The Coming Chaos

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Did you hear it?”

  “I didn’t hear anything. I felt an explosion.”

  Haern frowned. He hadn’t heard anything, either. The explosion had been powerful, and yet, there was no sign of fire, no sign of anything that would typically be associated with an explosion of this magnitude. Focusing on lorcith, he searched for it.

  It was here.

  “Gather those who are capable,” Haern said.

  “What happened?” Jayna asked.

  “It’s lorcith. A lot of it.”

  Haern collected the lorcith, drawing it to him, and forced it down in the center of the wagon.

  As he did, he realized this was supposed to be their wagon. His and Elise’s. It was the one they’d been traveling on throughout the entire day, but when it had come time to rest, Elise had guided him to a different one. That couldn’t have been coincidence.

  “I think they know we’re suspicious,” Haern whispered.

  “Why?” Jayna asked.

  “This was meant for me.”

  “No one would try to do this to you here.”

  Haern motioned to the pot. That was all that had survived the explosion. It had been resting near him on the top of the wagon, and he had left it there when they had gone off to survey the rest of the camp. “That was mine.”

  Surprisingly, the pot had survived, and it even had the twine still intact, wrapped around the lid. He sensed for the lorcith within and realized that it was missing.

  Great Watcher!

  Not only had the attack been meant for him, but they had used the sphere he’d brought back to the camp against him.

  He should have been more careful.

  “We need to interrogate everyone,” Beatrice said.

  “I don’t think that’s the right strategy,” Haern said.

  “If anyone could be involved, we need to question them.”

  “I think we need to approach this cautiously,” Haern said. “If we can figure out who it is, in a way that doesn’t reveal we’re on to them, maybe we can determine where they’re getting these lorcith explosives.” As much as he wanted to know who was attacking him, he also wanted to know how. In his mind, that was just as important as anything else.

  “I’ll go and make sure everyone is unharmed,” Beatrice said.

  Jayna turned to him. “You should make it appear as if you’re gone.”

  “You want the attacker to think I died in the explosion?”

  “That might work, but no. I just want you to disappear. I think whoever did this will be more likely to speak freely if they think you aren’t nearby.”

  Jayna had proven herself, and she deserved his faith.

  He dropped a lorcith coin and then used it to push off into the sky.

  How much sleep had he gotten? There were still quite a few hours left before morning, long enough that he knew he wouldn’t be able to remain suspended in the air until dawn, but even then, he wasn’t sure he could stay away from the rest of the caravan. If someone there was willing to attack him, he couldn’t help but wonder what else they might be willing to do.

  What motive might they have?

  Regardless of what Jayna might think, having him there was useful. He could keep an eye on the others. Not only that, but his presence might unsettle whoever was responsible for the attacks.

  Haern tried to think through what he knew about these different attacks. There had been the first when they had encountered the wagons. Then there was the attack when he and the others had gone after the wagons. That one had nearly killed him. He thought of each one, but there were no similarities between them, nothing that should explain what had taken place. Most of the women they’d rescued from the wagons would not have even been present.

  Which left someone from Dreshen.

  Could it be?

  As much as he didn’t like to think it, maybe it really was somebody who had come with them from the beginning.

  Haern dropped to the ground and headed back toward the wagons, pulling on the lorcith that had exploded. He made his way toward the fire and found Elise there, trying to calm many of the other women. Some of them were crying, wailing, while others were sitting and rocking. All of the women who appeared completely distraught were ones they’d rescued from the wagon in the first place.

  They couldn’t have been responsible for it.

  He looked at the other women, glancing from face to face, searching to see who didn’t appear quite as troubled. The women who had come with them from Dreshen had been through quite a bit, and though many of them had seen much, an explosion like that would still be distressing.

  Haern dropped the remains of the lorcith near the fire. He had pulled everything in the camp to the fire. When he was done, he made his way over to Elise.

  She frowned at him.

  “I think we’ve been wrong about the focus of the attack. I think it has to have been someone with us from the beginning,” he whispered.

  “No one with us has those abilities,” Elise said.

  Haern shook his head. “That we know of.”

  Elise stiffened and looked around, her gaze drifting from woman to woman before turning back to Haern. “We will take care of this.”

  “We?”

  She nodded. “This is something you don’t need to be present for.”

  “Elise…”

  She shook her head. “We will take care of this.”

  Haern walked away, standing just beyond the edge of the fire, watching. As he did, he focused on the sense of lorcith, trying to be prepared for anything. He watched all of the women at one time, paying close attention to any sign that someone might attempt to Slide.

  Elise went over to Jayna and then Beatrice. They talked softly for a few moments. Haern couldn’t shake the questions that filled him. What did he know about Jayna, anyway? She was a skilled fighter, and yet almost too skilled.

  He shook away that question. It did them no good to be suspicious of her. She had gone with him willingly, fighting alongside him, captured like him. It wasn’t Jayna.

  He thought about some of the other women. What did he really know about them? He’d tried to get to know them during the journey, asking questions along the way, but he hadn’t learned anything that would provide him with specific answers.

  Perhaps that had been a mistake.

  Haern continued to watch, and he was startled when Belarra started whimpering. As she did, he noticed shimmering around her.

  “Elise!”

  Without thinking too much of it, Haern sent a knife streaking toward Belarra. It caught her, piercing her through the shoulder, and the shimmering faded.

  Haern raced forward, and Jayna and Beatrice had Belarra pinned between them. Elise stood in front of her.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “You can’t understand. It was my assignment.”

  “Your what?”

  “My assignment. I was told to remove him. It was how I would pay for my gift.”

  Haern continued toward her.

  “What gift?” Elise asked.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Help us understand,” Jayna said, jerking on Belarra’s arm with a little more force.

  Belarra looked over at Haern, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to, but…”

  She started to shimmer again, and Haern hurried forward, jamming the knife deeper into her shoulder. The sudden pain of it seemed to startle her, and her attempt to Slide faded.

  “How?” His voice was soft, but anger filled him. He had been kind to Belarra, and he’d thought that kindness had mattered.

  All this time, she had been attempting to harm him. Why wait until now?

  “When we were in Dreshen, I was given a gift. There was a price to it, and…”

  A gift. The way she described it reminded Haern of the Forgers, but the nature of the attack was not one that was typical for the Forgers.

  Instead, this seemed to be something else.

  If
it wasn’t Forgers, then it was someone else with the ability to manipulate metal.

  Could it be the C’than? He didn’t know as much about them, but seeing as how they had been responsible for attacking his father, and they would know he was the one who’d rescued him, it wouldn’t be all that surprising to learn that the C’than had been responsible for this attack.

  “Check the back of her head,” he said softly.

  Elise glanced at Haern, frowning. “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  He should’ve thought about it sooner. All this time, he’d seen Belarra touching the back of her head, and yet he had believed it was nothing more than a nervous tic. Not a tic at all, but the same technique that had been used on Lucy.

  “What is that?” Jayna hissed.

  Haern worked his way around so that he could see what Jayna saw. When he did, he realized there was an implant there, much like he had suspected. He didn’t know much about what Lucy’s implant had looked like, but the way this one grew into Belarra’s skull, he suspected the mechanism was the same.

  “This is how she was attacking me,” Haern said. He turned to Belarra. “Where are you getting the lorcith spheres?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Haern cocked his head to the side, studying her. “It very much matters. Where are you getting them?”

  “There’s a place where they’re left for me. There are dozens of them.”

  “And the spheres in the wagon that exploded?”

  “That was me. I placed them to make you think the men in the wagons were responsible.”

  It had worked. She had made him think that it was anyone but someone who was with them. How could he believe it was somebody who had been traveling with them? The idea that someone like that would betray them, that they would attack him, seemed almost impossible, and yet…

  “Where?”

  “Near Dreshen.”

  Haern frowned. Dreshen. Why would it be there?

  They had met the false Binders in Dreshen, and there had been experiments with abilities. Had he made a mistake leaving so soon? Could there have been more there for him to discover?

  He wasn’t about to turn around and head back there, but they did raise questions for him.

  “Who did this? Who gave you these spheres?”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  “What do you know him by?”

  “He’s known by one title only. The blacksmith.”

  Haern turned away, staring out into the darkness.

  Elise came and joined him, standing next to him, slipping her arm into his. “What now?”

  “We continue to Asador,” he whispered.

  “How much further do you think it is?”

  He shrugged. “Not far now.”

  “What about this blacksmith?”

  “It seems as if Galen and the others were looking for him, too.”

  “And?”

  Haern turned to Elise, meeting her gaze. “And now we know where to find him. Somehow, we have to get word to him.”

  “Which means you’re leaving us.”

  Haern stared at her for a moment. “That’s not what it means. I have no intention of leaving.”

  “But what we discovered—”

  “What we discovered doesn’t change anything for me. Once we reach Asador, there will be a way to connect to Carth and her network. We’ll get word. And hopefully, what we have discovered will matter.”

  He couldn’t help but think that it would have to matter. Someone who had the ability to manipulate lorcith like this, and somebody who could place augmentations, either was with the C’than—what he thought was most likely—or they were somebody his people needed to know about. With weapons like this, they would be useful against the Forgers.

  Could they use an ally like that?

  Did they dare not try?

  Elise squeezed his arm, and he looked down at her. “We know what happened now. We’ll be safe the rest of the way to Asador.”

  Haern nodded. They would be safe the rest of the way to Asador, but once there, the real challenge would begin.

  42

  Ryn

  A steady tapping woke her, and Ryn jolted up, slamming her head into the wall of the closet. She swore under her breath, worried she’d already made too much noise.

  Glancing over to where Dillon rested, she saw he was still deeply asleep. He breathed heavily, practically snoring, and if she awoke him, he wouldn’t find it easy to get back to sleep. For what she thought would be necessary, she needed him to get all the rest he could, if only so he could help her when it came down to it. It was selfish, and regardless of that, she knew it was necessary.

  The tapping returned, and Ryn listened, focusing on the sound, worried it might represent footsteps. She was thankful for her augmented senses, but while she would be able to hear the sound of others approaching, she worried that she wouldn’t be able to escape very quickly if it came down to it. If it did, she would have to figure out how to get Dillon out of here, though he would be able to travel.

  Getting to her feet, Ryn situated herself in front of the door. The tapping continued, a regular sound. When she heard it, she realized that it came from beneath her, deeper underground than where she was.

  Strange.

  Could there be a blacksmith here as well?

  It was hard for her to believe there would be such deception in so many places, but she couldn’t deny what she had heard.

  Glancing back down to Dillon, she decided to let him sleep. As long as he didn’t snore too loudly, he wouldn’t draw any attention to himself, and she could sneak off, figure out what that tapping was, and return to him before anything happened.

  Pulling the door open, she glanced down the hallway for a moment before stepping out. It was a narrow hall, and her brief sleep had given her enough respite that she felt regenerated, much more awake than she had in quite some time. She slipped off down the hall, following the steady tapping sound. When she reached the end of the hall, she paused, focusing on the source of the sound. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Somewhere nearby, but where?

  Ryn hesitated, looking around for anything that might tell her what it was. It wasn’t the sound of footsteps. The regularity of it reminded her of the tapping she’d heard when she had first observed the sounds of the blacksmith in Dreshen.

  There was a pause in the tapping, and when it came again, Ryn focused long enough to find the source before starting toward it. She reached a staircase leading down into the bowels of the earth. This staircase was incredibly narrow, barely wide enough for her to squeeze through, and she wound down it, every so often glancing behind her, looking for any sign of pursuit. There was no light, nothing that would help her find her way, and without her enhanced eyesight, she doubted she would have felt confident coming here.

  She continued down the stairs, following as they twisted around. The tapping sound persisted, growing slightly louder as she went.

  Finally, the stairs ended. Ryn hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, looking around, searching for anything and anyone who might be out here, but came across nothing.

  It was little more than another hallway.

  The tapping sound was louder now, closer.

  Ryn searched for the source of the sound. It was here—at least on this level.

  As she made her way, dark shadows were recessed along the walls. It took a moment to realize that those were doors, but they were narrow doors, much like the hall was narrow. Standing with her hand resting along the wall, she tried to hear any sounds on the other side but didn’t detect anything.

  The tapping wasn’t coming from the door.

  It came from further along the hall.

  Ryn hurried, making her way along the hallway, listening as she went. The tapping persisted, growing louder. There was something else mixed within it, and had she not been this deep beneath the earth, focused on the sound of the tapping, she wasn’t sure she would have re
cognized it.

  Breathing.

  Ryn was certain that was what she heard, but where was it coming from?

  Near the end of the long hall, there was a door. She held her hand on it, focused on the sounds on the other side of the door, and they persisted.

  What was it from?

  She was convinced there was tapping on the other side of the door, but she was also convinced there was breathing.

  This far beneath the earth, this place could only be one thing—a prison.

  Ryn tested the handle, finding it locked.

  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her knife and slipped it into the lock. As it often did, the knife changed, shifting a little, almost as if it took on the contours of the lock itself, and she turned it, carefully pushing the door open.

  She stood there for a moment, looking inside, as her eyes adjusted. A bald man stood in one corner, his hand raised, a stone clutched in his palm, and…

  He hurled it at her.

  Ryn ducked, getting away from the stone, and reached for the door, prepared to pull it closed, but the man on the other side was quick. He grabbed it, prying it free from her fingers, and as she scrambled back, she stared at him.

  “Dolan?”

  The man hesitated. He held his arm cocked back, ready to throw something else—probably another rock.

  Ryn didn’t know many people in the Lexa palace, but when she had been here before, Dolan had been one of the most senior servants, a man the Great One had often visited with while having his morning tea. She’d always found it interesting that the Great One would visit with the servants as much as he did with his disciples, but Dolan was one he had seemed to favor.

  “Emissary?” he whispered. “Could it be you?”

  Ryn glanced over her shoulder before turning her attention back to Dolan. “It’s me. What happened here?”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I came for help.” Now that she said it, and having seen how much he seemed to struggle, she realized how foolish that had been. “I was in Dreshen looking into an attack that took place there when I was under attack myself.”