CHAPTER 20
Rienne!' Gaven ran across the square. She turned and searched the square for the source of the call, then a smile spread across her face. She started away from her companions-two women he didn't recognize-and then she was in his arms, weeping into his chest.
He lifted his face from Rienne's hair-something was wrong-the smell of her hair, the feel of her in his arms. Her companions moved closer, circling to either side. They were armored, and when they realized he'd seen them they sprang at him. He tried to push Rienne away, but she clung to him.
She had betrayed him again. The thought was cold steel in his heart.
'No!' he cried. His voice was thunder, and it threw Rienne away from him. Her two companions, each clutching a jagged blade, staggered away from the blast, but they recovered quickly and lunged at him, both blades darting at him.
He felt the dragonshard in its pouch at his side, his mark coiled inside it like a sleeping dragon-and he felt the wyrm awaken in fury. It was still a part of him-its rage coursed through his veins and out through his hands, joining him to the two assassins in a bolt of lightning that stretched across the plaza. His enemies were on their knees, smoke wafting from their clothes and hair as they struggled to stand, and Rienne lay on the ground before him, tears streaking her horrorstruck face.
'Gaven, no,' she sobbed.
How could she have betrayed him again? Some part of Gaven's mind screamed at him to stop and think, to make sense of what was happening, but the storm churned in his chest and surged in his veins, a fury that wouldn't be contained.
Gaven raised his arms and looked up into the storm-darkened sky. Thunder rumbled, so close and loud that the ground shook. Then everything was brilliant white, and a deafening crack split the air. When his vision cleared, the two attackers lay blackened and still on the ground. Rienne was scrambling to her feet, no longer pleading but trying desperately to flee.
Gaven heard Cart's heavy footsteps running toward him, and Ashara calling his name. He didn't turn. He pulled his sword from its sheath on his back and walked toward Rienne. Lightning danced along the edges of the blade and sparked from the point.
Rienne looked over her shoulder as she found her feet, eyes and mouth wide with terror. Her face was badly burned, almost unrecognizable-and then Gaven realized it wasn't her face.
'Gaven!' Cart caught up to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop.
Gaven watched Rienne run away, her streaming dark hair becoming short and blond, her lithe body growing wider, more masculine. The changeling-she'd been a changeling, of course-stripped off some of the distinctive red silks as he ran, then he disappeared at the edge of Chalice Center.
'Aunn?' he murmured.
'Gaven, we have to get out of here.' Cart's voice was loud and urgent at his ear, and his grip was painfully tight. 'A dozen witnesses just watched you kill two people with a freak storm out of nowhere.'
'What?' Gaven heard the words, but he couldn't quite understand them. They didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. He looked around, stared at the bodies on the ground, then gazed in the direction the changeling had run.
A changeling-she wasn't Rienne at all. Rienne hadn't betrayed him again. Relief washed through him, mingled with horror at what he might have done to Rienne if it had been her. He sagged in Cart's grip, stunned at the destruction he had wrought so quickly, caught up in his rage.
'Soldiers or Sentinel Marshals will be here any second, Gaven,' Ashara said, seizing his other arm and helping to steady him on his feet. 'Run!'
Together they pulled him into a stumbling run between them, and they made their way into the nearest alley, behind the mooring tower.
'Now what?' Ashara said, looking to Cart. The warforged looked around, uncertain.
One feeling surged to clarity in Gaven's jumble of thoughts-he needed to be alone. 'We should split up,' he said. 'You two shouldn't have let yourselves be seen with me.'
Ashara glared at him. 'We were helping you,' she said.
'Which is a crime you committed in public view. We were going to part ways anyway. You two lie low in the city someplace. I'll get out of here-there's nothing here for me anyway.'
'What about Aunn and your papers?' Cart said.
'A changeling just tried to kill me. I'm not dealing with Aunn anymore.'
'You think that was him?'
'I… probably not. He mentioned facing a different changeling in Kelas's house. Maybe it was that one. I don't know-how many changelings are there in this city?'
'Aunn's your best hope for getting papers,' Ashara said. 'Shouldn't you-'
'I'll find a way. Thank you for your help. Now go.'
'Gaven,' Cart said, extending a hand, 'I hope you find what you're looking for.'
Gaven clasped his hand. 'Thanks, Cart. I wish you the best-both of you.' He clapped Cart's shoulder. 'Now get out of here. I'll draw their attention.' He turned back toward the plaza. A soldier's voice was barking orders.
'Gaven,' Ashara said.
'Will you two go?' He shot a glance over his shoulder. Cart had started in the opposite direction, but Ashara hadn't moved. 'What is it?'
'I'm sorry,' Ashara said. 'For my part in all this.'
'Go!' Gaven chose a path that would take him near the plaza again but not quite into it, and he started to run. He didn't look back.
Running with Ashara was awkward, Cart realized. If he ran, he quickly left her behind-her short legs didn't move fast enough to keep pace with him. If he walked, even his fastest stride left him lagging behind her. So he fell into a sort of trot, half walking and half running, alternately surging ahead and falling back while she maintained a steady pace, as fast as her legs could carry her, away from Chalice Center and toward… he wasn't sure.
'Where are we going?' he asked.
She had trouble speaking as she ran, with her body demanding more air, drawing it in and expelling it in great gasps that interfered with her voice.
'Following you,' she managed to say.
'Oh. I thought I was following you.' Cart slowed, trying to get his bearings. He hadn't been paying attention to their route-
He stopped dead as the buildings fell away, and he saw again the horrible dreamscape Havrakhad had shown him. Gaven's storm overhead trailed streams of purple and red fire down to the earth, where they swirled into cyclones of terror among shadowy crowds. In contrast to the silent lightning of the night before, thunder rumbled in the storm, accompanying flashes of yellow, orange, and blue. It was unreal, and yet somehow more real than the normal world-it seemed heavy with meaning, with significance. Cart's every sense was on edge, tingling at the edge of pain.
Cart saw barbarian hordes, natural catastrophes and horrible crimes enacted in endless repetition. Then he noticed that the worst horrors seemed to ripple outward from a single point, waves of disturbance in the collective soul of the city. At the center of that nightmare, he saw again the monstrous form Havrakhad had identified as a quori.
In its general form, it was almost like a snake or an enormous, reddish-pink worm. Its long body trailed into the mists of nightmare behind it. The vaguest hint of a humanlike chest, armored in black chitin plates, loomed above the mists. Two thick arms ending in pincerlike claws darted among the screaming mob around it, selecting prey from the tortured dreams of the city's people. Numerous smaller arms jutted from its flanks, some ending in fleshy hands, others in chitinous claws. Its shoulders were crowned with a bulbous mass rather than a head, studded with a dozen eyes, each one a different color and no two looking in the same direction.
Except that as Cart stared at it in horror, one of its eyes fixed on him, and one by one the others joined it until the thing's entire fractured gaze focused on him.
