Sam tried to steady his breathing, focusing only on what he could feel. The vrandal pulsed again, different than the tingling and even the needles he’d felt shooting through him. This pulsing sensation was a triggering. The vrandal was trying to connect to him.
He knew it was alchemy. He didn’t know anything more other than the device itself had power within it. If he could connect to that power, then he might be able to channel it. Would he use it against the Grandam? He didn’t think he could.
There was movement near him, and Sam shifted to turn toward it.
A low voice cleared their throat. “Grandam, I was coming to check on Mr. Bilson.”
The Grandam’s grip on his hand eased a little bit. Sam used the opportunity to yank his hand back, careful that the vrandal stayed seated on his hand. There was a moment where he thought it might slip away, but it remained.
“Chasten. What are you doing here?” the Grandam asked tightly.
“I was checking on Mr. Bilson. As he has the key to alchemy, I have been keeping an eye on him. The Academy does not have many alchemists, as you know.”
The Grandam pushed out with another sense of power, but it didn’t wash over Sam quite the same way. There was another flash of white light, a surge of pain. It was brief and not nearly as awful as it had been before. He ignored it, focusing instead on the vrandal and its pressure against his palm. The power within it shifted, suggesting that something about the vrandal was once again weakened.
“I will work with you again, Mr. Bilson. I’m certain that with enough time, we will be able to restore your eyesight.”
The Grandam left his room. Sam held his hand, keeping the vrandal in his palm. He tried to move it, and it shifted.
The door closed, leaving Chasten there with him. “What did she do to you?”
“She came to offer me a healing,” Sam said. “I think she is the one I felt in the hall.”
Chasten was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“I’m certain it was her in the hall with Ferand.”
Chasten stopped in front of him. The pine scent coming from him was thick. “I will alert Havash of what happened, but for now, I think you need to rest.”
“How can I rest? I’m not convinced we can trust the Grandam.”
“I am no longer sure we can trust her either.”
The way he said it unsettled Sam. He’d expected Chasten to refute what he said, to reassure him that the Grandam wasn’t someone to fear, but he hadn’t.
“Could she really be working with Ferand?” Sam asked.
“Anything is possible. I wouldn’t have believed that Ben was working with Ferand, either, but some believe that the Nighlan can show a different way to power. Perhaps an easier one.” Chasten sighed softly. “Unfortunately, chasing power through an easier route is compelling. Especially when faced with such great power as those who are true masters of the arcane arts, and understanding how hard one must work and how diligently one must study to grasp the depths of it.”
“But the Grandam is a master of the arcane arts.”
“She is,” Chasten said. “And it makes me worry about who can be trusted in the Academy.”
“What if she lets Luthian in?”
“She wouldn’t,” Chasten said.
“Why not? If he’s working with Ferand, then—”
“Luthian wouldn’t be working with Ferand. He only came to move him for safekeeping.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. “What?”
“He wasn’t here to work with Ferand. Luthian is trying to stop him.”
“I saw him. I know what I observed.”
“Do you?” Chasten paused. “It’s not always easy to trust what you see.”
Sam frowned. “He was using an illusion?”
“Luthian was not, but Ferand and Ben used them to escape. Ben lost his life in the attempt, but Ferand remained free. There are others we must fear, though. The Nighlan are skilled and have grown increasingly determined to penetrate the Academy.”
“Luthian was sent to help Daven,” Sam whispered.
“I suspect so.”
“When I was in that room with the strange lantern, I spoke to…” Sam struggled to come up with the name. It had been long enough ago that the name no longer stuck in his mind. “Bardall. He promised he would send somebody to help Daven. I guess I didn’t know.”
“It was easier for no one to know.”
Sam frowned. “You knew. You are with them.”
“No. I have been in contact with them, but that is it. I have been trying to understand more, but unfortunately, there are limits to what they are willing to share to those who are not part of them.”
“What about with me?”
“You have the key, Sam. That makes you valuable to them and to all alchemists. You need to stay here. Do not open your door.”
“Even if the Grandam comes?”
“Given what I interrupted, I would say especially if the Grandam comes.”
Chasten stepped out of the room and closed the door. Sam sat in place, clasping his hands on his lap and shifting the vrandal. He tried not to think about what it meant that the bond between him and the vrandal had been disrupted again. With enough separations, he worried he wouldn’t be able to hold onto that connection at all. Eventually, the Grandam would succeed, and the vrandal wouldn’t stay bonded to him. He would lose that connection, and then…
There was a danger if the vrandal truly was some sort of key for another lock. They were after something within the Academy.
And Sam needed to find it.
He wasn’t exactly sure where to begin, though there was one place, and one way, that he thought that he could look.
There was more to the Study Hall, and they had known before. They had always suspected there was more, but they had never found it.
And he had stumbled into it.
His mind wandered, tracing through the hallways. He tried to piece together where they might intersect and couldn’t come up with an answer. It had to be more extensive than what he and Tara had found.
Eventually, he felt something on the other side of his door.
It felt like power. Pressure. Heat.
But he recognized it.
He quickly opened his door and grabbed Tara, pulling her inside and closing it again.
“Easy,” Tara said.
“The Grandam attacked me again,” he said hurriedly.
“I figured she might. I didn’t have much choice in leaving. I didn’t want her to know I’d detected something. I went for help and found Chasten.”
“So that’s why he came.”
“Somebody needed to intervene. And I think she doesn’t know what to make of him.” Tara took his hand and guided him to the bed, encouraging him to take a seat. “We’ve been trying to uncover what’s in your mind that’s blocking your ability to see. Havash feels like there is some blockage and has asked me to pick at it or try to heal it, or any other different use of angulation or botany or any of the various subjects that I worked on,” she said, frustration filling her. “I’ve never seen anything like it before and have the sense that neither has Havash.”
Sam frowned. “Why do I get the impression that you figured something out?”
“Because when the Grandam was here, and she was with your sister, she used a technique on Mia. I can’t see it how you can, but I have been learning to feel when the arcane arts are used. And I detected her using them. I don’t know what it was, or I hadn’t, until just recently. And now I think I know what we can try.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” Tara said. “I didn’t really understand it, so when I left, I followed your sister to see what it was. Do you know what I uncovered?”
“What?”
“I found power in your mind. Whatever’s within you is the same as within your sister. I…”
“What did you do?”
“I peeled it away from her.”
“You did w
hat?”
“I didn’t know what it was, but having seen the Grandam placing that scar or whatever it was, I realized I could take it away. I don’t think hers had been there that long. Yours is different.” She touched his hands. “Having removed it off your sister, I think I can remove it from you too.”
“Tara—”
“I know you’re scared.”
“That’s not it.”
“You’re not scared?”
“I’m scared. I’m worried about what she is after. If it were the almanac, she would have gone after it by now. Finding it in the alchemy tower isn’t that difficult. It tells me there is something else here.”
“And she needs the key.”
Sam nodded. “She needs the key. Maybe it’s an actual key?” He shook his head. “Whatever it is, we need to keep her from reaching it.”
“Let me see what I can do,” Tara said.
She took both of his hands, and Sam didn’t fight. Power began to build from her, though it didn’t come from her with the same sense of unsettling violence. The pressure that grew and the tingling that washed along his skin wasn’t the same as what he detected from the Grandam.
“I can feel it,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“It’s a scar. It’s like what was on your sister. I wish I could show you how this feels, Sam, but…” She fell silent, and pain throbbed in his head.
It was a booming sort of pain that reminded him of what he felt when the Grandam worked on him, but this one wasn’t nearly as agonizing as the other. It was almost as if he could feel Tara picking at his mind, trying to peel away the scar.
“Just another moment,” she said.
“I don’t know if I can handle another moment,” he said through gritted teeth. She squeezed his hands to reassure him, but the pain flared again.
Sam didn’t pull his hands back. There was no need to when it came to Tara. He didn’t think she was trying to hurt him the way the Grandam had been. Still, he couldn’t shake off the agony, the unsettled pain that rolled through his mind. If Tara was able to help him, maybe he could reconnect to the vrandal.
His breathing quickened. The pain started to work down from his head through his shoulders. It was a pulsing sensation that continued to echo within him, practically vibrating. Sam tried to control his breathing and focus on his desire to use the vrandal, which was what Daven had told him to do. The only problem was that he didn’t think he could control the sense within him well enough to reach for that power.
He cried out as pain exploded down his arms.
“Not much more,” Tara said. Her voice seemed to come from a great distance.
He could sense edges of darkness starting to take shape, almost as if… almost as if he could see. It had been a while since he’d seen anything, and for him to be able to detect even the sense of shadows at the edge of his eyesight was more than just surprising.
“Do you want me to keep going?” she asked.
Sam nodded, trying not to think about what she was doing. He struggled to ignore the pain, which still worked through him, leaving him speechless. He focused instead on the power exploding within him.
“Almost…”
A tingling washed over him and mixed with the pulsing, and Sam couldn’t help it anymore. He cried out again, and when he did, the pain eased slightly. As he sat in place, he could feel the pain and the effect of what Tara had done. It was almost as if she had ripped something through his mind, leaving it raw. A headache unlike any he’d ever had before coursed through his mind, pounding in time with his heartbeat. The tingling sense remained along the surface of his skin like a burn that refused to heal.
“Well?” Tara whispered.
Sam turned toward the sound of her voice. There was darkness, but for the first time in what seemed like forever, he saw something.
Shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sam moved through the tunnels, following Tara. He tried to adjust to the change. His eyesight was still recovering, but so far, there wasn’t any way for him to hurry it along other than to attempt to see through the shadows. Thankfully, having lived in the darkness for as long as he had, being able to see shadows was better than nothing at all. He hadn’t realized how much that darkness had terrified him until it was gone.
Despite the gradual recovery, he could still pick up on things he’d begun to notice when blind. There was the sense of arcane energy all around him, a gradual sensation he was able to determine more easily the longer he was around it. There was also the feel of movement in the air pressure around him. It was like a breath of wind as they moved through the tunnels now.
Tara motioned for him to come toward her. She was only a few steps in front of him, close enough he could see her outline. He felt her presence as well.
“Do you think this is where you detected the Grandam?” she asked.
Sam closed his eyes, focusing on his awareness of the tunnel. This section felt no different than any other. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to tell if there are any arcane arts here, but…”
“Maybe we need to move a little bit further,” she said.
“We could ask Chasten.”
“Do you think he would help us?”
Chasten would likely warn them against going after Ferand and the Grandam out of concern about what they might find. He wanted them to leave it to Havash, yet Sam didn’t know if they could.
“Are you sure Mia got back safely?” he asked.
“She’s in the sharan tower. I made sure to guide her back to her tower, and other students brought her all the way back up. She has testing to study for, so she’s going to be safe. At least for now.”
Sam sighed in relief. He wanted to protect his sister from the Grandam, especially if she’d placed some sort of scar over them both. Tara hadn’t been able to determine the purpose of the scar, only that it had been there. Peeling it off had allowed him to see shadows.
What would it do for Mia?
“We should keep moving,” Tara said, urging him along.
Sam followed, staying close enough to detect her, though he could only make out her outline. There was a bit of pressure coming from her, a sense of energy.
“What happens if we don’t find Ferand?” she asked.
“They are looking for something in these halls. I don’t exactly know what it is, but I think that there is more—much more—here than we know about.” He held up the vrandal. “And when we reach a dead end, I think that we can use this to go through it. Alchemy has been used to seal this off.”
“And you want us to just wander blindly?”
“It’s not a great idea, but if we can follow what you and I can feel of the arcane arts and what barriers we uncover, maybe we can find something?”
“You realize we could get lost wandering, as well.”
“We could. I still think we need to do it.”
“I do too. I just don’t like it.”
They started working their way through the halls. At certain points, Tara took his hand, guiding him to dead ends. The first few that they took, there was nothing. Sam suggested they go toward the library and the endpoint there, and when they did, he fumbled forward until his hand sunk through a barrier.
He heard Tara gasp, and he took her hand, trying to pull her through.
Surprisingly, the connection worked. He was able to pull her through the barrier.
“That has been here this entire time?” Tara asked softly.
“Apparently,” he said.
“Alchemy.”
“I think so.”
“We should keep searching.”
“I know.”
Sam sighed, but he thought she was right. “I wish we could do it when I’m able to see a little bit better.”
“I don’t know how long it will take for your sight to recover completely.”
“And I don’t know if it will at all.”
“It’s been only a few hours, Sam. We have t
o give it time.”
“Even if this is as good as it gets, it’s better than it was. I can see shadows like you. You’re a little bit of a blur, something of a blob.”
“I’m a blob?”
Sam held onto her hands. “Not like that. The shadows around you are like one.”
“Because I’m a blob.”
“Would you stop?”
The tingling sensation washed over him, and this time he distinctly saw the sense of her power. It was incredible.
“Was that a blob?” she asked.
Sam squeezed her hands. “That was most definitely not.”
“You saw it?”
“I saw it.”
“Let’s keep wandering, then. If you can see anything, then you might be able to help us figure out what’s up here.”
It was probably overly optimistic, and they both knew that, but when she nudged him, Sam moved ahead of her in the tunnel. Ferand and the Grandam were up to something, and this was one part of the Academy that he truly believed had some ties to it. It had to.
They found several different branch points, several different barriers and passed through them. Each time they did, Sam paused to take a mental image, and Tara did as well. Despite the possibility that they could get lost, the only danger was if they were to get separated.
“What if they needed the key to get through the alchemy barriers?”
“It doesn’t feel right,” Tara said.
“I know, it’s just that without it…”
“You don’t think that the Grandam, one of the most powerful users of the arcane arts, can figure out a way past alchemy?”
Sam frowned. “I don’t really know.”
They continued moving, and at one point, he started to feel something pressing upon him.
Then he stopped. “There shouldn’t be anything this way,” he said, though he could practically feel a gentle breeze pushing on him. “This wouldn’t take us through the Academy, but away from it.”
He tried to imagine where it was going.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Everything else that we’ve followed has taken us within the walls,” Sam said. “I’ve looked at enough books in the library and seen enough maps of the various towers to know. This is something different.”
Alchemist Assault (The Alchemist Book 2) Page 24