I couldn’t stand that look in Meryem’s eyes. She looked like a kitten climbing out of a stream. “The rock’s fine—it just lost a piece. Take Meryem to Nory, Treak. Before you really make me mad.”
He towed Meryem to my door. Then he looked back at me. “I hope your volcano spirits eat you. I hope you get lost under Mount Grace!”
I answered before I thought. “It would be better than being around people like you!”
Treak towed Meryem out of the room.
“It is but one piece of kyanite, Evumeimei.”
“I’m just being a meat creature, Luvo. Give me a time.”
Now I could cry as I sat on the bed. He had handled this piece of my new life—the life with no hunger, beatings, or cold—as if it was a cheap toy. I tried to fit the kyanite pieces together. It was useless. Once the inner bonds that held it were broken, no magic could fix this delicate chunk of crystals.
Cloth rustled behind me. Rosethorn walked in. “I think Meryem feels you meant her.”
“I’ll set it right later.” I had handled too much power that day. I’d bent my magic around too many new ideas. My mage self was up to it, because I was still alive, but my body was still meat. It was weary meat at that. “I’m so tired, Rosethorn.”
“Sleep, then. Don’t wait too long to set things right with her. Unless you really would rather live with the volcano spirits.” Rosethorn looked me over and sighed. “I’ll bring your supper up later.”
If I lived in lava, I wouldn’t need supper, I thought. I lay down on my cot. I didn’t even realize that I was still holding my kyanite as I went to sleep.
Luvo woke me when he stuck his nose in my eye. His crystals were glowing with a soft purple light that filled our room.
“What is it?” I whispered because I could see Rosethorn’s sleeping body in the next cot.
Luvo said quietly, “I am disturbed by the movement of the earth that approaches now. It is—”
“Ten miles out.” It was a big shaker, coming at us in a giant wave. “Rosethorn!” I called.
She sat up instantly. “Wha? ‘S better be good.”
“Quake coming,” I said. “We have to be outside for this one.” At least I was still wearing clothes.
We grabbed our mage kits. I stuffed my alphabet into mine. Then I settled my sling and put Luvo in it.
Rosethorn was scrambling into her robe. “I’ll wake Myrrhtide, you wake the kitchen staff. They’re the only people who sleep here. Send one of them to rouse Azaze and her husbands. Have the others wake everyone in the courtyard.”
I did as I was told. All of us fled the inn. Most of the villagers who meant to go in the morning were camped just outside. By the time we came out, they were awake. They hung on to their animals or their children, waiting nervously. Many of them prayed. Rosethorn and Myrrhtide prayed with them. I guess they were supposed to, under the circumstances.
The earth surged from down deep, miles of stones groaning and rocking. Roof slates fell from the inn. Inside wood and mortar crashed. The horses protested; dogs howled. People screamed. A crack opened under the stable; half of the building collapsed into it with a roar.
At last everything was quiet again. People got up and went to see what damage there was in the rest of the village.
Azaze went to look at the stable. “Splendid. Just splendid. I had this wreck rebuilt four months ago, and now look! It’s ruined! I can’t afford an entirely new stable!”
“Evumeimei,” Luvo whispered, “we must talk.”
I chewed my lower lip. I knew a trick that only worked with stones that were of the same kind. It would prove really useful just now. “All right, but I need to do something first.” I picked up my kit. “Let’s find some privacy.”
The half-moon gave me enough light to find the inn’s kitchen garden. It was messed up from the earthquake. Mostly that meant the night was filled with the scents of crushed basil, oregano, and fennel. I put Luvo on an upended bucket so we could talk face-to-face when it got to be time. Then I took a chunk of quartz from my kit. It was no bigger than my palm. The important thing was that it was a collection of crystals, kin in spirit to the ones where I had left Carnelian and Flare. I let myself fall into its cracks and splits. In it I drifted, keeping a seed of thought in my head: the picture of Carnelian and Flare in the crystal trap.
And there it was, as if I stood only a few yards away. Waves of heat rose around me, rippling through the earth. Something weird had happened to the bed of quartz. It had been raised, twisted, and fused together into a great loop, just as Luvo had said. Inside its thousands of pieces I saw bits of carnelian and blue color, a spot of each to a crystal, all spinning. They moved so fast, each bit in its own little prison, that they looked as if they flowed through the quartz, instead of being stuck in one place. And the bed itself quivered in the earth, making the dirt and stones around it shake.
How long before their volcano friends found them? What if they felt that quivering and came to see what made it? And what would happen once they freed their guides?
My imagination showed me a scary picture. In it, the whole island of Starns shot into the sky, riding a huge column of molten lava.
“Heibei, this is a bad time to frown at me,” I whispered. I pulled my mind from my crystals and put the clump away. Then I looked at Luvo. “We made a mistake. I thought if we could get Flare and Carnelian out of the way, the danger would be over. But it’s not.”