Morrell ducked back inside the cottage, moving swiftly. She set a pot of water over the coals banked in the small fireplace, then gathered up fresh bandages. She pulled the water from the coals, tested it, then moved into Claye’s room, dragging a stool closer to his cot with one foot. Claye watched her warily.
“Should you be doing this without Logan here? I know you’ve been working with him, but—”
“I’m almost thirteen, and I’ve been changing your bandages for the past few days.”
“Oh.”
She squashed the pang of guilt about not mentioning that she’d never been alone while doing it and settled herself onto the stool. Claye swallowed once and stared at the ceiling.
When she pulled back the wrap, the smell of putrescence nearly made her gag. Claye moaned as the cloth stuck, then gave. The wound beneath oozed sickly yellow-green pus, the skin at the edges inflamed. Morrell leaned in closer, a curious detachment falling over her. She reached forward and pressed her fingers gently to either side of the wound just beneath his rib cage. Pus erupted from the hole, draining down the Dog’s side and staining the bandage beneath. Claye’s hands gripped the edges of the cot as he tried not to thrash about, but Morrell only increased the pressure, her fingers moving around the inflamed area, kneading the flesh, working as much of the pus out as she could. Claye writhed, his body instinctively pulling away. Another moan escaped him.
“Hush. I need to clean it out as much as possible.”
The pus began to streak with blood, but she didn’t stop. As her fingers moved around the wound, she found she could feel the infection, like flecks of darkness inside the flesh. Her fingertips prickled as she worked, as if they were being pricked by a thousand pins, the sensation not unpleasant. The infection had striated into the surrounding skin, lines of red obvious on the surface, but she could feel it seeping deeper inside Claye’s body as well. A pocket of virulence here. A thread of invasion there. It was working its way into his bloodstream, through the tissues around his stomach. It was killing him.
It was too deep. Logan would never be able to cut it out. But she could feel it. It was right there. If only she could reach in and pull it out herself, drag it from his body, now, before it reached something vital.
Her fingertips flared, the prickling sensation suddenly intense, burning like fire. She gasped and jerked backward. A shiver of vivid colors enveloped Claye’s wound.
“What is it? What happened?”
Morrell’s mouth was dry, her tongue stuck to its roof. She stared at her hands. “Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“I felt something. Like a tug.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Claye met her gaze, his skin beaded with sweat. Then his eyes dropped to his side. “Well, whatever you did, it doesn’t hurt as much now.” He collapsed back onto the cot. “Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts like a son of a bitch, but it isn’t throbbing like it was before.”
Morrell didn’t answer, leaning forward over the wound again. She placed her fingers next to the gaping hole. More pus had drained out into the used bandage beneath, but the yellow-green was now a brownish sludge. No new pus appeared as she prodded the edges of the wound, but it did bleed. The flow was sluggish. Claye didn’t flinch away as much as before, and even Morrell could tell that the skin around the wound wasn’t as inflamed.
She prodded the wound more, the prickling sensation returning to her fingertips, but she couldn’t feel the infection anymore.
“Morrell?”
She jerked, the stool rocking beneath her. “In here!” She fumbled for a cloth, dipped it in the warm water, and began wringing the cloth out over the wound, washing as much of the blood away as she could. The familiar motions of washing the wound in preparation for a new bandage did little to calm her.
When Logan’s shadow fell over her, she tried to lurch to her feet, but he put a hand on her shoulder. “Keep working. You’re doing fine.” He reached to touch Claye’s forehead. “Fever’s down. Good to see you’re awake, Claye. I was beginning to think you’d never return to us. How are you feeling?”
“Like hell. But better now than when I first woke up.”
Logan twisted so he could see the exposed wound, Morrell pulling the wet cloth back.
The healer’s grim expression collapsed into confusion and Morrell’s heart sank. “What did you do?” He shoved Morrell aside.
“N—nothing. I removed the bandage. Then worked as much of the pus out as possible. More came out than I expected, and it wasn’t all yellow-green. It was brown at the end. And then it started bleeding.”
Logan was pressing against the edges of the wound, persistent, making small noises beneath his breath.
Finally he sat back, hands dropping to his thighs, his gaze lingering on the wound before flicking toward Claye’s face, then Morrell’s.
“I don’t know how it happened, but the infection is gone.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Claye asked.
Logan was staring at Morrell. “Yes. Yes, it is good. I didn’t think the poultices and salves I was using were working, but apparently I was wrong.”
The statement hung in the air. Morrell returned his penetrating look with what she hoped was a wide-eyed, innocent expression.
More blood trickled down Claye’s side, pooling on the already pus- and blood-stained bandage beneath. Logan reached for one of the new bandages Morrell had brought, using it to clean up, suddenly all business.
“I think I can safely close the wound now. Morrell, fetch me my needle and some thread. Sterilize the needle. I don’t want the infection to return.”
Morrell leaped up from her stool, Logan taking her place. She rushed into the outer room, grabbed a needle and thread, then held the needle in a candle flame. When she ducked back into the room, Logan had already prepped Claye’s side. The healer took the needle and thread and began working, Claye hissing each time Logan passed the needle through flesh.
“Find Sophia, Morrell. She’ll want an update.”
Morrell backed out of the room. She hesitated in the doorway until Claye yelped and cursed, Logan apologizing without pausing. Then she turned and fled.
The sunlight blinded her again as she raced across the street, between the buildings of the Hollow, and down to the creek. She fell to her knees in the mud along the bank and dunked her hands into the frigid water, scrubbing away what little pus and blood remained. Then she continued scrubbing, until her hands were raw. Her breath quickened as she thought about the prickling sensation in her fingers, about the shimmer of light she’d seen after she’d withdrawn her hands from the wound. She’d seen the vivid colors before. They reminded her of the terrifying auroral lights that had plagued Erenthrall and the surrounding plains since the Shattering.
She clutched her hands to her chest, hunched forward over them. When a hand fell onto her shoulder she screamed and slipped on the slick stones of the creek’s bank, half tumbling into the frigid water.
“Morrell, it’s me! Cory!”
Morrell scrambled backward on the bank a few more steps before the words registered, then blinked up into the sunlight until she picked out Cory. He had his hands spread out toward her, as if trying to placate a spooked animal.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
He straightened slightly, hands lowering. “You should probably get out of the water then. You’ll catch a chill.”
She realized she was leaning on her elbow, left arm submerged, side soaked. Her arm was already numb.
She rolled out of the water, Cory helping her up onto the bank again.
“A few scrapes, but nothing serious,” Cory muttered, checking out her arm. He paused when he realized her hands had been scrubbed raw.
“I’m fine.”
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“I’m f
ine. It’s just . . .” She waved her hand, tears threatening.
Cory glanced away. “I’ve been struggling, too. I’m worried. For all of them.” He turned back. “But I know Kara’s with your father, and he’ll keep her safe. That’s the only thing keeping me together. He’ll bring her back. And he will come back, Morrell. He always has before.”
She stared at him, realizing he thought she was upset over her father heading to Erenthrall. She seized on his assumption. “I know he’ll be back. It just gets overwhelming sometimes. I was helping with Claye and—” Her eyes shot open in shock. “Claye! I was supposed to be fetching Sophia!”
She turned and charged up the bank, through the trees and into the Hollow. Cory called after her, but she ignored him. She didn’t even know how long it had been since she’d left.
She was hustling past Logan’s cottage when she heard Sophia’s voice coming from inside. But then Logan spoke and she froze just outside the open door.
“I think it was Morrell.”
“What do you mean? How could it have been Morrell?”
“I don’t know. She claimed she was only cleaning the wound, draining the pus. But I checked the wound this morning and it was deeply infected. I don’t see how it could have reversed course so quickly. Morrell must have done something.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Morrell shifted closer to the doorway.
“I think Morrell healed him somehow.”
Morrell’s chest suddenly felt hollow and empty. What would the Hollowers think of her now? They abhorred the ley and anything associated with it. And it had to be something to do with the ley. She’d seen the shimmering auroral lights.
She slid along the cottage wall to the corner, then broke for the trees behind, passing through Logan’s precious herb garden. She brushed up against one of the plants, the pungent scent of spearmint following her.
Then she was in the trees, crashing through the underbrush. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she had to get away, to escape, to think.
Janis emerged from the edge of the trees onto the stone outcropping that overlooked the hills south of the Hollow, the sun just above the jagged peaks of the mountains to the west. The harsh colors of the distortion over Erenthrall glittered on the horizon. Sophia had found her in the cottage she shared with Allan and Morrell, had told her what had happened with Claye. She’d been concerned Morrell had overheard them and run away, but Janis had brushed her fears aside. Now dread clutched her chest at the thought that Sophia might have been right. She’d already checked all of the other places Morrell would run to when upset.
Then she heard a muffled scratch of cloth against stone. She stepped farther out onto the rocky outcropping and found Morrell seated, leaning against an upthrust ridge of granite, staring out into the distance.
Toward Erenthrall.
Morrell didn’t move as Janis settled into position beside her. Tears sheened the young girl’s cheeks. Her hands lay in her lap, palms up.
They sat in silence for ten minutes before Morrell said, “They told you, didn’t they?”
“Of course they did. They were worried. They thought you’d run away.”
Morrell’s breath caught. “I didn’t have anywhere to run to!”
“Oh, my dear child.” She placed her arm around Morrell’s shoulders, and to her surprise the recently willful and independent girl she had helped raise tucked herself into her side. Janis brushed her silken hair, and a sudden image of Morrell at half her current age stabbed into her heart with a sharp pain. She made soothing nonsense noises, watching the distance without really seeing it. The sun sank closer to the mountains, the shadows of the trees growing long and thin and diffuse, the lights of Erenthrall brighter.
“Did you think Logan and Sophia and the others would throw you out of the Hollow?”
Morrell snuffled and nodded, the motion against Janis’ chest felt more than seen.
“Why would they do that? They’ve known you since you were a baby.”
“Because they don’t like the ley or anyone who can wield it. Look at how Paul treats Kara and the other Wielders.”
“The Baron and the Prime Wielders forced Paul from his land, hurt his family. He’s bitter. It has nothing to do with you. He accepted your father, didn’t he?”
“That’s different,” Morrell said hotly, pulling away from her, sitting up straight. Her face was red and splotched from crying. “My father kills the ley, blocks it somehow. Of course everyone in the Hollow likes him.”
Janis’ eyes narrowed. “Sometimes you’re too smart for your own good.” She shifted tactics. “It won’t matter. Paul won’t find out what you’ve done. Logan, Sophia, and I have agreed to keep quiet about it.”
“They won’t tell anyone?”
“Why would they? What would they say? They don’t know exactly what you did.”
Morrell glanced down at her hands. “All I did was touch him.”
“From what Logan says, you healed him. Cured his infection, at least.”
“But I don’t know how I did it.”
“My point exactly. Why would they tell anyone if they aren’t even certain you can do it again?”
“I won’t do it again. I refuse to.”
Janis’ skin prickled in sudden unease. “Why not? You saved Claye’s life, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But when it happened, I saw—”
Morrell’s jaw snapped shut.
Janis touched her arm, drawing Morrell’s attention from the distant plains, now cast mostly in shadow, to her own eyes.
“What did you see?”
In a quiet voice—not childlike, but adult; more adult than anything she’d seen or heard from Morrell the entire time they’d spoken—she said, “Lights. I saw auroral lights. Like those we sometimes see on the plains.”
“Is it going to hit us?” Allan asked.
Kara reached for the ley as she shaded her eyes with one hand, staring hard toward the shifting auroral light rolling across the plains between their position and Erenthrall like an eerily beautiful fog bank. A hideous prickling sensation crawled across her skin and down her back at the sight, like a thousand fire ants scuttling beneath her shirt. “I don’t think so. But it’s too close already. We should be careful.”
They were standing on the outskirts of an abandoned town, long since raided for whatever supplies it might have held. As Kara lowered her hand, something tugged at her attention on the ley and she turned to face the west.
Allan caught her sudden tension. “What is it?”
“A ley line, stronger than anything we’ve encountered since leaving Erenthrall.” She hesitated, dancing down its length, then gasped. “And a node.” She turned to Allan in astonishment. “An active node. I have to see it.”
Allan drew breath to protest, glancing toward the auroral storm in the distance, now blotting out half of the distortion over the city, then sagged in defeat. “Make it quick—”
Kara had already spun away from him, stalking toward the wagon and the rest of their group hovering on the edge of the town. “Artras, come with me. There’s a ley line and node not too far from here. We need to check it out.”
Artras gaped a moment, then hustled down from the wagon to meet her. Dylan and Carter both perked up.
“I can help,” Carter called, hopping out of the back of the wagon as well.
“No need.” Kara waved the young Wielder off. “Artras and I can handle it.”
A look of irritation flashed across Carter’s face, but then Dylan placed a hand on his shoulder and said something and he turned away.
“Where is it?” Artras asked as she approached.
“West of the village and the road, away from the main buildings.”
“I can feel it. Not that strong.”
“But stronger than anyth
ing near the Hollow.”
Artras didn’t answer. They stepped off the stone of the road and between two buildings, storefronts of some kind. Behind were a few storage buildings, scattered cottages with gardens now growing wild. Beyond, the terrain was rougher, but Kara could sense the pull of the ley. They brushed through grass, the knee-high stalks pattering against their legs, only rolling grassland interrupted by a few trees stretching into the distance.
“What’s that?”
Kara squinted. “I don’t know.”
They stumbled onto the lip of a depression surrounded by a low wall of stacked stones. A break in the wall acted as a gate, and in the center of the shallow bowl of carved-out earth sat a rough-hewn triangular boulder resting on three squat round stones.
“It’s like the bowl around the Nexus in Erenthrall. Not on the same scale, and that rock doesn’t look anything like the Nexus when we found it, but close enough.” Kara descended down into the depression. The ley grew stronger as she approached. She laid her hand on the rough surface. “It’s the node,” she said, then corrected herself. “No, it’s not. But the node is directly beneath it.”
Artras had laid her hand on the stone as well, brushing her hands across its surface as she moved around its three sides, eyes narrowed, searching. Most of the bowl was shadowed, deep enough it wasn’t catching the light from the distortion. “I don’t see any markings.”
Kara realized what she was looking for and began searching as well. Within two steps, she stumbled on a stone hidden in the darkness. She felt it roll away—
And the energy within the bowl shifted. It was a subtle change, but Kara suddenly remembered Ischua, her father, and the test the Tender had given her in the middle of Halliel’s Park when she was twelve. Her eyes widened as the memory poured in.
“It must be an old node.” She reached down to pick up the displaced stone and returned it to its proper position. “One that was probably part of the ley network before Prime Augustus and Baron Arent subjugated the ley by forming the Nexus.”
“But Hernande and Cory have been checking the network using the sands. They haven’t seen many pockets of stability at all.” Artras patted the rock between them. “This node feels stable.”
Threading the Needle Page 5
