"If?" asked Lieutenant Danress sharply.
"Her need for the attunement wouldn’t have changed. The question is whether she is willing to risk me being able to use it, or if she thinks she can take it from me. There’s over a day between the final attunement and the conclusion of the Grand Summoning, and I expect that to be a challenge to survive. Tiandel’s attack on Solace was successful primarily because she did not expect it. Still, she may not choose to risk a second attunement, and instead find another way to deal with the size of the new focus. To that point, I suppose I need to try and discover whether this second son has done anything clever here."
She spent some time divining, trying to imagine any way a person in the Eferum could interfere with this stage of the attunement. The problem was, she was still struggling to believe the projection was possible. Even casting an image out into this world, let alone one that could react, that could hold a conversation–! The distortion was an incredible obstacle to overcome, and that projection told her that this second son was an extraordinary mage.
In any case, she could not find sign of a trap, so she turned to preparation. The Sentene and Ferumguard alternated scanning the horizons for enemies with watching Rennyn as she marked a circle and set out the components. She wondered if they’d really been ordered not to bother her with questions, or if that had been Danress' invention. They certainly obediently shut up whenever she showed a lack of interest in talking, and she was sure it frustrated them immensely. She wished she’d decided to come here alone.
The vessel for the younger focus marked a major stage of the attunement. The pieces had been prepared by her great-grandmother – two halves of a hollow crystal sphere which could be bound together with bronze and copper bands. Rennyn pulled Solace’s younger focus from its wire loops and placed it within the sphere, then carefully worked the bands into position. Placing it in the centre of the circle of sigils, she stepped outside to cast.
This was the most technically complex thing Rennyn had to do, and she set all her concentration to the task, eyes not wavering from the sigils as each illuminated. Casting of this level was not simply a matter of thrusting power through the shapes of sigils, but of taking an absolute view of their meaning, requiring an understanding of every nuance of intent. And since the overarching spell, the attunement, was more Symbolic than Sigillic, she faced the risk of the spell becoming rather more than she asked for.
On the far side of the veil, a mass of power was being worked into a thing which would become an extension of Solace Montjuste-Surclere. Rennyn had three times allowed the younger focuses to taste the edges of that power. Solace’s power. Because they were a part of Her, they were also a part of It. They were in two different places, yes, but then that place was the origin of the younger focuses as well.
The air before Rennyn grew heavy, and the overhanging branches sagged, leaves and twigs falling and being whirled away before they could land within the circle. Everything seemed taller, with the Sentene and the trees and the mountains all looming above a sucking well, pulling at them, trying to drag them through the veil to a vast blackness.
The vessel made a tiny clicking sound and settled fractionally. Done. As the distortion faded, Rennyn straightened and took a few deep breaths, then flexed her fingers. She tended to clench her fists during this kind of casting, and the skin had not fully recovered from their burns.
Lieutenant Meniar, who was a brown, slim man with an attractive smile, appeared at her elbow and offered a flask of water. "It worked, then?"
"Try to pick it up," Rennyn said, taking the flask.
Meniar was quick to step forward, but his hand slipped off the sphere when it didn’t lift as he expected. He shot her a quick, surprised glance, then wrapped both hands around the outer bands, shoulders bulging with an effort which brought no reward. He stepped back, face flushed. "Keste," he said, "You try."
Lieutenant Faral looked first to Captain Faille for permission, then approached the vessel at a slight tangent, as if it was a horse she thought might startle. Rennyn wondered briefly if the attunement would treat a Kellian differently, but Faral was no more successful than her partner.
"It’s a link to both the Grand Summoning and the bloodline," she explained, picking up the bound spheres, now the size of two fists. It was a solid weight, but as yet no heavier than it appeared. "It will reject anyone who isn’t a Montjuste-Surclere."
"Of which there are now four," Danress said.
Rennyn nodded, and looked restlessly at a particular moss-covered block. "He didn’t come through the previous breaches, and we’ve blocked that passage now. And he can’t complete the attunement within the Eferum. But–"
Change your tactics. Rennyn looked over her bodyguards and worried about what that meant.
Chapter Ten
The pebble skittered and bounced down the hill. Kendall watched it disappear, then sat back with an exhausted sigh. The throbbing in her head subsided a little, and she blinked, trying to decide what she was doing wrong. It had taken four days before anything at all had happened, and being able to make a pebble wobble and occasionally skip a bit was less than impressive. Especially when it took so much to manage any movement. Kendall could carry a thousand pebbles to the top of the palace with less effort than it was costing her to poke this one with magic.
Her stomach growled, and she decided she was more than ready for lunch. At least here every meal wasn’t a matter of careful planning and scrimping. So far as Kendall could tell, she could spend her entire time refilling her plate in the dining hall and no-one would protest.
Climbing back up to the garden, she found Sebastian Montjuste-Surclere leaning against the balustrade clutching a thick wooden walking stick. His face was flushed with effort, but he seemed much less limp and ill than last time.
"Congratulations," he said as she clambered over the barrier.
Surprised and a little uncomfortable, Kendall glowered. "How did you know?"
"Oh, once you start casting, you get a good deal more sensitive to changes in the Efera. Enough to tell location, the power of the casting, sometimes even what’s being cast. You weren’t doing anything loud, but I was close enough to tell the direction."
Not loud about described it. Kendall had expected more of herself and turned away, shrugging her shoulders. Then she saw two men, Ferumguard, standing near the infirmary wall watching them.
"Do they follow you about?" she asked, interested.
Sebastian flicked an irritable glance at the pair. "There’s always someone watching. They’ve the most fantastic library here, and I can’t bear to read because I know someone’s watching me do it. That’s why I’m out here."
"They’re still watching," Kendall pointed out. Her stomach growled again.
"Inevitably. But I want out of that infirmary, I want a room with a door I can shut, and they won’t let me until I’ve improved more."
"Walking practice?"
"Something like." He gave her a diffident look, and added: "You’ll be hungry after Thought-casting. How about you show me where to get something to eat? That should be enough that they can’t say I need a nurse-maid."
"But they know you can use magic to go places, don’t they?"
"I’m not allowed to, except in emergencies. Come on. Do we go back through the centre?"
"Quickest way," Kendall said, watching dubiously as he took a couple of steps, swinging his legs like he’d forgotten his knees. But he managed to get going at something faster than turtle pace, so Kendall led him left around the hallway which circled the Library Tower.