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“But maybe I now can. I can hear the ghosts. Maybe that means I can enter the rifts as well.”
“Do you really want to risk your life—and Penny’s—on a maybe?”
“For Rhea’s sake, I cannot stand here and do nothing!”
I understood his urgency—his desperation—but it was nevertheless frustrating that he was thinking with his heart rather than his head.
But then, if the situation had been reversed, had it been one of my little ones in trouble, I guessed I’d be reacting the same way.
“Fine. Let’s go to Carleen. If you can see the false rift, you can then decide whether you’ll step into it. But I won’t.”
His gaze narrowed slightly, but all he said was “Fair enough.”
With that, he swung around and moved on, this time at a pace I didn’t struggle with. It took just over an hour to reach Carleen. I paused on the broken wall that surrounded the city, my gaze sweeping the immediate surrounds. Nothing appeared to have changed since I was last here, but the air was thick with tension and angst. It stung my skin and demanded my attention.
But the last thing I needed was another problem. I studiously ignored that angst and the ghosts behind it, and followed Jonas into Carleen, weaving my way through the luminous weeds and broken remnants of life and buildings as we headed up the long hill that led to the main plaza.
“Bear, which false rift did they use?”
One on the far side of the hill.
Jonas must have heard that reply, because he moved off the road again, picking his way through the rubble and dust as he skirted the edges of the plaza. He obviously didn’t want to risk getting too close to the wall of magic Sal’s partners had raised to protect the false rift still sitting within the plaza’s broken heart. After witnessing what that damn wall was capable of, I certainly had no objection.
It took us twenty minutes to reach the other side of the hill. The desolation here was almost complete—beyond the remnants of the road, there was just dust, weeds, and the sharpening demand for attention from the ghosts. It bit at my consciousness, insisting that I stop, that I acknowledge and talk to them.
Which I couldn’t do. Not when I was so weak. It would kill me as surely as the false rift would. Cat, I said. Could you explain to the Carleen ghosts that I’m barely functioning right now and that I can’t talk to them? Then ask them what the problem is.
She was silent for several seconds, then said, They want you to know that the one who raised the wall and created the rift that resides in the plaza has set traps there for you. You should not enter that place if you wish to remain alive.
And I certainly did. What about the rift Penny was just taken through?
Brief silence, then, Nothing has been done to it yet. They have just altered those you have already gone through.
Meaning, perhaps, that they were hoping I wasn’t aware of the others. Or maybe it was simply a matter of not yet having the time to protect them. Can you ask them to keep an eye on the other rifts for me? And let me know if any changes are made to them?
They will.
Which at least meant it was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. Thank them for me.
They said you can thank them by destroying the rifts and the wall that washes its darkness across their bones.
I frowned. But Nuri shifted the rift away from their bones.
Yes, but it hasn’t helped. They said that while the false rifts have not changed in size, their energy output seems to be growing. It’s fouling the air and the earth in ever-increasing circles.
Which wasn’t surprising, given that while the false rifts had been created in this world, the knowledge and the magic had come from another. It was also precisely what Nuri had feared might happen. Tell them we’re trying.
They said to try harder.
I snorted. It was that sort of thinking—a failure to see problems beyond their own boundaries—that had led to the war in the first place.
As we neared the bottom of the hill, energy began to lash at my skin. Up ahead, slightly to the right of the road, an odd, circular patch of darkness began to appear in an area that was nothing but sunshine and dust. Rift. Or rather, the wall of gelatinous shadows that protected one.
And Jonas wasn’t reacting to it.
If he couldn’t see the wall, then the likelihood of him being able to traverse the false rift within it was low. But I didn’t say anything, simply waiting and watching as we continued down the last section of the hill, getting closer and closer to that black patch.
Eventually, I stopped and said, “Jonas, the rift is near enough to touch.”
