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Frost covered his skin and clothes. Thin needles of ice encased the straw bale where he sat. A long filigree of frost filled the entire circle between himself and the tracings of Ji’s ward.

Ji stared at him, wide eyed. Her jaw hung slack.

"I think it’s done." John’s voice was barely a whisper. His throat felt raw and ragged. If he was going to keep doing this kind of thing, he thought, he really was going to have to learn the Fai’daum sign language. "Can I get another cup of daru’sira now?"

Chapter Eighty-Two

Over the next week, John grew accustomed to life in the Warren. The nearness of so much stone and earth soothed him. The warm halls offered respite from the cold blue winter skies. His eyes adjusted to the green light and deep shadows.

He spent the mornings in a huge room with Ji and her other six students, all of whom were girls. The unfamiliar fragrance of flower perfumes and spice-scented soaps wafted from their skin and hair.

Delicately carved stones and woven boxes of bones lined the shelves. A grid of symbols had been carved into each of the stone benches where John and the other students worked. The grids reminded John of primitive charts of the elements. Ji explained that the symbols were Eastern blessings and curses. They helped a student focus her energy and thoughts as she carved her will into wood, stone or bones.

John tried to concentrate on them, but he couldn’t easily focus on curses or blessings. As he turned a stone over in his hands he thought of silica, quartz and feldspar. He felt the mosaic of fused crystalline formations.

Still, after his first success in dissipating the storm, John was eager to see what more he could do. But his attempts to create delicate charms ended in failure after failure. The moment he focused his will on the granite stones they cracked apart. The bones that he was meant to curse blackened and burned under his touch. The intensity of his power ripped through the very structure of any object he attempted to manipulate.

Tanash teased John about being even worse with bone charms than she was. Hers just didn’t work. His turned to ash in his hands.

John remained after the girls left for their private studies. Ji stretched out on a workbench, watching him and offering instruction from time to time. Often she simply answered John’s questions.

Earlier in class, Tanash had mentioned that Ji had once been an issusha. John couldn’t help but think of Laurie. He hoped that she was still safe. The slab of granite in John’s hands suddenly cracked. John tried to stop it. Instantly, it crumbled.

"You seem distracted today," Ji commented.

John brushed the remnants of stone off of his hands and shirt. "I’ve been wondering how you escaped from Umbhra’ibaye."

Ji studied him for several seconds. There was always something about the way she watched him that made John feel uneasy. She gazed at him as if she were looking into every secret that he had hidden throughout his entire life.

"I did not escape on my own. Ravishan’s mother was one of the sisters in Umbhra’ibaye. She took pity on me and stole my bones from the oracles’ chambers," Ji said. "We escaped together."

"Ravishan’s mother was a nun?" John asked.

Ji nodded. "You see why I should be so concerned about him. He is not only a possible Kahlil but also the son of my friend and savior. I knew him when he was just a child. I named him and his little sister, Rousma."

John just stared at her. He knew that Ravishan’s mother had been a witch and a member of the Fai’daum. He hadn’t ever associated that with Ji and her teachings.

Ji bowed her head. "Their entire family paid dearly for my freedom."

John felt a spark of anger flare toward Ji. Immediately, he realized the pettiness of blaming her. It had been the Payshmura who had forced Ravishan to kill his mother. It had been the Payshmura who had punished and tortured Ravishan.

"I owe a great debt to both Ravishan and his sister." Ji glanced to John. "If he needed something, I would try to help him."

"Oh?" John asked.

"Yes," Ji said. "He’s an enemy of the Payshmura now. He’ll need sanctuary."

"And you’re willing to offer that to him?"

"Lafi’shir might oppose allowing him in, but Giryyn will support me if I choose to sponsor Ravishan into the Fai’daum and Lafi’shir will come around."

"Can you be sure?" John asked.

"Yes. Lafi’shir knows that an ushiri would be a valuable fighter and a Kahlil who has taken our side against the Payshmura would crush the morale of our enemies." Ji cocked her head slightly. "Even so, it would be best to make a slow introduction. Ravishan should meet Giryyn and Lafi’shir first, then a few of the captains, before the public initiation."

John nodded. His own initiation hadn’t been much more than standing up in the crowded dining hall with Saimura and swearing to abide by the laws of the Fai’daum. The gathered Fai’daum fighters had only briefly glanced up from their meals when John had received his tattoo. Already the tiny red tattoo over John’s heart had healed.

But John guessed that initiating Ravishan would be much more important. As an ushiri, Ravishan represented so much. There was no way that his initiation could simply be walked through before dinner.

"So why are you telling me this?" John asked.

"You’re the lover who he left the Payshmura for. I can’t imagine that he would want to be separated from you for too long." Ji’s dark eyes narrowed as if she were attempting to somehow peer deeper into him.

"No," John said. "Probably not."

"When Ravishan comes to you, tell him what I’m offering. All I ask in return is that he serve the Fai’daum."

"I will." Relief swept through John. He couldn’t have hoped for more than this.

"Since you arrived my visions of the future have been changing. More and more I dream of Ravishan and the strongholds of the Payshmura crumbling. I see flames and shattered walls." Ji pawed meaningfully at the dust and debris of stone at John’s feet.

John felt a cold dread sink through him. If he brought down the Payshmura, there was no assurance that he would stop there.

"Will I destroy them?" John asked.

"I’m not sure that my dreams are of your future as much as they are my own temptations," Ji replied. "So much could be achieved with your power, Jahn. The promise of destroying an enemy so utterly is hard to resist."

"You mean purposefully unleashing the Rifter?" John asked.

"It must never happen," Ji said. "But watching stone crumble at your touch I do understand the temptation the ancient Payshmura must have felt."

John frowned down at his hands. It did seem that his power was supremely crafted for destruction. There was little else he could do.

Ji jumped down from the workbench.

"Don’t look so depressed, Jahn. Immense power is always difficult to control. You have the will and spirit to do it. Now you simply need to take the time."

"What if the power of the Rifter can’t do anything but tear the world apart?"

"Power never has only one function," Ji replied. "It is neither good nor evil – neither inherently creative nor destructive. It’s just a matter of control. Right now, you have very little control. But it will come with practice. Once it does, no one will be able to use you as a Rifter."

John picked up another piece of granite and concentrated on it. He felt the structure of the stone, sensing the iron, calcium and oxygen that molten heat had fused into silicate mineral.

"Don’t try to force your will on it the way the girls do," Ji said quietly.

"Then what should I do?" John asked. All he had practiced for the past week had been concentrating his will against the structure of the stones Ji gave him.

"Just hold it," Ji said. "Feel it."

That came easily to John. Crystals of black quartz and milky feldspar hung in a white matrix of silica. The granite lay in his hand like a beautiful, tangled necklace.

"Very gently," Ji whispered, "imagine it moving, rising upward."

John closed his eyes. He concentrated on one edge of the dark, glittering mass. He lifted it slowly, untangling the twisted strands of feldspar and slipping apart the tiny knots of sodium and silicon. Dark biotite and silvery muscovite flashed like filigree around black quartz. The stone unfurled.