He’d been at this point much earlier in his own life. Shortly after the Rossin had killed his mother he’d been swept away on a tide of depression and entropy; unable to decide what to do since all options looked equally dire. He’d relied on his role as son to the Unsung Pretender to the throne of Arkaym as much as Sorcha had relied on hers as a Deacon of the Order of the Eye and the Fist.
“You do what you do best,” Raed said, cupping one hand against her cheek. “You make something out of nothing. Isn’t that what wielding the runes is all about? You use your own strength to make things happen. You see the path with an enlightened eye that Merrick and you share. You defend, just as you always have. Just because the Mother Abbey is gone, and everything torn apart, that doesn’t change who you are.”
Sorcha swallowed hard then leaned into him. They embraced in the moist air, with the sound of the waterfall at their backs. It was the kind of embrace that said this was all of the world—even if for just an instant. It hurt to stop holding her.
After she had squeezed Raed, Sorcha pulled back a fraction. “You’re right, but that doesn’t change anything much—we can’t go back to what we were.” She took a final draft of the cigarillo, before dropping it to the ground and grinding it with her heel. “We must make ourselves anew and become something else. The Order of the Eye and the Fist is dead, and we can’t pretend differently. We can’t shackle ourselves to what was.”
“Why do I get the feeling I just said what you were already halfway to deciding anyway?” Raed said, with an uncertain smile.
“Maybe because I am inside your head?” Sorcha leaned over, tapped his forehead, then kissed him lightly on the lips. “I have an appointment. One I’ve been avoiding for quite a while.”
He watched her stride over to the door, as straight backed and determined as on the first day he’d met her. Raed was just thinking that nothing much had changed, when she proved him wrong.
Hand on the door handle, she paused and looked back at him. “Is everything all right with the Rossin, Raed? You have him under control, right?”
By the small gods, Raed hadn’t wanted her to ask that particular question, but there it was. He smiled and replied, “Everything is under control.”
Sorcha nodded and left the battlements. It was indeed a sign that things were turning dramatically toward the worse—she hadn’t heard his thoughts. The Bond that connected Raed, Sorcha and Merrick had once been so strong that he’d been unable to hide anything from them. Now however, with the combined problems of lost foci, new runic tattoos, and the closeness of the Otherside, it appeared Raed could get away with disassembling.
The thought did not fill him with joy—only dread. He hadn’t exactly lied to her; everything was under control. Unfortunately, Raed had the sinking feeling it was not he that had the control, but instead it belonged to the other darker, more primal creature that lurked within him.
EIGHT
Tracing the Thread
Walking away from Raed was more difficult than Sorcha could have possibly communicated; when he held her, she just wanted to disappear into that embrace. She had clenched her fingers into the palms of her hands hard, because she dared not hold on to Raed too long or lose her will to step away.
With what had gone on the previous night, Sorcha had known there was no other choice; she had to visit the Patternmaker. She’d just wanted to think by herself for a moment—just her and her cigarillo and the roar of the waterfall. Raed’s arrival had not been unwelcome, since it had put off the inevitable.
However, she hadn’t told him where she was going, or what she was planning to do; he’d have wanted to go along with her. This was her burden to bear. She was the one that had taken the Patternmaker’s bargain.
As she walked slowly up the steps, she felt tentatively along the Bond. Merrick was there, but there was no support to be had from him; his presence was like the whispering of many distant voices. That was better too. He had enough to worry about, hunting out the future.
The closer Sorcha got to the high, isolated room that the Patternmaker had taken for his own, the more the smell of death reached her nostrils. Her breath colored the air in front of her white, and despite all that she had seen in her time as a Deacon, she was a little nervous.
In the tumult of the foci that had once contained the runes being taken from them, and the Mother Abbey burning, Sorcha knew they had all grasped whatever hope had been laid before them. They had been desperate for it. Even the ravings of a madman had seemed sensible in those times, but now given a little more space to look around, she and many others had begun to wonder who they had allied themselves with.
That was why it was a relief that the Patternmaker had claimed a room in the highest portion of the citadel. Very few went there, even the well-meaning lay Brothers could not find it in themselves to climb the steps she was climbing.
The Patternmaker was something more than human, but not geist—at least that was what the Sensitives had said. However, the days of Sorcha trusting what she had once taken as fact were long gone. She had to find the answers for herself.
Finally, she reached the door and stood there for a moment, like a nervous initiate lingering on the threshold of her Arch Abbot’s doorway. She strained her ears to hear what was going on behind that door.
The Patternmaker was talking. It was a language, she was sure of that, but unlike any that she knew of in the Empire or in Delmaire.
Her stomach clenched, and the runes on her arms tingled as if they were on fire. She hovered there, caught between the desire to kick the door in, and the strange urge to knock politely.
In the end, Sorcha compromised, and edged the door open a fraction and peered in. The rank odor of unwashed human was hardly what one might have expected from a holy man, but as a Deacon, Sorcha had met more than her fair share of filthy madmen who had claimed that title; she had just never imagined one being part of any Order.
If they were still an Order.
Words in her head. Sorcha froze in the act of entering the room. It was not Merrick’s voice, nor the rumble of the Rossin. She did, however, recognize the tone. The Wrayth. A chill rush went through her.
Blindly, Sorcha opened her Center. All Deacons had some ability in Sight and Activity, but her Sensitivity was minimal. Still she tried her best to feel any trace of the Wrayth about her. Nothing.
It was a relief though to feel that Merrick’s mind was still murmuring into the void, and giving no indication he had been disturbed by another voice in their Bond.
Sorcha looked up through the gap in the doorway. What was the Patternmaker doing? Curiosity and fear warred within her. The Deacon glanced down at her hands and the swirling shapes of the runes that he had carved into her skin. It was done. They had taken his help, and now she would have to find out the cost of it.
With her knee she nudged the door open wider and stepped boldly inside. As the top room in the citadel was buried mostly in the cliff itself, there was only one window, and the Patternmaker had covered that with a blanket. The inside was gray, and the far walls impossible to see. The smell fulfilled the promise it had made outside, and she raised her hand to her mouth to try and muffle it. Only training kept her from throwing up.
Smell was one of the senses that heralded a geist attack—though what that could mean she didn’t want to think too hard on. The Patternmaker was not a geist; she held on to that fact as best she could.