Shattering the Ley (37 page)

Kara turned to Colt. “We need to report back to the node.”

When Colt and Kara hit the node, trenchers from the tavern in hand, they found their fellow Wielders standing, sitting, and pacing in the main room, faces pinched with worry, gazes darting toward the corridor that led to the barracks. Kara halted inside the entrance, felt the tension prickling the air, and immediately headed for Illiana.

“What happened?”

“There was a blackout—”

“We know,” Colt cut in excitedly. “We were there.”

Illiana shot him a cutting look, muttered, “Good for you,” then turned her attention back to Kara, ignoring the hurt expression that crossed Colt’s face. “Tanek, the idiot, decided to stay in the pit, even though he knew there would be a backlash when the ley was restored. He’s in his room, carried there by Steven and being tended to by Chaz.”

“How is he doing?”

“I don’t know,” Illiana snapped.

Kara bristled, but Illiana’s concern was too strong for just a fellow Wielder. Tanek must mean more to her than that. “He’ll be fine.”

Illiana glared at her. “You don’t know that. He was unconscious when Steven retrieved him from the pit. He could be burned out.”

Kara held her gaze, noted the worry beneath the anger, and turned, taking Colt’s arm to lead him away. His muscles were stiff beneath her hand and she realized he still felt wounded by Illiana. “Ignore her. She’s afraid for Tanek. It had nothing to do with you.”

He tensed, then relaxed in her grip. She let him go and they settled in to wait. They needed to speak to Steven, but she knew he wouldn’t be approachable until he’d done whatever he could for Tanek. Colt dug into his meal, but Kara found she wasn’t hungry anymore. She’d seen burnout before, had come close to burning out herself when Devin and his two cohorts had shoved her into the pit. The victim’s body was still alive, still breathing, heart pumping, eyes open, but there was no one there. Their gaze was vacant, the space behind empty. It was worse than death.

She couldn’t imagine Tanek in such a state. She hadn’t known him for long, but he was quick to laugh, easy to anger, his emotions open beneath his fiery red hair and freckled cheeks.

Two hours later, Steven emerged from the barracks’ corridor, his face drawn. Illiana leaped up from her seat and he smiled wearily. “He’s awake.”

Illiana didn’t wait for more, dashing past him and into the barracks beyond with a choked, “I’ll kill him.”

A few other Wielders followed her, sighs of relief and conversations breaking out on all sides. Colt stayed near Kara, who watched Steven accepting pats on the back and other nods of encouragement before he caught Kara’s look.

His eyes narrowed, and as soon as he could, he approached. “Problem?”

“Colt and I were at the site of the blackout,” Kara reported. “We went to the ley station and I touched the ley line.”

Steven’s expression became guarded. “What did you learn?”

“That the disruption that causes the blackout, whatever it is, isn’t local. It’s not being caused by a flaw in the Tapestry, like the distortions. There’s some external force that’s causing it. And whatever it is, it’s somehow dampening the ley. It’s a problem with the ley itself, with the flow of the lines. There’s something wrong with the system, perhaps even something wrong with the Nexus.”

Steven listened silently, gaze grim. After she finished, he flicked a glance toward Colt, who nodded confirmation, then toward the rest of the Wielders still hanging about idly, or waiting to see Tanek.

He motioned them toward a more secluded section of the room. “I’ll have to report this to the other senior Wielders, perhaps even the Primes. But what you’re saying corroborates what Tanek said. I didn’t give his account much credence—he’s still groggy from the backlash and isn’t exactly coherent—but if what you say is true, and what he noticed while in the pit is correct—”

His lips tightened into a thin line.

“What did Tanek see?” Colt asked.

Steven hesitated, as if uncertain he should share any more, then shook his head. “He tried to trace the disruption up the line, back to its source. He’d nearly found it when the backlash hit. But he did sense something just before he blacked out. The ley hadn’t been dampened. He said it felt more as if the ley had been . . . diverted somehow.”

“Diverted?”

The word came as a low murmur, yet everyone in the Meeting Hall in the Amber Tower heard the Baron speak. The last large-scale attack of the Kormanley nearly twelve years before had cracked the amber wall of the room, but it hadn’t affected the special acoustics of the chamber. Because of this, Arent had commanded the fissure remain intact, even though the Primes could have repaired it, as they’d repaired the balcony in the outer hall and the damage to the corridor and stairs at the entrance. He wanted those seated at the table—Prime Wielders, lords, ministers, directors, captains, and clerks—to remember that day, to remember the retribution he’d inflicted on the Kormanley afterward.

Power had shifted during the Purge, as lords and ladies vanished, either fleeing the Hounds or sucked into the maelstrom of bloody violence that followed as accusations of complicity flew. Arent knew that many had used his wrath as a way to gain political advantage, lying or merely insinuating collusions with the Kormanley that did not exist, but he hadn’t cared. Baron Ranit had been killed in the initial attack, along with countless nobility from the surrounding Baronies, and the remaining Barons had demanded nothing less than a massacre. He had been more than willing to give it to them.

And the period of blood and brutality had worked. The Kormanley had been purged from Erenthrall, their taint rooted out. A few attacks had occurred during the Purge, but nothing on the scale of the attack at the Baronial Meeting. Within two years, there were no longer any attacks at all, and the massive riots had been quelled. The white robes, the symbol of convergence the Kormanley had adopted as a sign of the return to the natural order, the rhetoric of the priests on street corners—all of it had disappeared. Stability had returned to Erenthrall.

Until recently.

Baron Arent’s hands gripped the arms of the seat so hard the knuckles were white, but he kept his rage in check, barely allowed it to color his voice, although everyone in the room flinched when he spoke.

“Diverted where?”

His gaze fell on Augustus.

Augustus stood in the deathly silence, his chair legs scraping backward on the amber floor. He folded his hands before him, composed his ancient features, his robe rustling. A tic at the side of Arent’s mouth twitched. The Prime Wielder had aged in the past few years, his face lined and haggard, gray hair pulled back and tied at the nape of his neck. The architect of the Nexus had been kept busy as he and his Primes stormed through Erenthrall, establishing Flyers’ Towers in all of the major cities. Not only in the Baronies, but in the surrounding nations to the east, west, and south as well. He’d even extended the ley network to the western and southern continents.

But the progress had come at a price, visible in the Prime’s hunched shoulders and heard in the gravelly timber of his voice. Not even the life-extending properties experienced by submersing himself in the ley—as Baron Arent did too, with his own secret ley bathing chamber connected to his rooms—had been able to counter it.

The arrogance remained, though, an arrogance and pretension Arent had learned to tolerate. It was a fair price to pay for complete control of the ley.

“I’m afraid, my Baron, that we do not know.”

“You don’t know.”

A statement, flat, no inflection whatsoever. If his seat had not been made of marble, the chair arms beneath his fingers would have cracked.

Augustus shot a glare toward Arent, nearly a challenge. “We don’t know.”

“How hard have you looked?”

“The better part of the last year!” Augustus barked. Everyone in the room flinched. No one raised their voice in this room, not with the Baron present.

Augustus closed his eyes and for the first time Arent began to wonder if perhaps he spoke the truth. He had not believed the Wielder ten months ago when parts of Confluence went dark, had been certain the Prime lied after East Forks.

But now a niggling doubt slithered beneath his anger, slid down into the core of his chest, down beneath his breastbone, and bit down hard. Perhaps this wasn’t a power play by the Primes, as he’d assumed. Perhaps he’d let his hatred of the Primes—of his dependence on them for the continued use of the Nexus—color his judgment. The recent instability in the ley had only emphasized that dependence. If the ley were faltering. . . .

The thought sent a lick of fear in the wake of the doubt.

“—thought we’d backtracked the fluctuation in the Nexus that produced the outage in Confluence and East Forks,” Augustus was saying in a tightly controlled voice. “It appeared that someone had tampered with the alignment inside the Nexus—”

“Who?”

Augustus’ eyes narrowed angrily at the interruption. “I don’t know.”

Lowering his voice, Arent asked, “Who could have made such an adjustment? Who would have the power, the skills?”

Augustus stilled, lips pressed tight together. He didn’t want to answer, even though everyone within the chamber knew. “Only a Prime could alter the alignment with such precision. Only a Master.”

Arent straightened in his seat. “One of yours? One of the Primes?” You yourself, he implied with his tone.

Augustus struggled to choose his words as the rest of the Primes in attendance shifted uncomfortably in their seats. But finally he raised his head, saying grudgingly, “I would have argued otherwise until today. But now. . . . To make most of Stone, along with parts of Eld and Green, go dark, the alignment would have to have been changed from within the Nexus itself, and only Erenthrall’s Primes have such access.” He said nothing to Arent’s unspoken accusation, but Arent saw that he’d heard it by Augustus’ look.

“We have a traitor in our midst.”

Everyone turned toward the new voice. The Primes straightened in fear. All except Augustus, who merely pursed his lips.

Arent felt the niggling doubt begin to grow, coldness seeping outward from beneath his breastbone, touching his lungs, his heart. “Captain Daedallen,” he acknowledged.

The captain of the Dogs turned his gaze on Arent and the Baron’s eyes narrowed.

“Everyone is dismissed except for Prime Augustus and Captain Daedallen.”

Simple and clear, the command emptied the room within moments. As soon as the last person departed, Arent stood and descended from his seat, motioning Daedallen and Augustus to one of the wide windows. Sun slanted off of the amber floor, made it semi-transparent, the thick glass that protected them from the winds at this height perfect, without a single bubble or distortion, made so by the Tapestry and the ley. Arent sidled up to the glass, stared out from the height at the surrounding towers of Grass.

And in the center of them all. . . .

Arent turned his attention to the heart of Grass, where he could see the nearly blinding, pulsing white light of the Nexus. He knew a building stood in the center of that white light, although he couldn’t see it. The heavy, thick crystal of the dome that covered the Nexus amplified and intensified the light, making it impossible to see into the Nexus from above.

Behind him, he felt Augustus halt a few paces away, knew that Daedallen stood behind the Prime, ready in the event Augustus did anything . . . interesting. Although now Arent thought that possibility slim; he believed in Augustus’ sincerity, even though he knew Daedallen had his own suspicions.

“If you have been searching since the incident at East Forks,” Arent said calmly, “then you must have discovered something. I find it nearly impossible to believe otherwise.”

Augustus heard the warning. And the threat that underlay the simple words. “Of course, my Baron.”

“Who?”

“As I said, I don’t know. One of the Primes, assuredly, but—”

Arent turned, stopped Augustus with a look. The Prime had heard the threat but he’d ignored it, too secure in his power over the ley, in the city’s reliance on it. In the Baronies’ reliance on it and, steadily growing, the nations beyond. Which is why Arent had grown to hate the Primes; he knew he relied on their cooperation too much. The Wielders had grown so strong that he was no longer certain the Dogs were enough to keep them in check, to keep them complacent. Even after the viciousness of the Purge.