Shattering the Ley (63 page)

Kara had reached her limit when Cory was suddenly there.

She burst into tears when she saw him, reached forward and clutched him close. The strength left her legs and she clung to him, unable to control herself. She was vaguely aware of Allan and Hernande ushering people from the room, closing the door so that only Cory, Hernande, Allan, and herself remained.

No one spoke until she trailed down into sobs and pulled back from Cory, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. She scrubbed at her eyes and said, “I’m sorry. I—I didn’t believe Allan when he said you’d survived.” She laughed, the sound odd and uncomfortable. “I don’t know why.”

“I think it’s perfectly understandable,” Hernande said, stepping forward to touch Kara’s shoulder in comfort. “Nothing feels stable anymore. Nothing seems real.” He glanced toward Allan. “Has she seen?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think she noticed on our way here, after we left the distortion.”

Hernande frowned and turned back to Kara with an uncertain expression.

“What is it?” Kara asked.

Hernande sighed. “Come see for yourself. And then you can tell us what you think.”

They all shared a disquieting look, but then Hernande motioned her toward a set of stairs in the far corner of the main room. They ascended three flights, emerging on the roof of the building.

Kara could see the extent of the distortion from here, could see the edges of the city as it sprawled out onto the plains that rolled into the horizon to the north, west, and south. The distortion itself was immense, a huge dome of colored light, the remains of the buildings within appearing even more broken through the jagged edges of the shards and the vibrant white of the lightning. She wondered how long they had before it closed, wondered what the city would look like once it did, thinking of the death the much smaller distortions had caused in Erenthrall before this.

She shuddered, moved to the edge of the building, the wind blowing her hair across her face. The sun had begun to lower, the plains golden in its glow. She scanned the city outside the distortion below, saw the river where it cut its new path through the streets, could even faintly hear it. When she saw nothing unusual—or nothing she wasn’t already expecting from what Allan had told her—she raised her eyes to the plains. “What am I supposed to s—”

And she saw it. A faint pinprick of white light blazing on the horizon, like a star. Except it couldn’t be a star because it glistened on the horizon north of where the sun would set.

She spun, a horrifying thought filling her mind, her stomach dropping away abruptly as she saw another fiery white light burning to the south, in the direction of Tumbor. The first must have been Dunmara in the Reaches. She couldn’t see anything in the direction of Farrade, or to the east, because the distortion blocked her view, but she was willing to bet there were white lights burning on the horizon there as well. In fact, if she squinted her eyes and looked farther north, she thought she could see additional lights in the Steppe, but she couldn’t be certain.

She turned back to the others, their faces grim. “They’re distortions aren’t they? Distortions that haven’t quickened yet.”

Hernande’s mouth pinched tight, then he sighed. “That’s what we thought as well.” He looked older, his face drawn. But his eyes were bright, lively, young, focused on Kara. “So what are we going to do about them?”

Kara turned away from his gaze, placed her hands on the wall of the building, and stared out to the north, toward the light over Dunmara. The stone felt gritty beneath her hands, the wind cold against her face, but her jaw clenched with determination.

“We have to fix them.”