’t looked into it already. What happened to the Wielders?”
Paul let his hand drop. “Right. The Wielders. Whatever happened, it didn’t affect them all the same way.” They entered the cavern and he led Cory toward the deeper rooms. “Two of them just passed out, hitting the cavern floor like sacks of stone. Raven clutched her stomach like she’d been punched and then vomited. Mareane and another collapsed in some kind of seizure.”
“Were only the Wielders affected?”
“One of the University students said he felt nauseous. But the others in the room only looked spooked. I thought it was because of what had happened to the Wielders.”
They ducked through the doorway into the main chamber. The stellae remained unchanged, the white light of the ley bubbling up from the stone undisturbed. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t affected the ley in any visible way here. The floor of the chamber had been cleared of all of the debris from the previous earthquake, except for the stones that were too heavy to move, like the one that had crushed Cory’s leg. His eyes skimmed over that one as he scanned the rest of the room, Paul already beginning to descend the steps that they’d built over the scree. The outskirts of the chamber had been rigged with wooden frames and hung with blankets and sheets and tarps, so that each of the rooms had some small amount of privacy. The refugees from Erenthrall had adjusted to the bareness of the accommodations immediately—they’d been sleeping in tents and ruins since the Shattering—but those from the Hollow were finding it more difficult.
“Paul! Cory! Over here!”
Cory caught Raven waving both hands to the left of the stellae. He and Paul veered in that direction as Cory picked out bodies laid out on the stone floor to either side. Raven had dropped back down into a crouch near Mareane.
“What happened?”
“Mareane had a seizure. The others either seized or passed out.” She ran the back of her arm across her forehead. Only then did Cory realize her skin was pale beneath the smudged dirt and drying blood.
“What about you?”
“It was as if
someone had stabbed me in the stomach with a hot poker. It took me to my hands and knees, and then I—” She waved vaguely to where a puddle of vomit stood off to one side. “There was a pain in my head as well, right here.” She pointed to the center of her forehead, between her eyebrows. “After I recovered, I realized I’d bled from the nose.”
Cory glanced around at the others laid out on the floor. Mareane was quiet and appeared to be asleep, her hands folded primly over her chest.
Logan and Morrell appeared at the top of the scree. Paul waved and they began to descend. Logan knelt next to Mareane immediately, reaching to touch her forehead lightly with his fingertips as he motioned Morrell toward the others.
Cory watched silently, then turned to Raven. “What caused this?”
“I don’t know.” But she reached out to squeeze his hand. “Check Erenthrall.”
Then Logan pushed him back from her, forcefully but not unkindly. “Let me take a look.”
Cory retreated. He wanted to speak to the other University students, but they were all helping the healers.
Jerrain suddenly appeared, the elderly mentor straining up into Cory’s face. “Did you feel it? Did you feel the Tapestry writhing?”
“Mentor! You startled me.”
“The foundations of the Tapestry shuddered and somehow I startled you? What is the University system coming to?”
“What do you mean the foundations of the Tapestry shuddered?”
“Exactly what he said.”
Cory turned as Hernande came up beside them. His mentor glanced toward where Logan and Morrell were working on the Wielders.
“The Tapestry . . . shuddered.”
“Isn’t that what it felt like to you?” Hernande caught Jerrain’s attention and motioned them away from those gathered. “Or didn’t you feel anything?”
“I felt it. I haven’t spoken to the others yet, but Paul said that all of them here looked spooked, so they must have experienced something.”
Threading the Needle Page 33